From the Beginning

Part 3 of Evolution: The Connection

If we allow for millions of years (true science has no verifiable empirical evidence—all dating methods used are based on assumptions that are beyond the ability of science to prove) we are admitting that God used such vast ages to bring all the living creatures on the face of the earth to their present state of being. This means there were vast ages of violence, death, disease, and suffering of both animals and the supposed fictional ape-like ancestors of humans long before Adam and Eve’s time.

Writing in Romans the Apostle Paul reminds us: “… the creation was subjected to futility [frailty] …the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption…For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now [with earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, disease, etc.]” (Romans 8:20-22).

What is the meaning of the presence of death in this world if, as evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, and progressive creationists claim, it has been operative for millions of years? According to a plain straightforward understanding of the Bible (Genesis 3), death is a direct result imposed upon the world approximately 6,000 years ago by God specifically because of sin. This basic and vital gospel truth is amplified in the New Testament with absolute clarity by the Apostle Paul when he wrote: “Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). And: “For since by man [Adam] came death, by Man [Christ] also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:21).

Some by using eisegesis, not sound exegesis, try to get around this by suggesting that God waited until millions of years had passed before He specially created Adam and Eve only thousands of years ago. Therefore, they suggest that the death the Bible talks about only refers to the curse imposed upon the newly created Adam and Eve, and that the deaths imposed upon animals and supposedly non-human hominids (some say without souls to be saved and that are part of the fossil record) for millions of years previously does not contradict the biblical record.

To believe this purely speculative scenario one would also be likely to find it necessary to believe in the ruin-reconstruction gap theory caused by a supposed flood before Adam and Eve, which in turn would lead to the necessity of Noah’s Flood being only local and necessarily tranquil rather than a global catastrophe.

But the truth is that there is no need to impose such speculations upon Scripture and the history of the world. The evidence from the Bible clearly indicates that the earth and its inhabitants have only existed for thousands of years. There is also abundant evidence (from such examples as unfossilized dinosaur bones and short-term comets to name a few) from true empirical science (with emphasis on the word “true’) that the history of this world is only thousands of years old and not millions.

If Christians are not sure of the total authority of the Bible in all matters that it touches, then faith and witness are liable to suffer. It is not consistent to say that Genesis and the age of the earth are side issues that do not need to be understood literally, when saying at the same time we want people to literally believe the Gospel of John and its spiritual teachings of Christ as the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and the resurrected coming Ruler of the new heavens and the new earth.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are vital and foundational to all the major Christian doctrines of the New Testament. They explain how and when the universe and the world came into being, support the Trinity, how life began, what sin is, why there is death in the world, why the creation is groaning, why a blood sacrifice is necessary for salvation, why there is hope for the future, why humans wear clothes, how languages originated, why different people groups have minor genetic differences, and more.

I believe that Christians should stand unashamedly for the authority of the Word of God as it is, and should do so without adding to it the opinions of man, or by reinterpreting it in an attempt to satisfy the fallible speculations of so-called science. I also believe without question that Jesus Christ meant exactly what He said as recorded in the gospel account when He declared, “But from the beginning of creation [that would be during the first week of creation] God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). Jesus thus confirmed that the beginning of creation and the creating of Adam and Eve occurred during the same time frame of six literal 24-hour days (Exodus 20:10,11; 31:18) — that is, the beginning, approximately 6,000 years ago.

Truly, the safest way to prepare for eternity is to believe the Book God has given us and its message of salvation through Jesus Christ.

––This concludes Dr. Butterworth’s insightful series on Evolution: The Connection—