The first false creation narrative that we will discuss is the “young earth creationist” narrative. This particular narrative is embraced by a number of evangelicals that believe that the creation account in Genesis can only be interpreted as occurring over 6 twenty four hour cycles, 6 thousand years ago. They are typically referred to as “young earth creationists”. As I have already dealt with the timeframe misconception of creation earlier in this series, I will not revisit that argument here. But there are a couple of other arguments that “young earth creationists” put forward to support their claim, which I will now address. Before I address these arguments however I do want to make the following observation, i.e. by far the majority of those who hold a young earth creation viewpoint are born-again believers. And so, even though their theology is erroneous in this area, their theology about salvation is sound.
Death before the fall
1 Corinthians 15:21-22 “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. (22) For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”
The first argument I will address, is the one that states that there was no death in the earth before the fall of Adam. We saw in a previous scripture that God tells us that He is the one that kills animals, i.e. “You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust” (Psalm 104:29). And so, one of the erroneous “biblical” arguments against the fossil record, which show us that animals lived and died for millions of years before Adam was created, is that the bible teaches that there was no death in the earth before the “fall” of Adam. The logic of that argument is that God was forced to kill His creatures after Adam had allowed sin and death into the world. People that teach this error however, do not rightly divide the word of truth regarding the subject of death. Firstly, they do not differentiate between physical death and spiritual death and treat both as being the same thing. Nevertheless, the scriptures teach us that there are two types of death. The first is spiritual death which can only enter through sin, because it is reliant on men committing sin before they can incur that death (Romans 5:12). Therefore spiritual death only affects men and has no impact on animals, for animals are not spirit and animals cannot sin. The second death is physical death, and as revealed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture, the reason men partake of this death is because they are in Adam. In context, the apostle Paul is teaching on the subject of physical death and physical resurrection from the dead. And so, the reason that all men die (physically) in Adam, is because their bodies are descended from Adam and they have inherited his blood which is contaminated with both sin and death, which is why scripture teaches us that our bodies are dead because of sin (Romans 8:10). Animals however, are not in Adam, i.e. their bodies are not descended from Adam and they do not have his blood flowing through their veins as men do. And so the death they experience has nothing to do with Adam’s sin, but rather everything to do with the fact that God created them both to live and also to die. Unlike the animals however, God did not create men to both live and also to die, nevertheless men (and only men) incurred both spiritual and physical death through the fall of Adam, and not the rest of God’s creation.
Romans 8:19-21 “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. (20) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; (21) because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
One of the scriptures that are used to propagate the viewpoint that there was no physical death in the earth before Adam sinned, is the one quoted above. The argument is that this passage is referring to Adam, as the one who subjected the creation of God to the bondage of death and destruction, when he allowed sin and death to come into the world. But this passage tells us that creation was unwillingly subjected to the bondage of corruption, “in hope”. So what is creation’s “hope” in this passage? It is the revealing of the sons of God, so that creation can finally be liberated from the bondage of death and destruction, and be brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And so, we see that it was God, not Adam that subjected His creation in the hope of ultimately being set free through the revealing of the sons of God. The question is then asked, when did God subject His creation to the bondage of physical death? Was it when Adam sinned or before that time? The answer is before, i.e. from the beginning of creation itself. For as we have already seen, God created death long before Adam was created (Job 38:17), and it will only be at the end of the age that death will be destroyed as the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). And it is only at that time, that for the first time in God’s creation, that the carnivores in God’s creation will become herbivores, i.e. “And the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Isaiah 11:7). That has never happened before.
2 Peter 2:12 “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption.”
The scripture tells us that when God removed Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and sent them out into the earth, that He made them tunics of skin to wear (Genesis 3:21). Clearly the tunics were made from animal skins that God had killed. So was God forced to kill His own creation because of Adam’s sin? Not at all, for death was already a part of God’s creation in the earth, including among the animals. Through the act of providing them tunics of skin, God revealed to Adam how he was to live in the earth’s environment that was not at all like the Garden of Eden, i.e. that it was acceptable for Adam to kill, for food and clothing, the animals that God had created. In the above quoted passage of scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter confirms to us the very clear truth that God created the animals for the express purpose of being destroyed, and we know that God created the animals before He created Adam. And so, very clearly the scripture teaches us that death among animals was never incurred as a result of the fall of Adam, but that rather it was as a result of God’s divine plan of creation all along.
John 12:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
We know from the text of the creation account in Genesis, that God created all plant life with its seed in it, and God uses that seed to multiply the species in the earth. But look at what the Lord Jesus teaches us about the seed that God places into His creation. In the above passage, Jesus teaches us that when the seed is sown into the soil of the earth that the seed “dies”. And so, God causes the seed to die so that He can multiply that species in the earth. Clearly from the outset, God had decreed that death would play a key role in the process of the spreading of plant life in the earth. And so, death was occurring in the plant life of the earth long before Adam was ever created, let alone his fall. The apostle Paul taught the same concept about how God created seed to die in order for it to produce the life God intended (1 Corinthians 15:36).
Thorns before the fall
Genesis 3:17-18 “Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. (18) Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.”
Some would also argue that before Adam’s fall, that there were no “thorns and thistles” in the earth, and that God only created them after the fall. They put forth that argument, because God said to Adam that “thorns and thistles” were part of the curse, as revealed in the above quoted passage of scripture. But we know that God completed all of His physical creation at the end of day six, and that He then rested on day seven, and God’s rest is still ongoing to this day (Hebrews 4:10). And so it would be untrue to say that God created thorns and thistles, etc, after the seventh day. So if God didn’t create the thorns and thistles after the fall, where were they at the time Adam sinned? The answer is that they were already in the earth, but they were not in the Garden of Eden, for the scripture teaches us that God planted the Garden of Eden in the earth, only after He had already created all living things on the earth. In other words, God made the Garden of Eden a perfect environment for Adam and Eve to live in, which is why the scripture specifically tells us that God planted in Eden, every tree that was good for food and pleasant to the sight (Genesis 2:8-9). And so, it was only after Adam’s fall, when God removed him from the perfect Eden environment, that Adam for the first time was exposed to the thorns and thistles that were already in the earth. So does that mean that the earth was already cursed even before Adam sinned? Most bible translations would lead us to believe that God cursed the earth because of what Adam did, for most translations record the passage of scripture in Genesis 3:17 as God telling Adam, “cursed is the ground for your sake”, thus implying that God cursed the ground because of Adam’s sin. But the phrase “for your sake” in this passage, is misleading because it is not in the original text. A more accurate translation of what God said in this passage is, “cursed is the ground in thy labours” (Brenton Septuagint Translation). In other words, the earth itself was not cursed, but rather Adam’s labour in the earth would be cursed, because when Adam tilled the ground, the earth would produce thorns and thistles, etc, along with the crops that he sowed. And so, the earth that God created was not cursed, but rather God created it with the capacity to bring forth both blessing and curse, blessing for those who would walk pleasing to God and curse for those who would walk in rebellion to God.
Michael E.B. Maher
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