If we were to talk about creation, historical Adam, the fall, the flood, as well as the age of the earth, many people think that the only problem involves the interpretation of Genesis 1-11. It is very important to remember that the teaching of the New Testament is quite significant to how we process and understand such themes.
The authors of the New Testament go back to the historicity in Genesis 1-11 to prove a number of different theological points. This article takes 10 New Testament texts and deciphers why they are still relevant and how we should interpret them. Let’s start, shall we?
Mark 10:6
In Mark 10:6–8, Jesus quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in quite a straightforward, historical fashion. Jesus’ use of Scripture here is rather authoritative when it comes to settling a dispute over the question of divorce.
This stems from the fact that it is grounded in the creation and purpose of the first marriage (cf. Matthew 19:4-6). These verses are particularly significant, since Jesus said in verse 6, “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.” The statement “from the beginning of creation” stands as a reference to the beginning of creation and not simply to the beginning of the human race.
Jesus said that Adam and Eve were there from the beginning of creation, on day six, not billions of years after the beginning.
In this case, the evolutionary timeline makes no sense, taking into consideration what Jesus said about creating man at the beginning of creation. Today, naturalistic scientists believe that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old.
This means that if you try to argue for theistic evolution or an old earth creation stance, then that would mean that man was made after 99.99997 percent of those billions of years had passed.
The evolutionary timeline makes zero sense in this context, especially considering what Jesus said about creating man at the beginning of creation or what the Bible taught about God forming the earth to be inhabited (CF. Isaiah 45:18).
Luke 3:38
In his gospel account, Luke, a trustworthy historian (Luke 1:1–4), traces Jesus’ genealogy all the way back to the first man and father of all mankind, which is Adam. “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was around thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” Luke 3:23; 38)
Luke 11:50-51
Jesus not only refers to Adam and Eve (“made them male and female” in Mark 10:6) but specifically refers to their son Abel. Jesus thought that Abel, just like Adam, existed at the “foundation of the world” and that Adam, Eve, and Abel were historical.
So that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, might be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation… (Luke 11:50-51)
In this passage, Jesus discusses the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world; the foundation period starts with the initial creation week in Genesis 1. Jesus is drawing parallels between the murder of the first martyr, Abel (Genesis 4:8), and the last martyr in the Old Testament, Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:22).
Theologian Jud Davis asks the question of Jesus’ words in Luke 11:50–51: “Would this be true if millions of years of human evolution preceded Adam and Eve? Were there really no murders before Adam’s time?”
The first human murder recorded in the Bible is that of Abel (Genesis 4:8). It is quite clear that Jesus accepted the early history in the book of Genesis as being completely reliable.
Jesus also made an intricate connection between Moses’ teaching and his own (John 5:45–47), and Moses, as well, made astounding claims about six-day creation in the Ten Commandments, which he says were penned by God’s own hand (Exodus 20:8–11; Exodus 31:17–18).
Luke 17:26-27
Discussing with his disciples, Jesus compares the end-time judgment of the world with the judgment of the flood in Noah’s day.
Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26-27)
It’s worth mentioning that Jesus didn’t consider the account of the flood a myth or a legend. Its meaning would lose its entire force if it were so. In fact, not only does He refer to the individuals as historical, but He also cites parts of the narrative (like eating, drinking, marrying, and entering the ark) as real historical facts.
The people of Noah’s day seemed unbothered with God, and more so concerned about life and celebration. The Flood is not just a simple tale with a theological point. Here, Jesus uses it as a beautiful analogy with the judgment at the end of the age, which can also be a global, historical event (check Acts 17:31).
The flood was not only meant to destroy human life that inhabited the world at the time but also destroyed and reshaped the entire physical world (Genesis 6:13). The word Luke uses for “flood” sheds adjacent light on the nature of the flood.
In fact, it comes from the Greek word kataklysmos from which we currently derive our English word “cataclysm.” It stands as a clear reference to a global catastrophe.
If Luke believed that the flood in Genesis 6-8 was local, covering only the region of Mesopotamia, then why didn’t he use the Greek word for an ordinary local flood, plemmura (Luke 6:38)? Well, that’s because Jesus believed the flood was a global catastrophe and not a local one.
Acts 17:24-27
When Paul visited the Areopagus in Acts 17, he knew very well the religious background of the Greek people to whom he was preaching (Epicureans and Stoics). He also knew the issues that had to be addressed.
The Greeks were polytheists, so after noticing the idol of an “Unknown God,” Paul used it as a springboard for explaining who the one true Creator God really is:
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples that were made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of manking to live on all the face of the earth, having determined alloted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God, and maybe feel their way toward him and find him. However, he is actually not far from each one of us…(Acts 17:24-27).
Here, Paul defines God as the “Lord of heaven and earth” (cf. Exodus 20:11; Isaiah 42:5), who doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. God is the only one who gives “life and breath” (cf. Genesis 2:7) to everything, so it is he, not Zeus, who is the very source of life. Then, Paul goes on to explain that God made mankind from “one man” (Adam, cf. Romans 5:12).
He knew very well that it contradicted the Athenian worldview, which was fundamentally evolutionary: that they originated from the soil of the ground in Attica (Athens).
In this case, Paul deliberately refers to Adam to prove a point: that all people have their roots in the one man God initially made. By stating these things in his preaching, Paul goes against the prevailing philosophies (he didn’t incorporate Greek philosophy into his message) of the day by proclaiming God as the Creator of everything.
In Acts 17, Paul considers that the history in Genesis 1-11 is factual and reliable, and he uses it not only to teach theology but also history since theology is grounded in history.
Paul brings another argument on Mars Hill, involving God as Creator. Mankind is made in God’s image and comes from the man God originally created. All men everywhere now have to repent and trust in the risen Lord Jesus (Acts 17:30-31).
Romans 1:18-20
What Paul teaches in Romans 1:18-20 is essential to our apologetic argument for the existence of God. In Romans 1:18, the apostle Paul moves from righteousness revealed to wrath revealed (Romans 1:17):
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been very clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without any excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)
For Paul, God’s wrath is quite a present reality. It is, in fact, the experience of the outworking of his handing people over their very sinful behavior (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). Paul also states that God’s wrath is revealed against the ungodly and unrighteous who does nothing but to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The truth can be known about God in creation.
The only reason men can suppress the truth is that they are also creatures of God, made in his image (Genesis 1:26-27), and due to clear witness of God in creation. The knowledge of God is manifest in unbelievers since God has “shown it to them” by the things that have been made (revelation in creation). People were able to understand God’s revelation of himself since the very beginning of his creation.
The words “the creation of the world,” just like in any other New Testament text (check 1 John 1:1, 2:13-14), refer to the beginning of the creation week in Genesis 1.
Paul states that God’s revelation of himself through creation has been quite clear since the creation week in Genesis 1, which also totally refutes an evolutionary or long-age view of creation, especially since man is as old as the rest of creation. The truth that Paul reiterates as suppressed is Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Romans 5:12
In Romans 5:1-11, Paul described the reconciling work of God’s love in Jesus on behalf of all sinners, which automatically leads him to contrast the work of Adam and Jesus:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. (Romans 5:12; cf. 13-19)
Here, Paul states that sin came into the world through one man (Adam) and death through sin, which naturally is an allusion to Adam’s disobedience in Genesis 3. Paul also admits that the punishment that God promised in Genesis 2:17 was completed, and death came into the world (cf. Genesis 3:19).
Paul’s teaching in Romans 5:12 is quite incompatible with evolution, which also demands that physical death has always been in the world. Some theistic evolutionists chose to reinterpret death in Romans 5:12 as being spiritual.
However, it is quite clear that Paul had both physical (Romans 5:14, 17) and spiritual deaths (Romans 5:16, 18, 21) in mind, which could have been called “complete death.”
But if the consequences of Adam’s disobedience were only spiritual, then the question is Why did Jesus have to die a physical death? The question for theistic evolutionists is, If physical death has always been present in the world, then given Paul’s argument that physical death came into the world because of Adam’s sin, what difference did one more death (Jesus’s) accomplish?
Jesus died a physical death on the cross because the first man, Adam, brought physical death into the world. Without the explanation of Adam sinning, as the Bible explained, this would mean that God is responsible for the suffering and evil we see in the world.
Romans 8:19-22
In Romans 8:18, Paul also writes that the Christian’s suffering of this present age is truly not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to come:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not wilingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:19-22)
The Greek word for creation (ktisis) in verse 19 makes a clear reference to the non-human creation; the creation is here distinguished from humanity in verse 21. In verse 20, Paul explains why creation is anticipating the revealing of the son of God.
The reason Paul gives is that the present creation isn’t the way God intended it to be. It is this way due to the fact that Adam’s sins interfered with God’s very good creation (Genesis 1:31), and as a consequence, it is now in frustration.
Paul is drawing upon Genesis 3:17-18, in which the creation is cursed by God because of Adam’s sin, and that’s the reason it is subjected to frustration. The word “futility” indicates that creation hasn’t fulfilled the purpose for which it was made.
Comments made in Romans 8:20 reflect Paul’s unwavering belief that the fall in Genesis 3 brought a change in the workings of creation (cf. Romans 1:21; Romans 5:12). Paul proceeds in tracing the consequences of Adam’s disobedience to the futility to which creation has been subjected and now seems to be corrupted due to man’s disobedience.
Even more, if Paul didn’t have Genesis 3 in mind (as some scholars would think), then the question would be, “When did God subject the creation to futility? There is nothing in Genesis 1 that shows there was any kind of corruption in the original creation (Genesis 1:29-31).
If creation would have already been in a state of futility at its creation, then how could it be subjected to corruption, especially since it was already in that state? God’s subjecting the creation is obviously a reference to the curse presented in Genesis 3:17.
Paul also makes it clear that there will be work done in creation itself, and not just human beings. Paul’s point in verse 22 is that the creation is groaning and suffering, not from natural disasters and suffering, but from the fall of Adam in Genesis 3, which in the context of Romans 8:19-22 is clearly expressed.
1 Corinthians 15:21-22
In 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, Paul draws parallels between Jesus’ death, resurrection, and the foundational historical events of Genesis 3. The Christian faith is dependent upon the historicity of all these events.
For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22 NKJV).
In verse 21, Paul tells the Corinthians that death came through a man, Adam. Then, he uses the Adam-Christ typology to explain the reason for the resurrection. In verse 22, Paul points us to the mortality of the human race, due to our relation to Adam.
But those who are in Christ will be made alive. The claim that Adam wasn’t historical somehow overlooks the fact that the parallel between Adam and Christ is too close for one to be historical and not the other.
More so, how could a mythological figure affect the human race in such a negative way? Paul then states that Adam was the first man, which should be enough to refute any idea that there were pre-Adamite humans.
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