Creation and Birth

An important point which I have only lightly touched on, or hinted at, in previous posts, is the difference between creation and birth. C.S. Lewis dealt with this subject in book four, chapter one of his book Mere Christianity. The title of that chapter is Making and Begetting. Adam and Eve were created; they were made. They were never born. They were not begotten. 

And it is more than interesting to note that all humanity was created in Adam and Eve. Led by the Holy Spirit, the author of the book of Hebrews explained that in some sense, whether genetically, spiritually, or both; Levi was present in his ancestor, Abraham, when he gave a tithe offering to Melchizedek, the mysterious high priest of the Most High God (Hebrews 7:1-5, Genesis 14:18-20). 

My point in bringing this up is that if Levi was present in his ancestor, Abraham, when he gave a tithe to Melchizedek, then every human being who ever has or ever will exist, was in the same sense present in Adam and Eve when they were in the Garden of Eden - and when they sinned. We who are physically living today were actually created in our ancestors, Adam and Eve, in the beginning - six thousand years ago. We were created by, and in the image of our holy God who is love (Genesis 1:26-27, 1 John 4:8). And in that sense, God is our Father. But we were not born, or begotten, in the image of God. 

In fact, since Adam and Eve were never actually born, but were created as mature, grown adults, there is a sense in which no human has been born until they are born of the Spirit; as Jesus said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he can not see the kingdom of God...unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he can not enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:3-6). 

We were created in God's image from the beginning. But we were born by descent from Adam and Eve. We were born after sin entered the world by our first ancestors. That is why we are all born with a hereditary fallen, sinful nature; characterized by enmity against God. The only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, is begotten from eternity past. He has always been with the Father (John 1:1-5). And He came into the world, taking on human form, so that everyone who trusts in Him and welcomes Him may not only be forgiven of sin, but be born of God (John 1:10-14).

Sin and the Remedy

Biblically, the word sin refers to a couple of things that are related to each other. For one thing, it refers to any specific act or attitude of disobedience against God. His commands are revealed to us in the Scriptures. Therefore, any specific act of disobedience against His revelation, in Scripture, is a sin. This includes idolatry, irreverence, theft, murder, adultery, lying, and envy (Exodus 20:1-17). And it also includes homosexuality, because contrary to what some falsely claim; the truth is that both the Old and New Testament, and Jesus Christ Himself, address the issue (Leviticus 18:22, Mark 10:6-8, Romans 1:24-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). 

So, all specific acts/attitudes of disobedience against God are sins. The Greek word that is translated "sin" in the New Testament literally means "to miss the mark". In other words, it is a failure to meet God's standard of what is good. As the Scripture says; "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). No one can be good without God, because God Himself is the Absolute Decider of what is good. He sets and upholds the absolute standard. We can either obey, or disobey. It is evil to reject God's standard and substitute one's own. The problem is, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". None of us meets God's standard of goodness. 

And so this is another thing to which the word "sin" refers. It refers to the human condition. It refers to the fallen nature of the human race. When sin entered the world through one man, and death came by sin, (Romans 5:12) it affected the whole nature of the human being. As a result, we are all born with a sinful nature, inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Since that day in the Garden of Eden, humanity has been in a spiritual state of rebellion against God. Thus, every specific act of disobedience against God is symptomatic of the spiritual condition of the inward soul. This condition, this fallen nature, is referred to in Scripture as sin. Sin runs deeper than actions. Sin is a spiritual disease.

So all such things as faithlessness, kleptomania, malice, lust, gender confusion, every kind of sexual deviance, greed, inordinate anger, the state of being a sociopath or a compulsive liar; all tendencies and inclinations to disobey God, are sin (Matthew 5:21-30). The Bible says that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). Jesus Christ came into the world and died in our place, for our sin. He didn't just die for specific acts of disobedience which we have committed. He died for our sinful condition.

Those who place their trust in Him are saved by His grace. And having been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we receive His Holy Spirit who works in us to reform our inward nature. This is a life long process. An individual may have a particular type of sin that is a point of weakness for them. The individual may struggle with that point of weakness throughout their life in this world. But each believer, when he or she stands before God at the end of his or her life in this physical world, will be perfected in accordance with His holiness through Christ (see Romans 5:1-2, Philippians 1:6, and 1 John 3:2). So, as we think of sin as a spiritual sickness, Jesus came with the remedy; the cure. This is why Christians like myself sometimes refer to Him as the Great Physician.

A Natural Mystic

"Many more will have to die

Many more will have to cry - Don't ask me why

I say things are not the way they used to be - Don't tell no lie

One and all have got to face reality now

Though I try to find the answer

To all the questions that they ask" Bob Marley; Natural Mystic

Disclaimer

I have thought twice about whether or not I should write a post based on a Bob Marley song, since this is a blog about Christian theology. I'm not a Rastafarian, as Bob Marley was. Rastafari is a false-gospel (Galatians 1:8-9). 

Not that I would exalt myself over anyone. I know that I am a sinner and that I am only saved by God's grace.

But Haile Selassie was not a reincarnation of Jesus the Messiah, or God the Father, as Rastafarians believe he was. In fact he personally denied being the reincarnation of Jesus the Messiah, or God the Father. 

Jesus Himself warned that false-prophets and false-messiahs would come, and that we must not believe in them (Matthew 24:4-5, 23-25).

However, even the apostle Paul sometimes quoted pagan poets and philosophers to make a point (see Acts 17:28, 1st Corinthians 15:33). And many of Bob Marley's lyrics are based on the Scriptures. So I enjoy his music while being careful to discern biblical truth from unbiblical falsehood.

I like reggae music and I have a lot of Bob Marley's material in my collection. And I also enjoy listening to Christafari and other artists who play reggae music with a strong emphasis on biblical, non-Rastafarian theology.

Body

Recently, Natural Mystic came up on my mp3 player as I had it on shuffle. In the song, Bob Marley describes the brokenness and injustice of this world in contrast to "the way [things] used to be". We do live in a world of suffering, and death, and violence. We live in a world that is broken by the curse of sin.

According to the evolutionary worldview, however, things are precisely the way they have always been. According to the evolutionary doctrine of uniformity, the world has always been undergoing the same processes at the same rates as it is at present. 

According to evolutionary philosophy, there never was a perfect world in the beginning; from which humanity has fallen away, and to which Christ has come to restore us. For as long as life has existed, there has always been suffering, disease, and brokenness - for as long as the universe has existed - from the very beginning. 

If the sedimentary rock layers of the geological column were laid down slowly over billions of years of evolutionary history, than the fossil record is indeed a record of suffering, disease, and death from the very beginning; with no such cause as the curse of sin. There are fossil evidence of animals having cancer and other terrible ailments; as well as ferocious predatory carnivorousness.

"Though I try to find the answer to all the questions that they ask"

The theistic evolutionist is at a remarkable disadvantage when it comes to answering the question of why there is suffering, disease, and death in the first place. If theistic evolution were true, than God created the world broken and cursed from the very beginning, because He likes it that way - BROKEN!

In his book, Contact, Carl Sagans attributed his rejection of God to this: that in his view, if God exists He created a broken world. Richard Dawkins has also attributed his atheistic beliefs to his "understanding of evolution".

But Sagans was wrong. And Dawkins is wrong. God's word is Truth (John 17:17). And Bob Marley was at least right about this one thing: 

"Things are not the way they used to be - Don't tell no lie

One and all have got to face reality now"

In truth, God created a perfect world in the beginning. He did not create a sin-cursed, rebellious, violent, sorrow-pierced, broken world. 

The world became the way it is because of the decision made by Adam and Eve, using their free-will to disobey God. The gospel is predicated on this.

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...For if by one man's offence many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:12, 15).  

This does not mean that every time something bad happens to an individual, that that particular person is being punished for a specific sin. But what it does mean is that the reason suffering, disease, and death even exist in the first place is because of sin. 

And as unpleasant as we may find it, we are all inheritors by birth, of a fallen human nature. As the Scriptures attest:

"Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5).

As for the geological column, which is mentioned above: These sedimentary layers were laid down swiftly during the Flood, burying the creatures that have since become fossilized. They are a record of God's judgment on sin. 

All the great fountains of the deep were broken up (Genesis 7:11), and the rain fell for forty days. And the water covered the earth for a year. Most of the world's current mountains are made of sedimentary rock layers which were laid down by the Flood; and have been pushed up and bent by tectonic activity, which was first caused by the breaking up of all the great fountains of the deep.

Check out the linked sites below to read material written by trained scientists who affirm biblical creation.
www.answersingenesis.org
www.icr.org