loveiseverywhere,
loveiseverywhere said:
1) Is believing in Creationism essential to salvation on the cross? If so, how? Please cite Biblical scripture.
I don't think it has been said any clearer than the words of atheist Richard Bozarth (emphasis mine):
It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus' life and death is predicted on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam's fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.
Paul acknowledges this in his letter to the Romans:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned ... for just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
In the Old Testament, we read countless times where animals were sacrificed as an atonement for people's sins. Why did they do this? In a symbolic sense, this was a way of putting their sins on the animal, which stood in the place of the guilty person. It's blood was shed, that is, it took the punishment of death that we rightly deserve. This ritual was, like much of the Old Testament, a foreshadow of the things that Jesus would do when He came to earth. He became the sacrifice for our sins - the Lamb of God. He took the punishment for our sins that we rightly. He was condemned so the guilty could be declared innocent.
If Adam never existed and mankind never fell, then there is no need for a saviour. If death pre-existed before man's sin, then it
cannot be a punishment for sin, and so Jesus' death is meaningless, and, as is his victory over physical death, as previously mentioned by jckstraw72. Either way you look at it, there is no purpose to Christianity if Genesis is not literal.
loveiseverywhere said:
2) Why do creationists not cut off their eyes and hands when they sin?
Being a creationist or a literalist does not mean taking every verse to mean exactly what it says all the time no matter what. I believe the technical term for that is "idiocy." A literal approach to Bible study and reading is that we are to take everything to mean what it says
unless the context or expression indicates otherwise. For example, I can't imagine a creationist (or anyone) believing that Jesus was a real "good shepherd." Common sense, if such a notion exists, should tell people what the writer means and how to interpret his or her writings.
For example, there is nothing in Genesis that hints in any way that it is to be taken as anything other than what it says. God made the earth and light on day one. Okay. Day two: He separated the waters. Okay. And so on. There is nothing to suggest that it means anything else, and there is certainly nothing to suggest that one can shove millions of years between the days: in addition to saying "day 1, 2, 3, ..." the author also adds the expression "there was evening, and there was morning" to make it beyond doubt that it was a day. We can speculate as to
how God did those things (for example, making the sun appear to be standing still for Joshua), but you can't honestly twist Scripture to make it say something that, to be blunt, just isn't there.
loveiseverywhere said:
3) Why do you think evolution is a tool of the devil? Where does it say this in scripture?
For one, I believe Satan uses a general plan that goes something like this: 1. he will distort what God says or present a different story; 2. he will want people to question God; 3. as a result of 1 and/or 2 he will want people to rebel against or reject God. He's had thousands of years of practice against humanity, but the above are the very strategies that he has used against Eve, the prophets, and Jesus and every human being since. Why? Because it's so effective! Evolution can be used to achieve all three: it claims to explain life without God - that's 1 & 3 right there, and for most of those who were not brought up in the church with sound theology it's a closed deal right there. Many sadly don't question beyond that. It can cause people to question God's truthfulness, his qualities such as love, and his promises. They look at the world around them and when they hear about this "God of love,"
yeah right they say.
The reason why evolutionism is so dangerous to the mission of Christ is that it undermines and destroys the very foundation for the message that Christians proclaim to be true. What happens when you destroy the foundations of a building? It crashes down and becomes worthless, the Gospel is no different. I find it interesting that even atheists readily understand this, but some Christians cannot, or will not, come to the same logical conclusion.
Why do you think that Paul describes "Christ-crucified" as a stumbling block for the Jews, but foolishness to the Gentiles? What did the Jews have that the Gentiles didn't? They had a proper understanding of the foundation of the Gospel: Genesis - man's fall into sin.
In effect, you're saying that Christ-crucified (which is based on the literal fall of mankind and phsycial death as a punishment) is true, yet at the same time you are saying that Adam and Eve are just a myth, that God created using millions of years of suffering and death, and therefore, man did not fall. People like myself who stand on the outside and listen can see the contradiction and so we stop listening and reject it as truth. That is why it is so dangerous. People see major differences between the Bible and the "fact" of evolution.
Ultimately, the question for many becomes: If God didn't tell the truth from the beginning, then when did He start?
