Wednesday: A Defiled Image
One of the many great obstacles for those who read evolution into the biblical creation account is the Fall.
Image © Rolf Jansson from GoodSalt.com
In the Bible, the world and humanity were perfect when created, a teaching that contradicts evolution at the most basic level. Only through transgression did suffering and death enter the world, a concept that’s contrary to the evolutionary model, in which suffering and death are part of the very means of creation itself.
Imagine what it would say about the character of God if He created us in the manner that evolution teaches. God uses processes of violence, selfishness, and dominance of the strong against the weak in order to create a morally flawless and selfless being who “falls” into a state of violence, selfishness, and dominance of the strong over the weak-a state from which he has to be redeemed or else face final punishment.
Think, too, of what evolution does to the plan of salvation. The Lord incarnates into an evolved ape created through the vicious and painfully murderous cycle of natural selection, all in order to abolish death, “the last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26)? But how can death be the “enemy” when it was one of God’s chosen means for creating humans? The Lord must have expended plenty of dead homo erectus, homo heidelbergensis, and homo neanderthalensis in order to finally get one creature into His own image (homo sapien). So, Jesus comes to save humankind from the very process God used to create humankind in the first place? The whole idea is foolish and unbiblical.
Read Romans 5:12-19 and Colossians 3:10. How do these verses help us to understand what sin has done to humanity? How does the great controversy play into this whole picture? See 1 John 3:8.
Sin has touched all aspects of human life, and even the earth itself. Ellen White talked about a “threefold” curse that has rested on the world, the first resulting from Adam’s fall, the next from Cain’s murder of Abel, and then the damage caused by the Flood. Theologians also talk about “total depravity,” the idea that every aspect of humanity, life, and personality has been damaged by sin. As we look around at the world, and even at ourselves, it’s not hard to see, is it?
Some believe that violence, suffering, and death were all part of how God created humanity. Others believe that violence, suffering, and death were all part of how Satan seeks to destroy the humanity that God has created. Think about the differences in the character of God that these two opposing views present.
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I believe that for us to fully appreciate what God has done for us through Christ, we must understand how much sin had done to our being. It said that the brightest star is seen on the darkest night.
Psalms 51:5 tells us that sin is a condition or state which we all inherit from birth. It is something we are born with because of Adam’s Fall. Therefore, we can do nothing to escape it, in and of ourselves. However, this is not our fault and God does not blame us for being born sinners. In Psalms 58:3 the psalmist says that it is our condition from birth. That we are born separated from God. But although we may be wicked from birth, God has given us the choice to escape this problem through the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the good news.
Jauyo, if you don't mind I would like to delve into a bit of semantics here. You said, "Psalms 51:5 tells us that sin is a condition or state which we all inherit from birth. It is something we are born with because of Adam’s Fall." To me what Psalms 51:5 says is that we are born in the environment of sin with a bent to sin. It is not saying that we are automatically sinners. Do we dare apply this to Jesus? For, "Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same" (Heb 2:14 NKJV).
I believe that a person has to commit sin in order to be a sinner. Which I believe Ps 58:3 tells us, "They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies" (Ps. 58:3 NKJV). A baby is not a sinner before it sins but it does sin shortly after it is born. "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned-- (Rom 5:12 NKJV) not because all are born. Therefore, "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezek. 18:20 NKJV).
I think we need to be clear as to what condemns to eternal death. When Adam sinned a lot of things changed but his sin didn't become our sin, we have our own to bear. I believe the two greatest changes were the environment (death and decay) and a propensity (a bent or leaning) to selfishness that Adam and Eve did not originally have which we inherited through a change in genetic structure but that is not the same as sin. To be tempted is not sin, to give into it is.
We often think of evolution in negative terms because it is and the science community has, for the most part, bought into it but there is a side of science that is positive that unknowingly glorifies God. Biomimetics is a new discipline in science that studies God's creation in order to copy its engineering. What scientists are learning is astounding which will in the near future benefit humanity in many ways.
"Creation Evolution Headlines" has a new article they just published on their website about what scientists are finding out about butterfly wings and spider webs (http://crev.info/2012/10/butterfly-cities/). What is most interesting is their unusually positive comment at the bottom of the article: