PMW 2017-056 by Lita Cosner (Creation Ministries, Intl.)

[Gentry: Modern Christianity has fallen into compromise with secular humanism in many respects today. One of those areas of compromise is in the area of origins, the very first issue raised in the Bible. We believe in the relentless progress of the kingdom against and over all opposition. We do so not because of what we see in the world, but because of what we read in Scripture. God’s word is true, though every man a liar. This is a helpful article exposing the error of adopting the evolutionary worldview as a Christian.]

In an April 2017 contribution to the BioLogos website, NT Wright argued that “If creation is through Christ, evolution is what you would expect”. However, the argumentation is fatally flawed by the assumption of evolution imported onto the text of Scripture.

Wright asserts, “We must somehow start with what we know of Jesus’ own vision of truth and the kingdom and power and ask what that might mean for creation itself.” One consequence, he suggests, is that “if creation comes through the kingdom bringing Jesus, we ought to expect it to be like a seed growing secretly.” He argues that even though most evolutionist scientists are motivated by a non-Christian worldview, they “nonetheless come up with a picture of Origins that looks remarkably like Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom: some seeds go to waste, others bear remarkable fruit; some projects start tiny and take forever, but ultimately produce a great crop; some false starts are wonderfully rescued, others are forgotten. Chaos is astonishingly overcome.”

As It Is Written: The Genesis Account Literal or Literary?
Book by Ken Gentry

Presents the exegetical evidence for Six-day Creation and against the Framework Hypothesis.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

However, Wright makes an elementary error when he goes to soteriological texts to inform his doctrine of creation, and uses those soteriological texts to override the plain meaning of the cosmological texts! I agree with Wright that our doctrine of Christ is important for our doctrine of creation—the key Christian contribution to the doctrine of creation is the assertion that Jesus is the agent of creation. However, understanding Christ as the Creator did not lead anyone in the church to suddenly take the timescale and mode of creation outlined in Genesis non-literally until after uniformitarian geologists and Darwinian biologists began to challenge the biblical view.

Further, not only does the New Testament assert that Christ is the agent of creation, but also the agent of restoration—that is, when Christ returns and His rule over creation is fully manifest, He will restore creation from the effects of the Curse. This will not take place via a gradual process over billions of years—it will happen instantaneously.

n fact, it is ironic to use Christ’s teaching to try to support an evolutionary interpretation of Genesis, because Jesus’ own use of Genesis shows that He took it plainly. For instance, He clearly believed that Adam and Eve were the first historical people, created ‘at the beginning of creation’.

Wright argues that the wasteful aspect of evolution is in line with the parables Jesus used to teach about the coming of the Kingdom. However, . . .

To continue reading: click

For writing course, click: Righteous Writing.

Tagged: Christ and creation