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Transcript 099B — Adam and Eve: Fact or Fiction?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Mr. Camping. I'm taking a class, and the other day we were discussing the Genesis story. And our teacher said that Adam and Eve represent all of mankind, because the name Adam means man, and Eve means woman. So Adam and Eve weren't really two people, and they were like everybody.
And he also said that the Genesis story is just an attempt to explain how sin came into the world, but he said it's not really a true story. And he also went on to say that the Bible isn't an historical book and that Genesis isn't a scientific book, but it does have science in it. And while the Bible isn't an historical book, it does have history in it.
Now I don't believe any of this that he said, but I've tried to contradict him in class, but I just seem to run out of things to say. And I get the feeling that if I keep talking, other students will feel like I'm trying to show off. Do you understand what I mean?
HC: I understand. You see, first of all, we accept the Bible as the Word of God by faith. And you have learned to do this. You have learned to entrust your life to what you read in the Word of God. And so when you hear anyone make disparaging remarks about the Bible, as if it isn't everything that it purports to be, you feel very offended. You feel like you have to defend it.
But you must realize that those who are making these statements do not have their spiritual eyes open. They have not accepted the Bible by faith. And so I would suggest this to you, that you might try this topic. And I don't think for a moment that you're going to get anywhere with it. But you might try it anyway, just to see what happens.
And if you do stand up in class, be sure that you do it very humbly and very tenderly, because it is so easy to get a feeling, because you may know the Lord and you sense that most of the rest of the class does not, of superiority. "Look. I'm a child of God, and you're still slaves of Satan," so to speak. And even though you're not thinking it out loud, that may be very deep in your consciousness, particularly when you sense that they are so blind in their unbelief.
But just bear this in mind. If you know the Lord, it is only because of God's grace, His unmerited favor toward you. And except for His grace, you would be just as blind as anybody else. But very patiently, and very humbly, and very tenderly, you might ask your teacher, "Well now, is the Bible the infallible Word of God?" If he says it is not, that is, if he does not think the Bible is trustworthy all the way through, then ask him, "Well, how can I know what part of it I can trust and what part of it I cannot trust?"
Now this is leading into the fact that if I have to be the judge as to what is trustworthy and what is not trustworthy, then I am the authority over the Bible, and as a matter of fact, none of the Bible is worth reading, because I simply am not a qualified judge. And it means that the whole Bible is suspect. I could be selecting the wrong verses to trust and throwing out the other verses. It just makes the whole Bible a shambles.
Now if, on the other hand, he says, "Yes, I believe the Bible is infallible, the Bible is the divine Word of God," then ask him, "What is your biblical authority to say that the Genesis account is not historical, that it is not true, because you have to have biblical authority if you believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God."
For example, I can read the account in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus that Jesus talked about. And I can read everything that is there, and I can decide that that is not an historical event, that that is a parable that Jesus is teaching. Why can I decide that? Because when I read everything that He says here in this account, I realize that it does not follow the historical pattern that ought to be in accordance with the rest of the Bible.
For example, it says there that the rich man died and went to Hades, and there he plead with Abraham to send Lazarus to take a drop of water and put it on his tongue. That would indicate that he went to Hades, and he had a body there. Secondly, it would imply that he was already in torment even though Judgment Day had not come, because in that same context it says that he said to Abraham, "Send Lazarus from the grave to go to my five brothers who are not saved." So that would have to be on this side of Judgment Day.
Now I know from the rest of the Bible that when an unsaved man dies, he goes into the grave and his body returns to the dust. His body does not go into Hades. His body goes into the grave and returns to the dust to await the judgment of the Last Day.
Secondly, I know that when he dies, an unsaved man, his soul goes down into silence, and torment does not begin until after the Last Day, when he is resurrected to be judged, at which time he will be cast into hell.
And so, for these as well as a number of other reasons of a similar nature, I know that the account in Luke 16 is not an account of an actual historical event. But rather it is a story that Jesus told to act as a parable, to teach some wonderful spiritual truth, even as He told parables like the kingdom of heaven is like a man who went forth to sow. And he sowed the seed on good soil, and on rocky soil, and so on. And that is simply a story He was telling. It was not an actual historical event.
But when we get to the Book of Genesis, and we read, step by step, all that we find in Genesis, and then search the Scriptures to see if there's anything in the Bible that might suggest to us that what we read about Adam and Eve was simply a story, a parable, and that it actually was not history, we cannot find anything at all like that.
For example, in the New Testament we find in I Corinthians 15 where God says, "As in Adam all died," referring to historical Adam.
CALLER: Well, my teacher said that Paul was the first person to misunderstand it, and that really Adam wasn't a man. What do you think about this belief that Adam, meaning man, represented all men.
HC: Well, the word Adam is the word man. And in a certain sense we were all in the loins of Adam. We read in Genesis 3: "The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living." Certainly they were the progenitors of the whole human race.
But when your teacher made this statement, "Paul was the first to misunderstand," immediately he confessed that he does not believe the Bible is the Word of God. He is saying, "These are the writings of Paul, and Paul was mistaken." In other words, he is saying that the Bible is simply a book. It is not the Word of God to him. And then, of course, if this is the case, he's going to come up with all kinds of doctrines contrary to the Word of God, because he doesn't believe in the authority of the Word of God.
And so don't be surprised at what you're going to hear. Don't be amazed at the ideas that will be set forth. But they will not be biblical.
CALLER: Then should I as a Christian try to keep saying what I believe?
HC: The Bible says, "Don't cast your pearls before swine." And what God means by this is that the Gospel is a great and wonderful pearl. And the unsaved of the world are sometimes illustrated in the Bible under the figure of swine or dogs, which were the most unclean beasts to the Jews of Jesus' day, and they're set forth this way in the Bible.
And when we offer the Gospel, if they will not listen, if they mock, if they ridicule, we simply keep silence. We're under no mandate from God to keep plugging away. When the Judaizers came while Paul was preaching the Gospel, and they harassed him and made life miserable for him, he simply left them and went on to the next city. When the Jews would not listen to him, he said, as we read in Acts 28, "Okay, if you Jews will not listen to me, I'll go to the Gentiles. They will listen."
And so in this class, you'll get to the point where you say, "No one listens to me. I'll keep silent."
CALLER: When he says these things, it really bothers me so much, because I know they're not true. But nobody in the class is really that interested.
HC: They're not interested. Now if he expressed interest, if someone in the class expressed interest, wonderful. Then you've got an open door to witness.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Camping. Good night.
HC: You're welcome. Good night.