Jesus Christ’s Miracles are Evidence of Evolution
One of my early premises of Geocreationism is that Jesus Himself was present for Creation. Even the very first verse of the Bible says so.
Genesis 1:1 - “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
As I discussed in my post on Genesis 1:1a, the word for God is Elohim, a plural form of the one God. It represents both God’s unequaled majesty, as well the Trinity, using a word that is both plural and singular at the same time. John confirms this in his gospel in John 1:1-3, and Solomon describes why Jesus was there in Proverbs 8:22-26. In fact, Solomon even goes on to give Jesus a voice in Proverbs 8:27-30a. Here, Jesus (personified as Wisdom) speaks of His role while God the Father performed His creative works over the first 4 days of Creation:
When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
It is interesting to notice here that God the Father’s creative works in this case are limited. As I write about in Creation Account in Proverbs, this account includes details of the first 4 days of creation. But notice what is not there… creation of life. That is, the creation of plants, fish, birds, mammals, and people (after their kind), are absent. Why would that be? Well, I suggest that it is because that is all the Father did. Jesus did the rest.
Why would I suggest that? Well, look at how Jesus describes Himself: standing beside God as a master craftsman. Why would God have a master craftsman do nothing, but stand beside Him? Answer: He wouldn’t… or at least He didn’t, in my opinion. In fact, I have a strong suspicion that Jesus was the master craftsman behind all living things recorded in Genesis 1. But if that is the case, then whatever Jesus did, He did it as the Father’s loyal servant, essentially serving on Earth as God’s proxy.
The question then is, exactly what was the nature of Jesus’ role in the creation of life? Well, for that, I turn to the New Testament, where we can see Jesus’ attitude toward use of His creative powers on display.
Attitude about Creation on Display
John 2:1-11 Jesus Changes Water to Wine
This miracle shows Jesus’ ability to transform one substance into another. But notice something… He could have created the wine directly, but He didn’t. He started with water, and changed it to wine.
Luke 5:1-11 Draught of Fish, John 21:1-14 Second Draught of Fish
In each case, Jesus could have simply created a net full of fish. But, He used instead His miraculous knowledge of when and where there were fish, and instructed Simon to put out his nets, even after having toiled, in both cases, for nothing. Now, it is possible that Jesus got the fish to conspire against Simon, or that Jesus multiplied a lone fish into many at the last moment, or perhaps He created the fish from nothing. However, scripture is silent on that, and other examples imply an attitude otherwise. What we do know this scripture tells us is that Jesus used the process of fishing to retrieve the fish at the place and time of His choosing, and the fish were there. He didn’t tell them to do something that no one would ever do. He just had them re-cast their nests.
Luke 9:10-17 Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand and Matthew 15:32-39 Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
These miracles show Jesus’ creation of bread and fish from other bread and fish. He could have simply created them from nothing, but He didn’t. He multiplied what was there.
Matthew 17:24-27 Temple Tax in the Fish’s Mouth
This miracle shows again Jesus’ preference not to create out of thin air. Jesus could have put his hand up to Peter’s ear, and pulled a coin out of it, like a magician, creating a real coin from nothing. But, He didn’t. Instead, He used His miraculous knowledge of a fish nearby that had a coin in its mouth. He took the coin, and paid the temple tax.
Mark 11:12-26 , Matthew 21:18-22 Whithering Fig Tree
This miracle shows Jesus’ willingness to destroy what He has made, even if it is only to make a point about His divinity. In the longer version of this miracle, in Mark, Jesus makes the point that God the Father will not forgive those who do not forgive others’ trespasses. In His experience with the fig tree, Jesus depicts His own point, where Jesus represents us, and the fig tree represents those needing forgiveness. After numerous healings on the sabbath, because that was what was called for, Jesus was hungry and this fig tree would not provide Jesus a fruit in His time of hunger. Of course, it couldn’t because it was out of season, but Jesus wanted to make a point about us. So, He whithered it. When we show no grace toward someone who cannot provide our wants or needs, we whither that person; if we are so unforgiving that we would let a person whither, then God will let us whither as well. Of course, the tree had done no wrong, being only a tree, and out of season, and this shows an interesting point about Jesus’ attitudes toward nature and death. If physical death could only come from sin, then Jesus sinned, but we know He did not sin. Therefore, the mere killing of a tree is not sinful, depending on your reason for it; same for animals and any non-human life. It provides us insight into what Jesus would be willing to do during Creation, such what happened to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, not to mention all of the other other extinct species that occurred before the fall of Adam. In this case, Jesus caused the physical death of at tree to help His apostles lead people to spiritual life. What else is Creation, but physical death, leading to spiritual life?
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The miracles above show that when Jesus prefers to take something that exists, and make something from that. Notice in particular the two miracles pertaining to Jesus’ feeding of people. Those miracles parallel Day 5, when God caused the birds to fill the sky and the fish to teem. As I write elsewhere, I believe that God’s creative action was to “let” the fish and birds increase, by killing off their natural predators for a time (consistent with Christ’s willing to whither the fig tree for His purposes). He did something similar for the mammals on Day 6, but there He allowed most of the existing prehistoric mammals to go nearly extinct. On both days, new species were created from what survived of the old, but directly by God’s hand, not through random mutation. (There was mutation to be sure… but not random and not accidental!)
The similarity to Jesus making much bread and fish from few is that on Day 5, He took a few species and created many. Notice that the fish recovered from the KT Impact nearly as soon after the dinosaurs’ destruction as they possibly could; there was no necessity for the fish to recover so soon! The removal of their predators simply “let” it happen, but it didn’t cause it to happen; God caused it. Letting and causing are two separate things, and God did both. So, while we see in science the evidence for how God let the fish multiply, we see in the miracles above how Jesus could caused them to multiply.
This suggests an interesting pattern that would account for many things observed in the fossil record…
- God the Father pronounces to Jesus to “let” a certain thing happen in creation
- God the Son removes the conditions that were, until that time, preventing that day’s creation
- Having obeyed His Father, Jesus then actively creates, by taking what is there and creating more of it (as in Luke 9:10-17 and Matthew 15:32-39), and/or by taking what is there and creating something different (as in John 2:1-11)
Following are the rest of Jesus’ miracles from His ministry (except where He escapes the crowd). His powers over the Creation are evident in every one of them!
Jesus’ Powers over the Human Body on Display
John 4:46-54 Healing the Nobleman’s Son (of fever)
Matthew 8:1-4 Cleansing a Leper
Matthew 8:5-13 Healing a Centurion’s Servant (of paralysis)
Matthew 8:14-15 Healing Peter’s Mother-in-law of a fever
Matthew 8:16-17 Healing the Sick and Possessed at Evening
Matthew 9:1-8 Healing a Paralytic
Matthew 9:19-22 Healing the Hemorrhaging Woman
Matthew 9:27-31 Healing Two Blind Men
Matthew 9:31-35 Curing a Devil-possessed, Dumb Man
Matthew 12:22 Curing a Devil-possessed, Blind and Dumb Man
Matthew 15:21-28 Healing the Gentile Woman’s Daughter
Matthew 17:14-21 Healing the Epileptic Boy
Matthew 20:29-34 Healing Two Blind Men
Mark 7:31-37 Healing a Deaf and Dumb Man
Mark 8:22-26 Healing a Blind Paralytic at Bethsaida
John 5:1-18 Healing an Infirm Man at Bethesda
John 9:1-41 Healing the Man Born Blind
Luke 13:10-17 Healing the Infirm, Bowed Woman
Luke 14:1-6 Healing the Man with Dropsy
Luke 17:11-19 Cleansing the Ten Lepers
Luke 22:47-51 Restoring a Servant’s Ear
Jesus’ Powers over Life on Display
Matthew 9:17-26 Raising the Ruler’s Daughter
Luke 7:11-17 Raising of a Widow’s Son at Nain
John 11:1-57 Raising of Lazarus
Jesus’ Powers over Spirits on Display
Mark 1:23-28 Casting Out an Unclean Spirit
Matthew 8:16-17 Healing the Sick and Possessed at Evening
Matthew 8:28-34 Devils Entering a Herd of Swine
Matthew 9:31-35 Curing a Devil-possessed, Dumb Man
Matthew 12:22 Curing a Devil-possessed, Blind and Dumb Man
Jesus’ Powers over the Elements
Matthew 8:23-27 Jesus Calms the Storm
Matthew 14:22-34 Walking on the Sea
Luke 5:1-11 The Calling of the First Disciples
Now, why call out Jesus’ miracles? Because Proverbs 8 says Jesus was there at Creation, and we know that the character of Jesus never changes. Therefore, by studying His character through His miracles 2000 years ago, we can get a glimpse into His attitude toward Creation, in the beginning. In fact, just how much weight should we give Jesus’ miracles? Let us see a what Jesus Himself has to say about them:
- John 5:36 - I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.
- John 10:38 - But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.
- John 14:11 - Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
In closing, based on the pattern in Jesus’ miracles above, if we assume it repeats itself during Creation, then by Jesus’ own words, I think we can reasonably conclude that Jesus’ actions on the Creation Days did not result in creating something from nothing, but some things from other things. This is consistent with the Fossil record. However, we also see the meticulous intent behind His actions, suggesting that what we created from something else was not through random mutation or accident, but by direct fiat (to borrow from Stephen Jones). This also agrees with the fossil record discovered by our scientists, without reading into it the Darwinian Evolution that they theorize. It leaves intact their aging of fossils, and theories on descent, but inserts God where species appear and even disappear.