The Relevance of Genesis - The Fossils and the Flood of Noah's Day

I ask Hugh Ross: "Since God is the author of creation ...
Are millions of years of death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering ‘Very good’?"

There are many who have rejected the Genesis record of Creation on what they believe are ‘scientific grounds.’ They believe that the current secular (naturalistic/humanistic) teachings of evolution and millions of years of earth history are accurate. Nonetheless, they have involved God in their particular versions of creation, with theistic evolution and progressive creation being some of the more popular opinions circulating among churches today.

This ‘slippery slope’ is dangerous because they are not really defending creation, but are actually bringing into question the very character and nature of God. By trusting man’s fallible opinions over God’s inerrant Word, they are holding God responsible for millions of years of death, suffering, bloodshed, disease, etc.

The obvious question is: ‘Would an all-powerful and loving God actually use this cruel and extremely wasteful process of evolution to create the world?’ According to Genesis, God called the creation ‘good,’ and when He finished, God proclaimed His creation ‘very good!’ If He did create the world using this sadistic method over millions of years, that would mean that suffering and death are ‘good’ and consistent with the character and nature of God. It is ironic that many of these same people would insist that there will be no death, suffering, sickness, and disease in heaven, as that would be contrary to even their sense of what is good.

Tennyson described our sin-cursed world as: ‘Nature red [i.e. bloody] in tooth and claw.’ According to these ‘creationists’, science has proven that it has been that way for millions of years. That’s because they start outside the Bible with our present ‘groaning’ world (Romans 8:22) and extrapolate back, using that as the basis to reinterpret the Scripture, believing that ‘the present is the key to the past.’ They fail to realize that it was God who was there, and He has given us His account of creation in Genesis. Hence, divine revelation is the only trustworthy key to the past, present, and future.

Sadly, many influential Christians, and most Christian colleges and seminaries, endorse the idea of millions of years. They are confusing our young people, because this teaches that they can believe that death and bloodshed are not the consequence of the Fall of Man, which invalidates the reason why Jesus Christ—the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45)—came to die and shed His blood on the Cross. If fossils resulted over millions of years, they are not from any worldwide flood. Therefore the same teachers almost always deny the global Flood of Noah.

This compromise is occurring because the Church has allowed so-called ‘science’ (i.e. evolutionary beliefs) to gain acceptance. As a result, many object to a literal Genesis—but in doing so they undermine the basis of all Christian doctrine. The doctrinal foundations for marriage, original sin, the curse and death, the virginal conception of Messiah, and redemption itself logically depend on a literal Genesis. What they are really doing is questioning the authority of God and His Word, while defending the theories of men.

Paul warned the Colossians to ‘Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ’ (Col. 2:8). Furthermore, the Ephesian elders were told that false teachers will come in from the outside and even arise within the church, speaking ‘perverse things, to draw away disciples after them’ (Acts 20:30).

God is not the ‘author of confusion’(1 Cor. 14:33)! He has spoken as plainly as possible regarding the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the future restoration. The straightforward reading of the Genesis record clearly teaches that God created in six literal days. Even in Exodus 20:9–11, God based our seven-day week on the days of creation: ‘for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.’

Why then the confusion? We are finite fallen creatures in a sin-cursed world using our fallible minds tainted with false humanistic assumptions. This often leads to Christians trying to redefine what the infinite all-knowing Creator clearly communicated in His infallible Word.

We need to examine our understanding of Genesis to see if any secular assumptions are influencing our beliefs about God and His creation as set forth in His Word.

https://creation.com/since-god-is-the-author-of-creation

Overview of Geologic Evidence of the Flood by Dr. Andrew Snelling
Nov 25, 2022 | Geology
https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/geology/overview-of-geologic-evidence-of-the-flood/