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.
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 sepulchre 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 the 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