Loving Death,
The Underbelly of Progressive Creation
Those
who try to get long days or great gaps between the days of Genesis 1, by necessity
must make God the author of death in His original creative purposes. The idea is something like this: life was on the earth for millions of years
before man appeared, as evidenced by the fossil record. The image of God either arose out of the evolutionary
processes, or God, by direct act, added His image to an evolved humanoid and so
true man appeared on the earth.
This
makes evolution a parasitic growth on the account of creation in Genesis
one. It may seem harmless at first
consideration, and those who hold to it insist that it does nothing to the
gospel of Christ. They insist that the
gospel has nothing to do with the origin of man, but with man's relationship to
Jesus Christ. For them, it doesn't
matter where man came from. All that
matters is to believe that his sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ.
Evolution,
by very definition, depends upon death as the means to progress. If there is no death, then there is no
evolution. The less fit must die off in
the evolutionary process, or they would interbreed with the more fit, and the
process would be reversed.
Because
of this, progressive creationists, long day, and gap theorists, theistic evolutionists, are forced to place death in the history of
the world millions of years before "Adam" (the image of God
prototype) appeared on the earth, and death was an absolutely necessary
ingredient for him to appear.
Such
a view of death strikes at the heart of the Gospel and is contrary to the
Scriptures.
1. God made all things very good. "And God saw every thing that he had
made, and, behold, it was very good."
If evolutionary ripping and tearing and destroying are the means of
God's creation, they must be considered very good. It is good for tigers to tear apart zebras,
for bears to tear lambs, and, presumably, for higher races to destroy lesser
races. The fit must survive and bring
about the natural evolution of the human race.
Evolutionary thought is directly responsible for Adolph Hitler and
Benito Mussolini. They were simply
trying to improve the human race. War,
death, and destruction are good. The
writings of nineteenth century evolutionists are filled with such thoughts, and
modern evolutionists are very embarrassed about it, and have tried to blame it
on the Christian idea of progress.
(Aided and abetted by some nineteenth century Christians who tried to
weld evolution unto their Christian "progressive" ideas.)
2. Uniformly, the Bible presents death as being
the result of man's sin. The first
mention of actual death in the Scripture is Genesis 3:21, when God clothed Adam
and Eve with the skins of animals.
Animals had to die to cover the shame of man, who had fallen in
sin. There was no death before this,
because all animals were vegetarians (Gen. 1:29, 30). Man was not given permission to eat flesh
until after the flood (Genesis 9). At
the same time the fear of man was placed upon the animals. Before then, man and animal lived at peace
with each other. [Since this article was written, I have come to accept the
idea that man did eat flesh before the flood, for there was probably a
sacramental feast associated with Abel’s sacrifice and
those of others. If this is true, it
would only mean that participation in the death of a substitute by a
sacramental feast would emphasize the truth that death was the result of sin,
and that participation in the death of a substitute would be necessary for
atonement. Cwp 10-20-2011]
Paul
says plainly that death entered into the world through sin, the sin of one man,
Adam. "As 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) Because of sin, the curse came upon all
creatures: "For the creature was
made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected
the same in hope, Because the creature itself also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of
the children of God. For
we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." (Romans
8:20-22)
Because
death is the result of man's sin, there will be no death in the new heavens and
the new earth, when sin has been abolished.
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall
be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall
there by any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
(Rev. 21:4) "And death and hell
were cast into the lake of fire. This is
the second death. (Rev. 20:14) "The wolf and the lamb shall feed
together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpents meat. They
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
saith the Lord." (Isaiah 65:24,25) Whatever other doctrinal details may exist
in these passages, one thing is clear:
death is an evil that shall be destroyed when the fruits of Christ's
sacrifice and resurrection are fully manifest in the overthrow of sin and its
awful effects.
III. Death in an enemy
that shall be destroyed. "The last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (I Cor. 15:25) The sting of death is sin (I Cor. 15:56) and
Christ shall have victory even over death, because He overcame sin by the
shedding of His blood. (I Cor. 15:56,57).
When
a child grieves over the death of a pet, it is a wonderful time to talk about
the evil effects of sin, and to teach him that God did not create the world
full of death and misery. The answer of
evolution to man's grief: "Death is
natural and makes things better. Death
is our friend. Death is good. Death brings about man's evolution toward
perfection. God made death
good." Is it any wonder that the
modern generation, brought up on the milk of evolution, doubts the existence of
a good God?
Death
is the result of the sinfulness of man, and was not known until Adam sinned,
and will be abolished through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
What
a creature is the man of evolutionary thought:
a man arising out of the chaos of death and conflict and turmoil! He is Chaos Man. He feeds on destruction and misery. He destroys and maims and ruins. But he calls it change and progress, and
thinks it is the way of the gods.
IV. Paradise was not
built on the torn flesh and broken bones of evolutionary
"progress." Evolutionists of
all stripes: theistic evolutionists, long day theorists, gap theorists, all
must put the fossil record before the creation of man. Dead things, buried in the sedimentary rock,
found all over the world, formed the sepulcher upon which God created
Paradise. The world was a graveyard
millions of years old when God finally got around to making a man in His Own
image. According to them, God created
Paradise, the Garden of Eden, and placed man there, and pretended that death
would be some new thing that would come upon them if they disobeyed Him.
Even
Satan went along with the lie, for he said they wouldn't die. Both God and Satan collaborated in the lie,
for Adam and Eve's ancestors had been dying for millions of years. The only difference between the message of God
and the message of the devil was that God said they wouldn't die if they obeyed,
and the devil said they wouldn't die if they disobeyed. But either way it was a lie that they
wouldn't die, for death was normal. When
Adam and Eve died, they just did what all of their humanoid ancestors had been
doing for millions of years. Death was
the way God brought about the progress of the human race. Death continued after the fall the same way
that it had for millions of years.
What
a Paradise this was! A Paradise erected
on millions of years of death and destruction.
Not only chaos on earth, but also chaos in the heavens: meteors
colliding, worlds exploding, comets crashing into the earth. What comfort could such a Paradise bring for
men? How could it be a comfort to the
thief on the cross, when Jesus said, "Today, you will be with me in
Paradise"? If the original
Paradise was a place built on death and destruction, how could the antitype be
a place of life, joy, and peace? If
death was normal in Paradise, how could death be a horror to Adam and Eve? What message was in the blood of Abel?
IV. Unbelief loves
death. Wisdom cries out in Proverbs 8:36
"He that sinneth against me wrongeth
his own soul: all they that hate me love death." The millions slain in the Holocaust, the
millions murdered under Stalin and Mao, the mass graves of the Ukraine, and the
piled skulls of Cambodia all testify to the evolutionist love of death. But perhaps we haven't seen anything
yet. If death is the way of progress;
if man arises to the image of God through the slaughterhouse of evolution, what
blood must yet be slain by humanists to bring about their Paradise of the
future? Was the Holocaust simply the
prelude to the main event?
V. Evolution destroys hope. If sin did not bring in death and dying, then
what hope is there to overcome death and find the way of life? The gospel tells a different story. Man and the whole world were created perfect
and without sin. Death was unknown and
there was no death in Paradise. Sin
brought in death, and the world is wrong today, because man is wrong. Man is alienated from the Living God, and cut
off from the Vine (John 15:1ff); he withers and dies, and all his works are
death and misery. But Jesus Christ is
the Water of Life and the Tree of Life.
He brings forth the leaves that are for the healing of the nations (Rev.
22:1,2).
"He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son of
God hath not life." Sin reigns
unto death where Jesus Christ does not reign (Romans 5:20,21),
but when He comes again, even sin and death and hell will be destroyed, and God
will be all in all.
Hallelujah!
The
following is a short bibliography of those who would like to read more about
this subject.
Austin,
Steven A. Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe
Behe, Michael J. Darwin's
Black Box
Gish,
Duane Challenge of the Fossil Record
Gish,
Duane T. Evolution; The
Fossils Say NO!
Humphreys,
D. Russell Starlight and Time
Johnson,
Philip E. Darwin on Trial
Johnson,
Philip E. Reason in the Balance
Lubenow, Marvin L. Bones
of Contention
Morris,
Henry M. Long War Against God
Thompson,
Bert Creation Compromises
Van
Til, C. Evolution
and Christ
