I ran across a post from theistic evolutionist Paul Wallace that asks readers to tell him how Christ might answer the question, “Hey Jesus, Creation or evolution?” Paul doesn’t give his opinion directly, of course, but the way he frames the list of possible answers makes it pretty clear which way he might lean.
In any case, option #1 was “Creation. Moses said it. I believe it. That settles it,” a jab at a well-known bumper sticker sentiment.
I like the way one reader responded:
“Personally, I would lean closer to number one, except Jesus would not put it quite that way. When he was questioned about divorce, he said, “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female . . .?” Matthew 19:4 (NIV). By most accounts, Moses was the one who wrote down those words in Genesis. With great frequency, Jesus quoted from Old Testament passages as being authoritative and from God. So, he would say, “As God prompted Moses to say, so it was.” Sorry, but Jesus was a creationist. Some other support for evolution will have to be found besides the Creator himself. John 1:3.” [emphasis mine]
Brilliant as his response was, he immediately had to deal with two dissenting voice. The first accused Jesus of prescientific ignorance:
“Jesus was a product of the scholarship of that time. You can’t expect any ultimate answer from him.”
This is, of course, a denial of His deity, His omniscience and His infallibility. The second detractor accused our heroic commenter of putting modern notions into ancient minds:
“Interesting. I’m facinated that [you are] so sure that it is possible to know the mind on another person especially a person who lived 2000 years ago in a culture radically different from our own. It seems to me that to hold such a certainty of knowing what another thinks is to really say, “I know what reality is, and if you disagree with me, then it’s obvious you don’t see reality clearly.”"
So again, it’s an accusation that Jesus was the non-omniscient product of pre-scientific ignorance with the added punch of saying that the true meaning of Jesus’ words are unknowable due to the passage of time [yet this detractor supposes he knows that Jesus could not have meant that Jesus affirm creation!]. If the past is unknowable due to the passage of time, we ought to fire every paleontologist, historian and archaeologist on the planet for leading us on so!
I’ll let our plucky creationist defender have the last word, since he answered so eloquently:
“I never suggested that I knew somebody’s mind, then or now. I am simply relying on recorded accounts of what he SAID, and drawing the only logical deduction one could reach from such language. Obviously if someone says he is the Creator of all, then he is not going so say, “However, I believe in evolution.”“
Brilliantly put! As Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 2:13, He cannot deny Himself.
Think about it,
Rev Tony Breeden
Founder, DefGen.org
And you highlight one of the crucial issues in this discussion: the person and nature of Jesus. Once we decide that the Genesis creation account is ahistorical, or mythical, we then have to contend with the fact that Jesus is not who the Gospels say that he is.
We lose our Savior and we lose our Bible.
That’s a very high price to pay to compromise with the ever changing philosophy of evolutionary science.
Christ has affirmed God’s account of a literal 6-day Creation as it is written in Genesis 1 by dying on the Cross for us. why did He die? because of our sin, which God says caused death to begin with.
the evolution of animals into man requires bloodshed and death to be successful but God says there was no death before Adam [Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22]. death is the penalty of Adam’s sin against God [Genesis 3:19]. to say that death existed before Adam is to say that death is not the consequence of Adam’s sin. believing in death before Adam removes our responsibility for our sin, calls God a liar and renders Him useless because Christ’s sacrifice becomes vain.
Christian who believes the evolution theory – please THINK!
To Rev Tony Breeden:
Are you some sort of hypocrite? You are hurting the cause of Christ by refusing to embrace the truth of Genesis. The ONLY correct rendition of Genesis is the “Observations of Moses”. Everything else is a lie.
Herman Cummings
ephraim7@aol.com
Herman,
Your “Observations of Moses” are nothing more than drivel. You’re spreading false doctrine. Repent while God still allows it.
-Rev Tony Breeden
Now, you are being a liar. You don’t even know what the “Observations of Moses” teaches. You just want to promote youor own failed doctrine. Even the Sanedrin in Israel was stunned by it.
Ok. For the sake of others, let me give you the benefit of non-existing doubt. What is the premise of the “Observations of Moses”?
Herman
Harold Cummings,
To sum up the Observations of Moses, it’s the misguided [and not altogether orginial] notion that, in your words:
It’s bunk because it still doesn’t jive with the BIBLICAL truth that death [a requirement of any extinction] came by sin, Adam’s sin, and then was passed onto creation, so that it groans and travails now for it’s promised rebirth.
So when I say that I know what you teach and that it is false doctrine, I am not speaking out of ignorance. Having said that, go find some other site to promote your false doctrine on.
-Rev Tony Breeden