Re: The wrong horse in evolution education

Tjalle T Vandergraaf wrote:

> I think it's important to differentiate between, what Peter Ruest calls,
> "the OT saints" and what I will call, for lack of a better word, "the rest"
> and even then, we can further split "the rest" into pre-Adamites and
> "Gentiles" (i.e., non-Israelites)
>
> There is no question about the "OT saints." As Peter writes, they had the
> promise and "died in faith." Christ's sacrifice was "retroactive in time."

Not /all/ descendents within the chosen line of Israel, or of Abraham, or of
Adam are OT saints, but always only the believing "remnant" (cf. Rom.9:27, 11:5;
1 Kings 19:18; Is.28:5 and many other references), i.e. there were believers and
unbelievers among Adam's posterity and in Israel, but only the believers are
saved by Christ, just as in the NT time.

But I tried to extend the term "OT saints" to all those believing in the God of
the Bible in the OT time, probably including people like Melchizedek, Eliezer of
Damascus (Gen.15:2, cf. Gen.24), Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam.11), Naaman of Syria
(2 Kings 5) and many others.

Until the time of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, the full proclamation of the
gospel of the kingdom of God was restricted to the chosen line of Abraham and
Israel, so that Jesus told his disciples not (yet) to preach to the Samaritans
and the Gentiles (Mat.10:5). But this did not preclude these from getting saved
if they had faith, even with very little knowledge, cf. the Canaanite woman in
Mat.15:21-28. It would be strange if God's principle announced to Abraham in
Gen. 12:3, "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will
curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed", should have
no effect at all for almost 2000 years.

> As Peter points out, Paul comments on the Gentiles in his letter to the
> Romans but I still am not sure what this meant. The passage implies that the
> action of some Gentiles was evidence that God, somehow, worked in their
> hearts (common grace?). I had not thought of Melchizedek in that context.
> He's always been sort of shadowy person to me, somebody who appeared once in
> the OT. The passage in Hebrews that refers to him is puzzling to me.

I don't know how you would define "common grace" biblically. But if gentiles
believed in the God of the Bible, it's not just a matter of divine grace
extending to all humans, but of /some/ of them responding positively to this
offer of grace.

The Melchizedek passage in Heb.7 is a typical example of a NT interpretation
(metaphorical, in this case) of an OT narrative which is, at the same time, a
messianic prophecy (of which the OT author might not have known what it meant in
this secondary, prophetic sense!).

> Now, if pre-Adamites are defined as not having been able to know right from
> wrong, can it be argued that they will not inherit eternal life?
>
> The Lord has risen indeed!
>
> Chuck

I certainly don't define pre-Adamites as "not having been able to know right
from wrong", but as humans living before Adam and, in an extended sense, later
humans not descended from Adam. Here, of course, "humans" are meant to be the
ones "created in the image of God", not just any who were anatomically Homo sapiens.

God will decide who among them will inherit eternal life, and I believe what
Paul discusses in Rom.2:14ff applies here. Paul certainly didn't think the
gentiles were not able to "know right from wrong"! I believe that all who are
"created in the image of God", whether Adamites or pre-Adamites or any of their
descendents, have the chance of being saved by Christ, but it is up to each
individual to properly respond to what knowledge or grace God offers them.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)