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Christ and the Time of Creation
Supplemental Reading | |
Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
Back To Genesis
No. 70a, October 1994
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"And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 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'?" (Matthew 19:4, 5).
Christians who go along with the standard "old-earth" model of theevolutionists need to realize that they are going against the strongtestimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, for He clearly affirmed the truth ofrecent creation. Jesus Christ was the Creator of all things (note John1:1-3,10; Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 3:9; Hebrews 1:2,10; etc.) and so knowsfar more about when He created the world than all the modern evolutionarygeologists and Big Bang astronomers combined. Christ says there have beenpeople on the earth since the very beginning of the world—and He ought toknow, for He was there!
For example, when the Pharisees asked Him about marriage and divorce, Hereplied that "from the beginning of the creation God made them male andfemale" (Mark 10:6). He did not say that God made the first man and womanfifteen billion years after the beginning of the creation, but right fromthe beginning of the creation. In fact, the whole creation had been preparedfor them (even the stars had been made to serve them "for signs, and forseasons," Genesis 1:14,16), and they were given "dominion...over all theearth" (Genesis 1:26). Such a stewardship responsibility would be an anachronism if animals and plants had already been living and dying—manyeven becoming extinct—for long ages before they were placed under some kindof human "dominion" (note also Hebrews 2:6-8).
Soon after this primeval dominion mandate, sin and death entered the world,and God had to begin His work of redemption. His divine Lamb "wasforeordained before the foundation of the world" and to all intents andpurposes became "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," with thenames of those who would be redeemed "written in the book of life from thefoundation of the world" (I Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8; 17:8). Whatconceivable purpose could God have had in interposing a billion years ofsuffering and death in the animal kingdom prior to implementing His greatplan of salvation for lost men and women? He is neither cruel norcapricious, and would never be guilty of such pointless sadism. A furtherquestion is why so many evangelicals Christians seem eager to advocate suchan unworthy compromise!
Beginning with Abel (the first prophet of God according to Jesus in Luke11:51), God sent prophet after prophet to transmit His word to men. Moreoften than not, their message was opposed, even to the point of bloodshed,and this has been going on from the beginning. Jesus Himself referred to"the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of theworld" (Luke 11:50). That is, prophets have been preaching and dying sincethe very foundation of the world—not starting five billion years later.
This opposition to God's plan has been instigated by Satan himself. Jesuscalled Satan "a liar, and the father of it," as well as "a murderer from thebeginning" (John 8:44). He had not only deceived Eve with his humanisticphilosophy ("ye shall be as gods," Genesis 3:5), but also had caused Cain tomurder God's first prophet. This too was at "the beginning," not fivebillion years after the beginning, for even if animals had been dying for abillion years before this, as theistic evolutionists claim, their deathscould not be called "murders." Note also 1 John 3:8: "The devil sinneth fromthe beginning."
There is yet coming a time of God's great wrath on this unbelieving world.Again it was Jesus who said: "In those days shall be affliction, such as wasnot since the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time"(Mark 13:19). The clear premise of this prophecy by Christ was that therehad, indeed, been tribulation and affliction "since the beginning of thecreation which God created" (and, therefore, people had been on the earthall during that time), but that the coming period of "great tribulation"would be still worse.
Also note that, according to these words of Christ, the creation had both a"beginning" and a termination ("created" is in the past tense, inconsistency with the use of this word all through the Bible). The world andits inhabitants are not continuously being created, as evolutionists andmany progressive creationists would have us believe, for the creation was acompleted event of the past. See also Hebrews 4:3 for a clear affirmationthat all of God's "works were finished from the foundation of the world."
Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things were created in thebeginning, has repeatedly made it clear that the supposed billions of yearsof a groaning, travailing creation (note Romans 8:22) prior to man'screation and fall never existed at all. God created men and women at thebeginning, and then, when Adam sinned, quickly began to implement His greatplan of redemption. To the redeemed He has promised a "kingdom prepared foryou from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34), without the slightestintimation that there would be a fifteen-billion-year prelude before Hewould ever start the program of redemption.
The same emphasis was later carried forward by His apostles. Peter, forexample, promised the soon return of Christ, "whom the heaven must receiveuntil the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by themouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21).
Similarly, at the birth of John the Baptist, the prophet/priest Zachariasstressed that God's "horn of salvation" was coming, "as He spake by themouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began" (Luke1:70). Thus, just before and just after Christ's earthly ministry, we areassured that Jesus spoke clearly and truly when He said that God's prophetshave been transmitting God's word to man not just since human history began,but "since the world began." Thus, the world and its human inhabitants beganessentially at the same time.
Consider also the testimony of the apostle Paul: "For the invisible thingsof Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood bythe things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that theyare without excuse" (Romans 1:20). This powerful verse explicitly tells usthat the evidences of God can be seen so clearly in His created world thatit is inexcusable for people not to see them. Furthermore, they were beingseen and understood by people, not just since a certain imaginary populationof evolving hominids hominids somehow acquired souls, but "from the creation of theworld."
Lest anyone equivocate over the meaning of "world," note that two differentGreek words have been translated as "world" in the passages cited above. InMatthew 13:35; 25:34; Luke 11:50; Hebrews 1:10; 4:3; 1 Peter 1:20;Revelation 13:8; 17:8; and Romans 1:20, the Greek word is kosmos. In Matthew24:21; Mark 13:19 and Acts 3:21, the word is an aion. As defined in Strong'sGreek Dictionary of the New Testament, kosmos means an "orderly arrangement"(that is, a cosmos instead of a chaos), referring in Biblical context to thefact that the heavens, the earth, life, man, and man's systems had beendivinely designed and arranged, not randomly produced by chance processes.Aion is defined as "age," and as "world," thus carrying the concept of bothtime and maker. In modern terminology, it suggests the space-time-maker"continuum" which constitutes our physical universe. Thus, whether the"world" in these texts is considered as the universe of space, time, andmaker, or as the orderly structure of all its components, it does not makeany difference as far as the time of creation is concerned. People have beena part of the created world since both the beginning of time and thefoundation of the world.
This, of course, is also the teaching of all Old Testament passages dealingwith this subject, as well as other New Testament verses we cannot considerhere because of limited space. In my book, Biblical Creationism (Baker,1993), I have analyzed every passage in the Bible dealing in any way withthe subject of creation, with the conclusion that the unequivocal teachingof the whole Bible is recent creation of all things. There is no hint oflong geological or astronomical ages before man anywhere in the Bible.
Why, then, do so many Christians insist that we should believe in these longages, pushing our Creator as far out in space and as far back in time as wepossibly can? The apparent reason is that they feel it is more important tobe "scientific" (as currently defined) than Biblical (as eternally defined,Psalm 119:89). The statement of Dr. Pattle P. T. Pun, professor of biologyat Wheaton College, is typical.
| It is apparent that the most straightforward understanding of the Genesis record, without regard to all the hermeneutical considerations suggested by science [emphasis mine] is that God created heaven and earth in six solar days, ... However, the Recent Creationist position ... has denied and belittled the vast amount of scientific evidence amassed to support the theory of natural selection and the antiquity of the earth (Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, March 1987, p. 14). |
Although Dr. Pun is undoubtedly a sincere and gracious Christian, he feels,nevertheless, that we must base our Biblical hermeneutics on "science," andthe same is apparently true of most of his colleagues at Wheaton and in theAmerican Scientific Affiliation, as well as of numerous leading theologians,scientists, and educators throughout the evangelical world.
Although ICR scientists (with academic qualifications at least equal tothose of Dr. Pun and his colleagues), as well as large numbers of othercreationist scientists in many fields hold the greatest respect for truescience (i.e., knowledge, not naturalistic extrapolation), we believe thatthe clear teachings of Jesus Christ—as well as God's word in general—mustbe given higher priority. His approval carries far greater value than thatof our professional peers, in the light of eternity, and He taught that theworld is young. |
"Vital Articles on Science/Creation"
October 1994
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