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I have to admit that this particular post is written out of a sense of guilt. Back when I started writing these blog posts on creationism, certain individuals in a very polite and gracious spirit asked if I believed that only young earth creationists were able to be saved. Unfortunately, by the time they posited the question, I was already well underway with doing research for writing my next blog posts and overlooked their posts. By the time I noticed that anybody had replied to those particular blog posts, it was already too late for the interested parties to want to back-track to previous blog posts to find the answer to their question and even if I would have replied they would not have noticed. Therefore, I start this post off with an apology to those who I did not respond to in a timely manner.

Now, moving onward, my simple answer to that question is that I believe that you could be a young earth creationist, old earth creationist, intelligent design advocate, or whatever other theistic model a person might adopt and still be saved as long as you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Don’t take this the wrong way, but Romans 14:1 states, “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” The age of the earth, in a sense, is a disputable matter. If a person were to read through the entire Bible from beginning to end, he or she might not realize that the age of the earth can be deduced from a simple reading.

Some people might make the claim that arguing for YEC, OEC, or intelligent design is useless and destructive for the advancement of the Gospel. Scriptures that might support such a stance would be 1 Timothy 1:4 or Titus 3:9, “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” YEC is specifically established through the use of the genealogies of the Old Testament. Should we avoid discussion and debate over such issues? Scripture also provides enough information that one could make an argument that these passages should not be applied to the age of the earth controversy.

To start off, let’s answer the question of what the significance of the genealogies are in this context. Genealogies were written to validate one’s bloodline. For instance, Jesus descended from the tribe of Judah (Mt. 1:3) and Paul descended from the tribe of Benjamin (Phil. 3:5). In Paul’s case, he explained his genealogy as a badge of pride among some Jews because his ancestor Benjamin was one of Jacob’s (also known as Israel) two favorite children. The ancient Jews would dispute their bloodlines, endlessly tracing them for the sake of authenticating their pure-blooded descent through a specific patriarch. This is not in relation to the age of the earth.

The next important point to understand is that YEC is a disputable matter, but it isn’t. Just because a person would not read the Bible through the first time and understand that the earth is young, the ancient readers would have understood from the Scriptures that they were not very far removed from the first created man and woman. This would have been very clear from a straightforward understanding of Scripture. 1 Timothy 1:3 states “command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer.” In this sense, a doctrine regarding an old earth could be considered false.

The idea that the world is billions of years old did not come about through godly men and women, but through secular humanists. This is not to say that the idea of an old earth must be incorrect for that sake, but those who created the old earth model did so as an action against the Word of God. Colossians 2:8 says, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” If the old earth model was devised to oppose the words of Scripture and an alternative model exists that fully embraces the Scriptures, why should a person adopt the model that has a foundation in secular humanism?

So that I am not misunderstood, yes, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and also embrace OEC and ID are genuine born again Christians who will inherit eternal life. Nonetheless, they embrace a philosophy that was created by humans and directly opposes the Word of God from its most straightforward reading. Although such a contradiction might not affect your faith, it may affect the faith of others as they continue to understand the contradictions between the Bible and the teachings of secular science. If you expect your friends to stand firm in their faith after accepting the old earth model, you must be in prayer for them every day because they already accepted secular science as their authority over the Bible through the old earth model.

Bill Seng is the author of the soon to be released book: “The World That Then Was”

You can also get Worldview Warriors President, Jason DeZurik’s new book as well as he also addresses some of the points brought up in this blog entry in: “How Being Consistent Changed Everything.”