In the past week I’ve learned of two guys whose life ended in what we would call a premature manner. One was forty-two years of age and died suddenly. The other was twenty-six years of age and he, too, died suddenly.
These things shock us.
We don’t expect those things to happen.
We understand deep within that these things shouldn’t happen- they simply are abnormalities.
Why?
Because we understand deep down inside that this is not how the world is supposed to be.
Now if the world truly evolved, or if God somehow used evolution to create (which to me seems to be a contradictory use of terms), then these things would be normal and expected. We would realize that it is simply how things are. We would probably even evolve a method/organ with which to deal with these things. We would then accept them easily and move on with life.
But we don’t do that.
We don’t do that because we cannot.
We don’t do that because death will never be normal, though it is understood that it happens.
We battle against death.
We fight it.
We hate it.
We try to avoid it.
We weep, we ache, we cry, we scream, we get angry when we lose someone to death.
This is only understandable in the light of the fact that God gave us a perfect creation just as Genesis 1-2 tell us.
This is understandable in light of the fact that death is an anomaly and not part of creation.
This is also understandable in light of the fact that death results from the fall of man, and so does the accompanying heartache.
We have hope because we read of a literal redemption that is available in Christ.
We have hope because we read of a time when Christ restores Paradise to man, or man to Paradise.
We have hope because we read of a time when death is finally and forever abolished.
Once one begins to deny a literal historical narrative of creation in Genesis 1-2, he logically must deny the literal nature of the reversal of the fall and the return to Paradise.
Redemption is then a fallacy.
It is only a dream.
Christianity is then only an opiate for the uneducated, or those who are in denial.
This is not a slippery slope argument. It is about following the foolish logic of those who deny that the Creation Narrative is truly a literal historical narrative to its end.
Do these professing Christians truly wish to deny hope and peace to grieving people? In the end they are denying it by laying the foundation for the rejection of redemption and restoration. They may not deny these things, but the foundation is laid. It will not be long until there are those who will follow them and their logic to its logical conclusion.
As for me, I shall cling to Scripture and cling to hope in Christ. That is the only way that I can offer hope to others.
If that sounds pragmatic; pardon me, please. There is simply no reason or no hope in an uncreated world, and I have no desire to embrace irrationality and despair. I also refuse to subject those dear people who are in my care to hopelessness.
I choose to embrace a literal reading of the Genesis Creation Narrative because I embrace rationality and hope.
