When in the “ascent of man” did he become a sinner? A million years ago? Judging from the pictures of fierce alleged ape-men, it must have been a long, long time ago. Did all become sinners then? What became of the progeny of those who had not secured the attainment of sin? Why have not other members of the monkey family become sinners? Why do we not hang them for murder? Will they yet attain unto sinfulness?
H. G. Wells, the alleged historian, says, p. 954, Outline of Hist., “If all the animals and man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been no first parents, no Eden and no Fall. And, if there had been no Fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin, and the reason for an atonement upon which the current teaching based Christian emotion and morality, collapses like a house of cards.”
Evolution claims that man fell up and not down. It denies almost every truth of religion and the Bible, as well as of experience. “Man is falling upward, he is his own Savior, he is ever progressing, and has no need of a Savior.” Contrast this with the sublime statements of the word of God concerning the creation and the fall of man.
Evolution is charged with explaining all phenomena pertaining to man,—soul and body. It exhausts itself in trying to show that the body of man may possibly be developed from the brute. It fails miserably. The problem of accounting for the soul of man with all its equipment is so much more difficult, that little or no effort is made to account for it, virtually confessing that the much-exploited theory of evolution can not possibly be true, when applied to the soul as well as the body.
43. REDEMPTION
Evolution does not account for sin. Much less does it have any cure for sin. If sin marks progress or advancement, of course, its cure would be retrogression. But how can sin be cured? What answer has evolution? Culture, education, refinement, favorable environment. These are all desirable, but no cure for sin. Some of the most cultured, educated and refined, were the greatest monsters that ever lived. Wholesale murderers like Nero, Alexander and Napoleon, had a good degree of education and culture. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who murdered Robert Franks in Chicago, were among the most brilliant graduates of universities. Friends say they were led on to atheism and crime by the reading of modernist books. No doubt, the doctrine of evolution, taught so zealously in the universities, played a large part.
Human efforts and human devices have utterly failed to cure sin. The human will is too feeble to resist its power.
The Bible, which evolution undermines, teaches us there is a cure for sin. The divine Son of God saves us from our sins, cleanses and purifies our natures, and fits us for happiness and service in both worlds. Jesus offers the only practical plan of salvation from sin. The Bible plan of redemption is the only plan that works.
Paul, a murderer, with his heart full of malignant hate, and his hands stained with blood, greedy to imprison men and women, “breathing out threatening and slaughter,” looks to Jesus by simple faith, and is changed into a gentle and loving Christian, rejoicing in suffering and persecution. He rose to such heights, by the help of Jesus, that he loved his enemies, and was willing to be damned, if that would save their souls. What glorious men the apostles became by the transforming power of Christ! What grand men and women the long line of martyrs were. The men and women who have blest the world most, have been believers in the Bible, and not in evolution. Perhaps a million martyrs have died for Christ. Where are the martyrs for evolution?
Augustine was redeemed from a life of vice and dissipation, blessed the world with his writings, and became one of the greatest leaders of thought in all ages. John Bunyan was so profane that the most vicious would cross the street to avoid him. The gospel made him one of the holiest of men. His Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated into hundreds of languages, and read by millions. John G. Woolley was a maudlin drunkard, intent on taking his own life,—friends, money, character, and reputation lost,—but was converted and preached, with burning eloquence, the gospel of temperance and prohibition around the world.