Section 9: Genesis as Foundation
of Doctrine, continued:
Last week, we looked at the
Doctrine of God (Theology), the Doctrine of Man (Anthropology), and the
Doctrine of Sin (Hamartiology), as seen in Genesis.
Doctrine of Salvation (Soteriology)
The Bible teaches that God in His mercy and grace forgives our sin, but
only when the penalty is paid by a substitutionary blood sacrifice. This is first seen in the promise that the seed
of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). The first
actual blood sacrifice was performed by God Himself when He made coats of skin
to clothe Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21).
Take away Genesis and we lose this promise that speaks of the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan does not want anyone believing this verse (3:15),
because it spell his doom and redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ.
If Genesis is a myth, then so is Jesus Christ.
Evolution hinders man from putting faith in Christ. Theistic evolution
is simply a sugar-coated version of the same idea and produces the same
results.
A number of other doctrines have their foundation in the book of
Genesis. Examples:
Doctrine of Angels (Angelology). It shows us Satan (a fallen angel) in
3:1, and the Cherubim (a type of angel still faithful to God) in 3:24.
Doctrine of Last Things (Eschatology). Future things make no
sense without Genesis as a foundation.
Conclusion
All major Christian doctrines have their source, directly or indirectly,
in the book of Genesis.
There are those who object
to this foundational view of Genesis in that it does not agree with the
evolutionary theories of modern-day “science.”
As Bible-believing
Christians, we stand in awe of the handiwork of the Creator (the “Potter”) instead
of the supposed intellect of the clay. “Woe to him who strives with his
Maker! … Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’” … (Isaiah
45:9, NKJV).
Every atheistic evolutionist
amounts to a fool in God’s eyes … “The fool has said in his heart, There is
no God” (Psalm 14:1, NKJV). We ought not to give any credibility to the
ramblings of such fools. “They have all turned aside, they have together
become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:3,
NKJV).
Section 10: Quotes from Evolutionists and Other
Scientists
Even prominent evolutionists
have some very serious doubts about their beliefs. Recommended Reading:
That Their Words May Be Used Against Them - Quotes from Evolutionists
Useful for Creationists, Institute for Creation Research, Compiled by Henry
M. Morris, 1997.
The bold emphasis in these quotes is mine.
Self-proclaimed Marxist and
world-renowned Darwinian geneticist Professor Richard Lewontin: (Italicized words are his.)
"Our willingness to accept
scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding
of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science
in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant
promises of health and life, in spite of the
tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior
commitment, a commitment to materialism...we are forced by our a
priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation
and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how
counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying
to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism
is absolute, for we cannot allow a
Divine Foot in the door." (Richard Lewontin,
"Billions and Billions of Demons,"
The New York
Review, January 1997, p. 31)
Another evolutionist said
the following, and it was an honest statement:
“If living matter is not,
then caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it
come into being? … I think … that we must
… admit that the only acceptable
explanation is creation. I know that this is
anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a
theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.” (H.S. Lipson, FRS, Professor
of Physics, University of Manchester,
UK, “A
Physicist Looks at Evolution.” Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, 1980, page 138)
Steven J. Gould, who along
with Niles Eldredge came up with the idea of "Punctuated Equilibrium" in the
early 1970’s, said the following:
"The extreme rarity of
transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of
paleontology. The evolutionary trees
that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their
branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of
fossils. We fancy ourselves as the
only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of
evolution by natural selection, we view our data as so bad that we never
see the very process we profess to study."
(Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History,
vol. 86, May 1987)
"The absence of fossil
evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design,
indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional
intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for
gradualistic accounts of evolution." (Stephen J. Gould, 1982)
Even though Gould discounted
the evidence for Darwin,
he still accepted evolution and instead turned to punctuated equilibrium. Note:
If the evidence is bad, maybe the idea is bad, too. Why not just throw
out evolution?
"Paleontologists have been insisting
that their record is consistent with slow, steady, gradual evolution where I think that
privately, they’ve known for over a hundred years that such is not the case." (Niles Eldredge, 1981)
My summary of the ideas of
punctuated equilibrium evolutionists:
"We know the evidence for evolution is bogus, but evolution is true; it
has to be. We just have to figure out another way for it to have happened,
since it couldn’t have happened the way we thought it did, and clearly, God
couldn’t have created everything."
From a letter from Dr. Colin
Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum
of Natural History to creationist Luther D. Sunderland:
"I fully agree with
your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in
my book. If I knew of any, fossil
or living, I would certainly have included them. I will lay it on the line;
there is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument. It is easy enough to make
up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the
stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for
there is no way to put them to the test."
Another quote from Lipson:
"Darwin’s book - Origin of Species - I
find quite unsatisfactory: it says nothing about the
origin or species; it is written very
tentatively, with a special chapter on 'Difficulties on Theory;' and it includes a great
deal of discussion on why evidence for natural selection does not exist in the
fossil record. As a scientist, I am not
happy with these ideas. But I find it distasteful
for scientists to reject a theory because it does not fit in with their
preconceived ideas." (H.S. Lipson, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of
Manchester, UK),
'Origins of Species,' in 'Letters,' New Scientist, 5/14/81, page 452)
Charles Darwin wrote the
following:
"To suppose that the eye
with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different
distance, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of
spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by
natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." (Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species,
J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. London, 1971, page 167)
This is a favorite quote of
creationists, and evolutionists say we use it out of context by not including
what Darwin
said next. He goes on to say, "The
difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by
natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be
considered real. How a nerve comes to be
sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first
originated."
My interpretation: "I don’t really care how it got started. The
eye does exist, so it must have evolved, and any absurdity we think we see is
simply not real. Given enough time, it could have happened." That is typical
evolutionist nonsense.
Another statement: "The age
of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years, based on radio
decay rates of uranium and thorium. Such 'confirmation' may be short-lived. There
has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio decay rates are
not as constant as previously thought. And this could mean that
the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought
the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago, but rather, within the
age and memory of man." (Frederic B. Jueneman, FAIC,
“Secular Catastrophism.” Industrial Research and Development, June 1982, page
21)
"We all jumped at the Origin
of Species because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” (Sir
Julian Huxley). They not only express doubts, but they also give away their true
motives. Evolution = no God = no one to whom I must answer = no absolute
standards = I can do as I please.
"The irony is
devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an
incredible God from biology. But the
theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity - omnipotent
chance." (T. Rosazak,
"Unfinished Animal", 1975, p. 101-102)
"If complex organisms
ever did evolve from simpler ones, the process took place contrary to the laws
of nature, and must have involved what may rightly be termed to be
miraculous." (R.E.D. Clark, Victoria Institute , 1943).
"... evolution became in a
sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many
are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it ..." H.S.
Lipson. “A Physicist Looks at Evolution." Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, p138, 1980)
From The Humanist Manifesto II:
"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged
and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive
their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what
theologians call divinity in every human being. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old
and new: the rotting corpse of
Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new
faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized
Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved.” (John Dunphy, Humanist Manifesto II)
“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight
science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’
earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will
find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what
evolution means, then Christianity is nothing." (G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution,” American Atheist,
p. 30, February 1978)
We should never forget that
the real aim of evolution is to remove God from the picture and make man free
to do as he pleases.
Evolutionists like to say
that the Bible and evolution can be harmonized. Only gullible Christians fall
prey to believing such foolishness. Evolutionists absolutely know better.
Richard Dawkins, one of the best-known atheists and evolutionists, openly
admits that he became an atheist because of his exposure to and acceptance of
Darwinism. Other evolutionists are not happy with him for being honest enough
to blow their cover, but it is clearly true that evolution and Christianity are
in no way compatible.
We need to be aware of
Satan’s devices. (2 Cor. 2:11).
“Behold, I send you out
as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as
doves” (Matthew 10:16, NKJV). “The kings of the
earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD
and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast
away Their cords from us.’ He who sits
in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision. Then He shall
speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure”
(Psalm 2:2-5).
Continued
and concluded next week with "Scientific Evidence for
Creation."
Following are some of the resources, in
addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied
to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following:
Various other resources, both printed books
and websites.
