TABLE OF CONTENTS
Section I
Embodiment: and the Incarnation
Chapter 3. Embodiment: Designed for the Human Spin
Chapter 4. Designed for Vicarious Sacrifice
Chapter 5 .Designed for Substitionary Sacrifice
Chapter 6. Death: Natural or Unnatural?
Chapter 7. The Constitution of a Human Being
Chapter 8. How Did I Come To Be Me?
Chapter 9. The Ghost in the Machine
Chapter 12 .The Incarnation: the Invisible Becomes Visible
Section II
Embodiment: and Vicarious Substitutionary Sacrifice
Chapter 13. Two Adams: Fallen and Unfallen Man
Chapter 15. The Dying of Jesus Christ
Chapter 16. The Man Who Raised Himself from the Dead
To Evelyn May White: for whom I owe a great debt to the Lord for sending me the best secretary an author ever had, and the most faithful of all critics.
She took all the dictation at least twice over and typed much of the text at least three times: and then set the copy on a Composer ready for the printer, thus making many last-minute refinements possible.
I am grateful beyond telling.
Three Propositions--
An established fact is as sacred as a revealed truth.
Nothing quite equals the ignorance of the average Scientist about Theology except perhaps the ignorance of most theologians about matters of Science.
"Theology was once known as the Queen of the Sciences. If Science as the 'Servant of Humanity' is to be sure of its direction, the Queen needs to be either reinstated or re-placed....THE THRONE IS AT PRESENT VACANT." (A. V. Hill, Presidential Address before the British Association in 1954.)
Why is it that the theologians are just as unwilling to incorporate the data of science into their theology as the scientists are of incorporating the data of theology into their science? These data in both cases ultimately rest upon foundations of a similar nature, namely, on the logical extension of the implications of premises which have been accepted by faith.
In the present creation/evolution controversy the basic issue is the origin and nature of Adam. Was he only a little removed from the apes but with the benefit of a soul, appearing on the scene millions of years ago? Or was he a creature of God's making coming directly into being by a divine act, placed in a Garden of Eden only a few thousand years ago? And what of Eve? Was she a kind of prehistoric "Lucy" three million years old, or was she formed out of a historical Adam by a unique act of divine surgery as record-ed in Genesis so matter-of-factly?
What has been overlooked in all this controversy, and what complicates it immensely, is the fact that in the Bible we have not merely one man called Adam to account for, but two (1 Cor. 15:45). And these two men, the Adam of Eden and the Adam of Bethlehem, stand in direct apposition to one another, each being a prototype and a representative of the other and of true Man. Whatever we can say with certainty about the Last Adam must be assumed for the First Adam as originally formed - whether by creation or by evolution.
Examination of the implications of the biblical data (and this data is far more revealing than is generally recognized) shows that the creation of Adam and Eve exactly as Scripture sets it forth, is the only view that really makes sense of the relationship between these two Adams and of the biblical Plan of Redemption. Evolution makes a shambles of the Plan of Redemption as the Church of God has understood it and preached it for almost 2000 years.
It is the exploration in depth of this relationship between the First and the Last Adam that forms the subject of this volume. It demonstrates that in this controversy concerning the origin of man's body, the biological data are only part of the issue: it is the theological data that must now be addressed.
What the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on Calvary cannot really be understood without first grasping the difference between our physical death and that of an animal, and between the death of Jesus Christ and that of us men for whom He died. These three kinds of physical death are entirely different in certain fundamental essentials. It is quite beyond the ability of evolutionary theory to account for these physiological differences.
First published in book form, 1983. Internet edition originated December 28, 1996. Send corrections and comments to dolphin@best.com