Heroes of Faith (2): CREATION

 

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made from things which do appear. Hebrews 11:3

This verse about creation is somewhat strange in the gallery of the heroes of faith. All the other verses in this chapter speak of people; this verse does not mention any Old Testament saint, but speaks rather of God's work of creation. And, of all things, it says, in so many words, that a person can hold to the doctrine of creation only by faith. that brings up an interesting point.

Let me try the point with an incident out of my own life.

In the years I was studying in Calvin College as a pre-seminary student, I was required to take a two semester course in Physical-Chemistry taught by a professor named, John De Vries. He had to be among the top two or three professors in the college. At that time, there were five or six professors in the science department, and all, with one exception, were theistic evolutionists. They all believed in a very old earth and, because the college was "Christian" and even "Calvinistic," they all believed in God. But they taught that God used evolutionary processes in creation.

Dr. John De Vries, who had worked on the atomic bomb project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, defended an old creation by making the word "day" in Genesis 1 refer to a period of time as long as many millions of years. He began his course by saying something like this: "I know that there are many creationists in this class (there were probably forty or fifty students in all), but I guarantee you that by the end of the year you will all believe in the period theory." (At the end of the year, I and two or three others told him that we remained unconvinced. He hung his head, got a mournful look in his eyes, and sadly said, "My first failures!")

He had many arguments that he raised in support of his views, but one argument especially seemed to be effective in the class. It was an argument used widely and repeated innumerable times by those who defended this particular brand of evolutionism. The argument was intended to be a major concession to creationists, but an attempt to draw creationists to evolutionism by, what I considered to be, dishonest means.

We were told, and I heard the same thing repeated times innumerable over the years: "It makes no real difference whether you believe in six-day, twenty-four-hour-days, or not, for the whole question has  nothing to do with salvation nor with the gospel. It has to do only with creation. The gospel came after the fall. One can readily believe in and defend evolutionism and still have faith in Christ by which he is saved."

Early in my ministry I taught an Essentials of Reformed Doctrine class to about thirty catechumens. They were all in high school. Our own high school did not exist at the time, and so they all went to a Christian, but not Protestant Reformed, high school. They were taught evolutionism, particularly, the period theory, in the school they attended. They were a rather unusual class of catechumens for from them came many ministers, teachers, elders and deacons who served with distinction in our churches. And so they were not exactly inclined to make a minister's word for it when it came to doctrine. The class meetings were filled with debate, argument and questions. It usually took at least two classes of an hour each to cover a lesson, and when we got to the doctrine of creation, we must have been on that lesson for at least six weeks. They defended the period theory, which they had been taught. They argued, among many other arguments, that it didn't make any real difference what one believed, for the doctrine of creation was not part of the gospel. 

I gave the catechumens periodic tests and, quite obviously, I asked in the test what the Bible taught concerning the doctrine of creation. One, very intelligent and very articulate person, gave the right answer, but wrote also, "It really does not matter what one believes, for creation is not part of the gospel of Jesus Christ." I wrote in the margin, "It matters this much hat if you still hold this position when you make confession of faith, I will refuse to accept your confession." I think I had barely finished saying, Amen in the closing prayer and this person was in front at my side. "Do you really mean what you said in the margin of my test paper? You will refuse to accept my confession if I hold to the idea that what we believe concerning creation has nothing to do with our salvation?" I assured the person that she had understood me correctly and that what I wrote, I meant. The person turned away and the only word I heard was, "Wow!"

I bring all this up because it leads up to the crucial importance of this text. And this text is decisive for the truth of creation. The text tells us that by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. And as I said in an earlier article, faith always has Christ for its object! The one truth in all Scripture which is fundamental to all our faith is that Christ is the eternal and only-begotten Son of God who came into the world to save sinners. Everything else we believe is only a part of that one great truth concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. If it is by faith that we believe that the worlds were framed by the word of God, then creation also is part of the doctrine of Christ. I shall explain why this is so in the next article, God willing. 

I want to point out to you now, however, that there is good reason why the chapter, which is the roll-call of the heroes of faith, begins with a verse on creation, while all the other verses deal with people. Think of it: All the heroic deeds of God's people as acts of faith could be performed only because these people had faith in Christ, even though He was as yet, in the Old Testament, only promised. And so, by putting creation at the beginning of the list of saints who performed such mighty works of faith, Scripture is saying: "You have to believe in creation first of all, if you are to have the faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham.... They believed in creation as part of the gospel; and so they believed in Christ, the heart of the gospel. If you do not believe in six-day, twenty-four hour day creation, forget it; forget the whole chapter; forget what these saints did; forget your faith all together. It means nothing."

To believe in creation as Genesis 1 and 2 describes it and to believe in Genesis 1 and 2 as a literal description of the origin of the worlds is to believe in Christ. Does that sound strange to you? It shouldn't. It's the teaching of the whole Scripture. We shall see.

Perhaps you [in the Philippines] do not have the battle on your hands that we have here [in the USA]. Here it is altogether too common that people try to teach a "Biblical" evolutionism. Christian schools at e very level teach evolutionism. It is preached from the pulpits and taught in the classrooms. It is accepted without question and Christians who do not teach some form of evolutionism are considered old-fashioned, behind-the-times Christians, who cling to old and out-worn theories, who hate science, and who are so totally irrelevant to our 21st century that they cannot even witness to our modern generation.

Creation is a doctrine we must believe - as it is taught in the Scriptures. 

Prof. Herman Hanko

Signs of the Times (25)

 

In the last forum article, we finished our discussion of the sign of the great persecution that must come on the church before the Lord comes back. Immediately following the sign of persecution is the sign of false prophets. I will quote the passage. “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before.”

 

Jesus considers the sign of false prophets to be such an important sign that He mentions it no less than three times in His sermon. The first time is recorded in Matthew 24:4-5; the second time in verse 11; and the third time here in the verses I just quoted. If Jesus considered this sign important, we ought to prick up our ears and pay close attention.

 

There is a difference however, between the sign of false prophet in verses 23-25 and the other two places where false prophets are mentioned. In the other two verses the Lord refers to the fact that the world is always full of false prophets, and that they constitute a constant threat to the churches. They are those who today preach a prosperity gospel, in which they promise those who believe in them long life, riches, health and a life free from trouble. They are also leaders of Pentecostal churches who speak of special gifts of the Holy Spirit, which most believers do not have, and which raise the one possessing them to a higher level of holiness than the ordinary Christian.

 

But in this sign, the Lord is speaking directly of false prophets that arise in the times of the great tribulation and try to persuade the people of God that they are very foolish to suffer persecution, because the Lord is not coming back anyway. Peter warns against them as well in his second letter: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

 

I am going to take you on a sidetrack for a little while, because there are some things in this chapter of 2 Peter that are important. These things have to do with the terrible heresy of evolutionism. This deadly error is directly related to the signs of Christ’s coming particularly the sign of false prophets. Evolutionists, even when they are “theistic” evolutionists – if there really are such persons, for it is impossible to believe evolutionism and the true God at the same time -- are false prophets. If one truly believes in evolution, three fundamental doctrines of Scripture are denied.

 

One is, as we all know, the doctrine of creation.

 

The second is the doctrine of providence, especially that part of providence that teaches the truth that God continues to give every creature its existence by the word He speaks. God, Who gives existence to every creature, is sovereign over all, so that nothing happens without His direct act and control.

 

And third, evolutionism denies the second coming of Christ. This is the reason why evolutionists have adopted the social gospel that teaches that we must work hard to “Christianize” society and make this world a better place to live, because the kingdom of heaven comes to this earth and makes this earth Christ’s kingdom – through evolutionary processes.

 

Peter, under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, attacks evolutionism by attacking its most basic premise: “All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:2). That, while it is fundamental to all evolutionism, is, says Peter, false!

 

Evolutionists call this belief of theirs, “The Principle of Uniformitarianism.” The principle of uniformitarianism claims that scientists can know what the creation was like a million (or a billion) years ago by what it is like now. The creation is governed by laws of nature that have always and still do determine how things are now, how things were a millennium ago and how things were millions and billions of years in the past.

 

That principle, says Peter, is false. The fact is that things do not continue as they were from the creation of the world. God brought about tremendous changes in His creation. Peter refers to the most drastic change that God made in the creation at the time of the flood. He tells us, in so many words, what that change was: Before the flood, “the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water” (vs. 5). Now, after the flood, “the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (vs. 7).

 

What Peter means is that the creation before the flood was composed of water, its most basic ingredient. We find that hard to imagine, for the change that took place at the time of the flood was basic. But we can understand it a little when we read in Scripture that the waters above came crashing down on the earth and the fountains of the deep earth were opened so that water tore the earth to pieces. Further, the flood was a partial relaxation of the curse when God, at the time of the flood, tilted the earth on its axis 23 ½ degrees and thus created the seasons (Gen. 8:20-22).

 

It is not difficult for us to see how now the world is fundamentally fire. We are surrounded by fiery bodies in the skies that number in the billions; the creation itself is composed of atoms and sub-atomic particles, which are basically electrical charges and are really fire – as any short in an electric wire will show one; the terrible destruction of a bomb that uses the principle of splitting an atom or uniting a hydrogen atom is fire at its worst.

 

Of course, wicked men who love their anti-God evolutionary theories, deny the flood. When I was taking a physics course in college, a Christian physicist who worked on the atom bomb during World War 2, spent hours persuading us that there could not ever be such a thing as a chain reaction that would blow up the whole world. The time he spent trying to disprove it was a strong proof of its very real danger. Why cannot God destroy the world today by fire? (2 Pet. 3:10).

 

Peter says that the evolutionist is “willingly” ignorant of these truths. He doesn’t want them because he is addicted to his precious evolutionary theories that push God out of his own creation.

 

But He won’t be pushed out!

 

And so you see how evolutionism denies God’s promise that Christ will come again. The slogan of the evolutionists is: “Every day and in every way we are getting better and better.” What nonsense! Don’t they read the Newspapers? Or visit hospitals?

 

I read a book many years ago with the title, “The Omega Point.” It was written by a French paleontologist, who was also a Roman Catholic. For many years the RC Church put the book on the list of banned books. But later it was taken off. The author, Pierre, d’ Chardin, was a theistic evolutionist. In his development of the theory of evolution he claimed that as man improves through evolutionary processes he will continue to become a better and a higher creature until he reaches “the omega point,” which is to become God himself. One is reminded of the devil’s temptation of Eve: “Ye shall be as God. . . .”

 

And the flood is not all. When the curse came upon the creation with Adam’s fall, the curse brought death with its vast changes in the creation.

 

Evolutionism denies the coming of Christ!

 

Prof. H. Hanko