Bruce Jones – Is Genesis 1-11 Historical and Accurate?
Written by Teddy on July 9, 2016
Part Nine – “The Creation of the World-Part Two”
As we continue our examination of progressive creationism as compared to Genesis One we see their leading proponent then logically says as he does the Garden of Eden was not prior to Adam free of death, suffering or degeneration as that always existed from the beginning of time, whenever that may be. Now let’s check out what God’s Word has to say other than in Genesis as to the state of this Paradise, as we also call it. (a) Ezekiel 28:12-13 Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering” Most scholars agree that the king of Tyre in this case is a type of Satan who was “blameless in his ways ‘from the day He was created.” (Verse 15) but then rebelled against God. The words “seal of perfection” should he applied to any and all that God creates. Now the New Testament has two references to consider about Paradise. First is Revelation 2:7 which says (b) ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God. (See also Revelation 22:1-3). The next if Luke 23:43 which says (c) And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” If Paradise in its original state, such as progressive creationism says is our Eternal prospect, how can these promises make any sense, unless there dead wrong!
A THEOLOGICAL EXAMINATION (cont’d)
Principle Number Four- So what about man in general and Adam in particular? Well according to progressive creationists there are two positions. One of their apologists denies all together that there was ever a literal Adam or Eve at all being so bold as to then say “from a scientific point of view the Bible is wrong” which again reveals that Scripture is not their final authority but science. The other position says “starting about 2 to 4 million years ago, God began to create man-like mammals or ‘hominids.’ These creatures stood on two feet, had large brains, and used tools. Some even buried their dead and painted on cave walls. However, they were very different from us. They had no spirit. They did not have a conscience like we do. They did not worship God or establish religious practices. In time, all these man-like creatures went extinct. Then about 10 or 25 thousand years ago, God replaced them with Adam and Eve.”
In addition they teach Adam’s sin had nothing at all to do with physical death but instead when referring to Romans 5:12 arbitrarily makes a distinction between physical and spiritual death saying the text is addressing neither physical nor soulish death. When Adam sinned, he instantly “died,” just as God said he would (“In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die” [Genesis 2:17]). He remained alive physically and soulishly”. Well there are two main issues here that are based on the same idea that physical death existed before Adam, and when Adam sinned his penalty was only spiritual as he would die physically anyway. First let me get scientific for a moment. Part of the argument says pre-human beings were like Neanderthal men who existed maybe 50,000 years ago but they were sub-human and now extinct. But low and behold the evidence shows in those cases they painted pictures that were religious. And recent tests show many of us carry so-called “Neanderthal genes” indicating they were also human. The claim they existed but are now extinct is not backed up by Acts 17:26 “He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth”.
So let us examine not just the fall of man via Adam but the fallout. Romans 5:12 says “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” Then I Corinthians 15:21-22 says “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” Now it is only first in the Garden that animals die when God Himself killed one to provide a covering for Adam and Eve’s shame and nakedness. And its only in the Garden after Adam’s sin that the ground is then cursed to now bear thistles and thorns. In fact it is only after Adam’s sin that we read in Romans 8 that “the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” This only existed after the fall, not before And, it is only in the Garden we hear God say that now because of Adam’s sin that “from dust he was created and so now to dust he would return after death”. And for those who say God took a pre-human animal and evolved it into man the text plainly says “And the Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so man became a living soul” which is confirmed in I Corinthians which says For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. The parallelism makes clear that the body died as a result of sin but will be resurrected. So all that to say that the claim of progressive creationism that physical death, disease, deformity or destruction occurred before Adam is unfounded in Scripture though again defended on the premise that science or their view of it trumps the Bible when they are in conflict. This is the reverse of what should be if they profess to believe in an inerrant infallible Word of God that should interpret the world of God, and not visa-versa.
Principle Number Five- At this point I have just one more plank in the Progressive Creation platform to challenge as I transition into a textual analysis of Genesis 1-3. The first words in the Bible are “In the Beginning” which can mean nothing other than the very beginning of universe because that’s when the text says “God created the heavens and the earth” Doesn’t it stand to reason if this three word phrase is used someplace place else that without some qualifier, or disqualifier, it refers to the same exact event? So let’s look at several examples that cancel out any idea of billions of years passing by before we get to Genesis 2 and 3. (1) John 1:1-2 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word (Jesus Christ) was God, He was in the beginning with God.” Can there be any doubt that is what it says? And there are other verses that reveal who else was there at the beginning of time. (2) Mark 10:6- Jesus regarding divorce says ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation.’ (Matt 19:1-6 for more details) (3) Mark 11:50 “Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah (4) Mark 13:19 speaking of the end times “those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now–and never to be equaled again (5) John 8:44 “You belong to the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (6) I john 3:8 ‘The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning,” And I John 3:12 which implies that the Devil inspired Cain to kill Abel saying “be not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother” (7) And finally in relationship to the flood 2 Peter 3:4 speaks again about “the beginning of creation” Interesting to see this seven times.
What do we learn from these seven verses? (Is the number coincidence or providence?) We learn from these verses, most spoken by our Lord Himself, from the very beginning of time when God created the Universe, (Gen 1:1) Jesus was there, (John 1:1) Adam and Eve were there, (Mark 10:6), Cain and Abel were there (Mark 11:50), and Satan was there (John 8:22) Just like Genesis said they were! They certainly didn’t arrive at the last minute of a sixteen billion years year! So why should we trust scientists, be they Christian or otherwise? Or scholars, Christian or not, who disagree when the Son of God our Lord endorses the literal account of Genesis? As for myself I dare not insult His intelligence by saying it isn’t so and will not. And this is consistent with the record that says when sin came into the world through Adam, and death through sin, it was all in the very beginning when God created the Heavens and the Earth in Genesis 1:1. The Bible says the primary personages were on stage from “the very beginning.” of time. So now let’s take a look at the text in Genesis 1-2 to see if it supports a progressive creationist interpretation, though by now it should be clear I will say no.
