GenesisThe Book of Beginnings

Creation or Evolution?

Whole

Lizard Encased in Amber

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

The Amber Museum in the Mexican city of San Cristóbal de las Casas has a new specimen. Amber sometimes preserves insects, but this specimen contains a whole lizard. This unique discovery confirms two clear trends found in amber fossils.

The discovery site lies within the state of Chiapas in far southern Mexico. Amber collecting has become a key economic activity in that region.

First, Creation Science Update reported the 2008 discovery of an amber-encased gecko leg from Myanmar.2 Although dated at 100 million years, it was identical to modern gecko legs and instantly doubled geckos' supposed length of stay on planet Earth.2 That discovery confirmed one clear trend—animals and plants found as amber fossils look remarkably similar to their living counterparts.

A second clear trend among amber finds, one that the Mexican lizard fossil also confirms, has to do with their ages. Assigning an age of millions of years to these artifacts introduces a thus-far unsolved problem—how to explain the preservation of pristine tissues and whole body structures after millions of supposed years lying within Earth's layers.

Francisco Riquelme of the National Autonomous University of Mexico describing the amber specimen as, "a complete and articulated animal that also preserves remains of soft tissue and skin."1

Q: How can this possibly be true, given that "specimens found in the state date back a minimum of 23 million years ago because that is the age of the amber that is extracted from deposits…?"1 After all, lizard tissues are made of proteins, and studies have clearly shown that proteins turn to dust in only thousands of years—especially in tropical temperatures.8

Like original insect bio-chemicals and intact body tissues found in amber deposits around the world, these lizard remains retain their pristine quality.

If they're really millions of years old, the body tissues would have certainly turned to dust.

Of course, if these ambers originated within the last few thousand years, the age problem dissolves.

Both trends—animal kinds that stay the same without showing evolution between basic forms, and soft tissues that stay the same without showing even a million years' worth of decay—match the Bible's concept of recent and complete creation.

http://www.icr.org/article/7569/

Genesis 6 Days of Creation

Genesis 1Gen. 1:1 - The Mass-Space-Time Continuum is Created

Day 1: Light is separated from darkness

Day 2: Waters, atmosphere, and vapor canopy

Day 3: Land and seas separated; grass, shrubs, trees

Day 4: Sun, moon and stars created

Day 5: The waters swarm with fish; the air with Birds

Day 6: Living creatures, and mankind

Genesis 2The Creation of the Garden of Eden

The Creation of Adam

The Naming of the Animals

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him”

The Creation of Eve and the Institution of Marriage

Genesis 3The Fall of Mankind

• The Serpent rebels against the LORD God

• The Woman, Eve, is deceived

• The Man, Adam, chooses to sin

• Cursed for their rebellion

• The Serpent

• The Woman

• The Man

• The Ground

Genesis 3:22-2422 “And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’

23 “So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken”

24 “After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life”

Genesis 3:22-24Q: How long were they in the Garden of Eden after sinning?

A: We don’t know, but apparently not very long

Q: What kind of fruit was on the ‘tree of life’?

A: The Bible does not make it known, but it had marvelous medicinal properties that inhibited cellular decay and enabled the user to live indefinitely in perfect health. Rev. 1:7; 21:1, 5; 22:1-2 say it will once again be available in Heaven.

Genesis 3:22-24Q: Who is Almighty God talking to when He says, ‘become like one of us’?

A: The Tri-une Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Genesis 1:26 – “Let us make man in Our image”

Genesis 3:22-24‘knowing good and evil’ – Mankind had once known only the goodness of God; but now he had come to know experimentally the evil inherent in rejecting God’s Word, as well as the necessary spiritual and physical suffering resulting from sinful action. They truly did know ‘good and evil’

The hoped for ‘goodness’ that the serpent promised was a pitiful caricature of what Adam & Eve had anticipated.

Created perfectly, in the image of God, they were marred and defaced by evil

Genesis 3:22-24‘drive out’ – perhaps they were truly repentant, and aware of the damage caused by their sinful activity, but nevertheless they could not stay in the home that was provided for them.

Perhaps they feared a harsh and unknown world

Perhaps they feared never communing with God again

Perhaps they feared ‘tilling the ground’ and having to work hard for their food

Genesis 3:22-24The pedagogical (teaching) moment: It would have been calamitous for them to continue in a perfect environment as sinful people, especially eating of the tree of life, and living on indefinitely.

They and their descendants must be taught the true nature and effects of sinfulness, and the consequences of living outside of fellowship with God

They must come to know Him as Savior, as well as Creator and Provider

Genesis 3:22-24LORD God – “Jehovah Elohim’

From Genesis 3:8 on, the writer uses the omnipotent uni-plural name of the God of creation, but He is also the eternal, unchanging LORD Jehovah of grace and mercy, and through these events, Adam and Eve were gaining a new perspective and understanding of Him as their God.

Genesis 3:22-24Q: How many cherubim did He place guarding the Garden of Eden?

A: More than one! ‘cherubim’ could be two or more.

Ezekiel 1:4-28 (4 Living Creatures)

Revelation 4:6-8 (4 Living Creatures)

Isaiah 6:1-7 (Seraphim, plural)

Satan himself had once been an ‘anointed cherub’ (Ezekiel 28:14)

Genesis 3:22-24Q: How many cherubim did He place guarding the Garden of Eden?

Cherubim:

Associated with the Throne of God (Psalm 18:10; 80:1; 99:1)

God’s presence was associated with the Garden of Eden

The mercy seat in the temple (tabernacle) was overshadowed by two golden representations of cherubim (Exodus 25:17-22; Hebrews 9:3-5)

Genesis 3:22-24Q: Why the revolving sword-like flame flashing around?

A: “Hence there appeared by their side the flame of a sword, apparently in constant motion, cutting hither and thither, representing the devouring fire of the divine wrath, and showing the cherubim to be ministers of judgment. With the expulsion of mankind from the garden of Eden, paradise itself vanished from the earth...”

Genesis 3:22-24Q: Why the revolving sword-like flame flashing around?

A: “…God did not withdraw from the tree of life its supernatural power, nor did He destroy the garden before their eyes, but simply prevented their return, to show that it should be preserved until the time of the end, when sin should be rooted out by the judgment, and death abolished by the Conqueror of the serpent (I Cor. 15:26), and when upon the new earth the tree of life should flourish again in the heavenly Jerusalem, and bear fruit for the redeemed (Rev. 20 and 21)” (K & D, p. 108)

Genesis 4-5The World Lost to Sinfulness

Genesis 4I. The Blood of Righteous Abel is Shed

(4:1-12)

II. The Way of Cain (4:13-24)

III. The Line of the Promised Seed through Seth (4:25-26)

Genesis 4I. The Blood of Righteous Abel

In Genesis 3:15, God spoke of a coming conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Adam and Eve were soon to experience the reality of this conflict in the tragic history of their two sons.

This is an actual historical event, but also has theological implications to the age-long conflict between good/evil.

Genesis 4I. The Blood of Righteous Abel

Cain typifies the ‘seed of the serpent’

Abel typifies the ‘seed of the woman’

Abel represents all who by faith are ‘in Christ’ spiritually

Genesis 4After the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, God made provision to continue to commune with mankind, though now ‘at a distance,’ on the basis of His promise of a coming Redeemer, whose shed blood would be the price of redemption

He had shown Adam and Eve that an ‘atonement’ or sin offering, required the shedding of innocent blood in providing a ‘covering’ for their guilt

Later in Genesis 22, Abraham willingly offers up his only son Isaac on Mt. Moriah, symbolizing the dying of the Son of God upon that very mountain, although God provided a ram as the offering instead of Isaac

Genesis 4In Exodus, God explains a regular system of sacrificial offerings to provide regular atonement for sinfulness

Those who ‘bowed down’ to God’s will in this sacrificial way, acknowledge their own guilt and helplessness, as well as their trust in God alone for complete salvation and provision.

Genesis 4There is absolutely nothing in such a process that would appeal to the physical or aesthetic or mental appetites of mankind---in contrast to Satan’s appeal to Eve in Genesis 3:6

‘good for food’ –physical

‘a delight to the eyes’ –aesthetic

and that ‘the tree was desirable to make one wise’-mental

It would require the complete subjugation of human pride to the will of God (Morris, p. 134)