The Lie: Evolution (17 page)

15. THE EARTH CAME FIRST, NOT THE SUN

One evolutionary view of the earth’s beginning is that, 20 billion years ago a big bang occurred, which resulted eventually in the sun forming and, subsequently, the earth as a hot molten blob. The Bible teaches that when God first created the heavens and the earth there was no sun. Light was created on the first day, but the sun was to act as the light-holder and was not made until day four. Also, the earth was covered with water when it was first made. In 2 Peter 3:5–6 we have a prophecy concerning the last days in which Peter tells us that men will deliberately choose to forget that the earth was created covered with water. The big bang theory and the biblical account of creation are in total conflict.

16. GENESIS 1 AND 2 — COMPLEMENTARY NOT CONTRADICTORY

Since Moses was not an eyewitness to creation, Noah’s flood, or the events of the Tower of Babel, etc., presumably Genesis was a series of earlier records which Moses brought together in one publication under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Because of the reference in the New Testament by Jesus to Moses and his authorship of the Pentateuch, there is very strong evidence to suggest that Moses was responsible for the Book of Genesis. Throughout Genesis the phrase, "These are the generations of ..." (e.g., Gen. 2:4), occurs a number of times. From external evidence, such as the use of what is called the colophon system in Mesopotamia, linguists say that these link passages ("these are the generations of") actually end each section. In other words, they are a kind of "signature" to most of the sections. Thus, in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 the first section goes from 1:1 to 2:4a, and the second section goes from 2:4b to 5:1a.

Many people say that Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 are two contradictory accounts of creation. In reality, it is easy to see that these two accounts of creation are not contradictory but complementary. Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a is an account in chronological order (first, second, third, etc.) of the days of creation. Genesis 2:4b begins the second account, which is more detailed coverage of certain aspects of Genesis chapter 1. This second account is not meant to be chronological of each day of creation. In fact, it is meant to give a lot more of the details — particularly in relation to man and the garden — setting the scene for the fall of man in Genesis chapter 3.

The second account is extremely necessary for us to understand what happened in Genesis chapter 3. Not only that, the second account includes the actual details as to how God made man and woman, enabling us to understand more about the nature of the marriage relationship. The pattern of placing a more general account before the recording of certain specific events is not confined to the first two chapters of Genesis. We find it again in Genesis 10:2–32 where we have a population distribution table. This is followed by Genesis 11:1–10, which tells us what happened at Babel in about the third generation of the distribution genealogy in Genesis 10.

It should be noted that in Matthew 19:4–5, when Jesus replied concerning the question relating to marriage, He actually quoted from Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2, showing that He took them as complementary and authoritative. Matthew 19:4 states: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female" (Gen. 1:27). In Matthew 19:5, "And said, ‘for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh’" (Gen. 2:24).

17. ADAM COULD WRITE

Those who believe in evolution speculate that as man evolved he first had to learn to grunt, then he had to learn to write. He had to use stone tools and learn about farming before he could develop what is called "advanced technology." However, the Bible tells us Adam was not "primitive" but a highly developed individual. For instance, we note in Genesis 2:20, "And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field." Adam could obviously speak; he had a complex language.

Further, in Genesis 3:20 we are told that, "Adam called his wife’s name, Eve; because she was the mother of all living." In Genesis 5:1 we read that: "This is the book of the generations of Adam." Presumably, Adam wrote down all the details that God had given him concerning the original creation. He would have recorded the other events under God’s direction, and Moses later obtained this material and compiled it into the Book of Genesis. If this is so, then Noah must have taken on board the precious documents that Adam had written, in whatever form they existed.

It should also be noted that Adam’s descendants made musical instruments and worked with brass and iron. Genesis 4:21–22 states: "And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah." They were not primitive savages in the evolutionary progression.

18. NOAH’S FLOOD WORLDWIDE, NOT LOCAL

Those Christians who accept the evolutionary view of earth’s history believe that the billions of fossils found on earth are the result of the processes occurring over millions of years. These processes are said to have involved the slow formation of sedimentary layers associated with the trapping of organisms and their subsequent fossilization. Therefore, when it comes to the section in Genesis chapters 6 through 9 concerning Noah’s flood, they have a problem. If there really was a worldwide flood, it would have ripped up this record from supposedly millions of years ago and destroyed it. On the one hand, the Bible teaches that there was no death before Adam sinned. Therefore, fossils couldn’t have formed millions of years preceding Adam’s sin.

However, there has to be an explanation for the millions of preserved animals and plants laid down by water in layers all over the earth. A worldwide flood such as that of Noah’s time certainly is an excellent explanation. Christians who accept the fossil record as a result of millions of years of slow processes usually say Noah’s flood was only local in extent, not worldwide. The Bible teaches clearly that "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered." (Gen. 7:19).

In addition, we are told in Genesis 9:11–13 of the covenant of the rainbow. God put a rainbow in the sky as a sign He would never again destroy the earth by a flood. We have obviously seen lots of floods since that time, but God has not broken His covenant, as He cannot do that. Therefore, these passages cannot be referred to as a local event, but something which will never be repeated — a worldwide flood!

19. THEISTIC EVOLUTION EQUALS ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION PLUS GOD

In reality, theistic evolution is no different from atheistic evolution. God is simply added to the story. Christians who believe God used evolution accept what the atheistic view tells them, and then add God to the situation and re-interpret the Bible. Understanding the nature of man, that he is sinful and biased against God and that "there is none righteous, no not one," any view concerning the origin of life which has a consensus of opinion among non-Christians should at least be suspect. As the Bible is the Word of God — the God who knows everything, who has always been there, who does not tell a lie — everything we believe and think must be judged against God’s Word. To understand any area of life we must have a Christian philosophy, which means we must start with the words of God, who was there, and not the words of men who were not.

20. ALL PEOPLE ARE DESCENDANTS OF ADAM

Because of their belief in evolution, there are Christians who consider that some of the cultures around the world are "primitive" in an evolutionary sense. They have not "evolved" as far as other cultures. However, the Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Adam was the first man. There are not different races of men in an evolutionary sense. Romans 5:12 tell us that because of one man’s sin (Adam) death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. All the different cultures of the world today have arisen since the time of the Tower of Babel. It was there that people began speaking different languages, causing them to go to different places on the earth’s surface.

Every human being has the same ancestor, Adam, which is why we all have the same problem of sin and the same need for a Saviour.

The same question the Lord asked the people of Israel through Joshua should be a stern reminder to us concerning whom we are choosing to believe. This passage states, "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord" (Josh. 24:14).

Perhaps today we should ask ourselves a similar question. "Choose you this day whom you will believe: the words of men who are sinful creatures, who were not there, or the words of God who knows everything, who was there, and who has revealed to us all we need to know."

Appendix 2

WHY DID GOD TAKE SIX DAYS?

When one picks up a Bible, reads Genesis chapter 1, and takes it at face value, it seems to say that God created the world, the universe, and everything in them in six ordinary (approximately 24 hour) days. However, there is a view in our churches which has become prevalent over the years that these "days" could have been thousands, millions, or even billions of years in duration. Does it really matter what length these days were? Is it possible to determine whether or not they were ordinary days, or long periods of time?

WHAT IS A "DAY?"

The word for "day" in Genesis 1 is the Hebrew word
yom
. It can mean either a day (in the ordinary 24-hour day), the daylight portion of an ordinary 24-hour day (i.e., day as distinct from night), or occasionally it is used in the sense of an indefinite period of time (e.g., "in the time of the Judges" or "In the day of the Lord"). Without exception, in the Hebrew Old Testament the word
yom
never means "period" (i.e., it never refers to a definite long period of time with specific beginning and end points). The word which means a long period of time in Hebrew is
olam
. Furthermore, it is important to note that even when the word
yom
is used in the indefinite sense, it is clearly indicated by the context that the literal meaning of the word "day" is not intended.

Some people say the word "day" in Genesis may have been used symbolically and is thus not meant to be taken literally. However, an important point that many fail to consider is that a word can never be symbolic the first time it is used! In fact, a word can only be used symbolically when it has first had a literal meaning. In the New Testament we are told that Jesus is the "door." We know what this means because we know the word "door" means an entrance. Because we understand its literal meaning, it is able to be applied in a symbolic sense to Jesus Christ, so we understand that "He" is literally a door. The word "door" could not be used in this manner unless it first had the literal meaning we understand it to have. Thus, the word "day" cannot be used symbolically the first time it is used in the Book of Genesis, as this is where God not only introduced the word "day" into the narrative, but also defined it as He invented it. Indeed, this is why the author of Genesis has gone to great lengths to carefully define the word "day" the first time it appears. In Genesis 1:4 we read, "And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness" called "night." Genesis 1:5 then finishes with: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." This is the same phrase used for each of the other five days and shows there was a clearly established cycle of days and nights (i.e., periods of light and periods of darkness).

A DAY AND THE SUN

But how could there be day and night if the sun wasn’t in existence? After all, it is clear from Genesis 1 that the sun was not created until day four. Genesis 1:3 tells us that God created light on the first day, and the phrase "evening and morning" shows there were alternating periods of light and darkness. Therefore, light was in existence, coming from one direction upon a rotating earth, resulting in the day and night cycle. However, we are told exactly where this light came from. The word for "light" in Genesis 1:3 means the substance of light that was created. Then, on day four in Genesis 1:14–19 we are told of the creation of the sun which was to be the source of light from that time onward.

The sun was created to rule the day that already existed. The day stayed the same. It merely had a new light source. The first three days of creation (before the sun) were the same type of days as the three days with the sun. Perhaps God deliberately left the creation of the sun until the fourth day because He knew that down through the ages cultures would try to worship the sun as the source of life. Not only this, modern theories tell us the sun came before the earth. God is showing us that He made the earth and light to start with, that He can sustain it with its day and night cycle and that the sun was created on day four as a tool of His to be the bearer of light from that time.

Probably one of the major reasons people tend not to take the days of Genesis as ordinary days is because they believe that scientists have proved the earth to be billions of years old. But this is not true. There is no absolute age-dating method to determine how old the earth is. Besides this, there is much evidence consistent with a belief in a young age for the earth, perhaps only thousands of years.

Incidentally, those who say that a day could be millions of years must answer the question, "What is a night?"

WHY SIX DAYS?

God is an infinite being. He has infinite power, infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom. Obviously, God could then make anything He desired. He could have created the whole universe, the earth and all it contains in no time at all. Perhaps the question we should be asking is why did God take as long as six days? After all, six days is a peculiar period for an infinite being to make anything. The answer can be found in Exodus 20:11. Exodus 20 contains the Ten Commandments, and it should be remembered that these commandments were written on stone by the very "finger of God." In Exodus we read: "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God" (Exod. 31:18). The fourth commandment, in verse 9 of chapter 20, tells us that we are to work for six days and rest for one. The justification for this is given in verse 11: "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." This is a direct reference to God’s creation week in Genesis 1. To be consistent (and we must be), whatever is used as the meaning of the word "day" in Genesis 1 must also be used here. If you are going to say the word "day" means a long period of time in Genesis, then it has been already shown that the only way this can be is in the sense of the "day" being an indefinite or indeterminate period of time,
not
a definite period of time. Thus, the sense of Exodus 20:9–11 would have to be "six indefinite periods shalt thou labor and rest a seventh indefinite period." This, however, makes no sense at all. By accepting the days as ordinary days, we understand that God is telling us He worked for six ordinary days and rested one ordinary day to set a pattern for man — the pattern of our seven-day week which we still have today.

DAY-AGE INCONSISTENCIES

There are many inconsistencies in accepting the days in Genesis as long periods of time. For instance, we are told in Genesis 1:26–28 that God made the first man (Adam) on the sixth day. Adam lived through the rest of the sixth day and through the seventh day. We are told in Genesis 5:5 that he died when he was 930 years old. (We are not still in the seventh day as some people misconstrue, for Genesis 2:2 tells us God
"rested"
from His work of creation, not that He is
resting
from His work of creation.) If each day was, for example, a million years, then there are real problems. In fact, if each day were only a thousand years long, this still makes no sense of Adam’s age at death either.

A DAY IS AS A THOUSAND YEARS

But some then refer to 2 Peter 3:8 which tells us: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This verse is used by many who teach, by inference at least, that the days in Genesis must each be a thousand years long. This reasoning, however, is quite wrong. Turning to Psalm 90:4 we read a similar verse: "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." In both 2 Peter 3 and Psalm 90 the whole context is that God is neither limited by natural processes nor by time. To the contrary, God is "outside" time, for He also "created" time. Neither verse refers to the days of creation in Genesis, for they are dealing with God not being bound by time. In 2 Peter 3, the context is in relation to Christ’s second coming, pointing out the fact that with God a day is just like a thousand years or a thousand years is just like one day. He is outside of time. This has nothing to do with the days of creation in Genesis.

Further, in 2 Peter 3:8 the word "day" is contrasted with "a thousand years." The word "day" thus has a literal meaning which enables it to be contrasted with "a thousand years." It could not be contrasted with "a thousand years" if it didn’t have a literal meaning. Thus, the thrust of the Apostle’s message is that God can do in a very short time what men or "nature" would require a very long time to accomplish, if they could accomplish it at all. It is interesting to note that evolutionists try to make out that the chance, random processes of "nature" required millions of years to produce man. Many Christians have accepted these millions of years, added them to the Bible and then said that God took millions of years to make everything. However, the point of 2 Peter 3:8 is that God is not limited by time, whereas evolution requires time (a very great deal of it!).

DAYS AND YEARS

In Genesis 1:14 we read that God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." If the word "day" here is not a literal day, then the word "years" being used in the same verse would be meaningless.

DAY AND COVENANT

Turning to Jeremiah 33:25–26 we read: "Thus saith the Lord; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them." The Lord is telling Jeremiah that He has a covenant with the day and the night which cannot be broken, and it is related to the promise to the descendants of David, including the One who was promised to take the throne (Christ). This covenant between God and the day and night began in Genesis 1, for God first defined and invented day and night when He spoke them into existence. There is no clear origin for day and night in the Scripture other than Genesis 1. Therefore, this must be the beginning of this covenant. So if this covenant between the day and the night does not exist when God clearly says it does (i.e., if you do not take Genesis 1 to literally mean six ordinary days), then this promise given here through Jeremiah is on shaky ground.

DOES THE LENGTH OF THE DAY MATTER?

Finally, does it really matter whether we accept them as ordinary days or not? The answer is a most definite "Yes!" It is really a principle of how one approaches the Bible. For instance, if we don’t accept them as ordinary days then we have to ask the question, "What are they?" The answer is "We don’t know." If we approach the days in this manner, then to be consistent we should approach other passages of Genesis in the same way. For instance, when it says God took dust and made Adam — what does this mean? If it does not mean what is says, then we don’t know what it means! We should take Genesis literally. Furthermore, it should be noted that you cannot "interpret literally," for a "literal interpretation" is a contradiction in terms. You either take it literally or you interpret it! It is important to realize we should take it literally unless it is obviously symbolic, and when it is symbolic either the context will make it quite clear or we will be told in the text.

If a person says that we do not know what the word "day" means in Genesis, can another person who says they are literal days be accused of being wrong? The answer is "No," because the person who accepts them as ordinary days does know what they mean. It is the person who does not know what the days mean who cannot accuse anyone of being wrong.