Of the Creation and Fall of Man and His Incapacity to Perform What Is Truly Good (Article XIV)

This article brings us into the field of Anthropology, which is the teaching about the origin, nature, and destiny of man, especially from the perspective of his relationship to God. This subject is spoken of in Articles 14 through 17, starting first with Creation and the Fall, then with original sin, next with eternal election, and lastly with the recovery of fallen man.

We begin with Creation, which is only known from God’s Word. It is well known that many people reject this doctrine and believe, instead, the so-called “evolution theory.” In this theory the various types of plants and animals have their origin in other pre-existing types, and the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations. Simply expressed, man would have descended from animals. This cannot be proved but is a speculation and theory of Darwin, who thought that the lower forms of life evolved until, ultimately, they came to be man. Such a changeover from one kind to another has never been observed or documented. No examples can be given as proof that man descended from animals.

For many years it was proclaimed with great certainty that a skull of an ape man had been found, but later it proved to be the knee cap of an elephant. The well-known Piltdown skull was the greatest discovery in support of the evolution theory, but it was intentionally imitated. The skull was made of a certain lime or plaster with the addition of a few centimeters of a chimpanzee’s jaw. The teeth were filed down to match human teeth and then prepared with potassium to make them look old. Thus, they manufactured the skull of an ape-man who was to have lived five hundred thousand years ago but was in reality less than five hundred years old. I will not cite any more examples since you probably have heard of them, and if you desire to spend the time, you can find them in a number of books.

If you are or have not been fortunate enough to go to one of our Christian schools where the biblical history of Creation is told, perhaps, in a geography class, for example, you may hear various explanations regarding the origin of man, but remember, young people, that God’s Word has never failed in the past. The evolution theory is exactly that, only a theory and, we repeat, has no proof at all! It contradicts God’s Word not only regarding the origin of man but also in respect to man’s unity and place of habitation.

The unity of the human race is clearly proven in God’s Word from Acts 17:26a, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” Some think that people lived before Adam, based on Genesis 6:2 where the sons of God took the daughters of men. Who were the sons of men? The explanation is simple enough when we understand that the sons of God were the sons of Seth who were still keeping the institutions of God. The daughters of man were the daughters of Cain. With these unions, world conformity became greater and the service of the Lord was more and more forgotten.

I know that this does not apply unto our subject of Creation, but today we face the same great danger. The service of the Lord must have the highest place also in our married life. When we must add water to the wine of our religion or make a compromise in our marriage in order to please the other party at the cost of the Lord’s commandment, we are in the wrong. Then we love our boyfriend or girlfriend, our wife or our husband more than the Lord. We can never expect to receive a blessing from the Lord when doing so. There are numerous young people who have suffered grief because of this, but it still seems impossible to convince them. I could give you many examples of those who regretted their choice when it was too late. Often such marriages end up in divorce, and in others people endure a difficult life, sighing daily under the enmity of their partner. It is often heard, “I wish I had listened to my parents.” (This is sufficient for the moment, but I hope you take it to heart.)

We have seen that Adam and Eve were the first people who inhabited the earth, and this was about six-thousand years ago. Those who disagree will list a number of arguments against this. They speak of the great difference in skull structure, hair, color, language, morals, customs, etc. I am not able to explain everything scientifically, but we do know that the Lord made a difference in the families of Shem, Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah. It is generally agreed that white people are the descendants of Japheth. The children of Shem are those with a somewhat darker skin who live in countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and the descendants of Ham are people of color. We must realize also that there has been a large amount of intermarrying and of moving about the globe which makes it more difficult to pin point the differences. These, however, are the main divisions.

When we see the great differences in families, however, you can understand that many external changes have also taken place, and we may not forget the influence of climate either. Often that which is small in one part of the world, can be quite large somewhere else. Take for example the poinsettia plant. In Europe it is not more than a foot in height while in the State of California it can become a tree. This is the result of the influence of the climate.

The differences in language is not difficult to explain because we can find our answer in Genesis 11 which speaks about the confusion of tongues. Therefore, although there are many differences in the human race, we can still defend the unity of it all as descending from Adam and Eve. Even the blood groups found among the human race form a unity.

We cannot determine where Paradise was located, although in the days of Moses it was a place or a country well known. Most theologians think it was in Mesopotamia or Babylon.

Against all the unbelief of the world, we have the unmovable and unchangeable Word of God, which tells us that the Lord is the Creator of heaven and earth, and also of man. Thus, it was stated in the 14th article; “We believe that God created man out of the dust of the earth, and made and formed him after His own image and likeness; good righteous and holy, capable in all things to will, agreeably to the will of God.”

We hope to say somewhat more about this next time, the Lord willing.

Erratum

One of our readers brought to our attention a mistake in the November issue of The Banner of Truth. In the Timothy article “The Written Word of God,” it states that Moses lived about twenty-five years after Creation. This is obviously wrong; it should be twenty-five hundred years. We regret this error. (Ed.)

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