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NASB | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim) created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth. [Heb 11:3] |
Bible Question: Can a Christian believe in the theory of evolution? To recast the question, is it possible to believe in evolution and the Bible at the same time? Does not one patently contradict the other? Please clothe your comments and answers in scriptural references. |
Bible Answer: What difference does it make whether one believes the world was created or evolved? Can't one embrace Christianity and Evolution? An outspoken evolutionist answered this question in the American Atheist magazine with the following reply: "Christianity is - must be! - totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with its full might against the theory of evolution. And here is why. In Romans we read that 'sin entered the world through one man, and through sin - death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.' (5:12) ...the whole justification of Jesus' life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam's fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None. Even a high school student knows enough about evolution to know that nowhere in the evolutionary description of our origins does there appear an Adam or an Eve or an Eden or a forbidden fruit. Evolution means a development from one form to the next to meet the ever-changing challenges from an ever-changing nature. There is no fall from a previous state of sublime perfection. Without Adam, without the original sin, Jesus Christ is reduced to a man with a mission on a wrong planet!" Did this opponent of Christianity understand the issues more clearly than most Christians? How important it is that we as Christians be consistent in our thinking. We must accept all of the Bible as God's Word. In it God says what He means and He means what He says. We are reminded of the words of the apostle John who wrote, "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) No, Christ was not merely a man with a mission on the wrong planet. He was truly God incarnate of a love mission to the right planet. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) |