CREATION by L. A. Reed

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 6, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 23.

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CREATION

By L. A. Reed

NOT CONTINUOUS

BY L. A. REED

THE doctrine of evolution is a teaching that creation is a continuous process.

According to that theory, it is assumed that the world has been æons of ages in its origin and development, and that it is still moving on toward some great goal, infinitely far away as to time and ultimate results.

But the Bible teaching is utterly antagonistic to this theory of the modern scientist. Creation is not a continuous process. Creation was confined to the first week of time. All the matter of the world was brought into existence upon the first day. All of its orderly arrangement, organization, and full realization of form were produced upon the succeeding five days, and man's mental and moral conditions fully realized upon the seventh day.

That the works were finished at this time is plainly stated to us, both in the Old Testament and in the New. To quote from the New Testament: "The works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works." Heb. 4:3, 4. This language is too plain to bear any misinterpretation, or to be in any sense misunderstood. God's works were finished from the foundation of the world; because when the seventh day was set apart as a Sabbath, God was said to rest on that day from all His works. And then we are told that this rest remains (verse 9), and that the man, the sinner, who accepts and enters into this rest of God, ceases from his own works of sin as completely as God ceased from His work of creation. Verse 10.

Finished in Seven Days

WHAT God said of the seventh day in "a certain place," as here mentioned, is recorded in Genesis. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Gen. 2:1-3. In this scripture, we are told, four times over, that the work which God did was finished in the seven days. We are told in the first verse, referring to the first chapter of Genesis, "Thus [that is, in this way] the heavens and the earth were finished." Further, we are told that it was on the seventh day that God ended His work; thirdly, it is announced that He rested on the seventh day from all His work; and fourth, and last of all, He set apart the seventh day as a holy day, as a blessed day, because on the seventh day He had rested from all His work.

Now, this is the challenge to the truth of the Bible, which evolution makes: it declares that creation is not finished, that God, or the creative energies, have not ceased. But the Bible is unequivocal in its statements. There is no uncertainty in its teachings — God's creative work is done.

The Bible being true, creation must agree with the record of the Book. And when we challenge the scientist to give us any evidence of creation now continuing, he points to certain factors which he says demonstrate this, but which, when examined, show that the scientist has nothing — absolutely nothing whatever — to offer in harmony with this statement. There is nothing in the universe to-day that the scientist can show us, even remotely suggesting a continuous or continued creation. Merely to make the statement is not, on our part, enough. We will give ample illustration to show the truth of the Bible that creation has ceased, and thereby demonstrate the falsity of the claims that creation is still continuing.

The Preservation of Creation

ACCORDING to the Bible record, the creation consisted of two acts on the part of God: first, a bringing of creation into existence; secondly, a providing for its preservation. "He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." See Ps. 33:6, 9. Or, as stated in the first chapter of Hebrews, He upholds all things by the creative word, the word of His power. Heb. 1:3. That is to say, by the creative word, all things exist, or are held together. Col. 1:17.

Now let us see in nature evidence that creation is merely being preserved, that it is not being produced. For example, the evolutionist will point to the fact that when a tree is cut, in a little while, by the infolding of the bark, the scar will be healed. The same is true of the ordinary wounds upon the body. An abrasion of the skin is soon healed and closed over, almost as well as before. We are told that there is an example of creation; but when it is closely analyzed, what do we find? — There is no creation at all; it is merely a preserving of what has already been created, — an attempt, on the part of natural forces, to keep in normal condition what already exists. It does not show, it does not faintly suggest, even, how a world might be created, how a body might be produced.

Do the Fittest Survive?

ONE of the greatest arguments offered by the evolutionist is that of natural selection — that nature always attempts to choose the strongest, and that only the fittest survive. This law breaks down in a thousand places; for the strongest, by taking the place of greatest danger, are sometimes destroyed, and the weaker, being protected, survive. But ignoring exceptions to the law, and granting, for the sake of argument, that evolution is correct in assuming that the fittest always survive, and that there is a law of natural selection which chooses only the strongest, the fittest, what does it show? — Simply an attempt, on the part of nature, to keep up to her normal type.

Something cannot come from nothing; and if the two strongest unite to produce a third strong type, they cannot give more than they have, and that which results will be only the composition of the two factors. It cannot be more; for if it were, it would be something coming from nothing, which is philosophically impossible to conceive of. That is to say, if the law of natural selection, of the survival of the fittest, were absolutely true always, it would merely mean that nature would never deteriorate, but would always keep up to her highest type, that what is here would never be lost; but it does not show how a single new factor could come in. The thing that evolutionists point to as their greatest demonstration of the theory of evolution, merely demonstrates the truth of the Bible, that nature is conserved, and also the emptiness of the claims of scientific false philosophy.

A Gradual Leakage

THE dual parentage in nature is an effort toward the same thing — the holding of that which already exists, without loss, as far as possible. On the plan of nature, a creature is the product of two parents, it being presumed that the two parents will not be weak upon the same point, and that the resulting creature may not inherit weakness, because the strength of one parent will offset the weakness of the other. But at the best, this is merely to say that creation is upheld — that that which has been produced, shall not be lost. It is not any evidence whatever that creation is still going on.

In fact, when we examine into all these effects, we find that although nature is struggling constantly to keep up to the normal, there is a gradual leakage, so to speak, and nature is slowly losing in the great struggle, degenerating, deteriorating, from age to age. Man's life is shorter, his physical, mental, and moral strength less. All creation groans and labors, enslaved under the bondage of corruption, with its tendency to deteriorate and decay.

Not only does nature show an attempt, on the part of the power working within it, to hold and preserve that which already exists, but we find the divine activity everywhere manifested toward the same end. When Christ was upon earth, He never attempted to produce a new thing. It was always to restore to the normal type those who needed help. If He healed a man of blindness, He but gave him sight, and made him a normal man. If He made the lame walk, it was but to restore the normal type of God's creative work; and even when He removed sin, turning men back toward God, it was but to place them thereby the nearer to the type of men that was created by God in Eden. Restoration to the original type, or preservation, or conservation, if you please, of the original creation, is all that we see presented in the Bible, both from the side of nature and from the side of spirituality.

Supernatural Power Required

THE Sabbath was given as a memorial of this restorative or preserving work. The Sabbath itself is a rest, and rest is restoration, or preservation. It is a sign of God's mighty power working to maintain man and creation. Ex. 20:8-11; 31:16, 17.

The idea of a rest is not the idea of complete

cessation from activity, for that is death; but rest means a cessation of that activity which destroys, and a turning to a condition that will restore. So God's Sabbath rest suggests the restoration of the Edenic type, the preservation of man as he was in the Garden of Eden; and that is the survival of the fittest according to the true doctrine. It requires, however, the supernatural power of God to maintain a hold where sin has entered, where deterioration has taken place, where degeneration is going on, where death is claiming its prey, where rottenness and corruption are seeking to overwhelm.

But when we look at nature, and see her healing, restoring work, and when we turn to the Bible, and see the miraculous, supernatural power of God restoring man morally, and sometimes physically, with its promise of ultimately restoring him completely, we see that it is a part of the original act of creation. He commanded it to stand fast, and the original creation will stand fast, ultimately fully restored, preserved. The fittest will survive, but not as evolution teaches.

Repudiating Philosophic Sophistries

THUS we see that creation is not a continuous process, that God did it once for all — and that when this time of imperfection which threatens to destroy is past, we shall see that God's creation has not been marred. Meanwhile, let us remember that the doctrine of uniformity as put forth by evolution, is an utterly false claim. They do not consistently hold to it; they cannot, and even suggest how the world began.

Then, since the law of uniformity is utterly repudiated by the scientist, and must be by the Bible believer, let us remember that only faith can understand how the worlds were formed by the word of God; and from that clear and holy faith let us not be turned by the sophistries of philosophy or science falsely so called.