Is it possible that the assumptions that have underpinned the evolution/creationism debate are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of reality, a misunderstanding that is in some ways shared by believers and non-believers alike? What if believers and non-believers have both misconceived of what man is as a being?
When Genesis 5:1 declares that man was made in the “likeness” of the timeless, omnipotent God, it is worth considering whether this language is meant to convey what it plainly says. Similarly, when Genesis 3:17 declares that, at the moment of the Fall, the first humans altered the manner in which the “ground” itself operates, it is worth considering whether this language is also meant to convey what it plainly says.
When the words “likeness” and “ground” in Genesis are given their plain and ordinary meaning, the scale of man’s fall takes on a vast new significance. If Adam and Eve were indeed made in the “likeness” of the eternal God, and if their morally wrong decision-making at the moment of the Fall literally changed the way that the ground itself operates, this can only mean that the changes wrought by their sin were holistic in nature and scope. Literally every aspect of their realm—everywhere and at all points—might have transformed into a mirror of their willful self-centeredness and deliberate indifference towards God at the moment of their fall.
The implications of a change of this scale are staggering to contemplate. The scale and scope of the changes that are prophesied to transpire at the moment of final judgement and redemption are no less staggering to contemplate. According to 2 Peter 3:7, spacetime itself will be consumed on the day of judgement: “the heaven we see now and the earth we live on now . . . will be kept until they are to be destroyed by fire. They will be kept until the day men stand before God and sinners will be destroyed” (NIV).
Isaiah 65:17 states that the whole of temporal existence will then be replaced by “new heavens and a new earth” (NIV). This same event is briefly described in Matthew 19:28 when Jesus references “the renewal of all things” (NIV). It is described yet again in Acts 3:21 as “the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets” (NRSV).
The biblical language that is used to describe both the scale of the Fall and the scale of God’s restoration of man’s fallen realm entails changes to the material order that are so shockingly expansive that even believers often cannot bring themselves to accept the plain meaning of these texts. Whereas Genesis describes nothing less than the transformation of the entire material order itself (“the ground”), prophesies like the ones in 2 Peter 3:7, Isaiah 65:17, Matthew 19:28, and Acts 3:21 describe nothing less than the obliteration and remaking of the entire temporal, material universe.
If the entire material order was transformed as a result of the first humans’ sin, and if redemption includes the wholesale annihilation and remaking of this fallen realm—that is, the annihilation of all of spacetime, and its remaking into a creation that exists entirely outside of the construct of time itself—what does this tell us about man’s stature as a being?
Perhaps Jesus was stating a simple fact of our existence that is not yet apparent to us when he said in Matthew 17:20: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (NIV). Maybe it is indeed the case that truly “nothing will be impossible” for us in the redeemed state, not even the ability to exercise command over the material order itself. A plain reading of Genesis seems to indicate that an existence of this type was the height from which Adam and Eve fell. Christ’s performance of numerous physical miracles would certainly seem to lend support to the notion that sinless man has the capacity to exercise command over the physical order.
The notion that man really was made in the “likeness” of the timeless, omnipotent God may seem fanciful, but what if it is true? What if God, desiring us to experience love at the same scope and scale as he himself experiences it, made us like himself for the purpose of allowing us to experience the same intensity and perfection of love that the three persons of the Trinity experience?
But what if, through faithlessness, a person forever closed himself off from this timeless experience of love? What if a person, arrogantly thinking that he couldn’t possibly be wrong in his beliefs about the ultimate foundations of the material universe, discovered to his horror at the moment of death that he really does have an eternal soul? The implications of this outcome are likewise staggering to contemplate, but we would be fools not to do so.
The study of man’s eternal fate, a subject called eschatology, has long been a dominant concern of Christian thinkers. Though a considerable body of work on this topic has accumulated over the centuries, relatively few theologians have thought to apply eschatological ideas to understand the nature of man’s existence before the Fall. The Advent of Time utilizes theological concepts that have emerged from the study of “last things” to provide insights into the timeless nature of man’s existence before the Fall, as well as the nature of man’s existence following the end of time. Readers of the book will discover how these eschatological insights—when combined with the identification and analysis of the prerequisites of love—provide the keys to answering every facet of the problem of evil.