“By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians. 15:22).

I was recently talking with a few young men in New York City. After some conflicting comments on creation and evolution one of them said, “I believe evolution and the Bible can fit together nicely.” This shows the common attempt of many professing Christians to hold on to remnants of faith and evolution also. Through ignorance of the subject and loyalty to secular science, they give in to evolutionary dogma. The media reinforces these beliefs with a steady diet of misconstrued facts and conjecture.

The Irreconcilable Conflict

The problem with mixing the two beliefs lies at the root of Christian doctrine. Jesus’ sacrificial death provided the blood of atonement to cover and put away sin. In doing so, He conquered death, which came by sin. “For since by Adam came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:2, 22). If death did not come because of man’s sin and occurred millions of years before man in a prehistoric world, then Jesus’ atonement did not abolish death, because Adam’s sin was not its cause! Evolution puts man at the end of a long chain of struggle, suffering, death, and survival of multitudes of biological organisms. Although many prestigious men of religion have concocted ideas to bypass this fact, some evolutionists have known it well.

H.G. Wells (1866-1946), a science fiction writer and historian, wrote, “If all the animals and man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been no first parents, no Eden, and no fall. And if there had been no fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin and the reason for an atonement, upon which the current teaching of Christian emotion and morality is based collapse[s] like a house of cards.”

Faulty Interpretation = Error

These human fabrications reject the evidences in God’s world and God’s Word. The error of mixing human philosophy with Christian faith is seen here. It leads to many inconsistencies such as Adam and Eve in the first “very good” earth standing on a graveyard of fossils of dead creatures. True Christian faith is belief in the facts of God’s Word. Since it is true and no lie, it will always be in harmony with observational science (God’s world). It is men’s interpretations called “philosophy and vain deceit” in the Bible that produce confusion and error (Colossians 2:8). The physical evidence and scriptural text is consistent with the creation, fall, and flood destruction of the first world.

Effects of False Doctrine

One of the attempts to conform Christian faith to the long ages of evolution is to say there was a preAdamic race of man-like beings without spirits and souls. These creatures became extinct, and Adam and Eve repopulated and “replenish(ed) the earth.” This idea originated in 1655 with Isaac LaPeyrere, a Jewish convert to Catholicism from Bordeaux, France. He began the thought of biblioscepticism, later called higher criticism. LaPeyrere said that Cain’s wife and the inhabitants of his city came from this pre-Adamic race. Adam, he said, was the first Jew and the various Gentile races came from these earlier people. This was his explanation for the various cultures that were being discovered around the world such as black Africans, Chinese, Eskimos, Native Americans, Polynesians, and the like. PreAdamism thus became the intellectual justification for racism and slavery.

These may seem like “far-fetched” ideas, but today polygenism [belief in multiple origins] is still a pillar of bias and hate in groups such as white supremacists, British Israelites, Christian Identity, and some Ku Klux Klan groups. Some more popular Christian movements refer to early “spiritless” beings to accommodate supposed ancient humanlike fossils. The Scriptures speak plainly of “the first man Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) and that “Eve was the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). We again see that ideas result in consequences. The issues of life are first decided in the mind but finally are carried out in actions. Irreparable grief and suffering are the consequences of these errors. “But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Fossil Evidence of the Curse

Numerous evidences exist that men and animals in the fossil record were victims of the curse on creation through Adam’s fall and thus were after Adam. One Christian anthropologist notes numerous evidences of sin and sickness in human remains such as cannibalism, violence, and diseases such as syphilis. Some two hundred Neanderthal skeletons from across Europe show a bone deficiency of vitamin D, called rickets from lack of sunlight. This likely came from living in caves and from the overcast environment during the ice age after the world destruction by flood.

Violence evidently abounded among animals as well as people before the Biblical flood (Genesis 6:13). Dozens of fish are found swallowing other fish. Some bones are scarred with teeth marks and two dinosaurs of different species are found fossilized with their claws in each other.

Calvary Brought Deliverance

Adam and Eve earned the death penalty they were warned about (Genesis 3:17-19; 2:27; 3:3). Their sin brought death and suffering and the groaning and travailing of all creation (Romans 8:20-22). The New Testament is clear that Calvary was to deliver creation from this continual death process. It is absurd to claim to be Christian and yet reject Bible teaching, which is the only source of Christian faith and practice.

Evolution provides a supposed justification for proud men who reject the doctrine of original sin. Men inherit a selfish, evil sin nature from which they need a spiritual deliverance. We only need to view our present world to see the result when men reject Christ and Christian principles. Men can’t save themselves.

“He [Jesus] bore our sin in his own body on the tree [cross]” (1 Peter 2:24). Now those who repent and accept His atoning work are free! “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). We can be free from the sin that “did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5) and free from eternal death after this life.

Evolution is a religion of death, depending on the death of multitudes of creatures to improve. The hope of the Christian is in the abolishing of death at Calvary. Jesus is the minister of life and that more abundantly (John 10:10)! All those who trust and obey Jesus receive eternal life and live on after physical death because Jesus rose from the grave.

It’s a promise! All who believe in Him will rise with him (Corinthians 15:12-23).

In the Valley of Decision

Evolution is one of Satan’s primary tools in removing the ability to believe in God. The subtlety of the deception is just another evidence that the happenings of our day are not a series of non-moral events, but a desperate battle to the end between God and Satan for the souls of men.

Man tries to put a foot in the world and keep a hold on heaven. But God has put a crossroad between the love of Christ and the love of the world. We cannot have both. “Love not the world neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15).

God is constantly working to bring out peoples’ colors. What will you do with Jesus? He often needs to get our attention by disturbing our nest. When America’s security is shaken, people’s self-confident fabrications (“house of cards” – apologies to H. G. Wells) begin to crumble.

Many are lulled by the ease of life and don’t want to think on unpleasant things or commit themselves. But we must believe right. “Many are carried about with divers and strange doctrines” (Hebrews 13:9). It is by reading, thinking, and believing God’s Word that we receive the knowledge and experience of salvation.

Resource: Creation Magazine, vol. 24, no. 4.

From: Reaching Out

Language

English

Author

Elvin Stauffer

Publisher

Reaching Out

Topics

Creation

Science and the Bible