The Image of the Triune God (King’s Cross)

INTRODUCTION

One of the most virulent viruses to infect modern Christianity is Darwinism. On the one hand, many academics have been cool-shamed into compromise, and on the other hand, even many young earth creationists are functional Darwinists. But you cannot build any house on the sand of human whims and hubris. Scientific theories come and go, but the Word of God stands forever.

The Text: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light…” (Gen. 1:1-2:3)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The whole Bible opens with this record of God’s intentional, personal creation of all that exists from nothing by the power of His word. The Bible records this work of God as occurring over the course of six ordinary days, marked by “evening and morning” culminating in the seventh day of rest, and all “very good.” There is a clear structure to the work and text, the first three days “forming,” the second three days “filling.” God created light and separated day and night on the first day (Gen. 1:1-5). He separated the waters above and below and created the heaven or sky on the second day (Gen. 1:6-8). He gathered the waters into one place and caused dry ground to appear and the first plants on the third day (Gen. 1:9-13). He set the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament as signs and for keeping time and ruling the day and night (Gen. 1:14-18). On day five, God filled the sea with creatures and the sky with winged, flying creatures (Gen. 1:19-23). And God created every land animal on the sixth day and finally man and woman in His image to rule the world (Gen. 1:24-30). And God saw all that He had made and pronounced it very good, and rested on the seventh day and blessed it (Gen. 1:31-2:3).

EVIDENCE OF HISTORY

Some Christians try to avoid the straightforward meaning of this text by arguing that it is symbolic or poetic. But that merely betrays a very modern prejudice against poetry, as though if something is poetic, it’s meaning is unclear or not historical. But the Song at the Sea celebrates the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 15) and the Song of Deborah celebrates the defeat of Sisera (Jdg. 5): and those poems are historical. Genesis 1 is poetic, but it is also historical.

While some like to connive by pointing out that God is outside of time and time is different for God, the Bible repeatedly invites us to believe that God condescended to our ordinary time. A “day” ordinarily means 24 hours, an evening and a morning, and that is exactly what is presented in Genesis 1. The Sabbath command says that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and that is why we work for six days and rest for one day (Ex. 20:11). Likewise, Jesus says that Adam and Eve were created at the “beginning of creation” (Mk. 10:6). To posit millions (or billions) of years of “creation” before Adam and Eve (or the first male and female creatures) contradicts Jesus.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION

While there several different ways Christians sometimes try to dodge Genesis 1, the most common and popular is called “theistic evolution,” or sometimes “evolutionary creation,” which generally accepts Darwin’s model of gradual evolution from pre-existent matter into simple organisms all the way down to the present complexity and intelligence of human beings, which really is one of the dumbest things moderns have come to believe.

And theistic evolutionists try to salvage the folly by insisting that God actively used and guided the evolutionary process.

The problem is that this means God used random mutations (deformities), survival of the fittest (strong destroying the weak), violence, suffering, and death for billions of years to create the present state of the world. But this does deadly damage to central doctrines of the Christian faith: First, the Bible says that creation groans for redemption, having been subject to corruption (Rom. 8:19-22). Creation was created “good” and pronounced “very good,” and it was Adam’s sin that subjected it to corruption. Theistic evolution essentially says that creation has always groaned, always been subject to corruption, and somehow that was “good.”

Second, the Bible teaches that death did not enter the world until Adam sinned: “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” (Rom. 5:12). This guts the Fall of any real significance (there had been dying for millennia?). What really changed?

And this brings us to the biggest problem: Third, theistic evolution undermines the point of Christ and His death. Why did Jesus have to die if a sinless man could be evolved from a humanoid ape? Couldn’t God have just re-evolved man for salvation? The Bible teaches that Christ is a “new Adam” come to restore what the first Adam lost (Rom. 5, 1 Cor. 15).

POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS 

The Declaration of Independence famously says: “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”

You cannot have life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness or the kind of limited governments that actually secure those rights, unless you have a Creator who has created men endowed unalienably with those rights. You cannot have that freedom apart from that Creator. And the more muddled you are about that Creator and His creation, the more muddled you will be about those rights and how civil governments secure them. When the doctrine of Creation is considered non-essential, soon your churches, your businesses, and your unalienable rights will also be considered non-essential.

CONCLUSIONS 

The personal, intentional creation of all things by the Word of God in six days is the foundational expression of God’s kindness, and grace. It is what theologians often call “common grace,” but it is not really common at all. It is exotic and mind-blowing love.

And that it is why it is not merely enough to reject Darwinism as a scientific theory, you must also reject it in every form. And what I mean is the kind of functional Darwinism that imagines that you can trick God’s blessing out of disobedience, that presumptuously lies about the goodness of God’s providence, and no matter what, “God will work it all out for good.”

Sometimes some of the most hardcore creationist families are some of the harshest and ugly in their words. God’s word spoke the universe into existence. God’s word upholds it all with supreme kindness. What kind of world are you making with your words?

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