In 1871 was published Charles Darwin’s famous book, The Descent of Man, which created a furor in the religious world.
It presented his speculations on the probable ancestry of man. He traced the descent of the human race back to an ape-like creature, and still further back until he reached the speck of protoplasm containing in itself, as he supposed, all those evolutionary potentialities, which after centuries of slow advancement resulted in man. However, with strict honesty he pointed out that with all his research there was a “missing link.”
Till every link was indisputably proved and the “missing link” discovered, the theory remained a speculation. Alas! the human heart is predisposed to believing anything put forward against the Word of God, and Darwinism became the popular thing. Tens of thousands were swept into skepticism. Hundreds of preachers proclaimed this doctrine from their pulpits, doing incredible harm.
Whilst this theory did not deny God as Creator — for who created the speck of protoplasm? — yet it brushed aside the truth of man’s creation as set forth in Genesis 1 and 2. And if that account is mythical, what sure foundation have we for any statement in God’s word? Darwinism also denied the fall of man, and if that is denied where is the necessity of the atoning work of Christ?
Years have rolled by since The Descent of Man appeared, and today Darwinism is an exploded theory in the estimation of many who are competent to judge.
In 1882 Darwin, the apostle of evolution, died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. We quote from an article in “The Gleaner.”
“Darwin is propped up in bed. Out of his window stretches a beautiful view. The sun is setting, lighting up with its soft radiance the face of nature. The dying man is reading — the Bible!”
Lady Hope, a well-known Christian worker, says: “ I made some allusion to the strong opinions expressed by many persons on the history of the creation, its grandeur, and then their treatment of the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis.
“He seemed greatly distressed, his fingers twitched nervously, and a look of agony came over his face as he said: “‘I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.’”
True, his book appeared only eleven years before his death, but it contained the “unformed ideas” of his early manhood, as he himself confessed.
Was there ever a more tragic scene? Darwin with Bible in hand, speaking with glowing enthusiasm about “the grandeur of this Book,” deploring the modern evolutionary movement in theology which resulted in covering Protestant lands with the blight of skepticism; confessing that his “unformed ideas” as a young man were the basis of evolutionary theology.
What a challenge to every modernist! What a rebuke to all who neglect the Bible?
And, further, Darwin revealed his sense of the absolute necessity of the Lord Jesus to every man,
Right glad were we to read this account of Darwin’s closing hours. He exalted the Bible and Christ. He could not have done better.
The Bible contains the revelation of God in Christ, and presents Christ as the only and all-sufficient Savior.
Reader, suppose the death-bed had been yours. How would you have fared? Will your present views of the Bible and Christ stand the acid test of a death-chamber?
One day such a test will come upon you. A few years and your pleasure-loving, money-making opportunities will be over, and what then?
But the gospel tells us “God is love” so that we can trust His heart, His nature, and it tells us it is righteous love so that we feel assured of its immutable basis.
Man is a sinner, the worst of us, aye, the very best of us — hopeless, undone sinners. Sin carries a penalty! The wages of sin is death.
Hence the necessity of Calvary. If God is to pardon the sinner, and yet punish the sin, there must be a Substitute, and that Substitute must be voluntary and sufficient.
As to voluntariness Christ could say, “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:77Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. (Hebrews 10:7)); as to sufficiency, it is enough to point out that He, who was God and became Man (and yet was One divine Person), exclaimed on the cross, “IT IS FINISHED” (John 19:3030When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)). God raised Him from the dead, proof of His satisfaction in His work as meeting all the claims of His righteousness; that the apostles uniformly proclaimed that simple faith in the Lord Jesus as Savior suffices for salvation.
Search and see, there is abundant proof of these statements in the Scriptures.
A. J. P.
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.