Wednesday: Gospel, Judgment, Creation
Look at the first angel’s message. Everlasting gospel. Hour of judgment. Worship the Creator. Look at how closely related these ideas are. When we stand before our Creator in judgment, it’s only the gospel that gives us any hope at all. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1, NKJV). No condemnation now — and certainly not in the judgment.
The message of God as Creator is so central to present truth, especially when evolution, even when dressed up in “Christian” garb, threatens to destroy the entire foundation of the Christian faith.
Image © Philippians McKay at Goodsalt.com
Yet, amid the onslaught of evolutionary thought, God has raised up a church, a people whose very name itself is a witness against the idea of evolution &mdash a people who are to proclaim the foundational truth of God as our Creator and Redeemer.
Read Ephesians 3:9, Colossians 1:13-17, Revelation 4:11, and Romans 5:17-19. What do these texts teach about Jesus as Creator and Redeemer?
Look at how closely tied Jesus as Creator is to Jesus as Redeemer. The moment that His role as Creator is diminished, as evolution inevitably does, His role as our Redeemer comes into question, as well. Jesus comes to redeem us from sin, from death, from suffering, and from violence — when sin, death, suffering, and violence are, as evolution teaches, the very means of creation itself? God redeems us from the very process He used to create us to begin with? It’s a dangerous lie.
And what makes it even worse is that evolution mocks the very idea of Jesus’ death on the cross. Why? Paul (see Romans 5:17-19) inseparably links the introduction of sin, by Adam, to the death of Jesus. There’s a direct link, then, between Adam and Jesus. In any evolutionary model, however, no sinless Adam could have introduced death, because death — millions of years of death — were, supposedly, the forces and powers that were needed to create Adam to begin with.
Hence, right from the start evolution destroys the biblical foundation of the cross. In contrast, Seventh-day Adventists, by calling the world to worship the Creator, stand as a living witness against this error.
(13)
I have been to a number of creation conferences where the discussion has been more representative of the "survival of the fittest" than anything else. They have made me all the more determined, in my interaction with agnostics and atheists, that the very best argument for a creator God is for us to act like we are indeed created by a loving and caring God. We should never underestimate the strength of that argument.
Paul made this point in his argument at Areopagus, the philosophical center of Athenian academia:
To me, one of the biggest dangers of an evolutionary worldview is the idea that everything is always improving and becoming wiser over time. There are many fallouts from this type of reasoning. Adults thinking that kids are not to be raised or disciplined because kids must be wiser than their parents as everything is evolving for the better and each generation is increasing in innate wisdom. Society is seen as a human tool that is gradually perfected, so not to worry about moral decline, everything is actually improving, big picture. Evolution, where organisms become more complex and refined over time, makes it seem possible for humans, the most complex evolutionary animal (or “god”?), to reduce suffering and create a better world through human technology and wisdom, all be it with some ups and downs. I know people who are excited about human-made artificial intelligence ruling the world someday in the near future -- a different type of one-world government. In summary, if evolution results in progress, then in this paradigm, organisms are always getting better through evolution.
So, wow! This is of course directly opposite of the truth, a 180-degree lie. We know that God created humans without sin, and over time sin has degraded human DNA and human dignity given us by God….and placed all of creation under sin’s curse. I’ve heard the Christian biblical worldview criticized as negative. For instance, in a quick internet search I’ve found an article where Christians are described as “seeing life as getting worse in a paradise lost, which is unlikely to be restored.” Or, in another quote from this National Library of Medicine magazine article: “The idea that life is getting better breaks with the traditional religious view of earthly life as a phase of penance awaiting paradise in the afterlife.” Satan is definitely using the theory of evolution to twist and destroy the gospel message, and cloud the understanding of God’s precious human creatures.
The reference the author of the lesson makes in the 3rd paragraph spills over into something else that is vital and important to us who believe that God's commandments are still binding on Christians.
This surrounds how the notion that one embraces evolution, he or she would inevitably diminish the role of Christ as creator, (seeing that because things evolved over billions of years). He would be totally out of the picture, or would not be important.
In a similar way, if one refuses to honor God's Sabbath (the only commandment that tells you who the creator is, etc.), we would have missed the true meaning of God's character of love.
Stern message, though! But it is very much healthy to disagree! The truth is that (again) a theory only becomes a law when proven. Thus, it takes as much effort to believe in evolution as in God! The main difference relies on the fact that God can be experienced, not to turn anyone into a god, but to experience His power of change! Funny that, as a bunch of (misleading) evolutionary ideas, change has to be in the Christian core! Not by chance, but by choice!
Certainly we are creationist as Christians. Since we are creationist, we worship our creator, not just going through the motions, but in a loving relationship, because we obey the One who lovingly created us and faithfully sustains us even through suffering and death, by the promise of eternal life. Our acting is not just acting out, but genuinely giving God the glory in word and in deed. Our acting in word is:
Creationist, worshiping in word and in deed, giving God the Glory, spreading the word, walking in the Spirit, brings no condemnation from above, now and in the judgement. We have lots to rejoice about.
Revelation 19:7-8.
Reminder, we can win because Christ has won.
As a Christian scientist who believes in the creation story, I have a question. How do we explain the fact that today we have many races with different skin colors, facial features, etc., and geographically located. Can we explain how this happened, considering that after the flood the world's population was small, compared to what it is today?
Hi Melvin, you‘ve got a good question and I think you will find a good explanation on that subject by checking the link below.
God bless!
https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/media/e/1253/f/6/t/how-did-we-come-across-the-different-races-in-the-world-
First of all, I think we need to consider that neither Adam nor Noah looked like the Caucasian that western artists portray them to be.
When an African-American lady at a Southern Baptist church asked my husband many years ago why he was white and she was black, he said something like this: "Well, many years ago our ancestors moved in different directions - some farther away from the hot sun and some closer to it. So some, like me, got bleached out and others, like you, got a little more burnt, like toast." That's not very scientific, but I'll try to amend that below:
We need to consider that the potential for all the different appearances of the peoples in the world (e.g. skin color, hair color, eye color, shape of eyes, lips, etc.) were in the genetic code passed from Noah and his wife to his sons. At the Tower of Babel, people were divided into different language groups who migrated to different parts of the world. As these groups remained isolated from each other, the only genetic code available to them was that in the original group - not all of the genetic code passed down from Noah. This, plus other mutations, possibly related to climate, resulted in the different appearances we see today. When people marry those who look very different from themselves, the resulting children often exhibit traits from both parents and thus are probably closer to the original descendants from Noah. (I have a beautiful granddaughter like that.)
Genetic differentiation seems to happen quite rapidly in isolated, inter-marrying population groups, and the thousands of years from then to now provide ample time for such differentiation to result in the different human phenotypes we see today. (I know of one small area in Canada with a history of intermarriage that resulted in some dramatic differentiation, unfortunately including lower intelligence as well as different appearance.)
A couple of things to keep in mind:
* Mutations are rarely "beneficial," and when they are, they generally represent a loss of genetic material. For instance, bacteria become anti-biotic resistant when a mutation destroys the target site of the anti-biotic.
* Evolution, strictly speaking, is "change." Change happens all the time.
* Much of the time, when people speak of evolution, they mean what is taught in the current scientific paradigm that has life arising from non-life and getting more and more complex and better and better. It doesn't take a PhD to realize that, at its base, this theory is a non-sensical "just-so" story. Clothing it in scientific jargon doesn't make it real science.
* Just because a lot of people believe a "just-so" story doesn't make it factual.
* Real science is, at some level, the study of God's creation, and God is in favor of real science!!
I don't know whether I mentioned it recently, but there's some good material on the Creation Science section of our site. (It needs updating, but some things don't change. Please let us know of any dead links or errors you find.)
Gospel – Judgement – Creation – these are fundamental to our Christian faith. Why then are so many uncomfortable to speak about these pillars of our faith to others who do not share the belief that man is a created being? At this point in time of humanity’s religious history, everyone exploring the fields of science can attest that mankind has always searched for its God and that, in these last days, Christianity has provided comprehensive answers to not only who and what, but also why this is.
I find Col.1:13-17 to contain truth that needs to be deeply understood; one ought to meditate on this and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the fullness of this truth. These words relate fundamental truths about the Son of God coming to us in the flesh to become our Redeemer:
v.13 ”He[the Father] has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us 'into the kingdom of the Son of His Love'.”; v.15-17 - ”He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”
Only God can provide spiritual proof for this truth, should it be rejected by the mind, but we can decide to be the living proof of the glory of God as we, by His mercy, “having been conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of His Love,” live according to His will. Our actions will speak loudly when words fail to impress the spiritual truthfulness of this account.
Once fully believed, everything else will fall into place; we will always be prepared to give an answer – 1 Peter 3:15. As citizens of the kingdom of God here on earth, we are called upon to live the Gospel, the judgement, and the truthfulness of God’s creation account.
Thank you, Amina, for the link to an explanation of the different races that we see today. I noted that the speaker used the science of genetics and natural selection to give his explanation. This is also part of the science of evolution. I hope this short discourse provides some food for thought.
Food for thought? Maybe, Melvin, but Seventh-day Adventists have long distinguished between "micro-evolution" of the kind this speaker discussed, and the unscientific "macro-evolution" that postulates the development of new kinds and seeks to remove God from the picture.
Dear R.C. White, thank you for the information and for noting that not all aspects of evolution is godless information.