How much of the Word is truth? All of it!
Part 1: Jordan Peterson and the Lobsters
Christianity distilled to its basic fundamental level involves one question and one question only.
Do you place full trust in the Word of God?
That was the question for Eve when she stood before the Serpent, and it was the question for Jesus in the wilderness when He was tempted by the Devil. It is still the question for you and I today.
Unfortunately, while there are many professed Christians in the world, most of them do not trust the Bible.
A 2014 study revealed that only 41% of American Christians are certain that humans did not evolve from non-human life forms. The study also found that only 44% are sure that Adam and Eve were real people. Only 15% of those surveyed were “absolutely/very certain” that humans came into existence within the last 10,000 years.i Similar and more recent studies have confirmed the trend of questioning and rejecting the plain words of Scripture.ii
This all means that the majority of Christians (at least 59%), some of whom are doubtless the same Christians who assert that America is a “Christian Nation”, believe that humans descended from lower life forms through processes of natural selection over the course of millions of years.
If Christianity is the religion of the Bible, and vast swaths of Christians reject the Biblical pronouncement of Creation and the Fall, then what religion are they actually? Who are they following?
To be a Christian is to be a declared follower and believer in Christ. Christ is specific. Christ taught Creationism. Christ taught that Adam and Eve were real people. The New Testament states that Cain and Abel were real people – Matthew 23:35; Hebrews 11:4, that Noah was a real person – Matthew 24:37, and that the Flood was a real event – Matthew 24:37.
When the Pharisees asked Jesus about whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife, Jesus referred them back to Creation:
4 And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Jesus could ask Christians today the same question regarding their doubts on the origins of the human race: Have you not read your Bible?
Christianity, which is the religion which follows the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, believes in Creationism. It has no doubts as to whether Adam and Eve were real people because Jesus says they were real people. “Without Him nothing was made that was made” – John 1:3. The Bible says Jesus created Adam and Eve – just like Genesis says. To disbelieve this is to transfer the authority in your life from the Word of God to the words and opinions of finite man.
Now let’s talk about hypocrisy.
Christians vocally lament the loss of sexual and gender norms in today’s culture. Many of them would assert that the fundamental destabilizing mistake which is ruining western culture is the rejection of the Word of God. Which is true. But they are doing the exact same thing when they throw away the Genesis account of Creation and claim to still be followers of Christ.
This is hypocrisy.
The Bible teaches that God personally formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life – Genesis 2:7. The Bible says that Adam transgressed and fell – see Genesis 3 – and that God interposed Himself to save humanity from the consequence of their sin. Christianity is all about the redemption and restoration of the fallen sons and daughters of God.
Therefore, to reject the literal creation and fall as set out in Genesis is to reject the atonement and the plan to restore the lost image of God in man.
This brings us to Professor Jordan Peterson, who has obtained something akin to rock star status in conservative Christian circles for his commentary on gender pronouns and free speech. Peterson, formerly an atheist, has publicly asserted recently that he now believes in God.i
Before going further, I wish to say – I appreciate Jordan Peterson. I appreciate his willingness to speak unpopular truth to an angry mob. We know the mob is angry and violent. It is standing up to the mob – any mob – that is one of the qualities in short supply today.
Jordan Peterson has made no professions of Christianity, and people should stop attempting to make him do so.ii Speaking of the mob, there is almost an obsession on the conservative side of the political spectrum with forcing Jordan Peterson to pronounce some sort of orthodoxy. His wife has been confirmed in the Catholic Church, and there is pressure for him to declare that he is a Catholic, for example.iii
Jordan Peterson has a massive following, and substantial influence. There is no doubt he has taught some important truth. But do the Christian people who follow Jordan Peterson know that God’s Word is a higher authority than Jordan Peterson? That in the event of a conflict between what Jordan Peterson says and the Bible, that the Word is supreme? That it is impossible to follow God without accepting the authority of the Bible as objective truth?
Do Christians realize that Jordan Peterson and the Bible completely disagree about the origins of humanity and life on this earth?
The Bible says that it is by faith that “we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Hebrews 11:3. The Bible says, “He spoke and it was so. He commanded and it stood fast.” Psalms 33:9. The Bible says God “formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Genesis 2:7. The Bible says that Adam is the son of God – Luke 3:38.
But Jordan Peterson says that Adam is the son of Larry Lobster. And Mike the Monkey.iv Yes, he reads the Bible and says he appreciates the story of the cross of Christ, but he also says you are a highly developed crustacean.
There is a growing contingent in western society which likes some of the traditions of cultural Christianity, and enjoys speaking truth to progressive power, but places a low priority on the Word of God. When evolution clashes glaringly with the Bible, so-called Christians prefer cultural orthodoxy to God’s Word. It’s much easier to stay with the ecumenical conservative crowd that way.
But make no mistake: There were NO monkeys or lobsters in the genealogy of Adam. Christ came to die for His fallen child, made in the image of God. Christ did not leave His throne of glory to die for the descendants of the lobsters. Apart from the fact that the very contention is ridiculous, what would be the point?
Did the lobsters sin? Or was it their ancestors? How did they sin? When? Against what commandment? Sin is the transgression of the law – 1 John 3:4. What law did the lobsters transgress?
Did the lobsters know that they were sinning? Were they warned in advance not to sin?
The Bible teaches that in the beginning everything was made good – very good. The world was perfect. There was no death. Not for Adam or the lobsters. The Bible teaches that death did not enter until sin, and the world deteriorated as a consequence of that sin – Romans 5:12.
But according to Darwin, death has been the norm since the sloppy goo got hit by lightning and turned into the great grandaddy of the craw daddy. The lobsters and their variants grew up with death. They fought, they ate, they lived, they died. For millions of years. Until they became monkeys.
This is progressivism. This is evolutionism. It is not Christianity.
Darwinism has no place for the Fall or the entrance of sin. Darwinism has no place even for the concept of sin or for the broken law of God. This means Darwinism has no place for redemption. There is no need for Jesus in evolution. Jesus does not need to die to save the lobsters or their descendants.
While Jordan Peterson champions the cause of free speech, and the obvious reality that there are only two sexes, male and female, he truly destabilizes the foundation of his arguments by, on one hand, publicly confessing his belief in God, and on the other hand, repeatedly asserting that humanity had lobsters for ancestors.
Perhaps Peterson does not realize he is undermining the foundations of the rights he is championing.
For example, where does free speech come from if we come from crustaceans? Shall we pretend that God gave freedom of speech to lobsters?
Who made men’s mouths, asks God rhetorically – Exodus 4:11. He did. He formed the mouth of Adam, and gave him the breath of life, and the ability to reason and communicate. The right to speak comes directly from the Creator. At Creation.
The right did not evolve. It did not come from millions of years of social hierarchies where the lobsters duked it out and eventually organized themselves into the early beginnings of the modern state, which then condescended to give free speech to mankind.
We need to ask ourselves - Do “we hold these truths to be self-evident” or not? Are all people endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, or aren’t they?
When "Christians” reject the book of Genesis and reject creation, they also undermine the rights the Creator gave humanity.. Evolution is undermining the concept of God-given individual rights every day, all around the world. The Declaration of Independence says rights come from the Creator. Darwinism says rights come from the state.
With evolution being taught around the world, is it any wonder that the concept of inalienable rights is also weakening simultaneously?
Christians need to stop pretending that evolution and Christianity are harmonious. They aren’t. The plain word of Scripture simply does not allow for that interpretation.
Darwin didn’t love you, but Jesus does. So, pick a side.
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1. https://slate.com/technology/2014/12/creationism-poll-how-many-americans-believe-the-bible-is-literal-inerrant-or-symbolic.html
2. https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx; https://julieroys.com/george-barna-survey-biblical-worldview/
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrXU-JJ8d-E
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe-OAa4jqok
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe-OAa4jqok
6.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZOkxuNbsXU;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j-llZc9X70;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACt5D6xVRx8
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Coming Soon, Part 2: In Darwin We Trust
