p. 7 | The Hope of Evolution by L. A. Reed

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 15, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 49.

The Hope of Evolution

By L. A. Reed

By Prof. L. A. Reed

The Hope of Evolution

One of the great teachers of the world to-day gave expression not long ago to the idea that the world was to have soon a new religion.

One of the fundamental tenets of this new religion is that a man can make no sudden change in his life or character.

“No sudden change!” A slow, gradual, almost imperceptible growth is the doctrine of evolution. It must hold for the plant, the animal, and man, as well as for the construction of worlds. And as evolution is, in the eyes of the new religion, the absolutely unchallengeable truth, everybody must take the consequences.

And so, poor sin-sick man, if unfortunately you have lived for years a life of sin, there is for you no hope in the new religion, no hope for any sudden change. If in line with the teachings of evolution, you will now begin to struggle upward toward the “fittest.” It may be that you will come out all right in this “struggle with environment,” and in this “survival of the fittest,” if your life will only last a century or so.

And yet we must not indulge false hopes. Character perpetuates itself; even evolution can not deny that. And since we start only with a life lived in sin for years, and something can not come from nothing, what is there with which to build for righteousness?

Even evolution acknowledges that we can develop only what is already in the germ, and that time merely gives opportunity to bring out what is already there. Then commencing with sin, we can develop only sin, and end only with sin. Hope dies in the heart of him who struggles on, and life ends in despair.

But the great teacher of the new religion (and in the eyes of the world he must be a great teacher, having been president of the greatest American college for half a century) is not the only one who has passed by in ignorance the simple

yet mighty miraculous possibility of a sudden change in the life of a human, a change so sudden and at the same time so radical that the mind of God denominates it a “new birth;” “birth” because it is sudden, “new” because it is so completely different from the old.

And when Nicodemus, the great teacher of his time, stumbled over the astounding proposition of this which is at once so radical, so complete, so sudden, the Greatest of all Teachers rebuked him with the words, “Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things?”

The Hope of the Gospel

But the truth is nevertheless truth. There is hope for a man, but that hope does not lie in human effort or evolutionary development. The Ethiopian can not change his skin, nor the leopard his spots. No more can the sinner alone change his life; having been accustomed to evil, he can not do well. Habit is an iron chain in such case; it holds its prisoner. And looking merely at this natural law, it is not surprising that even great men should teach that a sudden change of life is an impossibility. The Word of God is even more emphatic in declaring that the sinner relying on only natural forces can not become a saint.

But the Word of the Lord rings clear and emphatic. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen.” “Except one be born anew, he can not see the kingdom of God.”

While the Word is clear and direct in averring that a man can not naturally change his mode of life from sin to righteousness, that Word is just as clear and direct and emphatic in asserting that man must change, he must “cease to do evil” and “learn to do well,” or he will be eternally lost in consequence of his perversity.

And now how shall a man change? By what means may he “pass from death to life?” What is the process of this “new birth”?

Steps in the Change

The first step is the conviction that he is wrong, that his present course is inexcusable, that it is folly and self-destruction to continue as he is, that he must turn to a better and higher mode of life. Until this conviction prevails, no effort will be made; no change will take place while the agent sees no need of a change. But the holy law of God, studied with humility and faith, the Word of God read with sincerity and trust, will show the great gulf that lies between the life of that law and Word, and the life of him who is in sin.

And then as the conviction of sin fastens upon the soul, the sinner acknowledges his folly, his evil course; in other words, he confesses his sins. To confess sin is to say just what God says of sin, that it is inexcusable transgression of the law of the eternal kingdom, that it is rebellion against a faultless Ruler, that it is anarchy where there is no possible cause for anarchy; it is subversion of government where there is positively no misrule. To confess in the full sense is to renounce, to agree so far as the will is concerned that there shall be no more of sin. This is the second step.

And when the sin has been seen, when the sin has been confessed, then God forgives and justifies. By this the power of God operates in the life to produce righteousness; and what the man could not do before, he now does by the operation of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. . . . For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” makes “free from the law of sin and death.” Rom. 8:1, 2. And this is the man’s justification, his being made righteousness. And it comes suddenly and certainly, and works its change completely, when man has been first convinced of sin and confessed and renounced it.

For the Spirit “will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” John 16:8. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. . . . For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Rom. 8:1, 2, 15.