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ROMANS: CHARTER OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
"Part IX: Theistic Evolution And Christ's Victory Over Adam's Fall"
(Romans 5:12-21)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Several years ago, a fellow Christian remarked to me that our holding to the belief that God created the universe by special creation, and not by use of any evolutionary processes, makes our Gospel unappealing to many unsaved, educated people. He suggested that we rethink our Church's doctrinal stand that favors special creation lest we keep scientifically literate people from believing our Gospel and going to heaven!

This believer's charge is echoed in the Theistic Evolutionists, Blackmore and Page who wrote: "If God cannot be measured and proved then why should be believe? . . . creationists look to a God who makes materialistic interventions to persuade people who have problems reaching beyond the material world." (Blackmore and Page, Evolution: The Great Debate, p. 187)



Well, are we unrighteously keeping scientifically astute people from believing in Christ for salvation by adhering to special creation? Is our view as a Church that God created the universe without use of any evolutionary processes a proper view before GOD to have?

How do we know?!



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )



Need: "Some think we must concede that God USED evolution to create so as to make the Gospel acceptable to today's educated man! Well, do we keep people out of heaven by holding to creationism?"
  1. Paul summarized the effect of Christ's death on the cross by showing how it COUNTERED the problems created in Adam's sin recorded in Genesis, Romans 5:12.
  2. In DOING so, PAUL left NO ROOM even for THEISTIC EVOLUTION if the GOSPEL were to be CREDIBLE (as follows):
    1. Paul taught physical death passed upon the whole human race as a sole result of Adam's single act of sin, 5:12, 14a, 15b, 17, 18, 21:
      1. Throughout the Romans 5:12-21 passage, the Apostle Paul taught that death passed upon all men because of the first sin of Adam:
        1. In verse 12b, Paul wrote that death passed upon all men because of one man's sin, the event of Adam's sin, Romans 5:12b, 14a.
        2. This idea is often repeated in Romans 5:14a, 15b, 17-18 and 21.
      2. Now in direct contrast to the death resulting from Adam's sin, Paul also frequently revealed in this passage the eternal PHYSICAL life that awaits those who are justified by Christ:
        1. In Romans 5:15, Paul contrasted the death caused for all men by Adam with the eternal life that comes by Christ's grace.
        2. In Romans 5:17b, Paul revealed those who receive Christ will "reign in life" in contrast to the death they had under the Fall.
        3. In Romans 5:18, he contrasted the judgment of all men unto condemnation to the life that comes to the justified in Christ.
        4. In Romans 5:21, Paul contrasted the victory of Christ's grace that will "reign through righteousness unto eternal life" with the "sin" that "reigned unto death" because of Adam's fall.
        5. Now we know that Paul included physical death and life along with the spiritual realm in his comparison of Adam with Christ, for he clarified as much in the 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 context where he discussed the same Adam-Christ, life-and-death issue.
      3. Thus, Paul taught ALL death was caused SOLELY by Adam's SIN since it is SOLVED in Christ's atonement FOR SIN!
    2. Yet, allowing for any evolution in God's creating the universe requires the existence of physical death before Adam's sin in contrast to Paul's teaching:
      1. Charles Darwin's "natural selection" idea requires the death of weaker organisms so that only the fittest survive to procreate, cf. Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations, p. 798-799.
      2. Well, since man was the last entity created by God according to the Genesis record, natural death would necessarily have had to exist before Adam existed were God to have used evolution to create!
      3. Paul's teaching on the origin of death in Adam's sin then directly counters God's using evolutionary processes to create.
    3. Also, in light of Paul's teaching, saying God used evolution to create would WRONGLY counter Christ's atonement:
      1. To Paul, Christ's death for sin ended the hold of physical death on believers as signaled in Christ's bodily resurrection that followed that death on the cross, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22.
      2. Thus, the "eternal life" to which Paul alludes in Romans 5:17b, 5:18 and 5:21 must involve not only eternal spiritual life, but eternal PHYSICAL life as well!
      3. So, to allow for physical death to be a part of Adam's destiny even if he had never sinned (as theistic evolutionists teach) wrongly undermines the claim that Christ's death rescues believers from physical death caused by sin, David Lane, "Theological Problems of Theistic Evolution," Bib. Sac., Apr.-Jun. 94, p. 166ff.
  3. Hence, Paul could glory in the blessed CONQUEST of Jesus Christ over sin AND its EFFECT of PHYSICAL DEATH for the believer:
    1. Paul could teach that though a single sin by the single man, Adam thrust the entire race into sin (Rom. 5:15b), the grace of God in Christ over-abounded to atone for all the resulting SINS and DEATHS of all men by Christ's single work of the cross, Romans 5:15-16, 19-21.
    2. This could occur even though God's law entered history and exposed the great depth of man's of sins, Romans 5:13-14, 20.
    3. Thus, the justified believer in Christ is ABUNDANTLY saved to abundant eternal as well as PHYSICAL life, Romans 5:12, 21!
Application: The Gospel ITSELF asserts men believe in the MIRACULOUS and PHYSICAL death, burial and resurrection of Christ from the dead for our sin, the CAUSE of that death, 1 Cor. 15:1-4. Also, that Gospel is the POWER of God to save men, Romans 1:16-17. Thus, we must evangelize the lost by FAITH in God's MIRACULOUS POWER to make our Gospel BELIEVED!

Lesson: Since trying to make the Gospel PALATABLE by conceding God USED evolution to create only sabotages the HOPE of the cross to save us from PHYSICAL DEATH, the result of SIN, we hold to pure creationism!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 Dr. Bolton Davidheiser, author of the book, Evolution and Christian Faith, gives his personal testimony of how he came to faith in Jesus Christ in the introduction of this book.

Keep in mind that Dr. Davidheiser received his doctorate in Zoology from the famed Johns Hopkins University, specializing in Genetics as a scientist committed to the evolutionary view of origins.

Keep in mind also that as an educated evolutionist, he refused to believe the Christian faith was true because, in his own words, "If man evolved, the process was gradual and there never was a first pair of human beings distinct from the animal kingdom . . . then the fall of man [into sin recorded in Genesis 3] is not true . . . [and] we are getting better and what is called sin is just a remnant of selfish animal nature. If man evolved, Christ was just a reformer and not the Redeemer . . . the Christian religion becomes a code of ethics and not the way of eternal life through a risen Lord." Accordingly, he thought "fundamentalists and anti-evolutionists" to be "dull, ignorant, and uninteresting people." (Ibid., p. 10)

Yet, Dr. Davidheiser came to faith in spite of his evolutionary views: it happened while he attended an evening service in North Dakota while listening to a plain pastor preach a simple gospel message without asking for a public response. He says: " . . . that evening I found myself saying, I believe that,' to everything he said. This surprised me for I had said many times that I could not believe unless someone would first disprove evolution to me.'" (Ibid., p. 11)

After trusting in Christ as his Savior, Dr. Davidheiser did research in Baltimore, looking up articles on evolution in Biological Abstracts and then reading the articles in scientific journals. He there found significant scientific problems with the evolutionary models of origins, and became a pure creationist as a Zoologist in his own right.

His closing words are: "It is good to know something of the other side' [pure creationist] of the evolution problem . . . But this is not enough. It is the preaching of the gospel that leads to salvation."

Thus, we PROCLAIM the gospel of Christ's miraculous death, burial and resurrection, and we depend upon the power of God to convict the world of its truth. That way, unsaved people -- even Zoologists with Ph. D.s -- might believe and be saved!