By Brian A. Catalucci, MS, Scofield Biblical Institute

The secular world teaches that the universe came into being through evolutionary processes, using matter and energy over billions of years. The Lord’s Scripture teaches that the Lord spoke it into existence by the breath of His mouth, and He did it in six normal (24-hour) days. What the world states and the Scripture teaches are exceedingly worlds apart. A simple reading of the text of Genesis 1, shows how God created is diametrically opposed to what is taught by man’s evolutionary science. Not only does the text show that the Lord spoke the creation into existence, but the order in which He created is 180 degrees opposite of the evolutionary sequence. As a Christian, you must ask yourself; who do you trust and believe, God or man?

As Christians, we are required to believe what God says He has done, and not believe the word of man and his fallible ideas. We are to take God at His Word concerning origins, no matter what man teaches about the origin of the universe. The Lord was there at the beginning and man was not. The Lord’s Word tells us how the universe, the earth, and all life came into being. For Christians, it does not matter what man believes about origins; it comes down to believing the infallible Word of God versus the fallible word of man.

The text of Genesis 1 teaches Biblical Creation; that God created the universe, the earth, and all life in six normal days. Additionally, He created it all Ex Nihilo, meaning “out of nothing.” That is Biblical Creation; what the Lord has stated in the text of Genesis 1. Additionally, we are required by God to defend His word, including the teaching of the Creation of the universe, the earth, and all life (1 Pet 3:15).

Concerning origins, many of us can have hard questions about God and what He states about the creation of the universe and man’s secular evolutionary theory. There are real answers to those questions that we can trust in! They have been given to us by the only one who has always been there, and He wrote them down for us in His Word. Simply, it boils down to the fact that we only need to trust and believe in what He states about origins. Here at Scofield Biblical Institute (SBI) we stand on the fact that we trust in what God has clearly written and what He has said He did; this includes the entire 66 books of Scripture.

When it comes to how the universe came into existence, to the Flood of Noah, and on to the Tower of Babel, Genesis 1 to 11 is of prime importance. Genesis 1 to 11 is foundational to all of Scripture, and Genesis 1 is foundational to Genesis itself. If we cannot trust the first book of the Bible that lays the foundation for all Scripture, why should we trust the rest of the Bible? If we cannot trust what God is stating in Genesis 1 about the origin of the universe, why should we trust in what He states in John 3:16 or that He can raise people from the dead? Does God not know how He created the world and that He is giving us the straight facts?

Yet, the literal interpretation Genesis, as written, is ignored and rejected by the great majority of Pastors, Elders, Christian scholars, Christian academics, and Church leaders in this country and around the world. It Is not hard to understand why this situation exists; this group of theologians has compromised the Authority of the Word of God and rather believe what man has stated about the origin of the universe, rather than believe the Lord God Almighty. Thus, they end up believing in billions of years of molecules to man evolution and reject what God has clearly stated in His Word. They go on to teach that godless belief in the majority of our Christian seminaries.

To defend their belief, often their excuse is that the words and translation of the Hebrew in Genesis 1 are not clear, especially concerning how long were the six days of creation. The Lord must mean something else in that text, as it violates man’s origin theories. They are referring to the text stating that God created the universe, the earth, and all life in six normal (solar) days.

Since they accept man’s explanation that the universe and the earth are billions of years old and life evolved over hundreds of millions of years, it cannot be possible that God is saying that the creation was completed in six, normal, 24-hour days. God must mean that those days were extremely long periods of time and not normal days like we have today. Why? Because according to evolutionary theory, vast amounts of time are needed for evolution, and six normal days does not cut it. God is not telling us the truth.

They then ignore that Scripture teaches that the earth is also approximately 6000 years old as taught via the genealogies in Scripture (Gen 5; Gen 10; Gen 11; 1 Chronicles 1–2; and Luke 3). These genealogies teach that God created Adam on Day Six, approximately 4,000 years before Christ. The full genealogy from Adam to Jesus was 76 clearly listed generations, and from Noah to Jesus, it was 66 generations. These generations only incorporate thousands of years and there is not any support for the notion that there are gaps in these genealogies. Adding up the years of these genealogies, there are approximately 2000 years from Adam to Abraham, 2,000 years from Abraham to Christ, and 2000 years from Christ to the present day. This gives the age of the earth as approximately 6000 years. Knowing that the genealogies in Scripture are inerrant, how do you fit the billions of years of evolution into that timeframe?

The Lord is extremely clear in His writing of Genesis 1 (and 2-11). The Hebrew text is written in a clear historical narrative. Many critics try to inject figurative or poetic structure into the text, forcing Genesis 1 not to be taken in its plain literal sense. This is clearly not true for the Hebrew of Genesis. We know what the Hebrew words in the text mean, and how they are used. God says He created in six normal days (like we have today); the timing and the sequence of how and what He created on each day is without doubt. Unbelievably, the church has rejected the Authority of God’s Word in Genesis 1.

Because of what the Genesis text states, there are several origin beliefs that SBI rejects as they are directly opposed by the words of Scripture on how the universe came into being:

• We reject man’s evolutionary theory in all its forms (molecules to man evolution).
• We reject theistic evolution (God used some kind of evolution to bring the universe into being).
• We reject the gap theory (the ruin-reconstruction theory).
• We reject progressive creation (advanced by Hugh Ross).
• We reject that the universe and the earth are billions of years old.
• We reject the framework hypothesis (immensely popular in our seminaries today).
• We reject any translation of Genesis 1 that states that the days of creation were anything other than six, normal 24-hour (solar) days.
• We reject that there was death in the world before the sin of Adam.

Many Christians today have invented many reinterpretations of the creation text in Genesis 1 to avoid conflicts with man’s theory of evolution. They ignore the clear reading of the text and that God’s Word says what it says. God always says what He means, and He always means what He says. Period. It is man’s unbelief that keeps him from accepting what God has clearly stated in His Scripture.

The church has decided to believe man’s word instead of God’s Word, compromising with what the Bible has clearly taught in Genesis 1 to 11. The Church needs to return to the authority of God’s Word and to His text of creation in Genesis 1. In doing so it will find that when true science is done, that it directly confirms the Scripture as written. We can trust the truth of God’s Word, as written, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21.

SBI seeks to educate church leaders that there is powerful evidence for the historical accuracy of Genesis including a six-day creation, a global flood, and that evolution is not based on real, tangible evidence, but instead is a religious belief system that is the foundation of secular humanism. SBI’s courses in Creation Apologetics school will prepare you to defend God’s word of how this universe and this world came into being and to easily refute evolution. You can believe and proclaim boldly what God has written about origins and to easily defend the faith as required by the Lord’s command in 1 Pet 3:15. We teach that what we read in God’s Word, we see in God’s World, and true science always confirms Scripture.