Adam and Eve ... For Real!

No amount of scientific analysis will ever be able to enlighten us. The study of origins has enough trouble with the question, how? How did all of the elements that we can detect and analyze, how did they come together to form life?

But even if they can come close to the answer, how, they still will be miles away from the answer to why. Why is there life? Why does this universe exist? Why do you have life? God's Word comes along and says, let me answer that for you. So why are you here on this earth?

Why has God given you life? Today, Christians are considered fools if they believe that the human race came from a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. Thinking we came from a lower life forms is far more fashionable.

This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. On our last broadcast, we saw that God is the creator of all that exists. Today, we come to a passage where Paul expands that to include humanity.

There are significant implications to the fact that God created us, and we'll explore those next. This lesson is called Adam and Eve for Real. In 1872, John Sacks wrote an English poem about a group of blind men who decided to visit an elephant determined by their powers of observation, what an elephant was truly like. His poem goes like this. Now, it's written in 1872 English, okay, so bear with me. It was six men of Indostan to learning much inclined who went to see the elephant, though all of them were blind, that each by observation might satisfy his mind. The first approached the elephant in happening to fall against his broad and sturdy side.

It once began to bawl. God bless me, but the elephant is very like a wall. The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, ho, what have we here?

So very round and smooth and sharp. To me, tis mighty clear, this wonder of an elephant is very like a spear. The third approached the animal in happening to take the squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake, I see, quoth he, the elephant is really like a snake.

The fourth reached out his eager hand and felt about the knee. What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain, quoth he, tis clear enough the elephant is really like a tree. The fifth, who chanced to touch his ear, said, even the blindest man can tell what this resembles most, deny the fact you can. This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan.

The sixth, no sooner had begun about the beast to grope than seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope. I see, quoth he, the elephant is really like a rope. And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong, though each was partly in the right and all were in the wrong. On this windswept hill in Athens that we have been traveling each week up to listen in on Paul's declaration to the Supreme Court of Athens, he's basically saying you have some things that are partly right, but you are completely wrong. You have an understanding that there is some kind of divine power, that there are immortalities, that there are deities, so to speak, of course for them it was plural, but you are completely wrong. He's also effectively telling them don't depend upon the power of your observation with what little you can see. In fact, Paul says, I want to introduce to you this unknown God to you, I'm going to make him known. Now if we pick our study back up in Acts 17, I want to organize our thoughts around two statements, and these two statements will sort of steer us, they'll summarize what Paul says next about God. The first statement is this, God is the creator of humanity. Now I want you to notice the middle part of verse 25, sort of drop back in there, he himself gives to all life and breath and all things and he made from one every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. For us, perhaps, you know the gospel who have been in the word of God, it's like okay sure, next verse please.

Now these are staggering claims in the opening lines of the sentence. God is the original source of all life, all breath, and all things. And I want to notice with you again and spend a little time here this phrase, he made from one every nation of mankind. Now that prepositional phrase means that all of mankind tracks back to a common ancestor.

One nation came from man and every nation from them tracking back to him. Now Darwin taught that man of course evolved from apes and continued evolving as various races with some races more developed than others. Frankly, I'm shocked that our world doesn't bring Darwin's horrific racism into the open and expose his belief that the dark skinned races, whatever they might be, developed slower than the light skinned races. For instance, he believed that Africans were not nearly as evolved as the European white race because of their dark skin. Why don't they ever put that in the science books they hand to children?

They don't. Even Stephen Jay Gould later would admit, and I quote him, biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased exponentially following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. This is one of the ugly secrets about evolution that never quite makes it into print. Ken Ham is going to be with us next week, and I've pulled a number of quotes from his wonderful book entitled Six Days, but he writes this, Darwin's error was later exposed through the field of genetics. What Darwin didn't know was that everyone has the same brown colored skin pigment called melanin. A person's genetic makeup received from his parents determines his potential to produce a certain level of melanin, which is why we see a range of skin shades in people from light to middle brown to dark. Frankly, I wish I had more of it. I walk from here to the parking lot and I get burned. I'm pale pink.

I could use some more of it. Paul effectively announces to the Supreme Court of Athens that humans are not split into various races because of higher or lower stages of evolution. In fact, no matter what our skin color or our ethnic background, we all actually belong to one race, one blood. You could literally interpret Paul saying, one human race, and we all came from the first human beings created, Adam and his wife Eve. Now here's where evolution has invaded not just our culture but the church. The church is becoming more and more besieged by theistic evolutionists. That is, they believe God started everything but then left it to evolve over millions and millions of years and the human race eventually evolved from animals. Part of their problem, of course, is in the church, at least, theistic evolutionists, is to somehow erase or redefine what the Bible has to say about Adam and Eve and somehow spiritualize it away because they don't want to outright deny it.

They've got to do something with it. Carl Giberson, a former professor of Eastern Nazarene College along with Francis Collins wrote, we make no claim that the description provided in Genesis is how God created us. Neither science nor the Bible answers that question. Oh, that's my word by the way, I slipped into the quote.

I just want to be part of that quote. The Genesis account says little about how God created. Again, oh, Adam was created from dust and God's breath, Eve was created from Adam's rib, but none of these explanations can possibly be actual descriptions. It's simply not reasonable to try to turn the brief comments in Genesis into a biologically accurate description of how humans were formed.

Really? Well, the problem I have with this quote, by the way, is that it's not coming from the science department at NC State or UNC Chapel Hill. The problem is it's coming from a Christian college, from a Christian professor, who's trying to somehow make science, nature, and reason fit with some miraculous account that just to him doesn't seem reasonable. And if you notice, he says that we just don't have enough information about it.

No, the problem is he doesn't like what little information we've been given. And by the way, I wonder if this professor would have a problem with the fact that we have even less biblical information on how God is going to recreate our bodies that will last forever. Do we believe that? Somehow he's going to translate us from mortality to immortality and he's going to create a heaven that we'll enjoy forever. We have less on how God did that or will do that. I imagine he would like to believe that.

We only know a fraction. Well, Paul in this text is introducing God to the Athenians by effectively introducing Adam and by virtue of a literal Adam, a young earth, and every nation coming from him. But Paul is in other passages saying the same thing. Listen to what he wrote to Timothy. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. First Timothy 2, 13. Not born, not evolved, created by the word of God. Dr. Peter Enns is a professor for years, was a professor for years at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Again, another seminary that started because of the liberalism that was encroaching in the community. Now it's been around many, many years but he retired in 2004 and he wrote with some open frustration with the emphasis of Paul on Adam. I just couldn't help but chuckle but it isn't a laughing matter but he says this, it's not so much that Genesis talks about an Adam, it's the fact that Paul talks about an Adam. That's the heart of the tension concerning Genesis and evolution. If Adam just stayed in the Old Testament where he belonged, we wouldn't have this problem but Paul draws him out and for Paul, Adam is the first human being. Well, maybe we ought to listen to Paul. What do you say?

Can you imagine? By the way, that happens to be the gospel message of Paul to the Athenians. Look back at chapter 17 and verse 26 again. And he, God, made from one man, a literal man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. Listen, that is not clunky. That is descriptive.

It's descriptive. Paul is confirming in the New Testament what happened in the Genesis account in the Old Testament. And by the way, what he's saying here, understand this, it isn't any more popular in Athens as it is in America. Those Athenian council members were sitting there and by now they're probably thinking, this guy is a bit off. See, they believe that Zeus was the originator of life. They believed it came from him. The Greek word for life, by the way, is zoe.

And Paul is effectively confronting that. He's saying in this manner, this is what they would be hearing, that Zeus did not produce zoe. Theos, God, produced zoe, life. And God created all the variations of color and physical attributes within one race. There's only one human race. And the Athenians, by the way, didn't like that because they had for centuries believed that the Greek race, they believed, was a distinct race and was the master race. That, of course, will be picked up later by Hitler and the Germans who would believe that same thing centuries later.

Not so. All of mankind are members of one race descending from one man, a literal first man by the name of Adam, who was created. And let me kind of draw it into the gospel then. So no matter what color you are, when it comes to the gospel, God is colorblind.

No matter what part of the family tree, you know, you fell from. When it comes to the gospel, God is socially blind. No matter how much money you have or status, God is economically blind when it comes to the gospel.

No one has the inside track, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Listen, we thank God for Adam and the human race, but we must not cling to the human race. But by faith, become a member of God's chosen race, a redeemed people, a prized possession, who've been called out of darkness. Our eyes have been opened into a marvelous light.

1 Peter 2. So in just a couple of sentences here, Paul literally confronts the Athenian theories of origins and for us, the theory of Darwin, along with theistic evolutionists as well. God is the creator of humanity. I have a second point.

We'll do this a little quicker. God is the controller of history. Notice verse 26 again. And he made from one, one man, you could render it.

ESV translates it that way, which I prefer. He made from one blood or one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. In other words, every nation and the borders of every nation and the length of the history of every nation is under the sovereign control designed by God, which means it isn't the role of the Christian to save his nation from perishing.

God has determined the length of its history. Any more than it is your role to save this planet from perishing. We do not take the place of God. It's his.

He controls it. Our mission, I've said it before, I'll say it again, seems to fit well here. Our mission is not to save America, but to save by means of the gospel Americans. Our mission is not to save this planet. In fact, the Bible tells us that this planet, in fact the universe is being prepared for that judgment by means of fire.

There's going to be this incredible fireball, Peter writes in 2 Peter, where it will be destroyed by fire and God will then recreate a new heaven and a new earth. Now that doesn't mean that you're not supposed to take care of this planet and throw trash around, not care. No, be a good guardian of it. It doesn't mean that you're not supposed to care about this country.

It's one thing to be responsible and even a patriotic citizen, which I happen to be with great joy. But it's another thing to assume sovereign ownership and believe that if you don't save it that somehow God's purposes will be shortchanged. What's God going to do if we don't save it? By the way, the worldlings are determined to attempt to save it because they have been able to detect, as God has allowed it, that this universe is winding down.

It's winding down. Well God has in his omnipotent hand a stopwatch and it is all divinely ordained according to his purposes and we're right on track. Paul states here the nations belong to God.

He's the Lord of history. He goes on to add in verse 27 that these nations should seek God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Now that doesn't mean that they, any nation or individual, can find God on their own. Paul wrote to the Romans, how can they believe in one in whom they've, of whom they've never heard? They have to hear about him.

How will they hear? He writes, without a preacher or a messenger, Romans 10, 14, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The gospel has to be delivered and it has to be delivered for a person to be saved. They must hear the gospel, Romans 10, 17. What Paul means here is that the Athenians are close to the truth in that they know there are deities, so to speak. They know that there are immortality. They know there are spirit beings.

But like the blind men of Indostan, they are partly right but they still end up entirely wrong. Now the word Paul uses here that's a key word to describe their searching, you might have noticed that he writes, if perhaps they might grope for him. That word means to feel around, like the groping of a blind person who has difficulty finding the object he wants to hold and this is so incredibly strategic here. Paul is using the same verb to grope that one of Athens' most famous citizens used in his best-selling work entitled The Odyssey. The author's name was Homer and Homer told the story of Odysseus, the Greek champion warrior who is trapped on one occasion with his soldiers in a cave and the cave is controlled by a one-eyed giant named Cyclops.

Odysseus, this warrior champion, is able to blind the giant's eye with a spear and then he and his men try to avoid the blinded and rather upset enraged giant who is groping for them with his hands and he uses that same word. Paul now uses that famous Athenian's writings and he chooses, of course by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that same verb to describe the Athenians in their groping about trying to find God. But he also implies in that, would you notice, that the true and living God wants to be found. He desires fellowship, companionship. He doesn't need us but he delights in us. Mankind was created for worship and companionship with this creator God. Adam and Eve sinned and God came because they used to walk. I'm not exactly sure how that worked but they walked together. God came looking for them and cried out, where are you Adam?

They're hiding behind some bushes, some tree. God seeks, as it were, companionship with those he has created. In his book, John Lennox explains the inability of reason alone to grasp the answer to the most important issues of life.

A study of mythical origins and all the theories actually can't answer the question that resonates in the heart really of every human being as they pillow their head. And James Matilda, he says, has made a beautiful luscious three-layered cake. The cake is taken to be analyzed by a group of the world's top scientists, nutritionists and biochemists. The nutrition scientists finishes their examination and are able to tell us the number of calories in the cake and each specific nutritional element and effect upon the human body.

The biochemists are able to determine the structure of proteins and fats and why you shouldn't need it but it's a great idea anyway. All of that in the batter and the icing. The physicists are able to analyze the cake in terms of fundamental particles and so on.

The mathematicians are able to determine the behavior of those particles with sets of elegant equations and how they correspond and to what degree with each other. They present an elaborate report on how the cake was made and how its various ingredients relate to one another and how the cake will affect the body and on and on. He says this, but suppose you ask the experts one question. Why did Aunt Matilda make that cake? They will not be able to answer. The only person in the room smiling would be Aunt Matilda because she alone knows its purpose. And listen, it isn't an insult on any scientific discipline to do everything that they do and yet be unable to answer the question why because they cannot. In fact, the only way we'd ever get an answer to the question why is to ask whom? Aunt Matilda. And she will tell you.

It's a birthday cake for her nephew to celebrate with him. Listen, without any disclosure, no amount of scientific analysis will ever be able to enlighten us. The study of origins has enough trouble with the question how.

Think about it. How did life originate? How did all of the elements that we can detect and analyze, how did they come together to form life?

But even if they can come close to the answer how, they still will be millions of miles away from the answer to why. Why is there life? Why does this universe exist? Why do you exist? Why do you have life?

Analyze the chemicals in your body. You cannot determine the purpose of being alive. Why this universe? Measure it, study it, explore it.

You will never be able to answer the question why. God's word comes along and says let me answer that for you. The heavens, their purpose is to declare the glory of God for us to effectively stand in awe of his creative might and power.

And listen, let me say this and we're done. You exist to serve and represent and worship and love and enjoy and one day talk with and walk with and worship and praise and serve your creator. God created you with purpose.

Knowing that purpose should inform the way you spend your time and the way you live your life and the way you interact with the people you encounter. I hope this time in God's word has challenged and encouraged you today. You've been listening to Wisdom for the Heart.

Stephen Davey is working through a series from Acts 17 entitled Introducing God. We have one more lesson to go in that series and we'll bring you that lesson next time. In the meantime, we'd love to interact with you. If you have a comment, question, or a note that you'd like to send to Stephen, our mailing address is Wisdom for the Heart, PO Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627.

Let me give you that one more time. It's Wisdom for the Heart, PO Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. We'd enjoy getting a card or letter from you. Our website is found at wisdomonline.org.

Once you get there, you can explore the complete archive of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry. There's a form that you can use on that website to send us a note as well. But if you prefer email, that address is info at wisdomonline.org.

That's info at wisdomonline.org. Thanks for joining us today. Please be with us next time for more Wisdom for the Heart. We'll see you next time.