CREATOR AND REDEEMER
Kevin D. Paulson
When I was a child, I had a cousin who was a bit on the wild side, and who for a time was living with my maternal grandmother.
When he decided to start putting pornographic pictures on the wall of his bedroom, my grandmother—not surprisingly—insisted that he get rid of them.
My cousin responded by asked, “What do you have against the beautiful human body that God created?”
And you know—my cousin was right, up to a point.
God did create the human body, and He certainly made it beautiful—the crowing act of the creative process.
But what my cousin failed to consider is that if in fact God created the human body, He has the right to tell us how to use it. And how not to use it.
Whether he realized it or not, the question asked by my wayward cousin effectively introduces the reason God’s role as Creator is so central to the entire plan of salvation.
Let us turn again to our Scripture reading for tonight”
Psalm 121:1-2:
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
“My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”
Elsewhere the psalmist declares:
Psalm 33:6,8-9:
“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. . . .
“Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
“For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
Why, according to this passage, are we to stand in awe of the Lord?
Because He brought the world into existence through the breath of His mouth!
And because He has done this, He obviously has the right to tell us what to do, and not to do, with what He has created.
It is truly amazing that the issue of how the natural universe came into being is still a contentious issue even among some who call themselves Christians.
A Gallup survey, reported in a recent issue of The Nation magazine, gave a snapshot of current American opinions regarding the creation/evolution controversy:
According to this poll:
46 percent of respondents believe “God created human beings pretty much in their present form within the last ten thousand years or so.”
32 percent believe in what many call “theistic evolution”—that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.”
Only 15 percent say humans evolved and that “God had no part in this process.”
According to the article reporting this survey, the figure of those believing in special creation within the past ten thousand years is actually up 2 percent from a similar Gallup survey in 1982.
Katha Pollitt, “Darwin, Still Losing After All These Years,” The Nation, July 2/9, 2012, p. 9.
But from some of the conversations I’ve had with people who claim to hold the Christian worldview, it seems that quite a few professed Christians would consider themselves believers in what this survey would describe as “theistic evolution.”
What I hope will be clear from our study this evening is that the Bible in no way allows for so-called theistic evolution, and that the principles of evolution are quite out of harmony with both the character of the God of Scripture, and the Biblical message of salvation.
The Genesis creation story (found in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis), as I suspect many of us know, not only depicts the origin of this earth as taking place in six days . . . .
. . . It also identifies these days as literal, and as occurring consecutively, one immediately following the other (Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31).
We noted in our study last evening that at times in Scripture, a day can in fact have symbolic meaning.
But this is not the case in Genesis 1, because repeatedly the passage tells us, “And the evening and the morning were the [first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth] day.”
What this means, my friends, is that the seven-day week—whose culmination we will be talking about a few meetings from now—began at the creation of this world.
Long ages of time were not necessary in order to bring the natural world into existence.
God brought this earth into being in only six days, following which He rested on the seventh day—as the beginning of Genesis chapter 2 informs us.
Stay tuned for more on that subject!!
The literal nature of Creation Week clearly makes any concept of theistic evolution impossible.
What is more, such a theory makes God the Source of pain, suffering, and death.
Stop and think about it.
If God used the process of evolution to bring this world and its inhabitants into existence, this means God is the author of the brutal, merciless process known as “natural selection.”
This is the process otherwise known as the “survival of the fittest,” in which the strong devour the weak, big fish eat the little fish, and predators have their way until stronger predators come along.
Such a theory not only makes pain, suffering, and death a necessity, but also makes such horrors the ultimate good in the story of life.
Since Charles Darwin first crafted and promoted this theory, it has been used to rationalize everything from the mistreatment of workers by industrial barons to the Holocaust itself.
I don’t think it takes much time to figure out the total incompatibility of such thinking with the loving and merciful God found in the pages of the Bible.
But perhaps even more important is the fact that according to evolution, there was never a perfect world, no Paradise from which to fall, and thus—at the bottom line—no such thing as righteousness, no such thing as sin, and therefore, no need of the salvation offered by our Lord Jesus Christ.
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that the Adam and Eve described in the book of Genesis were in fact literal persons—those with whom the sin problem originated.
Romans, chapter 5, offers perhaps the clearest statement on this subject:
Rom. 5:12-19:
“Wherefore, 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.
“For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed where there is no law.
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come.
“But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift be grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
“And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.
“For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one: much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
“Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
Now there are many issues raised in this passage, but for our purposes, what should be clear to us is that according to the apostle Paul, Adam was very much a historical person.
Just as historical a person as Jesus Christ Himself.
Some have tried to make it appear that when the Bible speaks of Adam, it is simply a generic reference to the whole human race.
This passage in Romans doesn’t allow for this view. Adam, according to these verses, is very much a historical figure, just like the One who would take his place as the second Father of the race, bringing salvation to the world just as Adam brought sin.
This is why, by the way, the prophecy of Isaiah which we considered last evening refers to the coming Messiah as the “everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6).
Jesus is God’s Son, to be sure, but He is also the second Father of humanity, because He has taken Adam’s place by redeeming Adam’s fall.
For this reason Paul writes elsewhere:
I Cor. 15:21-22:
“For since by man 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.”
It becomes clear, folks, that according to the Bible, Adam is as much a real person as Christ.
So if one makes Adam into a mythical character in order to make room for the theory of evolution, what are we to do with Christ?
The role of Christ as Redeemer is dependent upon His original role as Creator.
Remember we saw last evening how Christ is the Creator of the natural world:
John 1:1-3:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made."
Col. 1:16-17:
"For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist."
Heb. 1:1-2:
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past under the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds."
And because Christ is the One who made the visible world we see, He is the One divinely designated to redeem and restore that world to its original, perfect state.
With evolution there was no perfect state. No Paradise to lose. No absolute standard of right and wrong to transgress. And therefore no sin.
And thus—no need of a Man hanging on a cross.
Brothers and sisters, for this reason, if for no other, Christians cannot possibly be evolutionists.
God’s final message to the world, found in the 14th chapter of the book of Revelation, emphasizes God’s
creatorship:
Rev. 14:7:
“Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come, and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”
Because God is our supernatural Creator, He has both the right to tell us how to manage and care for His creation, as well as the capacity to restore His creation back to its perfect, painless, and sinless state.
Along these lines, we should also remember that stewardship of the natural environment is in fact a Christian duty.
God commanded Adam and Eve in the beginning to “dress” and to “keep” the Garden of Eden (see Gen. 2:15).
And at the end of time, when God’s final judgment calls men and women to account, the Bible declares that God will “destroy them which destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18).
There are those in Christian circles who don’t think it matters what they do to God’s natural creation.
The above passage is clear that those who exploit the environment and mistreat God’s creation will experience condemnation at the divine tribunal.
Finally, the book of Revelation offers this promise:
Rev. 21:4-5:
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.
“And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.”
Brothers and sisters, because God made all things in the first place, perfect and pure and painless, He is able to make them all new again.