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This morning we are inerrantists, we believe this book is the Holy Word of God.

We are also cessationists because we believe God’s Word is complete and there is no more continuing revelation from God through Apostles or Prophets.

We are imputationists, we believe that God’s work alone saves us, not anything we can ever do will help.

And especially in this study we see we are creationists, we believe God made the Universe instantly, completely and recently.

“In the Beginning God ” 

God the Eternal, the Infinite and Sufficient One steps into the Universe that began at His command to exist. He states the origin, purpose and destiny of all the Cosmos and we humans who ever lived in 7 Hebrew words that translate into 10 English words.

“God created the Heavens”  

The spaces out there seem limitless, The sheer number of stars, galaxies and swirling energy seems beyond our comprehension, Yet He has named each star and they are obediently following their Creator. And the One who made the Heavens awaits meeting with you!

“God created the Earth” 

Have you looked around to see God’s signature all over this planet. From the depths of the oceans to the heights of our atmosphere, this planet wears the signature of God everywhere.

God made all of the Universe: 

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was in the beginning with God.3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Acts 14:15 and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them,” (NKJV)

Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;

Colossians 1:16-17 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him.17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Hebrews 1:10 And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.” (NKJV)

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.  (NKJV)

Revelation 14:7 and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.”

We believe God created the world instantly, completely and recently!

The atheistic formula for evolution is:

  • Evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods.

In the theistic evolutionary view, God is added:

  • Theistic evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods + God.

But, in the Bible we see instant, complete and recent Creation.

  • Biblical Creation is that before everything was God  plus nothing. And at the instant of Creation God created “all things have been created by Him and for Him” (Col. 1:17)

In the theistic evolutionary system, God is not the omnipotent Lord of all things, whose Word has to be taken seriously by all men, but He is integrated into the evolutionary philosophy. This leads to 10 dangers[1] for Christians.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of … a Misrepresentation of the Nature of God.

The Bible reveals God to us as our Father in Heaven, who is absolutely perfect

Matthew 5:48  Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Holy 

Isaiah 6:3  And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

And omnipotent

Jeremiah 32:17  “Ah Lord God! Behold, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth by Thy great power and by Thine outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for Thee,”  

The Apostle John tells us that “God is love”, “light”, and “life” 

1 John 4:16  And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

1 John 1:5 And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:1-2 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life—2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—

When this God creates something, His work is described as “very good” 

Genesis 1:31  And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

And “perfect” 

Deuteronomy 32:4  The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.

Theistic evolution gives a false representation of the nature of God because death and ghastliness are ascribed to the Creator as principles of creation. (Progressive creationism, likewise, allows for millions of years of death and horror before sin.)

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of our… God becomes a God of the Gaps.

The Bible states that God is the Prime Cause of all things.

1 Corinthians 8:6  yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

However, in theistic evolution the only workspace allotted to God is that part of nature which evolution cannot “explain” with the means presently at its disposal. In this way He is reduced to being a “God of the gaps” for those phenomena about which there are doubts. This leads to the view that “God is therefore not absolute, but He Himself has evolved[2] – He is evolution.”

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of… a Denial of Central Biblical Teachings.

The entire Bible bears witness that we are dealing with a source of truth authored by God 

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

With the Old Testament as the indispensable “ramp” leading to the New Testament, like an access road leads to a motor freeway

John 5:39 You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me;

The biblical creation account should not be regarded as a myth, a parable, or an allegory, but as a historical report, because:

  • Biological, astronomical and anthropological facts are given in didactic [teaching] form.
  • In the Ten Commandments God bases the six working days and one day of rest on the same time-span as that described in the creation account Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.” 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
  • In the New Testament Jesus referred to facts of the creation Matthew 19:4-5 And He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,5 and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh'”?
  • Nowhere in the Bible are there any indications that the creation account should be understood in any other way than as a factual report.

The doctrine of theistic evolution undermines this basic way of reading the Bible, as vouched for by Jesus, the prophets and the Apostles. Events reported in the Bible are reduced to mythical imagery, and an understanding of the message of the Bible as being true in word and meaning is lost.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of … a Loss of the Way for Finding God.

The Bible describes man as being completely ensnared by sin after Adam’s fall.

Romans 7:18-19  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.19 For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.

Only those persons who realize that they are sinful and lost will seek the Savior.

Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

However, evolution knows no sin in the biblical sense of missing one’s purpose (in relation to God). Sin is made meaningless, and that is exactly the opposite of what the Holy Spirit does – He declares sin to be sinful. If sin is seen as a harmless evolutionary factor, then one has lost the key for finding God, which is not resolved by adding “God” to the evolutionary scenario.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of … The Doctrine of God’s Incarnation being undermined

The incarnation of God through His Son Jesus Christ is one of the basic teachings of the Bible. The Bible states that:

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Philippians 2:5-7  Christ Jesus… being made in the likeness of men.

The idea of evolution undermines this foundation of our salvation. Evolutionist Hoimar von Ditfurth discusses the incompatibility of Jesus’ incarnation and evolutionary thought: “Consideration of evolution inevitably forces us to a critical review… of Christian formulations. This clearly holds for the central Christian concept of the ‘incarnation’ of God[3] … “.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of… The Biblical Basis of Jesus’ Work of Redemption being Mythologized

The Bible teaches that the first man’s fall into sin was a real event and that this was the direct cause of sin in the world:

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Theistic evolution does not acknowledge Adam as the first man, nor that he was created directly from God.

Genesis 2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.

Most theistic evolutionists regard the creation account as being merely a mythical tale, albeit with some spiritual significance. However, the sinner Adam and the Savior Jesus are linked together in the Bible –

Romans 5:16-18 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

Thus any the logical view which mythologizes Adam undermines the biblical basis of Jesus’ work of redemption.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of… a Loss of Biblical Chronology

The Bible provides us with a time-scale for history and this underlies a proper understanding of the Bible. This time-scale includes:

  • The time-scale cannot be extended indefinitely into the past, nor into the future. There is a well-defined beginning in Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” as well as a moment when physical time will end as Matthew 24:14 says And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.
  • The total duration of creation was six days Exodus 20:11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
  • The age of the universe may be estimated in terms of the genealogies recorded in the Bible (but note that it can not be calculated exactly). It is of the order of several thousand years, not billions.
  • Galatians 4:4 says But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law points out the most outstanding event in the world’s history: But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son. This happened nearly 2,000 years ago.
  • The return of Christ in power and glory is the greatest expected future event.

Supporters of theistic evolution (and progressive creation) disregard the biblically given measures of time in favour of evolutionist time-scales involving billions of years both past and future (for which there are no convincing physical grounds). This can lead to two errors:

  • Not all statements of the Bible are to be taken seriously.
  • Vigilance concerning the second coming of Jesus may be lost.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of … a Loss of Creation Concepts

Certain essential creation concepts are taught in the Bible. These include:

  • God created matter without using any available material.
  • God created the earth first, and on the fourth day He added the moon, the solar system, our local galaxy, and all other star systems. This sequence conflicts with all ideas of “cosmic evolution”, such as the “big bang” cosmology.

Theistic evolution ignores all such biblical creation principles and replaces them with evolutionary notions, thereby contradicting and opposing God’s omnipotent acts of creation.

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of… a Misrepresentation of Reality.

The Bible carries the seal of truth, and all its pronouncements are authoritative – whether they deal with questions of faith and salvation, daily living, or matters of scientific importance.

Evolutionists brush all this aside, e.g. Richard Dawkins says, “Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement[4] of ants.”

If evolution is false, then numerous sciences have embraced false testimony. Whenever these sciences conform with evolutionary views, they misrepresent reality. How much more then a theology which departs from what the Bible says and embraces evolution!

Without an instantaneous, complete and recent creation we are in danger of… Missing the Purpose we are even here today!

In no other historical book do we find so many and such valuable statements of purpose for man as in the Bible. For example:

  1. Man is God’s purpose in creation – Genesis 1:27-28 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
  2. Man is the purpose of God’s plan of redemption – Isaiah 53:5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
  3. Man is the purpose of the mission of God’s Son – 1 John 4:9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
  4. We are the purpose of God’s inheritance – Titus 3:7  that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
  5. Heaven is our destination – 1 Peter 1:4to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

However, the very thought of purposefulness is anathema to evolutionists. “Evolutionary adaptations never follow a purposeful program[5], they thus can not be regarded as teleonomical.”5 Thus a belief system such as theistic evolution that marries purposefulness with non-purposefulness is a contradiction in terms.

CONCLUSION

The doctrines of creation and evolution are so strongly divergent that reconciliation is totally impossible. The theistic evolutionists attempt to integrate the two doctrines; however such syncretism reduces the message of the Bible to insignificance. The conclusion is inevitable: There is no support for theistic evolution in the Bible.

God made all of the Universe: 

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was in the beginning with God.3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Acts 14:15 and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them,” (NKJV)

Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;

Colossians 1:16-17 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him.17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Hebrews 1:10 And: You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. (NKJV)

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.  (NKJV)

Revelation 14:7 and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.”

We believe God created the world instantly, completely and recently!

[1] This article has been adapted from chapter 8, “The Consequences of Theistic Evolution”, from Dr. Werner Gitt’s book, Did God use Evolution?, Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung e.V., Postfach 11 01 35 . 33661, Bielefeld, Germany. PROFESSOR WERNER GITT received his doctorate summa cum laude, together with the prestigious Borchers Medal, from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany, in 1970. He is now Director and Professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt). He has written numerous scientific papers in the field of information science, numerical mathematics, and control engineering, as well as several popular books, some of which have been translated into Bulgarian, Czech, English, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish and Russian. Werner Gitt, Creation Magazine, Sep-Nov 1995, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 49-51.

[2] E. Jantsch, Die Selbstorganisation des Universums, Munchen, 1979, p. 412

[3] Hoimar von Ditfurth, Wir sind nicht nur von dieser Welt, Munchen, 1984, pp. 21-22.

[4] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Books, London, 1986, p. 316.

[5] H. Penzlin, Das Teleologie-Problem in der Biologie, Biologische Rundschau, 25 (1987), S.7-26, p. 19

Slides


Check Out All The Sermons In The Series

You can find all the sermons and short clips from this series, Genesis here.

You can find all the sermons and short clips from this series, Paradise Lost – From Creation To The Fall here.

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Dr. Barnett has curated an Amazon page with a large collection of resources he uses in his study of God’s Word. You can check it out here.