Common Creation Question Answered

by Bruce Malone: 

Many questions are raised by believers in evolution when presented with the evidence for creation. This article addresses some of these common questions.

How did the marsupials get to Australia?

Noah was charged with building the vessel to safeguard certain animals during the first flood (a massive and complex worldwide disaster) not with distributing them afterwards. Once Noah released the animals on Mount Ararat, natural instincts and climatic conditions determined how the redistribution of the animal population took place. As subsequent generations of animals spread across the globe, territorial prowess or chance movements would send certain groups in certain directions. 

 Those animals least suited for or least able to defend a territory would either be forced further from the landing site or exterminated. A consequence of the worldwide flood was a brief but severe ice age which locked ocean water into vast ice fields. This lowered ocean levels and created a land bridge to Australia. A similar land bridge connected Asia to Alaska during this period of Earth history allowing for the free movement of man and animals between these continents. Land movements during the ice age or the subsequent melting of the ice cut off the connection between Australia and Asia effectively isolating the unique animal life to Australia.

How could worldwide coal deposits form rapidly?

The first effect of the worldwide flood would have been the ripping up of vegetation and erosion on an unimaginable scale. As the water receded from one area, vegetation would have been deposited only to be subsequently buried as the area sank and water brought in more sediment. Thus, layer upon layer of coal would have been formed. Furthermore, it has been shown in the laboratory that vegetation can be turned in to coal in as little as one hour with sufficient heat and pressure. A recent model of coal formation is provided by a study of the catastrophic explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980. This explosion knocked down millions of trees which ended up floating on Spirit Lake. Underneath this floating vegetation mat is a thick layer of peat consisting of tree bark and organic matter. If that organic matter were buried by a subsequent eruption, the result would be a coal seam covered by sedimentary rock. Repeated cycles would rapidly produce a series of coal seams with sediment on top of each seam. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that an enormous global flood would have rapidly created the extensive coal seams we find today.

Is “Survival of the Fittest” part of the evolution ?

Modern evolutionists have tried to distance themselves from this concept due to the obvious negative consequences of applying the principle to the social realm. Denying that survival of the fittest is part of the evolutionary process is akin to denying that one type of animal will drive another to extinction given the right conditions. Contrary to the rosy picture of animal cooperation which evolutionists like to portray, one type of animal has no qualms wiping out another in its quest to propagate itself. Wild dogs introduced to Australia are endangering native species because they are more aggressive and have no natural enemies. Sounds like “survival of the fittest” doesn’t it? Survival of the fittest has always been an integral part of the evolutionary theory.

If we are also animals that have evolved according to this basic principle of evolution; why shouldn’t we extend this principle to the social realm? Why shouldn’t we eliminate weaker classes of humans that compete for what we feel we need? Evolution taken to its logical conclusion leads to a savage world akin to Hitler’s Nazi Germany when the strong determine what is right. It was no coincidence that Hitler was strongly influenced by the writings of Darwin.

It is a slap in God’s face and a distortion of Scripture to believe that evolution, with its driving mechanism of survival of the fittest, would be a loving God’s method for creating and preserving us.

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The Heart of It All: Salvation

By Peter

October 23, 2012
God’s Plan

The core teaching of the New Testament can be found in one of the most beautiful verses of Scripture:



For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.[1]

This verse reveals the amazing truth that the Creator of the universe loved the human race so much that He sent the second Person of the Trinity—God the Son, Jesus—to become human and to die in our place for the sins we have committed, so that we wouldn’t have to suffer the penalty for those sins even though we deserve to. We have the opportunity to receive everlasting life because Jesus has paid the price for our sins through His sacrifice.

God’s plan of salvation, which was decided upon before the creation of the world, is rooted in God’s love for humankind. God’s motivation is love. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love us and made a way for us to be saved from the ultimate consequence of sin—spiritual death and separation from God in the afterlife, which is called hell in Scripture.

Some people have the impression that God is a cruel and angry God: that He judges people harshly because He is personally offended that they sinned against Him, and therefore He selfishly demands that they be punished. The true picture is very different. Because God’s nature includes the attributes of holiness, righteousness, justice, and wrath, in order to be true to His divine nature He must judge sin. He could have justly punished every human being for their sins. Instead, because His divine nature also includes the attributes of love, mercy and grace, His wish was that no one should perish,[2] and to that end He has made a way in which humans can be redeemed. That redemption is rooted in His love, because He “so loved the world.” His love is such that even though we are sinners, and have sinned against Him, He has, in love, made a way that we can be saved from the merited judgment for our sins. God’s plan of salvation is the manifestation of His mercy and love for humankind.

God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.[3]

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.[4]
From the Beginning

God knew, before creating the universe, that human beings created with free will would sin, so He made a way to save humanity from the penalty for sin through His plan of salvation. His plan for the salvation of humankind enabled Him to be true to all aspects of His divine nature: His holiness, righteousness, and wrath, and His love, mercy, and grace.

God’s desire is to save humans, to redeem them, to reconcile them with Him, while remaining true to His nature. He was under no obligation to save us; He could have simply let all humans suffer the penalty of sin, but He didn’t. In His love for us, the triune God made a way to redeem us. God had the plan of salvation from the beginning, which was put into play starting with Adam and Eve’s first sin and which culminated in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Since God is the omniscient Creator, it was no surprise to Him that Adam and Eve sinned. He knew that they would freely choose to disobey Him, and in His foresight, He had already designed His plan of salvation. When God told Adam and Eve the consequences of their sin, He also spoke to the serpent, saying:



I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.[5]

From the very beginning, God said that an offspring of the woman would bruise or crush the head of the serpent—Satan—while Satan would only bruise his foot. At the time that the first sin was committed by humanity, God was already foretelling how Jesus would defeat Satan.

His plan of salvation included calling out a people, Israel, to whom He would reveal Himself and give His commandments. It was through His words spoken to Israel that God revealed knowledge about Himself, the one true God, and His law. Israel guarded and passed on His revelation from generation to generation, thus ensuring its preservation. It was through the lineage of Israel that He sent His Son as the God-man, through whom He brought salvation to humanity.

The history of Israel is the history of God laying the groundwork for the salvation of humanity through Jesus.[6] The Old Testament not only contains prophecies about the Messiah’s life and mission, but also numerous foreshadows of the salvation to come through His incarnate Son. When speaking about the Old Testament, David Berg wrote:



God had a hard time getting the children of Israel out of the idolatry of Egypt and had to lead them through Moses, with the Law as their schoolteacher, by childish little illustrations and rituals, little material object lessons—the Tabernacle, the Ark, animal sacrifices, and the blood of beasts.—Types and shadows, mere pictures of the spiritual realities and eternal verities. He had to take what they understood, the things and forms with which they were familiar in the religions of Egypt and other heathen nations around them, in a fatherly attempt to audio-visualize for them the genuine spiritual truths of the mature adult true worship of God Himself. As the Apostle says, these were all “figures of the true,” mere visual likenesses or illustrations of the real unseen things of the Spirit! In the Old Testament were the illustrations; in the present New Testament time are the spiritual truths which we have now by faith alone (John 1:17).[7]
Old Testament Types and Shadows

In order to gain a deeper understanding of salvation and redemption, of why Jesus had to die on the cross in order for us to be forgiven for our sins and become reconciled with God, it’s important to review some of the “types and shadows” within the Old Testament. We’ll focus here only on those which are directly connected to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

Throughout the book of Genesis there were sacrifices made to God, beginning with Cain and Abel, then continuing with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others. One particular story, that of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, prefigures God’s sacrifice of His Son for the sins of humanity. When Isaac asked his father where the lamb for the sacrifice was, Abraham said that God would provide it. When Abraham was about to slay his son on the altar, the Lord then showed him a ram that was caught in the bushes, which Abraham sacrificed instead of his son. The substitution of the lamb for Isaac as a sacrifice to God portrays the concept of substitutional sacrifice, which is the basis for the animal sacrificial system which God later gave to Israel through Moses, as a means of atoning for their sins. God’s provision of the ram foreshadows His supply of a sacrifice, His Son, for the sins of humanity.

Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together … And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.[8]

Centuries later, when the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews, were enslaved in Egypt, God spoke to Moses and told him that He would deliver the Hebrews out of the hands of the Egyptians. When the pharaoh of Egypt wouldn’t let them go, God informed Moses that on a certain night He was going to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, both men and animals. He commanded each Hebrew household to kill a year-old sheep or goat and to sprinkle its blood on the door frames of their houses. If they would do so, the firstborn in the houses with blood on the doorposts would be spared the judgment of God. Those without the blood would not be spared.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household … Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” … Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb.”[9]

Their obedience in sacrificing the Passover lamb and sprinkling its blood on the doorframe was the key to the Hebrews being spared from God’s judgment, and resulted in them being freed from bondage and slavery. In the second year after their deliverance from Egypt[10] God instructed Moses to initiate the Levitical sacrificial system in which animal sacrifice would atone for sin. Authors Lewis and Demarest give the following excellent basic explanation of this sacrificial system:



In the burnt offering, the fellowship or peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, a sacrificial procedure was followed that generally involved the following elements: (1) an unblemished animal, connoting the idea of moral perfection, was presented at the door of the sanctuary by the offerer. (2) The offerer places his hands on the animal’s head, signifying identification with the victim and the transfer of the penalty of sin to the substitute. (3) The animal was slain by the offerer (in later times by the priest), signifying that death is the just punishment for sin. (4) The priest sprinkled the blood of the victim on the altar and around the base of it, the blood representing the life of the victim. And (5) the offering, in part or in whole, was burned on the altar of burnt offering, its fragrance ascending to God as a pleasing aroma. Repeatedly Scripture indicates that the purpose of these sacrifices was “to make atonement” for the offerer (Leviticus 1:4; 4:20; 5:13; Numbers 5:8; 8:12; 15:25).[11]

Every year on the Day of Atonement a special sacrifice was made for the sins of all the people. First the high priest made an offering for his own sins, followed by a special offering for the people. Again, Lewis and Demarest give a concise explanation:



The high priest sacrificed the first male goat brought by the people as a sin-offering and sprinkled its blood on and in front of the “atonement cover” in the Holy of Holies, thereby expiating the uncleanness of the people (Leviticus 16:15–19) and making atonement. This act of blood shedding, according to Leviticus 17:11, represents God’s ordained way of securing atonement. The high priest then laid his hands on the head of the second goat (the “scapegoat”) and confessed all the sins of the community, thus symbolically transferring guilt from the people to the victim. The second goat became the sin-bearer, as it irretrievably carried the sins and iniquities of the people into the wilderness.[12]

In these Old Testament sacrifices we can see the concepts of atonement and reconciliation for sins through substitution. In the same way as the ram was sacrificed in Isaac’s place, the animals were sacrificed for the sins of the offerer. These Old Testament sacrifices atoned for past sins, but needed to be repeated as new sins were committed.


God the Redeemer

Besides these types and shadows of atonement for sin through the substitutionary sacrifice of another in the place of the sinner, and sins of all being placed on a single “scapegoat,” there is another foreshadow in the Old Testament of things to come; namely, the understanding of God being the “Redeemer.”

In the exodus from Egypt, God Himself, through His mighty acts, delivered His people from bondage and slavery. He redeemed them and freed them. Speaking to Moses, He said:



Say therefore to the people of Israel, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.”[13]

From this point on, God was called the Redeemer.

They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer.[14]

It is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.[15]

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.[16]

The deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery was the work of God. The Hebrews weren’t able to deliver themselves from the bondage of the Egyptians. God is the one who pronounced judgment on the Egyptians when pharaoh would not let the Israelites go, and brought upon them the plagues that resulted in the miraculous deliverance of the Hebrew people. Through the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, God preserved the Hebrews from the punishment He inflicted upon the Egyptians.

God delivered the Hebrews through supernatural acts and wonders by His own hand, and not by their works. This was a foreshadow of the grace by which He redeems us through the work of God in salvation. It’s His work, not ours, which saves us. Salvation is available only by His grace, mercy, and love.

God’s plan of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus was His plan of redemption for human beings before humans ever existed. Within the Old Testament He begins to reveal His plan; and then in New Testament times when John the Baptist proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,”[17] the fullness of His plan begins to be fully revealed.


The Lamb of God

The fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption through Jesus’ death, His sacrifice of Himself in our place through His blood shed for our sins, is repeatedly spoken of throughout the New Testament. He is the Lamb sacrificed, the one who has died in our stead, and who, like the scapegoat, has taken our sins upon Himself. He is the Redeemer who saves us from the slavery of sin. His death and resurrection is the culmination of the Old Testament types and shadows. It is the fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption. God has been holy, righteous, and just to His creations. He has been loving, merciful, and gracious. And we are beneficiaries of the greatest sacrifice ever made.



Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.[18]



We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all … For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.[19]

He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself.[20]

He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.[21]

You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.[22]

Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.[23]



In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.[24]



God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.[25]

Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.[26]

This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.[27]



[1] John 3:16 NKJ.


[2] The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).


[3] Romans 5:8.


[4] 1 John 4:9–10.


[5] Genesis 3:15.


[6] Jack Cottrell, What the Bible Says About God the Redeemer (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1987), 402.


[7] David Berg, Flesh or Spirit? February 1971.


[8] Genesis 22:6–8,13.


[9] Exodus 12:1–3,5–8,12–13,21.


[10] In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected … And he set the altar of burnt offering at the entrance of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the grain offering, as the Lord had commanded Moses (Exodus 40:17,29).


[11] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996), 383–384.


[12] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology, Volume 3 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996), 184.


[13] Exodus 6:6.


[14] Psalm 78:35.


[15] Deuteronomy 7:8.


[16] Deuteronomy 15:15.


[17] John 1:29.


[18] Ephesians 5:2.


[19] Hebrews 10:10,14.


[20] Hebrews 7:27.


[21] Hebrews 9:12–14.


[22] 1 Peter 1:18–19.


[23] Ephesians 2:13.


[24] Ephesians 1:7.


[25] Romans 5:8–9.


[26] 1 Corinthians 5:7.


[27] Matthew 26:28.



Copyright © 2012 The Family International.

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How did Cain Find a Wife?

by Bruce Malone

The following is the paraphrased essence of one of the most critical junctures in the most famous trial of the twentieth century. The scene is the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, and defense attorney Clarence Darrow had goaded prosecuting attorney Williams Jennings Bryan to take the stand in defense of the Bible.

Mr. Bryan,“Where did Cain find a wife?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could you repeat your answer Mr. Bryan? The entire nation is listening via radio broadcast and this is a pretty basic and simple question. Let me rephrase it. If, as the Bible claims, Adam and Eve were the first man and women, and no other people existed, who did their son Cain find to marry?”

“I don’t know.”

Darrow made Bryan appear foolish because he did not know scripture well enough to defend the most basic of questions. This trial marked a turning point in American education because, for the first time, the Bible was openly ridiculed. Bryan’s inability to answer simple and logical questions was one factor that allowed the American educational establishment to accept evolution hook, line, and sinker, while rejecting the historical creation account of the Bible.

Even today, most Christians do not know the answer to questions as basic as “Where did Cain find a wife?” The problem with not having reasonable answers to logical questions is that it brings all Christianity into question. Why should people believe in a God that they cannot see; if believers in God cannot answer life’s questions about our origin?

The reason that the answer to this question is not immediately apparent is that we have been trained to think like evolutionists. Evolution was founded on a principle of modern geology called ‘uniformitarianism.’ This is the belief that small changes over vast periods of time caused the massive geological changes (Darwin added biological changes.) In essence, we are trained to believe that every thing has always operated as we see it today. This is not what the Bible teaches. It teaches that mankind was created perfect, without flaws. It was only after man’s disobedience that imperfection entered God’s creation. Thus mankind, as originally created, would not have had the myriad of genetic mistakes now present in our DNA. Mutations do not lead to better and improved humans. These mistakes cause hundreds of debilitating illnesses and birth defects. The reason all of us are not born with enormous numbers of medical problems is because our genes are a combination of the characteristics of both our parents. Only when both parents have the same DNA mistake, do their children manifest the resulting genetic problem.

Furthermore, these genetic mistakes accumulate and increase with time. In other words, the information in our DNA gets more garbled, it never increases in clarity. Since mistakes are accumulating in our DNA, it is logical to assume that as we go back in time, there would be fewer mistakes. The reason brothers and sisters cannot marry today is because they are likely to have similar DNA errors which only lead to children with birth defects. However, there were no moral laws against children intermarrying until after the time of Moses. This was approximately 4000 years ago and at least 2000 years after the creation of mankind. Before that time, sibling marriage was quite common. The Bible states that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters. Cain merely married his sister.

The reason we don’t realize this obvious answer is because we have been trained to believe things have always been the way they are today. The past and the present become far more understandable when we view it from a Biblical perspective. This viewpoint acknowledges that the past was very different from the present.

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Overcoming Life’s Prisons

By M. Fountaine

When it comes to suffering of any kind, the questions that are usually uppermost in our minds are, “Will it end? How do I stop it? How can I get out of this time of suffering and back to doing something useful or good?”

But there are other options if we look at what we are facing from a different perspective. We can say, “How can I find the ‘good’ in this? What can I gain from this suffering or loss? How can this be turned into a tool to help me move forward in some way?”

Circumstances like loss, pain, sickness, grief, loneliness, persecution, etc., aren’t what determine the outcome of a situation; how you choose to face what you’re up against is what determines the outcome.

Succeeding isn’t just escaping life’s troubles. It is learning to use those difficulties to benefit yourself and others. Faith and the Lord’s love for us are an integral part of our lives as Christians, but we have to choose to use what He’s provided us with. As creatures of free choice, we each have to determine how we will respond to such difficulties, whether we will fight to rise above the challenges and make a difference in spite of (and even because of) our difficulties, or if we will succumb to them and become a victim of our circumstances.

As the saying goes, the tragedy is not when men try and fail. The tragedy is when they never try at all.

I came across a story by the daughter of a woman whose faith in spite of irreversible loss and suffering had changed lives and made a difference for many others. Her mother had been vibrant and active and accomplished in many areas, when in her early thirties she was incapacitated by a spinal tumor that left much of her body paralyzed.

The daughter told the story of how the tumor had crushed her mother’s body, but not her spirit. The mother made a conscious hard decision to turn every setback into a new opportunity. She chose to make this painful loss of so much that had been precious to her into a tool for good.

She began a foundation to help people with disabilities accomplish more. She used her disability as a chance to learn how to teach special education, and she did so even more effectively because she intimately understood their needs. She learned skills in order to teach them to others who would need them. She even teamed up with her daughter when she was grown, to help teach inmates in the correctional facilities that her daughter worked in. The inmates would crowd around her, eager to learn whatever she would teach them. Her determination stirred hope in them.

Whatever came into her life, she embraced it and found a way to use it constructively. Her undaunted enthusiasm for life and her faith, lived out daily, created a powerful drive in her daughter’s life as well.

As the mother grew older and was unable to go to the prisons, she continued to teach and counsel the inmates through correspondence. One letter that the mother wrote to a prisoner seemed to summarize to me how Jesus wants us to look at life and the privilege we have to be here, facing both the joys and wonders as well as our personal “prisons” of suffering and struggles at times.

The letter read:

Dear Waymon,

I want you to know that I have been thinking about you often since receiving your letter. You mentioned how difficult it is to be locked behind bars, and my heart goes out to you. But when you said that I couldn't imagine what it is like to be in prison, I felt impelled to tell you that you are mistaken.

There are different kinds of freedom, Waymon, different kinds of prisons.

Sometimes, our prisons are self-imposed.

When, at the age of thirty-one, I awoke one day to find that I was completely paralyzed, I felt trapped—overwhelmed by a sense of being imprisoned in a body that would no longer allow me to run through a meadow or dance or carry my child in my arms.

For many days I lay there, struggling to come to terms with my infirmity, trying not to succumb to self-pity. I asked myself whether, in fact, life was worth living under such conditions, whether it might not be better to die.

I thought about this concept of imprisonment, because it seemed to me that I had lost everything in life that mattered. I was near despair.

But then, one day it occurred to me that, in fact, there were still some options open to me and that I had the freedom to choose among them. Would I smile when I saw my children again or would I weep? Would I rail against God—or would I ask Him to strengthen my faith?

In other words, what would I do with the free will He had given me—and which was still mine?

I made a decision to strive, as long as I was alive, to live as fully as I could, to seek to turn my seemingly negative experiences into positive experiences, to look for ways to transcend my physical limitations by expanding my mental and spiritual boundaries. I could choose to be a positive role model for my children, or I could wither and die, emotionally as well as physically.

There are many kinds of freedom, Waymon. When we lose one kind of freedom, we simply must look for another.

You and I are blessed with the freedom to choose among good books, which ones we’ll read, which ones we’ll set aside.

You can look at your bars, or you can look through them. You can be a role model for younger inmates, or you can mix with the troublemakers. You can love God and seek to know Him, or you can turn your back on Him.

To some extent, Waymon, we are in this thing together.[1]



[1] Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Heather McNamara, Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul: 101 Inspirational Stories of Overcoming Life's Challenges (Deerfield Beach, Florida: Heath Communications, 1999), 13–15.



Copyright © 2012 The Family International.

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Our Design is no Accident

by Bruce Malone:

Vestigial features are those parts of an organism thought to be useless leftovers from its ancestor, as the creature has evolved to a new way of life. Our tailbone is commonly taught to be such a feature. The idea of vestigial features has been used as evidence for evolution since 1859 when Darwin first proposed that such features were evidence for the descent of one organism from a completely different one. The logical consequence of this alleged transformation is that the “new” creature would be left with some features which are no longer needed in its new environmental niche.

Belief in evolution demands that we believe that each type of animal on earth is a result of its descent from some previous life form. If this were the case; almost every creature should have many leftover features which are no longer needed. Yet, the more we learn about biology, the more we discover that every part of an organism serves some useful function. For example, the appendix is often said to be a useless leftover from our ape ancestry. We now know that the appendix serves as a type of lymphatic tissue in the first few months of life to fight disease. It is no more a useless feature than one of your lungs is useless just because you can survive with only one lung.

The acceptance of the idea that some parts of the human body are useless leftovers has led to many tragic consequences. Based on the misguided concept that the human colon was a vestige of the past, Sir William Land and dozens of other surgeons stripped the colons from thousands of patients in order to “cure” a variety of symptoms. [1] Many died. As late as the 1960’s many people routinely had their tonsils removed. This practice was again fueled by the mistaken belief that the tonsils were a useless leftover feature from our past. It is now known that they serve an important disease fighting function and should not normally be removed.

Some possible vestigial features exist such as the blind eyes of cave salamanders. Blind salamanders have non-functional eyes because they live their entire lives in total darkness. At some time in the past, salamanders may have found a niche in dark caves and apparently only those which mutated to blindness had a need to stay in the total darkness where they could compete for existence without blindness being a disadvantage. However, these salamanders are still salamanders, a mutation to blindness is hardly an upward improvement in complexity, and no new information has been added to the DNA of the salamander.

The human tailbone is frequently listed as a vestigial feature but anatomists tell us that the tailbone serves a very important function in human physiology. The coccyx (tailbone) is the point of insertion of several muscles and ligaments including the one which allows man to walk completely upright. Without a tailbone, people could not walk in a completely upright manner, dance a ballet, perform gymnastics, or stroll down the street with their arm around their spouse. Hardly a useless, leftover -- vestigial feature! The human body is designed for maximum versatility -- it is far more versatile than the body of any other creature. What other animal can perform the range of movement required for activities as diverse as ice skating, pearl diving, pole vaulting, snow boarding and gymnastics? This range of movement would be impossible without the tailbone!

In summary, evolution predicts that there should be leftover features as one organism slowly turned into another. Based on this theory, over 150 human features were at one time listed as useless. Creation predicts that although some life forms have degenerated and lost use of an original function; every part of an organism was designed to serve some useful purpose. As we learn more about the biology of living organisms, including ourselves, it is readily apparent which theory best fits the facts.

1. Robert Wiedersheim, The Structure of Man, p. 200, 1895.

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A Squashed Mosquito is Dead Forever

By Tim Wagner:

Have you ever squashed a mosquito? Interestingly, the squashing of a mosquito may help us understand what makes life possible and what makes the spontaneous generation of life impossible.

When a mosquito is slapped, what happens? Obviously it’s shape changes and it dies. But what makes it die? All of the thousands of sophisticated chemicals which make up its body are still there, relatively unaltered. At the moment of impact its cellular components are still intact including the all-important DNA. So why is it now dead?

Prior to being smashed, the mosquito was a highly organized system with much organized information. But when hit, it became disordered, causing critical information in the design of its body to become jumbled. There arose confusion in the finely tuned coordination of chemistry (including the chemicals involved in its overall structure) which culminated in an overall breakdown, resulting in death. And you thought you just slapped it!

For another example, let’s say you were to take 100 million bacteria and concentrate them in the bottom of a test tube. Now if you were to physically lyse (break open) the membrane of each of the cells, the insides would spill out, forming a concentrated mixture of incredibly complex “life-giving” chemicals. Yet, even though all of the right ‘stuff’ for life is there, not even one of the 100 million critters will come back to life, nor would any new creature arise.

For a third example lets consider the food industry. Each year over a billion containers of previously living chemical ingredients are placed into containers where light and/or heat can pass through (an open thermo-dynamic system.) Everything needed for life to form is present in each jar or can. Yet not once, in any can or jar, does new life form.

If the already complex chemistry of minuscule bacteria or canned food cannot reorganize itself back into a living cell, even when concentrated in the test tube environment under carefully controlled conditions, then how could life have evolved in the first place, from basically uncomplicated chemicals in conditions FAR less appropriate? It simply never could have happened!

As with the mosquito, in order for life to exist the chemistry must be specifically organized and controlled in time as well as space. For a cell to live, it must be surrounded by a sophisticated membrane that allows only certain chemicals in and out, according to when they are needed, not just at any time. Inside the cell, the amount of any chemical must be exactly correct, otherwise the whole system would be thrown off balance and the organism would die. Furthermore, the entire living organism must be controlled by the fantastically complex three dimensional genetic coded structure of DNA.

All this means that in order for the chemistry to have come together in the first place, the individual atoms must have been purposefully and simultaneously organized by a creator having the knowledge and power to do such a thing. It could not possibly have happened by the right chemicals just “coming together”.

It is Jesus, the Son of the Living God, who deserves our praise for the awesome things He has accomplished in this creation of His. There is no other plausible explanation for the complex life we find all around us. Yet, this plausible explanation is the only one not allowed to be discussed in our public schools!

Tom Wagner is a nature photographer and science teacher living in Iowa who writes on the evidence for creation. This article was first published in Creation magazine, www.AnswersInGenesis.org

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Um Fim Inesperado

De Koriane

Fico me perguntando, “O que vai acontecer? Quantos anos vou viver? Será que vou ver a Grande Tribulação como sempre acreditei? Ou será que vou envelhecer, e meus filhos vão viver mais do que eu? Quanto tempo eles vão viver, e com que problemas vão se deparar?”

Sou o tipo de pessoa que gosta de planejar, pensar de antemão, sonhar grande, e então trabalhar para concretizar esses sonhos. Gostaria de ter alguma certeza de um jeito ou de outro. Gostaria de ver escrito simplesmente quanto tempo vou viver e o que vai acontecer a cada membro de minha família. Assim poderia planejar a minha vida e me certificar de que dar às coisas certas o foco que precisam e não ter que lidar com incertezas e os desvios inesperados que ocorrem na vida.

As palavras de um versículo em Jeremias começaram a vir a mim certo dia quando pensava nessas coisas: “Para vos dar o fim que esperais.”[1] Parecia estar me dizendo que o fim da minha vida não seria algo o qual eu não teria a fé de encarar ou que eu já não soubesse que ia acontecer. Foi um pensamento reconfortante. Mas então minha mente se pôs a trabalhar.

“O que estou esperando? As coisas poderiam acontecer de várias maneiras! Vou contar com que qualquer coisa possa acontecer, e me preparar para o pior! Ainda não saí da neblina da incerteza.”

Foi então que Aquele que tem o tabuleiro de xadrez em Suas sábias e atenciosas mãos me lembrou de certas coisas com as quais posso contar, e realmente esperar desde agora até ver Seu rosto na eternidade.

—Posso contar que Ele sempre estará comigo, me ajudando em cada situação.

—Posso contar que tudo o que Ele faz o faze m amor e no final será algo bom.

—Posso contar que a estrada da vida será difícil, mas nunca mais do que consigo aguentar.

—Posso contar que as minhas orações serão ouvidas e respondidas da melhor maneira possível.

—Posso contar que serei cuidada e as minhas verdadeiras necessidades supridas, e que Suas promessas continuarão infalíveis.

—Posso contar com as boas-vindas no céu e viver para sempre com Ele.

—Posso contar que meus filhos viverão para sempre, continuarão vivendo quando o seu tempo na terra acabar.

—Posso contar que o Senhor vai mostrar o Seu amor e cuidado aos meus filhos e vai suprir as suas necessidades, conquanto O amemos e obedeçamos.

—Posso contar que sempre haverá um propósito e uma boa razão para seja o que for que Deus permitir em minha vida, apesar de esperar que eu nem sempre veja cada razão ou bom resultado no momento.

—Posso esperar receber oposição por escolher acreditar em Jesus e contar aos outros sobre o Seu amor, mas ser mais do que recompensada por isso, de maneiras além da minha imaginação e esperanças.

—Posso contar em não saber tudo, mas viver um dia de cada vez, confiando, e eventualmente ser recompensada pela minha caminhada de fé, dando obedientemente um passo de cada vez segundo Ele me guiar.

Muitas vezes lembro-me das palavras de um hino que aprendi quando adolescente:

Se pudéssemos ver ou saber, costumamos dizer,
Mas Deus joga, por amor, um véu sobre a nossa estrada;
Não conseguimos ver o que está adiante
E nos agarramos ao Senhor mais que nada,
E Ele nos guia até o fim da jornada;
É confiar e obedecer.[2]

Apesar de minha estrada estar nebulosa e misteriosa como sempre foi, e eu talvez precise “contar com o inesperado”, sinto dentro de mim uma certeza de que Ele sabe tudo e vai fazer o que for melhor para mim. E, diferente de tantas outras pessoas, tenho uma boa lista de coisas nas quais posso me apoiar e confiar que Ele vai fazer. A maioria pode estar totalmente fora do meu controle, mas vou confiar que o melhor virá—pelo menos quando chegar verdadeiramente “o fim”.

Minha vida está afinal de contas totalmente em Suas mãos, não importa quão ansiosa e fervorosamente eu tente segurar as rédeas. Então hoje, ou pelo menos neste momento, vou deixá-lO me guiar aos caminhos certos perguntando-Lhe, “Que faço agora?”

Então, com o que posso realmente contar? Aonde a minha estrada vai levar? Eventualmente aos Seus braços. Vou ouvir os Seus sussurros hoje me dizendo o que fazer e como fazer, com alegria em meu coração, sabendo que Ele estará lá para me dar as boas vindas, não importa o que aconteça.

Será que tudo o que estou tentando fazer e cada plano para o futuro encontrará realização e provará ter valido os meus esforços? Só o tempo dirá. Contudo, se for o que Ele me guiou a fazer, no final ficarei feliz por ter pelo menos tentado. E quando receber o meu tão esperado “Bem está!” no final da minha vida—por mais curta ou longa que ela seja—quaisquer planos frustrados ou sonhos não vividos não parecerão importar tanto. Estarei com Ele, e isso me dará mais do que alegria suficiente.

Segue-se uma prosa que me veio outro dia, quando pensava no novo capítulo da minha vida que está começando:

Estou na praia de lembranças passadas
E elas desvanecem como as estrelas com um beijo da luz do sol.
Encaro o novo, minha alma novamente iluminada
Ao dar o próximo passo;
Ele me guia, sem eu conhecer a jornada.

Não posso contar que o sol vai sempre brilhar.
A noite uma hora vai cair,
E Sua mão será a única realidade novamente.
Mas até mesmo as estrelas têm uma beleza em meio às sombras e escuridão,
São diamantes que de dia nunca chamaria minha atenção.
Então com Ele que sempre me guiou eu vou
Caminhamos juntos, mão em mão.

Leve-me a praias ainda inexploradas,
A perder de vista em alto mar
Onde céu e horizonte se encontram.
Nunca me deixe só
Seja noite seja dia
Nos meus sonhos ou labuta.
E sim, em todos esses momentos de alegria
--Estarmos juntos é tudo o que importa.

O tempo passará, mas Você é eterno.
Desvanecerão as lembranças da vida e a dor,
Mas eterno será o nosso amor.


[1] Jeremias 29:11.

[2] Autor desconhecido.

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The Perfect Love of Jesus

By David Brandt Berg

Download Audio (12.1MB)

One sat alone beside the highway begging,
His eyes were blind, the light he could not see.
He clutched his rags and shivered in the shadows,
Then Jesus came and bade his darkness flee!

When Jesus comes, the tempter’s power is broken;
When Jesus comes, tears are wiped away!
He takes that gloom and fills the heart with glory,
For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay!

“Unclean! Unclean!” the leper cried in torment,
The deaf, the dumb, in helplessness stood near;
The fever raged, disease had gripped its victim,
But Jesus came and cast out every fear!

When Jesus comes, the tempter’s power is broken!
When Jesus comes, those tears are wiped away.
He takes our gloom and fills our lives with glory,
For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay!

So we today have found our Savior able,
We could not conquer passion, pride, nor sin!
Our broken hearts had left us sad and lonely,
Till Jesus came and dwelt Himself within.

When Jesus comes, the tempter’s power is broken;
When Jesus comes, your tears are wiped away!
He takes your gloom and fills your life with glory,
When Jesus comes, He’ll fill your life to stay!1

*

Have you ever tried to bear your burdens,
All alone? All alone?
Don’t you know there’s one who waits to help you,
Who can make all those burdens His own?

When I have burdens to bear which no one can share,
I take them to Jesus, the Man of Calvary.
When I have crosses to bear, my Savior is there,
He always takes that heavy end,
And leaves the light to me!2

Do you like that little song about “All Alone”?

*

When your heart is aching, turn to Jesus,
He’s the dearest Friend that you can know;
You will find Him standing close beside you,
Waiting peace and blessing to bestow!

Heartaches, take them all to Jesus,
Go to Him today, do it now without delay.
Heartaches, take them all to Jesus,
He will take your heartaches all away.3

*

For He heals ev’ry heartache, He hears ev’ry sigh,
This wonderful Savior of mine!
He helps me in trouble, He heeds when I cry,
This wonderful Savior of mine!

There’s Someone who helps me when friends pass by,
And the sun has forgotten to shine;
There’s Someone whose strong arms are ever nigh,
’Tis that wonderful Savior of mine!

Oh, He heals ev’ry heartache, He hears ev’ry sigh,
This wonderful Savior of mine!
He helps me in trouble, He heeds when I cry,
This wonderful Savior of mine!4

*

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained
Too deeply for mirth or song,
As the burdens press, and the cares distress,
And the way grows weary and long?

Does Jesus care, oh yes, He cares,
His heart is filled with my grief.
When the days are dreary, the long nights weary,
I know my Savior cares!

Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares,
His heart is filled with my grief;
Though the days are dreary, the long nights weary,
I know my Savior cares!5

*

For no one ever cared for me like Jesus,
There’s no other Friend so kind and true,
No one else could take that sin and sadness from me,
Oh, how much He cares for you!

I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus,
How I found in Him a Friend so strong and true;
I would tell you how He changed my life completely,
He did something that no other friend could do.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus,
There’s no other Friend so kind as He;
No one else could take that sin and sadness from me,
Oh, how much He cares for me!

All my life was full of sin when Jesus found me,
All my heart was full of misery and woe;
Jesus placed His strong and loving arms around me,
And He led me back the way I ought to go.

No one ever cared for you like Jesus,
There’s no other Friend so kind and true;
No one else can take that sin and sadness from you,
Oh, how much He cares for you!6

Originally published 1982. Republished October 2012.
Sung by David Brandt Berg.7


1 “Then Jesus Came,” lyrics by Oswald J. Smith (1940).

2 “All Alone,” words and music by C. Austin Miles (1915).

3 Author unknown.

4 Author unknown.

5 “Does Jesus Care,” words by Frank E. Graeff (1901).

6 “No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus,” words and music by C. F. Weigle (date unknown).

7 David originally sang the songs impromptu, unaccompanied, while filming on video. Light musical accompaniment and vocals were added later, at a separate location.

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The Eyes Have it - Creation is Reality

By Bruce Malone:

Charles Darwin expressed confidence that natural selection could explain the development of the eye,[1] but how does this confidence stand up to the light of reason? Today, we are in the curious intellectual situation of allowing only naturalistic explanations in public schools. This is done in spite of the fact that the alternative (creation or intelligent design) more adequately explains the observations. It would take a miraculous number of design changes to transform a light sensitive patch into an eyeball. Furthermore, each change would have to be coded onto the DNA of the “new” creature in order for the change to pass to the next generation. It has never been explained how this could have happened. Each new feature would need to be independently useful or natural selection would not have allowed the new creature to live.

· An eyeball with no retina would be a tumor, not an improvement to be passed on to the next generation.

· An eyeball without a focusing lens would be worthless except as a light detector.

· An eyeball without a functioning optic nerve to carry the signal to the brain would be worthless.

· An eyeball without the perfect balance of fluid pressure would explode or implode.

· An eyeball without a brain designed to interpret the signals would be sightless.

· There are over 100,000 different proteins in our body. The only one with a molecular structure to make it perfectly transparent to light is used to construct the lens of our eye.

It is beyond credibility that chance mutations could have produced any of these changes, let alone all of them at once. Any one of these changes would result in a worthless tumor. All are needed simultaneously for sight to result.

Yet, the chance development of this “hardware” for the eye pales in comparison to the impossibility of the “software” development. The brain must be wired to both accept and understand the signal coming to it from the eyeball. An analogy would be the multi-pixel image from a digital camera. Each part of the image is wired to a specific spot in the receptor screen of the camera to reproduce an image of what the camera is viewing. As the “first eye” was developing, how could the brain have known what the randomly wired image received from the pixels of the optic nerve represented? Before there was sight, the image would be wired like the white snowy image of an out of tune television screen. It can be statistically proven that randomly changing the location of a few of the millions of available pixels would never produce a clear image and sight could never develop in this way.[2]

In Darwin’s time, the complex design of the eyeball was forceful evidence in favor of creation. Our more advanced knowledge of the intricate design of the eye provides even stronger evidence for its creation.

The complexity of the eye still argues for the reality of its instantaneous formation by an incredibly intelligent designer. There is neither a fossil record showing that the eye evolved nor any testable observations to explain how it could possibly have happened. The fanciful story that a light receptive patch turned into the complex eyeball is nothing but the dogmatic faith of a religious belief system. Why do we allow textbook selection which leaves out both the problems with evolution and the evidence for intelligent design? This is indoctrination, not education.

1. Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species, republished by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1971, p. 167.

 2. Stoltzmann, David, The Specified Complexity of Retinal Imagery, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 6/06. 

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The Heart of It All: Sin Humanity’s Sinful Nature

 By Peter   Amsterdam

We’ve discussed earlier that Scripture teaches that all humans sin and that sin is universal. The Bible speaks of humans being sinful from birth, which would indicate that humans are born with inherent sinful natures.



Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not. And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one.[1]



What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?[2]

When King David was confessing his sins to the Lord, he stated that he had always been a sinner, that even when he was conceived in the womb of his mother he had a sinful nature.



Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.[3]

The sinful nature of human beings causes people to have a natural disposition toward sin.[4] Sin has polluted everyone.



As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[5]

People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.[6]

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.[7]

Because of the corruption and pollution of sin, human beings are said to be by nature “children of wrath.”



Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[8]

Our sinful nature alienates us from God, makes us hostile to Him, hard of heart, and in possession of defiled minds and consciences.



For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.[9]



You, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds …[10]

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.[11]



To the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.[12]

Our sinful nature translates into every aspect of a person being affected by sin. There is corruption at the very center of man’s being which affects both body and soul. It also makes us unable to deliver ourselves from sin’s power. In body and soul, we are sinners and are incapable of saving ourselves from our sinful nature.[13]

The apostle Paul expresses the difficulty of living with a sinful nature.



For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord![14]

The universal corruption of humanity’s nature makes it impossible for humans not to sin. The theological term for this is non posse non peccare—not able (unable) not to sin. We are by nature depraved sinners. This doesn’t mean that humans can’t do good, or that everyone is as evil as they can possibly be, or will engage in every form of sin, or that they have no discernment between good and evil. However, we have a natural disposition toward sin.
Original Sin (Inherited Sin)

The question of why all human beings have a sinful nature and how they acquire it is one that the Church Fathers and subsequent theologians have sought to understand through the centuries. As is the case with many doctrines in Christianity, the understanding of how the sinful nature of human beings due to the sin of Adam and Eve is passed on to their posterity is something that developed over time. As the centuries went by, different outlooks and theories were put forth and debated.

While not all theologians and denominations hold to the same understanding, the Roman Catholic view, as well as the dominant view in Protestant Christianity, is that because Adam sinned in disobeying God, sin and sinful nature is passed on to all humans through Adam. This sin or sinful nature is often referred to as “original sin” or inherited sin. Since there are different outlooks on how sinful nature is passed on to Adam’s descendants, I’m including some history as to how the doctrine developed.

Some of the early Church Fathers felt that all humanity was present in Adam seminally, in the sense of Adam having within him all of humanity, and that from his seed all humanity would be born. As such, all of humanity was potentially and numerically present in Adam when he sinned, and thus we all sinned. The main focus at that point in the development of the doctrine was that the pollution of Adam’s sin was passed on to humanity, but not necessarily his guilt.

Over time, the idea of Adam’s guilt being imputed to all humans took root. The concept of both the nature of sin and the guilt of Adam’s sin being passed on came to be generally accepted. The debate then focused on how it was transmitted.

A further development was the interpretation of the historical Adam being the representative of the human race. Adam was seen as representing humanity when he chose to sin, and thus God counted all of humanity legally guilty of his sin. This doctrine is called federalism. It sees Adam as the federal head or representative of humanity. It’s as if the president of a country, the federal head of the country, makes an agreement with another nation, and then all the citizens of that country are bound by that agreement. The president represents all members of his country when he signs the agreement. In similar fashion, Adam represented all humanity when he sinned, thus we share guilt with him since he was our representative before God.

Some of the primary verses used to support the doctrinal position that human beings are sinners who are guilty because of Adam’s sin are in Romans chapter 5, where the apostle Paul draws a parallel between Adam, whose disobedience brought sin and thus punishment for sin into humanity, and Jesus, whose death and resurrection have redeemed us from all sin and guilt. Paul is drawing the parallel between all people being legally guilty in Adam and all people having their sin and guilt redeemed through belief in Jesus. He’s stating that as humanity’s representative, the guilt of Adam is imputed to everyone and that Jesus, who represented humanity by suffering and dying for our sins, has brought forgiveness of sins, and His righteousness is imputed to us. In Adam we are all guilty; through Jesus we are made righteous.



Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.[15]

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.[16]



We all come into this world with sinful nature, due to the sin and disobedience of Adam. We all are somehow culpable for Adam’s sin and thus face condemnation. Through God’s grace we can be spared the condemnation through Jesus’ taking our sins upon Himself.
Actual Sin

While our sinfulness is connected to Adam’s sin, we are also all guilty in our own right, due to the sins we personally commit. Humans are sinners not only because of our sinful nature, but because we freely commit sins. We know that some things are wrong, and we do them anyway. While there may be varying opinions about how the guilt of Adam’s sin or the sinful nature is transmitted to people, there is no question regarding how individual guilt comes about. Every person knowingly sins, thus everyone is responsible for the results of their sins. While it may seem unfair that due to Adam’s sin, all humankind fell into sin, each person also does exactly what Adam and Eve did—they freely choose to do wrong, and thus sin.

No matter what the circumstances or the temptations, personal sin comes from the heart, from the freewill choices of each individual. As such, we are morally responsible for the sins we commit in our own lives.



What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.[17]

Realizing our tendency to sin, our sinful nature, our inherited corruption, and the ultimate result of sin in our lives, should make us forever grateful for the free and undeserved gift of forgiveness of our sins. As Christians, we have the blessing of knowing that though we are sinners, we are forgiven sinners through our wonderful Savior, Jesus. It should also help us to realize the dire need that so many people have, as they exist in this world without knowing that salvation from their sins is available. It should instill in us the desire to bring the message of salvation to all we can.



How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?[18]



[1] Job 14:1–4.


[2] Job 15:14.


[3] Psalm 51:5.


[4] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 246.


[5] Romans 3:10–18.


[6] 2 Timothy 3:2–4.


[7] Romans 3:23.


[8] Ephesians 2:3.


[9] Romans 8:7.


[10] Colossians 1:21.


[11] Ephesians 4:18.


[12] Titus 1:15.


[13] James Leo Garrett, Jr., Systematic Theology, Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical, Vol. 1 (N. Richland Hills: BIBAL Press, 2000), 558.


[14] Romans 7:18–25.


[15] Romans 5:18–19.


[16] 1 Corinthians 15:21–22.


[17] Matthew 15:18–20.


[18] Romans 10:14.

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