BiblicalInsights.net

Wayne Jackson, in the July, 2015 issue of the Christian Courier, wrote an article titled, “When Time Becomes God.”  The article is an excellent treatment of the question regarding the age of the earth.  How old is the earth?  How do we know?  Does it make any difference?  Does it matter what writers of Scripture say about this issue? Does it matter what Jesus says about it?
I would like to share some of the comments of bro. Jackson regarding this important and controversial topic.  For the entire article, please go to the Christian Courier website.
The Beginning of Creation
In the New Testament, the phrase, “from the beginning” is used more than twenty times.  The context determines the point of the beginning under consideration.  For instance, it may apply to an event within a certain time frame, e.g. the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 6:64).  However, on a number of occasions, it refers to the beginning of the world (Matt. 24:21).  Let’s consider some of the passages in which Jesus used this phrase in reference to the beginning of the world (Gen. 1:1).
First, Jesus placed Adam and Eve (the first humans) at the beginning of the creation. Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”  In contrast, those who affirm organic evolution and theistic evolution have billions of years between the point of the beginning of the universe and the appearance of man on the earth.  Does this trusted testimony of the savior, Jesus Christ, (also the creator of the all things -Col. 1:16) have any authority in deciding the question of the age of the earth?  If we believe Jesus, it does!  Was Jesus ignorant of chronology?  Did He misrepresent the facts to accommodate human ignorance?  In either case, He would forfeit His claim to deity.  The deity of Jesus Christ is at stake in regards to the truth of the age of the earth.
Second, Jesus places the fall of man at the beginning.  The book of Genesis does not give a precise chronology for the time between Adam and Eve’s creation and their fall and subsequent banishment from the Garden of Eden.  But, it could not have been very long.  In John 8:44, Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”  Jesus said that Satan was a liar and a murder “from the beginning.”  When creation was complete, Satan brought death upon the human race by his deception of Eve and Adam.  In this way, sin entered into the world and death by sin (Rom. 5:12).  There is no room for billions of years to pass from the beginning of the world until the fall of man.
Third, Jesus places the death of Abel, “at the foundation of the world.”  Luke 11:45-52.  Jesus said, “That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation.  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.” How could this statement of the Lord be harmonized with evolutionary chronology?  Abel was one of the sons of Adam and Eve.  Notice, too, that Jesus speaks of the first family as historical people and not as mythological characters.
Fourth, Jesus predicted that the tribulation that would occur with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. would eclipse all previous human suffering even “from the beginning of creation” (Mark 13:19).  Clearly, Jesus extended human history back to the very beginning of the earth’s creation as recorded in Genesis 1.  Why is Jesus’ testimony so arrogantly disputed by evolutionists and theistic evolutionists today?  They are unbelievers.
Time:  Evolution’s God
Professor George Wald of Harvard University once declared:  “Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible becomes probable, and the probable virtually certain.  One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles” (quoted by Wayne Jackson, Christian Courier, July, 2015, p. 4).  Given enough time, something can come from nothing.  Given enough time, non-living things can give rise to living things (spontaneous generation).  It is expected that atheists would argue in such an illogical fashion.  What is distressing is that some misguided Christians, who profess allegiance to the Bible as God’s word, have ingested the evolutionary dogma to a significant degree, compromising the testimony of Jesus Christ.  “The “pied-pipers” lead youngsters into the maze of that deadly hybrid ideology known as theistic evolution” (Wayne Jackson, Christian Courier, July, 2015, p. 5).
H. S. Miller, General Biblical Introduction, p. 51 states, “He [Christ] was completely and eloquently silent concerning any error, contradiction, inaccuracy, myth, legend, or forgery in the Old Testament; strangely and criminally silent, if such existed.  These either did or did not exist.  If they did exist, He was either (1) ignorant of them, in which case He was not omniscient, hence not the unique Son of God, hence an impostor, hence a sinner, hence no Savior; or He (2) did know of them and deliberately chose to be silent, to deceive the people, in which case He was a dishonest man, a deceiver, an impostor, a sinner, and no savior” (quoted by Wayne Jackson, Christian Courier, July, 2015, “When Time Becomes God”).
The previous is the logical dilemma from which no atheist or theistic evolutionist can escape.  “Pity the compromiser who abandons the testimony of the Son of God in deference to the whimsical, ever-vacillating revisions of atheistic speculation” (Wayne Jackson, Courier, p. 5).