This question arises frequently these days as evolution is taught in public schools across the U.S. Some Christians think it’s irrelevant whether they believe in Biblical Creation as long as they accept and abide by the Gospel. But is it? Here is some perspective inspired by Joel Tay, a Scientist at Creation Ministries International, that shows this is a more serious matter than some Christians think.
The belief that it doesn’t matter what you believe about biblical creation infers a type of ‘Gospel-only-ism’. But everything we need to know about the Christian faith, our fallen state, and our need for salvation, has its foundation in the early chapters of Genesis. Jesus and the New Testament authors grounded the Gospel and key doctrines of the faith on the foundations in Genesis.
Jesus stakes his own reputation and authority upon the inerrancy of Moses’ writings
Genesis is not the Gospel, but it is a Gospel issue. If it is not real history, why believe the rest of the Bible? As Jesus Himself said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46).
A plain reading of the Bible tells us that God created the world in six days. We are given chronogenealogies in the Bible with the age of each father and when he has his next son, meaning that there cannot be any missing ‘time gaps’. Adding up the numbers from Adam to this present day places the creation of Adam and Eve at about 6,000 years ago.
The doctrine most under attack today
In Mark 10:6 Jesus said, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female”‘. Adam and Eve were a historical couple, whose fall brought sin, death, and suffering into this world.
Attempts to insert billions of years into the Bible before Adam and Eve not only places death before the Fall, but it also requires placing Adam and Eve at the end of billions of years of world history, but this would contradict Jesus’ words. To put it plainly, Jesus teaches that the Earth is young (that is, not millions of years old). Do you believe Jesus?
Jesus had to die a physical death on the cross because Adam, the first man (1 Cor. 15:45), brought physical death into this world. Jesus wore a crown of thorns on the cross, a symbol of the curse that came into this world because of sin (Gen. 3:15-18), and the Bible tells us that one day, death itself will be destroyed. Likewise, the blessed hope (Titus 2:13-14) and future restoration (Rom. 8:20-21) alludes back to Genesis, and even the very order of creation and the order of the Fall forms the basis for New Testament teaching (1Tim. 2:13-15).
The implications are obvious: if there never was a real Adam and Eve, there is no need for salvation.
Denial of original sin constitutes the ancient heresy known as Pelagianism. Undermine Genesis, and you undermine the Gospel.
Can you be a Christian if you do not believe in Biblical creation?
Well, can a person be saved without believing the Trinity? The answer is, ‘yes’, but only by being inconsistent or ignorant. New believers often come to Christ without a comprehensive understanding of the Trinity. However, if after being informed, a person still denies the Trinity, that person is a heretic because they have rejected the truth of God’s Word. In the same way, a person may be a Christian and not believe in Biblical creation, but only by being inconsistent or ignorant. This is the situation because of the confusion over the issue of whether evolution is ‘science’. Most professing Christians have never been exposed to the Biblical evidence for Creation. When they are shown for the first time, how creation declares the mighty works of God, it sparks in them great joy and confidence in the Word of God.
