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by Steve Risner

[This blog post is part of a series. The previous post is here, and the next post is here.]

Last week, I concluded with Romans 8:19-22, which quite clearly tells us all of creation was cursed because of Adam's sin and the creation was unwillingly involved. But Tyler Francke claimed that creationists use passages like 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 to argue that animal death was the result of man's sin. Last week I touched on why that is simply not the way I view that passage at all. This week, we'll conclude the answer to this “question no young-earth creationist can answer.” I'm gonna jump right in where I left off, so check out last week’s post if you haven’t yet.

So Tyler goes on to expose his lack of understanding by saying, “To argue otherwise is not only to nullify this passage and many others, but also to call into question whether Christ’s sacrifice really addressed the full ramifications and consequences of our sin.” No. It does none of this. In fact, the “full ramifications and consequences of our sin” are brought out in Romans 8:19-22. All of creation was subjected to the curse! All of it, from the furthest rock floating in space to our precious little FiFi to our children and ourselves. It's all been “corrupted” and subject to decay. The end result of decay for a living thing is death. We return to the dust of the ground. But since we, as image bearers of God, have an eternal part to our being, we ascend into the presence of God (if we have Him in our hearts). Doesn't Revelation 21:4 sort of tell us what it was like in the Garden and what it will one day be like in heaven? “Death shall be no more” sounds pretty awesome to me! It seems like death is part of the theistic evolutionists paradise. No, thanks. What heaven will be like is summed up in Revelation 22:3 when John writes that no longer will anything be accursed! Praise God!

Is death the result of the Fall? God said after He created everything that it was “very good.” So let's ask this question along with Answers in Genesis: “What kind of a 'god' would deliberately use a process of death, disease, famine, and struggle to make the world, and then declare it to be very good?” That's thought provoking. It's dismissed by evolutionists, of course, but that doesn't make the question go away. Tyler says, “The whole notion of animal death being a 'not-good' amendment to God’s perfect original creation is ridiculous on its face.” So Tyler does not believe death is bad? Tyler is “very good” with animals (and possibly human beings) suffering, being afflicted with disease and/or dying as part of God’s perfect creation? Placing natural evil in Genesis 1 affects our ethical system and our view of God’s character. I realize that death is actually one of the major focuses of evolution—theistic or otherwise—but Christianity is about life. Carl Sagan tells us that “The secrets of evolution are time and death.” Sounds really terrific, right? Death is a functional part of the humanistic philosophy embedded in Darwinian evolution. The God of the Bible and Darwinism are not compatible at all. David Hull comments:

“Whatever the god implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history may be like, He is not the Protestant God of waste not, want not. He is also not a loving God who cares about His productions … The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent and almost diabolical.”

Jesus came to destroy death—a result of the curse—and restore our standing with our Creator. 1 Corinthians 15:26 tells us specifically that death will be the last enemy destroyed. How does it stand to reason that death, our enemy, is part of the perfect creation of God? What's death got to do with sin? Read Leviticus and see how Jesus is the culmination of that sacrificial system God instituted. Something must die because of sin. The code in Leviticus told the Hebrews how to go about covering their sins. It was something that needed done repeatedly. Animals are not humans. That's why Jesus came and died for us and that death perfectly atones for our sin. He was one of us. Another reason animals can't be saved—Jesus was not an animal. He was, like all humans, in God's image.

And if we cannot know these things—that God created the world in six days without death and suffering and it was only corrupted by man's sin which passed his dominion on to the deceiver—things which are spelled out very clearly in the Bible, then we cannot know anything from the Bible. If that message is too muddy or to disconnected from our 21st century “enlightened” society, then the Bible as a whole is without any merit to us and cannot be trusted to give us anything useful. Theistic evolutionists want it both ways, for sure. They want us to believe that clear teachings of Scripture that have been solid doctrine for centuries—even millennia—are just simply not interpreted correctly when the language is clear and the writing style is in line with an historical account. And on the other hand they want us to believe other foundational doctrines of Christianity clearly spelled out in Scripture are correct and reliable. You, Tyler, cannot have it both ways. To rewrite some of the Word of God is to disregard all of it. Otherwise, it's your opinion against another as to what is truth and what is not. We're not talking about the disagreement between Christian brothers and sisters about whether or not women should only wear dresses or if Christians can drink fermented beverages. This isn't about if we are supposed to fully immerse a believer when they're baptized or sprinkle water on them. It's not about what words are “vulgar” and what words are okay to say. This issue is on the foundation of the entire Word of God and the very reason that the story of Redemption had to played out—why Jesus left heaven, lived here as a man a perfect, sinless life, was killed for our sin and rose again three days later. Why did that have to happen? Because of Genesis 1-3. If death is not the result of sin, then death is part of God's perfect world and that contradicts a great deal of teaching on eternity with Christ.

To wrap up, Tyler then says, unbelievably, “Please, let’s jettison this silly dogma once and for all, and have a purer — and more biblically accurate — faith to present to the world.” I would love for Tyler to drop this childish idea that Darwinian evolution and the Bible are compatible. I would be so excited to find he’s decided the Bible is true and the source of Truth, rather than disfiguring it with atheistic humanism at its very foundation. Only in today’s world where everything is upside down could someone abandon the truth of the Bible while claiming they only wish to uphold it as the Word of God. He wants to be “biblically accurate” but wants to rewrite a good portion of it to fit his preconceived notions. As we discussed within the last few weeks, this is like the atheist who says he believes in God. He's claiming to desire a more Biblically accurate theology while in the same breath is scrapping a very critical piece of foundational Christian doctrine. Silly, indeed.

The magnitude of Biblical illiteracy by this man and, in general, theistic evolutionists is really an amazing thing. They claim to adore it, to honor it, to accurately represent it. But in reality they know little about it and misrepresent it at every turn. Knowledge of the Bible is critical for any Christian. Study it, folks. It's a light in a dark place and it's a weapon against the assaults of the enemy.

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