Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 19

We've got a very important lesson this morning, but let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this time, for us to be together and to talk about your word. We ask you to fill us with your Spirit, help us to grow in our understanding of your word, apply it to our lives, help us to walk in humility. We pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen. All right, One of the questions that we're going to be seeking to answer this morning is how does evolution impact the doctrine of marriage? or how does evolution interact with the biblical view of Adam and Eve in general? we're living in a day.

I don't know how much you guys stay up on the news that deals with evolution, creation, or I, I subscribe to a number of different feeds where I'm, I'm getting updates from people from lots of different perspectives on a pretty regular basis. And What's, what's not surprising is that you have unbelieving scientists and unbelieving people who deny what the Bible says, deny the historicity of Adam and Eve, deny. basically try to argue that science has debunked, a straightforward reading of, of the Bible.

That's not surprising.

What is surprising is that you have not liberal believers, but people within the realms of conservative, what we call conservative evangelicalism that are now entertaining the possibility that perhaps Adam and Eve were not historical figures, that Adam and Eve are just metaphors for the first man and the first woman. And I'm gonna propose this morning through our curriculum that there's some serious consequences to that. And one of the consequences is on marriage and I think we're seeing it today.

We're gonna just do a real quick flyby.

review, from the last couple of weeks, we've, we've argued that according to Hebrews 11:3, that God made the whole universe from Nothing. And so, therefore, the question of origins is primarily a matter of faith, not of science. there are scientific reasons to believe in creation, but when we talk about origins, it's primarily an issue of faith and we've suggested that even Paul Davieses and people like him. Admit that we're talking about the suspension of natural laws.

we're talking about true miracles. why is the Big Bang more scientific than God created? It isn't. We're talking about faith propositions on both sides.

we've argued in this class that the creation order as it's laid out in Genesis is incompatible with the order that we see in evolution. that it just doesn't work. And any evolutionist would read Genesis chapter one, and if they believe and ascribe to the evolutionary theory, they would say this cannot be. And so we've compared those two systems together.

We've also argued for the meaning of day. And do we show the, the Yom video? We did show the Yom video, OK, or yam. This is, this is something that happens on a regular basis is people will take They'll take definitions of words, try to confuse the idea, it, it'll start with something like this, a word can mean many different things.

Look at the dictionary, there's 20 different definitions of this word, and then they'll pick the definition that they want the word to mean in the particular context and apply that or at least try to throw the definitions of terms into such turmoil to create confusion. To say, well, who really knows what y'all means? I'm right now doing some research for the parenting class. I'm gonna be teaching, on, on discipline.

And there's a Hebrew word Shabbat that means rod. And there's debate about what exactly does rod mean. And some people try to argue that rod is not something that a person would use to inflict discipline. Rod is just something a shepherd would use just to gently guide along his sheep.

So you have the rod and the staff. The problem is, is in the context in which Shabbed is actually used, it's, it's juxtaposed, it's paralleled with things like beating or striking or scourging. it, it says if you beat your child with a rod, he will not die. And so to say that that context means just gently guiding like a shepherd, it just doesn't work.

But people come in with their presupposition, they try to find the various definitions and then they wanna pick the definition that fits their theory and that's what we've done with the word day. What does day mean in Genesis 1:5, 83, 1319? If you just take a straightforward reading of the text, it's very clear what it means. when you compare this to how, Exodus 28 to 11 uses the word day, it says, God created the world in 6 days on the 7th day rested, therefore you should rest on the 7th day.

If day means anything, it means a regular day. So, in the last week, we talked about how that just because new terms that have been invented late in human history don't show up in the Bible, that doesn't mean the Bible doesn't have anything to say about it. Last week, we, we asked, does the Bible talk about bipolar schizophrenia? Is there anything in the Bible where it uses the word bipolar schizophrenia?

No. Nothing in the Bible. And so actually, some Christian counselors would say because the Bible does not talk about bipolar schizophrenia, therefore, the Bible has nothing to say about those types of issues. You can go to your pastor for spiritual things, but you need to go to your psychologist for psychological things to help deal with schizophrenia and so on.

the problem is, is you're, you're taking new terminology. And then trying to outdate the Bible because of your new terminology. And it's, this is the phenomena that we've seen with the dinosaur. We come up with the dinosaur term which was invented in what year?

1841, we say the Bible doesn't never mention dinosaurs, therefore, the Bible's outdated. There are no dinosaurs in the Bible. We've tried to demonstrate that's not true. Last week, we said, how does the purple polka dotted unicorn display the glory and strength of God?

How does the purple polka dotted unicorn do this? It doesn't. This is a mythical figure, right? And yet people come to Job chapter 40 and, and 41 and try to say that the word Leviathan or behemoth, that these are mythical figures, even though contextually, every other animal in that context is a real animal.

And the animals that are being described, particularly with the Leviathan, Leviathan, is an animal that has a tail as big as what? A cedar. So the tail is as big as a, as a cedar. OK.

So which one of these pictures do you think has a tail that would be as big as a, a cedar? Is it the elephant? Is it the hippo? Or would it be the huge dinosaur, which has a Latin name that I can't remember?

Yeah, it's obviously, something large like this would have a huge tail as big as a cedar. OK, so that's, that's our review in a nutshell. We're gonna now move and, and be looking at several different passages of scripture that deal with the creation of Adam and Eve. And talk and deal with comparing that to evolutionary view of the creation of man.

Any questions that you guys have about anything that we've covered so far? Brontosaurus? I don't remember. My paleontology is really sorry.

Really sorry. I can look it up for you. If I, if I'm looking at my notes, I would know. OK, so it was Brontosaurus.

That sounds right when I was a kid, but now it's a new name, right? New classification, OK. OK. Cool.

Yeah, Flintstones. I still can't get past the idea that Pluto is not a planet anymore. It really bothers me. Say it again.

They want to get it back Oh, is he? Yeah, we should. It's a very important issue. Very important.

Well, hey, let's go ahead and open up. To Genesis chapter 2. And and so we're gonna read. It's been a while, so we're gonna go ahead and read at length.

Genesis chapter 2, I'm Reading from a revised Standard Version. Chapter 2, verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, but no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field was yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.

But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being. So I just want to point out running commentary that God formed man from the dust.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden and in, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground, the Lord God made, some of your versions say had made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided, became four rivers. And we'll skip that section down to verse 15.

The Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden, and to till it and keep it, and the Lord God commanded man, saying, you may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat of it, you shall die. Verse 18. Then God, the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him.

So out of the ground, the Lord God formed, some of your versions say had formed, which I think is a good rendering of the cow perfect, that's the tense of the Hebrew verb, had formed. Every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man. To see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, to every beast in the field, but for the man, there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman. And brought her to the man.

Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man leaves his, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves up, and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This is the word of Almighty God. Let's go back and ask some questions of the text. On a straightforward reading of this text as we apply proper hermeneutical principles. What literature would you guess?

This is. What does it seem to purport to be? Yeah, historical narrative. And so, one of the reasons we would argue that this is historical narrative, it starts off with just these are the generations of, it says things like in the day that the Lord God made lists various happenings.

There's no Hebrew parallelism until you get to verse 23 and 2023 particularly. And so it doesn't seem to be poetry, doesn't seem to be apocalyptic literature. Seems to be historical narrative. what point in history is this passage describing What do we, what do we seem to be focusing in on?

Yeah, we're towards the beginning. it's definitely within creation week, stretching, it seems from day 3. When God had not yet created plants. to day 6 when God created man.

So probably 3 to day 6. and how was the first man created according to this passage? How was Adam created? OK, dust to the ground and then God breathes into him, right?

So, straightforward reading would be God took Adam from the dust. And breathes life into his nostrils. And how did the garden come to be and what was in it? So the, the Garden of Eden, how did this particular garden happen to be there?

Yeah, it says very specifically, God planted the garden and then he places man along with the trees, including in it with the tree of life and the knowledge of good and evil. So, so God seems to specifically plant this garden, takes the man and puts him there. And what was Adam's role, according to this text, what was he to do there? Yeah.

So, so he's to take care of the garden. So there's some implications here that God had planted a garden that needed tending. it needed probably to be overseen by Adam. what command does God give to Adam specifically in this text?

Right. So there's a positive and a negative. You can eat of every single tree, so it's not just don't do this. Hey, eat of everything you want.

So there's a positive command. The negative command, except for the tree of the knowledge of good. And evil. Now, also in this context, while, from Genesis chapter one, we have this pronouncement that God had pronounced everything very good.

We have the first indication that something is not good. And what is it that is not good? Yeah, aloneness. So Adam.

According to this passage on a straightforward reading, Adam was alone. Adam didn't have other friends to play with that were like him. There weren't other half-formed hominids that he could high five, or teach them how to play chess or checkers. He was alone.

And God calls this not good. notice that verse 19, is the first time that man is called Adam. so, and, and then God gives him a role. Now, what role does Adam fulfill with respect to the animals?

Say it again. Yeah, so he begins to name the animals. he's alone. God begins to bring animals before Adam.

Adam begins to name the animals. And what did Adam not find among the animals? Yeah, he didn't find a helper, he didn't find somebody comparable to him. Now, do you think God was bringing the animals, just hoping that one of them would fit?

Why do you think God would be bringing all these animals to Adam? Say it again. OK, so he's naming them. Why else might, we're reading into the text here, but why else might God bring the animals?

Yeah, Ken. Yeah, he's trying to probably an object lesson, very visual. Adam, various animals are coming before Adam. There's probably definitely a certain amount of pleasure, a certain type of animal that he takes pleasure in, maybe a sheep, or an ox or a dog.

He's like, yeah, this is, this is really cool. And then a cat walks by and he's kinda turned off and Kinda like me and but he doesn't find what he's really looking for. does not find a helper comparable to him. And so according to this text, which we've argued seems to purport to be historical narrative, what does God do to to Adam?

Yeah, causes him to fall asleep. God takes one of Adam's ribs to form the woman. When God presents the woman to Adam, how does he respond? Yeah, whoa.

He recognizes right away and acknowledges that Eve came from him. Even though he's been put to sleep, he has some knowledge of what has happened. Then the man said verse 23, this at last is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. So, in comparison to what he's previously seen, He's seen other, other species, but now he looks and he sees someone that is, is like him.

And, and now he describes her as bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. She shall be called woman. Why is he calling her woman? Because she was taken out of man.

So, at least according to Adam, now it could be that Adam just woke up with a sense that something had come out of him. Maybe God reported it to him directly, we don't know. But Adam has knowledge that Eve has come from himself. And so, there's a pattern that's described in verse 24.

just as Adam and woman were joined together, having come from one flesh, so a man is joined to his wife as one flesh in marriage. And so we see this concept of one flesh being emphasized in verse 23. We were one flesh. Eve came out of man, and then he will come and cleave to his wife, and they become one flesh in marriage to put on display what has been true of mankind from the beginning.

Mankind came from one flesh. God pulls the rib out and makes two people, but they're still They still originate from one flesh and they demonstrate that one fleshness as it were, when they come together in marital union. Now, in verse 25, we have something that is definitely not true today. Adam and Eve are naked and they are not ashamed.

We'll talk later why shame has come, to nakedness. But how should we summarize this passage? What does this passage tell us about God? What we see here is that God, first of all, is a loving creator.

He's created everything. he specifically creates Adam. We call this special creation. When you read like the Westminster Confession of faith or you read the great confessions of the church, they'll say something like this, that Adam was specially created.

He was created special. That doesn't mean he's, he's a special person. It means that God came and formed him particularly. when you see God forming the animals, there's no indication that necessarily that the animals that you have anything like a male animal is formed and then something's pulled out of the male animal and then he forms a female animal.

He's just forming all of these kinds. You just, you see the word kinds, kinds, kinds. But then in Genesis chapter one, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and God specially creates Adam and then pulls Eve out of his side. And so there is a special creation.

And so let's go back, let's, so we've looked at the text, we've tried to do what we can to, to make observations of it. let's go back and let's, let's make some applications here. Let's, let's try to draw some theological, conclusions. How does this, first of all, how would a straightforward reading of this text differ from what is the predominant view today of the origin of mankind?

What's the predominant view in our culture? Yeah, the man evolved from what? OK, so, yeah, first you evolved from hominids, apes, and then you go on back, ultimately, slime, right? Some one cellular organism.

So, and, and, and there are admittedly including many professing Christians who believe that man is a product of an evolutionary process over billions of years. Some believe that God guided this process to produce the, the world that we see, and others believe that it has been a natural process free from his influence. So, what are some of the problems that we would see in trying to reconcile these views with what we read in Genesis 2? How does Genesis 2 on a straightforward reading, just not comport with the modern view?

Right, you see immediate special creation. Not gradual. Evolution. So it's immediate and special versus gradually evolving.

So, and then what we see in this passage is man's created from the dust. As as compared to what? In the evolutionary view, man is create comes from what? Well, the first, the first ancestor of man is.

Some hominid or an ape. In the text, the first ancestor of man is the dust. So it's dust versus another animal. and I want, we want to point out particularly that the woman was created from the man and did not evolve alongside of him.

This is very important. Now remember that it's always a good practice to look at other passages in scripture to see if, if the way we're reading the text is accurate. We call this the analogy of the faith. Raise your hand if you've heard the term, the analogy of the faith.

OK, yeah, it's a, it's a good term of hermeneutics. it was used a lot by the reformers to establish the fact, how is it that we can determine what the Bible really means. This was imposed, this was opposed to like say someone like origin, origin and the medieval interpretation of the scripture, they saw the highest meaning of scripture was the spiritual metaphorical meaning. The highest meaning was not the literal fleshy meaning, we wanna get away from the flesh, we wanna get away from this world and matter, which is evil.

And get to the spiritual meaning. That was the Gnostic notion that was origin's goal is to get us to the spiritual meaning of the text. What, what the reformers came along and said is it's not the spiritual meaning of the text, it's the literal meaning of the text that is primary, and we can find the literal meaning of the text by looking at what the context tells us. And we can confirm our reading of the context through the analogy of the faith.

The analogy of the faith is basically just comparing scripture with scripture. If you think you have a particular understanding of the Bible, And then all of a sudden you go to another passage of scripture that's dealing with that same section and it gives you a completely different take and maybe you don't have the right take. Does that make sense? So we've tried to present a take that Adam and Eve were created immediately and specially, that Eve came from Adam and that Adam came from the dust and that they are one flesh, not two flesh.

That's the reading that we've given of Genesis 2. Let's see if that bears out as we look at the analogy of the faith. Let's look at 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 11.

So when Paul, who is inspired of the Holy Spirit, is writing his epistle. In 1 Corinthians 11, what is his understanding? Of Genesis. 1 Corinthians 11, we'll look at starting in verse 7.

This is dealing with, in this particular section, we're gonna be talk, it talks about various traditions that Paul has laid out to the Corinthian church. One is the tradition of head coverings, and then he's gonna later talk about the tradition of the Lord's Supper. So this is in the first tradition. Verse 7, for a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man.

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head because of the angels. That's one of my favorite passages in the Bible, because of the angels.

It's just one of these obscure passages, what in the world does that mean? but it's a pretty cool passage because there's something about angels observing human behavior that is, that's, that's influencing Paul in his commands here. If you guys go way back to, what is it, 2001 now, 2001, 2002, you can listen to, as we joke about it now, but Pastor Milton did, 9 messages on this particular passage and people jokingly say it was 40 messages on this particular passage. to get a really good exposition.

But basically what you have here is Paul is arguing what? That man does not come from woman, woman comes from man and the woman was created for the man. So, Paul is trying to make his argument based upon Old Testament text and he's giving us virtually the same data that we find in Genesis. by the way, this is one of the hermeneutical principles that we find is when somebody is building their argument based upon theology and based upon, particularly when they go back to like the creation narrative, They're making transcultural arguments and we'll, we'll, we'll demonstrate this a little bit later.

Let's, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 15. Our burden here is to see how the New Testament is dealing with Adam and Eve. 11 Corinthians 15. Starting in verse 47.

The first man was from the what? The earth, a man of what? Dust. The second man is from heaven.

As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust, and is, as, and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. So, Paul is making an argument here in 1 Corinthians. He's, if you guys are familiar with the passage, he's talking about the resurrection of the body and the theology of the body, and he's arguing that Adam comes from the dust, but the second Adam comes from heaven. And as if we had time to flesh out the full text, he's not saying that Jesus Christ didn't have a body like Adam.

He's just distinguishing between the 1st and 2nd Adam. But for our purposes, he's clearly arguing that Adam came from what? The dust OK, so, and he's connecting this argument within the, within the context of a passage about the resurrection of Jesus and Jesus Christ. Let's look at 1 Timothy 2:13.

Is there a consistent tale in the New Testament on how to handle Adam and Eve? I believe there is. First Timothy. Chapter 2 Verse 13.

OK, so verse 13, it says, for Adam was formed, what? First, then. Eve. OK, so there's several different things here.

Adam was formed. The idea here is very consistent with what we see in Genesis. The idea of being formed would fit very nicely with the idea of coming from the dust, but clearly he's formed and then Eve comes. There is an order.

Eve is 2nd, Adam is 1st. And although from this text, you wouldn't know necessarily that Eve came out of the man, but you would see that she came second. so Adam first, then Eve. So, what do we see?

How is the New Testament dealing with Genesis 2? let me ask you this. Is Genesis, is the New Testament dealing with Genesis 2 as metaphor or as literal? Seems to be taken literally.

Is the New Testament dealing with Genesis 2, As Adam. Coming first or Eve coming first. Adam's coming first, or it could be, are Adam and Eve evolving separately? No.

New Testament seems to pick up the idea that this is a literal historical account and they're building theology, theology of the resurrection, theology of, of teaching, theology of head coverings which has, which has also connects to the Trinity. all of this theology is being built on a historical understanding of Genesis 2 in which God formed Adam first from the dust. And that Eve was formed 2, from Adam, and that Adam and Eve are one flesh. Now, some might suggest that Genesis 2 can be understood as a type of metaphor or an analogy, and that should not be taken literally.

but if we interpret the Old Testament passage this way, it seems that we must also reinterpret the New Testament passages to be consistent. doing so would, affect the understanding of the doctrine of roles of men and women in marriage and these other passages. And so, do you, do you guys see the argument? If the New Testament is building its case on men and women, and also by the way, the resurrection on a literal understanding, what seems to be a straightforward literal understanding of Genesis 2, if we're gonna suddenly say Genesis 2 is to be taken as a metaphor.

Then it would seem that that would alter our interpretation of the New Testament passages. Adam and Eve, it seems, were created by special supernatural acts of God, not through an evolutionary process. this seems to be an example of just God's omnipotence and his authority over creation. Now, let me give you an alternative view.

Some have argued this, some suggest that God breathed the Spirit. Into an early spiritless hominid. And that, and, and that's when God pronounced Adam and Eve to be in the image. So it goes something like this, as you have various apes that began to form into hominids and then about 4.5 million years ago, God finally determines that I'm gonna take out of all of the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of hominids on the earth, I'm gonna pick two.

A male and a female who have evolved separately. And I'm gonna pronounce them as bearing the image of God. And I'm going to breathe the spirit into these spiritless hominids. So everything that we see in Genesis 2 is merely metaphorical.

What really happened is God breathed His spirit into two hominids that, that evolved separately, a male and female, while hundreds of thousands, thousands, hundreds, perhaps millions of other hominids existed on the planet. So And, and, and others would argue that Adam and Eve did not even have to be real people. that Adam and Eve are merely just, this is really just a story of origins, the way other cultures develop stories of origins, and that there's, there's really no reason to try to believe that Adam and Eve, that we should press the details of Adam and Eve any more than some African tribes to press the details of their story.

This is just a meta narrative for Christians.

To have some, to teach some moral lessons. Or to teach some lessons about the character of God, that God is caring, he provides, he's, he looks down and he sees the mythical Adam as having needs, and so God provides the needs for the mythical Adam. And the only thing that we're really supposed to get out of the meta narrative here. is that God is a loving, providing God and that we can put ourselves into the meta narrative.

I'm Adam and my wife can play the part of Eve, and as we read that story, we just insert our names into the story and we find comfort in something about God's attributes and character. That's the way some would suggest we need to read this story. Let's, let's first just talk a little bit about the first view that says that God basically breathed His Spirit into hominids., there are those that would argue today that there is so much evidence. So much fossil evidence that we just flat out cannot deny the evolution of apes to man.

Raise your hand if you were, if you took this class last year. OK. When I started doing the research, we, we ended up going off and spending, I think 2 more lessons which we're not gonna do this year to try to deal with the scientific claims of evolution from hominids to man. I fully expected to find it very difficult to respond to all of the evidence that is out there that has been developed to argue for the evolution of hominids to man.

I thought I was gonna have to I, I thought that the, the, the, the research was gonna be so overwhelming and that the responses to the modern evolutionary view were gonna be so weak. I honestly have felt and, and, and this, this wasn't the first time I've said back when I was even in high school and early college, I honestly felt that we're just gonna have to come to a place where we just have to admit that there's so much evidence on one side, and yet if we have a certain reading of the Bible, That we just kinda have to admit that we don't really know what the answer is.

And from my viewpoint, and I hope those of you guys that were here last year, I just don't think it's that difficult to answer this question, that the evidence on the pro-evolutionary side is not as strong as they would like you to think and that the arguments against the pro-evolutionary side on the view of anthropology are actually very rational. There are very rational responses to the interpretation of the various fossils that are found.

I'm just gonna give just a very short summary because we don't have time to get into the 2 or 3 lessons that we got into last year. If you want that material, I can post it or I can email it to you. But fossils of hominids like say the, one of the famous ones, it's an older one, but Lucy. And others reveal that these creatures are very, very similar to extinct apes, and I can send you the data on this.

Despite their scientific classifications, other remains of individuals like the Neanderthals and the hobbit skeletons from Asia, are representative of a variety within the human population. Neanderthals, it's very interesting. It doesn't, you don't have to read just Christian scientists on Neanderthals to find this out, but we know that the quote unquote Neanderthals buried their dead. That they use tools that we find musical instruments and here's the thing that you won't find in most public school textbooks because I never read it when I was being taught evolution when I was in school.

Maybe it's changed today, but in in a number of the burial locations you find quote unquote modern humans buried in the exact same graves as Neanderthals. Same grave, and yet one is being dated as X number of million years old or, 660,000 years old. And the other one is being dated as a modern human. So starting from a biblical perspective, An ape-like creature does not change into a human, and this is really the point.

as you go out and look at the evidence, is there a rational response to the evolutionary view of anthropology? I believe there is. but you need to realize that this has been the story. Since the very beginning, Is that God's word reports certain data.

And people throughout history are going to report different data. And so we need to figure out, are we going to believe what the Bible says and stand on what we call the authority of the Word of God, which we tried to develop in the last class, and use the authority of the Word of God as the lens through which to interpret reality, or are we always gonna hold the Bible intention with the various interpretations that man has? because it's gone on since the very beginning. If we fail to place God's word as the authority over man's opinions, we will fall into the trap of believing these arguments which run counter to God's description of his creation.

my approach and what we've tried to encourage, what we hear, what we teach here at Cornerstone, what we've tried to encourage in this in this class is that there is a God in the universe and God has created us in His image with the capacity to know things and the capacity to understand language. And God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through this thing called language. And he's revealed Himself to us both to Adam and Eve directly in the garden. He's revealed himself to us through prophets and he's revealed himself to us through inscripturated prophecies.

And God has given us His word because he believes that his word can be understood. It can be twisted, but it can't be understood and so he's given us His word, not to confuse, but to enlighten. His word is always called a light unto my path, right? Thy word is a what?

light unto my path. And so when I approach the Bible, my presupposition without apology is that the Bible is a light onto my path. And if I can understand a straightforward reading of the Bible, I am getting light. And if I can confirm a straightforward reading of a particular text through the analogy of scripture, I'm getting light.

And so if I stand on the authority of God's word, I'm getting light. And as I go out with this light and then begin to look at the world through the proper glasses, the proper worldview, I can make rational decisions and arguments with looking at the world around me. We've used this analogy many times, but I'll just say, say it one more time. it wasn't very long ago, early 20th century, where Christian scholars, Christian pastors, Christian Bible readers, were ridiculed for their belief in Nineveh.

The Hittites, the existence of Pilate, the historical existence of Pilate, the historical existence of David. Any number of things, any number of issues. the experts, the so-called experts said it's nonsense. When people just believe the word of God, you find that over time, More and more of the archaeology comes out and demonstrates there are Hittites.

Nineveh has been uncovered. We have extra biblical evidence of Pilate, we have extra biblical evidence of David. The problem is, is some people hold the extrabiblical evidence as more authoritative than the Bible. Until the extrabiblical evidence demonstrates what the Bible says, the Bible is always teetering on what we can really believe.

I wanna suggest you a really good philosophy, really good worldview, and that is start with the Bible. Don't let the Bible be teetering in your mind. Start with God's word because he was there, I wasn't, neither were you. Neither was any other expert out there.

God was there. He created, he told us, Here's what, here's how I've done things. Start with the Bible, interpret reality with the Bible. There's gonna be times where the Bible cannot be substantiated by external evidence because guess what, archaeology and fossils really only just can only just give us a very, very small microscopic percentage of all of the knowledge of the past.

There's a really good article by Edwin Yamauuchi, Edwin Yamauuchi, he's an archaeologist, Christian archaeologist, where he argues for the infinitesimal small amount of discoveries that archaeology has made about the past and how ridiculous it is to say that I can't believe anything in the Bible about the past unless I find it in external archaeology when we have less than 1% of information that has been discovered through archaeology. So if we're, if we're waiting for archaeology or extra biblical resources to demonstrate everything that we have in the Bible, you're gonna be waiting till after you die to believe the Bible.

Yeah, Mitch. Yeah, yeah, much later, yeah.

So as you compare various biblical texts, there's all kinds of arguments we've, we've made them here in this class for the validity and, and veracity of the scripture. What we're arguing for is a philosophical epistemological position that your epistemology, that is your building up of your theory of knowledge. How is it that we know anything and how can we come to certainty about anything? Cannot begin with just trying to find what all external sources confirm.

We need to start with God Himself and what he has revealed in his word. And so, based upon his word, a straightforward reading of the text would seem to clearly demonstrate that we have a real literal Adam and Eve. Adam formed from the dust first, Eve comes second. They are one flesh, not evolved, two fleshes.

We're not talking about God. And, and by the way, Those are of our brothers and sisters who would argue for God breathing His spirit into hominids. How in the world do you get that from the text or science? Is there anything in the text that would indicate that God walked along, looked at the mass thousands of hominids on the planet, and said, I'm gonna pick two and breathe my spirit into these two.

Is there anything in the text that you could discern from Genesis? Absolutely not. You're just grasping for straws. But ask a scientist to come and evaluate that argument.

Is there anything in science that would demonstrate that God, who is spirit, breathed his spirit into two hominids? Prove that with the scientific method. Can you? Is there anybody on the planet that can prove the scientific method that God breathed his spirit into two hominids, 4.5 million years ago?

No, so that is a faith proposition. So what have you really gained? You've given up the Bible to try to bridge the gap between you and the intellectual superiors, and what have you gained? Nothing.

You haven't gained anything. You're trying to seem intellectually more, I guess, have higher ground, but you've made a non-scientific argument to try to bridge the gap between science and the Bible, and you've given up really both. OK, so let's, let's look at one more passage together. We got 8 minutes.

Let's turn to Where is my passage? it's Mark chapter 10. And this, this is one of the impacts that we're going to make from this lesson and that is What is the impact? On marriage If we If we decide not to go with what the Bible says about Adam and Eve.

So Mark chapter 10. And we're gonna read verses 1 to 9. And I want you guys to try to help me. Get this done in 8 minutes.

Mark 10:1 to 9. And he left there and went to the region of Judea, beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again, this is Jesus, and again, as his custom was, he taught them. And Pharisees came up in an order to test him, asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, what did Moses command you?

They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and put her away. But Jesus said to them, For your hardness of heart, he wrote to you this commandment, but from the beginning of creation, I want to underline that from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Who's speaking in verse six? Jesus Christ, from the beginning of creation.

God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, and they are no longer two, but one. What therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder. So Jesus is going right back.

To Genesis 2. Who's interacting in this passage? Who are the key players in this historical narrative? Yeah, you've got Pharisees and Jesus, and the Pharisees want to know what?

Yeah, about the issue of divorce. Was divorce allowed according to Moses? Answer, yes. but why was divorce allowed according to Jesus?

The hardness of heart. is divorce part of God's original plan for His creation? No No, the two were to be joined as one flesh and not to be separated. And what passage does Jesus quote?

He quotes from Genesis 1:27. he also quotes from Genesis 2:24. and also 17 and 18. What does verse 6 tell us about the timing of the creation of the male and female?

Verse 6 again says, what? But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. So they were created at the beginning of creation. Would we be justified in calling the union of Adam and Eve the first marriage?

Yes, seems like according to this text, according to Jesus, this is the first marriage. it is the model for marriage. According to Jesus, God presented the woman to Adam. Jesus says that God had joined them and they should be, should not be separated.

So let's make some impacts. And applications from this particular text, Mark chapter 10. If we were to write a biblical definition of marriage based on this passage, the criteria seems to include On a straightforward reading, it's one man. And one woman, for life, right?

That seems to be a good biblical definition. Jesus is talking about Adam and Eve coming together, divorce while it happens, and Moses permitted it because your hardness of heart. From the beginning, it was not so. God's original intention is one man and one woman coming together.

But society has changed, and this definition has been, reinterpreted over the millennia. We have as early as Genesis 4:19, Lame marrying multiple wives. So we have polygamy. we have in the Bible fornication, we have adultery, we have homosexuality.

when we look at various passages, Galatians 5:19 and following, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and following, we see several different sins that are aberrations of this original plan. We have fornication, adultery, we have homosexuality, all of these sins being juxtaposed with other sins like drunkenness, covetousness, selfishness. So, let's make this impact. If humans evolved from animals, then there is really no reason that marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman.

There, there really isn't. The From a biblical worldview, morals, the morality of marriage. Comes from our belief that God is the one that created marriage. And Jesus says that God created the male and female from the beginning of creation.

And so that becomes the very establishment of society. And so if we take that away. If, if we start with the presupposition that humans have just evolved from lower life forms and then we begin to look out at those lower life forms and we see how do they cohabitate. Is there marriage and is there very much monogamy in the animal kingdom?

There's some monogamy, but not much, right? Is their marriage in the animal kingdom? No, there's not. And, and if you turn on your various science shows and stuff like that, you'll even see this case being made, that apes get together, they cohabitate, and then they cohabitate with other apes and so on and so forth and what, psychologists, secular psychologists and so on have argued very strongly that there's really no reason.

In fact, it's a repression of evolution to insist that one man has to stay with one woman. That's, that's repression. The, the idea is, is your ultimate reason for existence purely from an evolutionary viewpoint is to pass on your DNA, your genetic material, so that the species can perpetuate. There's really no other reason for your existence.

The morality cannot be demonstrated scientifically. The only, the only reason for your existence is to pass on your genetic material. And so the more you pass on your genetic material, the better it is for the species, it would seem. And, and people make that case all the time.

They take an evolutionary standpoint. They try to develop that into their philosophical system. It is only because of what God has revealed to us in scripture that we can claim with authority that marriage is one man with one woman for life. Try to make the argument for marriage being one man and one woman for life, starting completely apart from the Bible.

Yeah, Barbara. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So yeah, we've been built with a sense of morality, but the reason we know that, the reason that we know that we have a sense of morality and that we've been built with a sense of morality is because what God has told us in His word.

That God looks out, God tells us in His word that the reason that you can go to culture after culture of culture who are even totally untouched by Christianity in the Bible and that you'll find cultures that generally will try to do the right thing, even though they also have a depravity and every culture will have depraved elements, every culture will have good elements. We know that because what God has revealed to us in the Bible. outside of that, from, from a, from a, if you set revelation aside, if you set the Bible aside, the evolutionary viewpoint makes perfect sense.

It just makes sense.

Morality is just a construct of societies to try to perpetuate the society. Your, your basic reason for living is to pass on your genetic material. If we buy into the survival of the fittest, which some of the early evolutionary thought, they got that message loud and clear, i.e. Lenin, i.e.

Stalin, i.e. Hitler, these guys got survival of the fittest very clear. Even the subtitle of, of The Origin of Species, it's this, I'm forgetting the exact title, it's like, or the Origin of the Species or the I forget how it's stated, the, superiority of certain races. I forget.

I'll, I'll pull it up. I got it on one of my slides. In the evolutionary viewpoint is very, it's very compact, it's tight, it works. But once you enter in, once you Enter in special revelation.

Once you start with the idea of God has created and he's communicated his desires to mankind. Now it it breaks down. another important aspect of this passage comes as Jesus describes Adam and Eve as being married from the beginning of creation. so Jesus clearly says that Adam and Eve were created and he puts a timeline on when they were created.

They were created, their marriage was created at the beginning of creation. So, according to an evolutionary viewpoint, you've got 65 billion years to work with before human beings show up 4.5 million years ago. that's not the beginning of creation. and so that view puts is at odds with what Christ says in Mark chapter 10.

his statement makes no sense if Adam and Eve were created, were only present 4.5 billion years after the, the beginning of creation. I'm sorry, 4.5 billion years after the beginning of creation. So the universe being 4, 4.5 million years old. this This passage indicates that Christ understood that Adam and Eve were present from the beginning of creation.

OK, what we're gonna ask you guys to do is there's a handout. that you, we're gonna ask you guys to take home and fill it out and come back ready to talk about next week. It's called the Two creation accounts. And basically the reason why I want you guys to go through this exercise is because there are those that would look at Genesis 2 as Pastor Milton, talked about in his sermon series, and they would say that basically you have one creation account in chapter 1 and that chapter 2 is a completely different creation account.

And so I want you to go through this exercise. To see why it is that these, we would argue that these are not two completely different creation accounts and it's actually fairly simple. The other thing that this exercise is gonna do is it's going to deal with the question, how in the world does Adam name all these animals? If God is commanding Adam to name the animals, how in the world does he get all that accomplished in such a short time?

So both of those questions are gonna be dealt with in that exercise. what we want to leave you with is is that there is hope for humanity in an understanding of Adam and Eve. We look out and we see just the decimation of marriage in our culture and it's not just homosexuality. It's, it's fornication.

it's adultery. It's homosexuality. It's, and, and it, it makes sense why our culture would drive that direction. If we've rejected the concept of origins, we've rejected the concept of Adam and Eve being immediately and specially created, one flesh, not two evolved fleshes, it makes sense why our culture has gone in that direction.

But while the first Adam has failed, the second Adam has come and Jesus Christ, who points back to that first Adam says, though your marriage, marriages are messed up, though there's divorce and all the chaos that results from divorce, though there's people that have fallen into homosexuality, adultery, and all kinds of other sexual aberrations, Jesus Christ has come to save that which is lost. The great news of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. It's not that there's, it's not just a list of all the sexual aberrations that are gonna lead people to hell.

The great news of 1 Corinthians 6 is when Paul says such were some of you.

You were this. He's talking to the Corinthian church, saying you used to be homosexual, you used to be fornicators, you used to be adulterers, but in Christ, you are no longer. And so, the Bible comes along and says, what? The world, evolution teaches biological determinism.

You are what your chemistry says you are and you cannot escape it. That's the bottom line of the evolutionary worldview is biological determinism. Christ comes along and says, no, you don't have to be that. Such were some of you.

Jesus Christ makes all things new. And if people can be introduced to the very simple message of the gospel, they can escape the clutches of biological determinism that says you can't change. You are who you are. Not much you can do about it.

Just pass on your genetic material. No, you are much more than that. You are created in the image of God, not because the scientific method tells me so, because Jesus tells me so. You are created in the image of God.

You have been. Given the gospel, good news and hope, Jesus Christ has suffered the wrath of Almighty God, and you can escape the wrath of Almighty God and come into this thing called the gospel and find good news and change and escape your biological determinism. Yes, you can change because God has accomplished the change for you through Jesus Christ. And so there's great hope, that we can share both, through the story of the first Adam and the second Adam.

I'd encourage you guys to share the story of both the first and the 2nd Adam. Because the, the second Adam story does not make sense without the first Adam story. The first Adam story talks about a guy. Who sinned, who blew it, who was supposed to die, and then God comes along and instead of giving Adam death, kills an animal and wraps Adam up in clothing, which points to the second Adam.

The cross makes very little sense outside of the context of the first Adam. That's why 1st and 2nd Adam are, are spoken of again and again and again by Paul. Just look how often Paul talks about the 1st and 2nd Adam. They are intricately tied.

So if we, please pray for our, for the church today, we're, I, there are some, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Guys like Al Mohler and John MacArthur and so on and so forth. If we're going to reject the first Adam. We're going to find ourselves in dire straits with the 2nd Adam.

It's, it's, it's not gonna be any different than what some very sincere German theologians tried to do in the 1800s. In order to keep themselves in the intellectual clubs, they thought they were trying to bridge the gap and they gave up the ghost. And, and we're in evangelicalism, we're in the very same spot today. If we give up the first Adam, we're gonna find that we're gonna lose the second Adam.

And we need to pray that that does not happen in the evangelical church. But even with that, scary prospect, we look at the book of Revelation, guess what? God wins. Right?

God wins. The devil's gonna win his, his battles, but God wins the war. Yeah, Brian, then we'll close. are.

We are Devo That's right. Yeah, how does the rest of that go? Well, there's a band called Devo and they have a very, some very interesting lyrics in some of their songs. Yeah, like whip it, whip it good.

Yeah. Break your mama's back. Whip it, whip it kid. That's one of my favorite songs when I was little.

Say it again. Yeah, there's some songs that there's the one song in particular that Devo sings, that sounds like a, it sounds like a critique of evolution. So, anyway, let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we just thank you so much for your word.

We come to you and we, by faith, stammer before you as little children acknowledging that there is so much we just don't know. there is so little information. out of all of the information that is available in the universe, we have such a small percentage of it, both in nature and in your revealed word, but what we have in your revealed word, we can believe with confidence because you are, Omnipresent, you see all things, all things and so when we take of what and what you see and even if you just reveal a small percentage of that knowledge, we can bank on it.

We can bank on it.

And so help us to step forward in faith and confidence without a shame, to believe your word, to believe the gospel. We pray, Lord, that You would help us to be humble in our defense of a very foundational aspect of the gospel and that is the first Adam. That we would understand the importance of the first Adam and it's connection to the second Adam. Lord, help us to understand the importance of the one flesh of Adam and Eve, and the importance that that has both for our understanding of humanity, our understanding of marriage.

And we just pray, Father, that you would make us bold and humble defenders of your word, with confidence knowing that ultimately you win. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.