An ape holding a human skull

Sitting on my desk is a curio displaying an ape holding a human skull. The ape, with a quizzical countenance, sits atop a stack of Darwin’s books. According to Darwin’s theory, about five billion years ago, there was no life on earth—just a “primordial soup” of elements and chemical compounds floating around in the ocean. Somehow, these chemicals collided, reacted and aggregated to create the spark of life in its smallest form—a one-celled protozoan.

Darwin reasoned that, over eons of time, these one-celled creatures grew fins and later became fish. The fish developed legs and one day crawled up on the seashore. Later, they evolved into land animals. Thousands of years further down the metamorphic scale, emerged the mammals and four-legged animals like dinosaurs. Even further down the evolutionary chain, came the apes. As the centuries rolled by, the apes began to stand more and more erect and to take on more human characteristics until man appeared.

The creation versus evolution debate still rages. In fact, this dispute was accentuated by the “Scopes Monkey Trial” held in Tennessee in 1925. John Scopes, a high school teacher, was accused of violating the Butler Act by teaching human evolution in the classroom. The ACLU hired an agnostic lawyer, Clarence Darrow, to represent Scopes in the “Monkey Trial.” William Jennings Bryan, a Bible scholar and three-time presidential candidate, represented the prosecution. Although Scopes was found guilty, the verdict was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court on a technicality. This court case only accentuated the controversy.

The creation story tells us that man became so sinful that God destroyed the earth (Gen. 6:5-7). Yet, sin continued, for Romans 5:12 states that Adam’s sinful nature passed to all humanity. For this to transpire, the sinful nature passed from Adam to the 10th generation of Noah (Gen. 5). Only eight people survived the flood. They were Noah and his wife plus Noah’s three sons and their wives. Consequently, the sins of Adam passed through Noah’s bloodlines to the ensuing human race.

Can we trace our lineage back to Adam? My brother, Dwayne, is an accomplished genealogist who traced the Powell family back to the 1600s in America; however, tracing lineages back to ancient history is impractical due to lack of census records, birth certificates and marriage licenses. For the advocates of evolution, we can’t go back to the apes either.

Whether one believes in creation or evolution, it is difficult to deny that the Supreme Creator brought into existence the universe, the earth and all human and animal life. Moreover, the great flood did not eradicate sin. Neither did animal sacrifices prescribed by the Mosaic Law. So, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, into the world as a mortal man (John 1:14) to die on the cross for our sins. One drop of His divine, sinless blood was sufficient to atone for the sins of the all humanity and to restore mankind’s standing with God. Thereby, man is set free from the curse of sin through faith in Christ.

To conclude, God’s Grace (unmerited love) exceeded the trespass (man’s sins).

HHJ News