Text: Genesis 1:1
Introduction
The first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible is foundational to all of the rest of Scripture. It is foundational to this For Life Bible. It is foundational to your understanding of your dignity and worth in God’s eyes and why this book, the Bible, was written for you.
If God through his Son, Jesus Christ, (See John 1:3.) did not create “heaven and earth” in six days, then the rest of Scripture is based upon a myth and has nothing upon which to stand. If God did not create human life in his own image on the sixth day, then there is no ultimate source that gives intrinsic value and dignity to you or any other human being. If everything came into existence through evolution, then “death” is the operative word. The theory of evolution requires millions and millions of years of death to bring about life as we know it. If everything came into existence through God’s creative Word, then “life” is the operative word. God created everything to support and enhance human life. As Dr. David Menton writes, “Christians should be particularly careful how they treat Divine Creation because it is foundational to the whole Bible and Christianity” (The Lutheran Witness, vol. 117, no. 7, 1998). You are invited to read this article in order to grow in your understanding of the critical foundation Creation plays in God’s Word for Life.
Creation, Evolution, and Jesus
The Bible is first and foremost about Jesus. “Then [Jesus] began with Moses’ Teachings and the Prophets to explain to them what was said about him throughout the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Jesus was there in the beginning chapters of Genesis. “In the beginning the Word [Jesus] already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). The need for Jesus and the rest of the Bible is given in the beginning chapters of Genesis. “So she took some of the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6). “Since a man brought death, a man also brought life back from death. As everyone dies because of Adam, so also everyone will be made alive because of Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
Again quoting Dr. Menton: “Most important, there is an integral relationship between Creation and our salvation. The first three or so pages of the Bible reveal both man’s accountability to God through his Creation and man’s subsequent fall into sin and death through his disobedience. All the remaining pages … deal directly or indirectly with God’s solution to man’s sin-problem documented in the first three pages.”
Sin and death came into God’s perfect Creation through the first Adam. Prior to this there was no death. This creates a problem for Christians who try to hold to some form of evolution. Evolution requires millions and millions of years of death. There had to be death before there were people according to evolution. The evolutionist would say that death is a natural part of the evolutionary process rather than something unnatural that resulted from sin. Such thinking eliminates the need for a Savior from sin and death. No literal Adam who sinned in Eden means there would be no need for a second “Adam” born in Bethlehem. But Adam was real and his sin was real. The reality of Adam and his sin foreshadowed the reality of God becoming man but without sin. The reality of Adam’s death foreshadowed the reality of Jesus’ death on a cross but without staying dead. Jesus’ resurrection assures that all who believe in him will live even if they die (John 11:25). The beginning chapters of Genesis are necessary to understand the need for the rest of the Bible and for the One the rest of the Bible is about—Jesus.
Creation, Evolution, and Human Life
The theory of evolution does not offer anything that gives inherent dignity and value to human life. Consider some of evolution’s main teachings about human life. Evolution says life is the result of a chance combination of chemicals in some primordial slime pit. In other words, life came from non-living things. This contradicts the scientific principle of biogenesis that declares that life comes from life.
Evolutionists say that human life gradually evolved as the result of billions of years of random mutations of lower life forms. This hypothesis is held even though scientists know very well that mutations typically make things worse, not better. There is a scientific law called the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that, left to themselves, things decay and move toward disorder. (The two-week-old banana or the iron pot left in the rain are familiar examples.) The claims of evolution that things have become more orderly and complex directly contradicts this Second Law.
Evolution says one species evolved from another over billions of years. If this were so, you would think that the fossil record would reveal transitional forms, creatures that were half fish and half amphibian for example. But even evolutionists admit there is little evidence in the fossil record of transitional stages.
Creation, however, offers quite a contrast! Creation says you are just a little lower than God himself! (Psalm 8:5) Because God created human life in his image in the beginning, human life still has value even though sin has marred that image. (See Genesis 9:6, James 3:9.) God gave special value to human life in the way they were created. It was very “hands on.” God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). God made Eve from one of Adam’s ribs (Genesis 2:22).
God remains the hands-on creator of life. He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs (Psalm 139:13). If you have something your grandma made by hand, it has special value even if it is worn and torn. Value is given by the hands that made us, not by our stage of development or the condition of our health. The embryo in the Petri dish has as much value as the Olympian. Grandma with Alzheimer’s has as much value as the neurologist who studies her disease. It is who made you, not how well you work, that gives your life value!
Added value is given to human life because God sent his Son Jesus to redeem what his hands had made after sin entered the world. When Jesus died, he paid the price for the forgiveness of sins for all people for all time. “You were bought for a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20) applies to every human being whether they believe it or not! Every human life from the Petri dish to the nursing home bed is a life for whom Jesus died. For those who do believe in Jesus, there is the certain hope of everlasting life in perfect joy and peace.
Thus, creation says that human life comes from God and, in Christ, will return to God. You do know where you are from and where you are going! It follows that you can live your life knowing that you do have purpose and meaning! For God promises to be at work in the lives of those he has created and redeemed.
What a contrast! Evolution is about death and hopelessness. Creation is about life and hope!