The Bible as Science: Precise Accuracy

Genesis gets dismissed with a slogan: “The Bible says there was life before there was light.” We slow that claim down, read what the text actually says, and show why the easy objection doesn’t hold up. Then we go one step further, because the real question is bigger than a talking point: when Scripture touches the natural world, does it contradict reality or describe it with surprising clarity?

We walk through the Bible as science by connecting Genesis 1 to what we now know about atmosphere, daylight, and even organisms that live best in darkness. The Carlsbad Caverns example is unforgettable: microscopic life discovered in deep cave waters that withers under sunlight. From there, we move into the heat of the classroom where skeptics love to challenge believers, including a charge that Paul made a “cytological error” when he wrote that different creatures have different kinds of flesh. We talk through the argument, the common-sense reply, and how modern forensic-style testing supports the idea that human and animal tissue are not the same.

Next we turn to anthropology and Acts 17: God “hath made of one blood all nations of men.” Whatever our background, a lab can identify human blood, but it cannot split humanity into separate blood-based categories the way prejudice tries to. Finally, we land where the Bible itself lands: “the life of the flesh is in the blood” and the gospel claim that atonement is found in the blood shed at Calvary. If you care about biblical reliability, faith and science, creation, human unity, and the message of salvation, this broadcast ties them together with a clear, direct line.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves big questions, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the toughest Bible and science objection you’ve heard?

Church Website — BibleBaptistDeLand.com

Ministry Website — JamesWKnox.org 

YouTube Channel — YouTube.com/JamesWKnoxSermons

Sermon Audio — SermonAudio.com/BibleBaptistDeLand

Web Store — Store.JamesWKnox.org

Transcript

Welcome And Ministry Purpose

0:07

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W. Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delaney, Florida. Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. Now here's your host, Pastor James W. Knox. All right, now good to have you along today. I'm Brother James. I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And I welcome you one more time to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. We're so happy that you've tuned into the program today. It's our desire, it's our purpose, God helping us, we will accomplish that purpose and desire of teaching you the truth, not only from the Word of God, but about the Word of God. If you've listened to this program for any length of time, you know that not only do we spend a great deal of time going verse by verse and teaching you the actual biblical doctrines from the Word of God, but we've spent a great deal of time teaching you about the Word of God itself. That is, for example, we had a series of lessons on the history of the English Bible. We had a series of lessons on how archaeology proves the biblical text to be accurate. We had a series of lessons on the various books of the New

Why We Study The Bible Itself

1:35

Testament and what they taught and their foundation and basis and so forth. And we are in the midst of a study right now entitled The Bible as Science, in which we are showing you that in spite of the criticisms, in spite of the arguments, in spite of the objections raised by infidels and skeptics and scoffers, that the Bible is indeed not only a scientifically accurate book, but is more accurate when it deals with science than any science textbook in your library. Now we're emboldened to say that because we've read the Bible and we've studied the pages of Scripture carefully. We don't say that like some of you say, I think that Bible's just a bunch of junk, and you never even read it. You've never spent any time studying its truth. But my friend, having studied God's Word and having a working knowledge of science, wouldn't call myself a scientist, but then why would anyone that's a Christian stoop to call themselves something like a scientist? We know enough about both subjects to know that the Bible's true and righteous altogether, and its critics are just going to have to step aside. We discussed on the last broadcast a great many scientific facts that are known today and have been established in this century that were not known to men by scientific observation, that is, study and experimentation, arriving at the truth. For example, the atomic structure, for example, the gravitational uh pull that uh keeps the earth in its proper place, for example, the wearing of a mask to present the spreading of germs. All of these things are recent scientific discoveries. Yet all of these things are declared as being truth in the pages of the Word of God written several thousand years ago. We're not through yet. We have more of these considerations for you.

Genesis And The Life Before Light Claim

3:47

One of the oldest criticisms that has ever been directed against the scientific integrity of the Bible is the objection of a generation ago which criticized the scientific accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis. In this chapter, it is specifically stated that life occurred on the planet before the work of God on the fourth day had caused the direct rays of the sun to shine upon the face of this globe. The opponent of the scripture customarily begins his objection by stating that Moses said there was life before there was light, and this would be an impossibility in science. But here again, this is an argument of someone who has never read the Bible. In the first chapter of Genesis, if you would read it for yourself, you would find the exact statement of the factors in the problem. Light illumined the planet on the first day of creation. The second day was given up to the establishment of the laws of meteorology that guide and direct what we call weather. On the third day, three mighty works were wrought, the oceans were gathered together into one place, the vast realm of botany was born, and the world of biology came into being. Up to this time, the light that had been shining on the planet had been filtered through that aqueous envelope which had not yet been dissipated. Then on the fourth day, the atmosphere cleared so that the direct rays of the sun reached the planet with all the brightness characteristic of our modern daylight. The argument based upon a misconception of this paragraph, and a misunderstanding of science, however, is that it would be impossible to have life before the fourth day of creation. And we'd hasten to reply that the conclusion is too broad to be established in science. In fact, there is life that cannot exist where there is light. Now, this

Cave Life That Dies In Sunlight

5:39

may be clearly shown by the recital of an instance that occurred a number of years ago when the U.S. Geologic Survey, or Geodetic Survey, was first exploring the Carlsbad Caverns and preparing them for the enjoyment of the general public. Dr. Willis T. Lee, who was in charge of the work, made a statement to the effect that in the dark and gloomy recesses of these incredible caverns, no life of any kind existed. Immediately, a number of eminent biologists leaped upon this utterance and stated that they would never agree to so broad a generalization until it had been scientifically established. They said that no matter how dark and gloomy the depths of those caves might be, with water and atmosphere present, it would be impossible to have biological sterility. Now, if you've ever been fortunate enough to go back into the back of one of these caverns, I mean to penetrate those black recesses way back in there. A very simple biological survey will let you know that near the mouth of the caverns, vast numbers of flying mammals called bats have their habitation. They in turn perhaps are also inhabited by various forms of life. They, however, live where the influence of light is felt, but in examining the recesses of the caverns, scientists work most of the time in utter darkness. Specimens of water are taken in three kinds of containers. One was made of a clear flint glass, the second made of an ember material which has a value of about the density of a Ratin K three filter, and the third receptacle consists of little lead flasks with a screw top. The scientists found in the waters in the black, gloomy recesses of the cave several common types of protozoa. These creatures not only lived where there was no light, but when they were brought out into the brightness of the day, they withered and perished from the effects of the sunlight. The only specimens the scientists finally got alive to the laboratory were those which were contained in the lead flasks, which of course were impervious to light. Both of the foundations of the argument collapse. There was light before the fourth day of Genesis, and also there is life that can live without light. In fact, there is life that perishes under the direct influence of light. There are cave crickets. There are blind fish living in the lakes in some of these caves back there. They've never seen the light of day, never have, never will. And they've lived there for generations. Now, let's say we're not arguing for the biological wisdom of the man Moses. I don't think for an instant that Moses knew anything about protozoology. Perhaps his knowledge even of botany was limited to that of his own generation. The point we're making is that when the Spirit of God inspired Moses to write the records of Genesis, Moses was not restricted to his own wisdom. By the illumination of the Holy Ghost, he wrote things as they are and not as man thought them to be. The same basic premise could be called the thesis of this entire study. Certainly it could be applied to every writer of the Old Testament or the New.

A Classroom Challenge To Biblical Science

9:03

Now, if you sit in a classroom and debate some college professor and hold that the Bible is the Word of God, you'll be challenged by these infidels all day and all night. There's always a good argument to be raised. They're always looking for somebody that says they believe the Bible. If you don't think, if you don't think the aim and objective of higher education in America today is to destroy someone's faith in the Word of God, you just ought to go to college and try and take a stand for the Word of God in a science class or a sociology class or a humanities class. You just ought to try it. I've done so. It's exciting to say the least. Now, one day in a classroom, the old doctor was sure that he had one. He had one this time. And as soon as the class started, the professor opened up by saying, Do you still believe the Bible is the word of God? Yes came the answer. The Bible is the word of God. I'm not going to back down off that position. The doctor said, How can you accept the Bible as the word of God when it contains such glaring scientific errors? Now this happens every day in classrooms all across America. And the professor was reminded he hadn't been able to establish any of those errors so far. He said, Well, how about the cytological error that Paul the Apostle made in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians? And the professor cited, Paul's writing, all flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. Very specifically, that passage does say that there is a different kind of flesh for men than there is for beasts, and that the flesh of fishes differs from the flesh of birds, and each differs from the other. Well, there's no point of argument there, that's what the Bible says. The Bible states a biological and psychological difference between the cell structure of the various great phyla. The professor was somewhat amused to hear a Christian reply that he agreed with Paul the Apostle that there was a specific and scientific difference between the flesh of one great species and another. The instructor then asked, Have you come this far in your studies, and have you not learned the continuity theory? Well, sure, but why would anybody give up the Bible for any theory? We're standing on facts. Now the professor warmly insisted that the continuity theory was an established fact. Now we're speaking about something took place in the archaic days of biology, many years ago, and this continuity theory was the big cheese for a while there. The idea was predicated upon the supposition that all cell structure was the same. Early investigators discovered that the cells of all living creatures contained a basic substance called protoplasm, and so they jumped to the conclusion that all protoplasm was the same, and therefore that all cells were the same, and they thus built up the evolutionary hypothesis that by a continuity of life transmission from one form to another, the various species had arrived through a process of evolution. That's the continuity theory. If you go into school now, you won't hear anything about it. It's another one of those those wonderful scientific theories that were supposed to overthrow the Bible that has had to be discarded because it was a great big lie. They call that science. We Bible believers call it nonsense. Well, anyway, this professor, he was he was more than thrilled to have come up with this uh little argument, and he stated the continuity theory is a fact. Well, the fact that a Bible-believing Christian doesn't believe that and believes there is a specific and scientific difference between the basic structure of every two groups of living creatures, brings this reply from the professor. Prove it. Now, this is this is where you run into problems, and some of you listening to me right now, you are an outspoken witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Hebrews 11, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And there are some things that you just can't prove. They are matters of faith that God has commanded you and I to believe. The professor in this case will say, see there, if you can't prove it, if you can't prove you're right, you can't prove I'm wrong. Now here's how you handle that. That's what you say, said the student to the professor, but actions speak louder than words. You do agree that all flesh is not the same flesh. For instance, let's assume that you ate your dinner today in a fine restaurant downtown, and you ordered quail on toast, and that's what you were charged for. If they served you codfish, you would yell and scream and holler that your order had not been filled properly. Now what does that prove? Well, this proves that while you might not know the difference between a fish and a bird, your stomach and your taste buds do. And it seems then as though some people have more sense under their belt than they do under their hat. Ah, this breaks up an argument into an uproar every time. Now, if this professor was alive today, you could point your finger right in his face and say, Alright, Mr. Scientist, let's hear it. According to the findings of modern science, Paul the Apostle should be classified as a very credible cytologist. You

Forensics And Different Kinds Of Flesh

15:13

may have read, or you should have read by now, that uh the Park Davis Laboratories long ago uh came up with anti-human precipitant. This has been largely used by the scientific sections of criminal investigation uh departments in all of our big city police systems. If you had a bit of bone, or blood, or flesh, or skin, or organic substance that was alive or had been alive, no matter how old or discated that substance might be, and you desired to know from what living creature it had come, the method would be comparatively simple. There was a time when murderers, faced with the evidence of a blood-stained garment, had some ability to evade justice by maintaining that they had killed a rabbit or a chicken or some other meat animal, and the law couldn't prove the contrary. Those days are gone forever. If we had dried blood, the stain of blood, or live blood, and we put it into the test tube and added the anti-human precipitant, we would get an almost instant reaction which said, This is animal, or this is human. This same is true of all the cell structure of the human body. This reagent will not tell the difference between two kinds of animals, it will not tell the difference between two varieties of man, but it will instantly and infallibly indicate whether the once living matter which is under investigation came from an animal or a human being. If the indication shows that it is human, there are other chemical devices now that can be applied to bone and tissue, and they can even tell you what race the human being belonged to: white, negro, or uh occidental. If the indication is that it is animal, there are cytological means of differentiation by which the kind of animal may even be classified. In other words, if we were asked to express the latest findings of the cytology of our generation, we could do no better than to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and read verse 39. All flesh is not the same flesh, there is one kind of flesh for man, a different kind of flesh for the animals, the birds, and all other living creatures. Now, again, how how could Paul the Apostle have known this? The answer is simple. He didn't know, he couldn't have known. The only possible explanation for his anticipation of this modern wisdom is to concede that he spoke and wrote as he was moved by the Spirit of God. Thus, the Almighty, in revealing his will for our generation, anticipated the wisdom of our day, that God's book might be in absolute harmony with the advancing wisdom of man right up until the time of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One Blood And The Unity Of Mankind

18:18

Now, this illustration naturally and logically suggests the equally remarkable fashion in which this same writer, Paul the Apostle, has uttered conclusions in harmony with our modern science of anthropology. In his address to the Areopagites, preserved in the 17th chapter of Acts, this great master of logic offers seven reasons for saying that man can find God and truly apprehend him. The third reason in this series of seven is the argument from anthropology. The Authorized King James Bible presents the arguments, argument in these words He hath made of one blood all nations of men that dwell on the face of the earth. Isn't that something? There is no scientific argument with this statement of the Apostle Paul. If an inquirer should bring into the laboratory, adapted for this type of work, seven drops of blood, and should ask for the classification of each specimen of blood, the problem would be simple for the worker who is trained in the field of science. If these seven drops of blood had come from the veins of a horse, a cow, a sheep, a goat, a chicken, an ape, and a man, a scientific investigation requiring only a relatively few minutes would show positively from which kind of creature each specimen of blood had come. If, however, the same investigator should bring into the laboratory seven drops of human blood and should ask for a classification of mankind from these drops of blood, he would seek such information in vain. It is utterly impossible to tell the difference by any known technique between the blood of a Chinese and an Anglo-Saxon. It is equally impossible to tell the difference between the blood of a German and a Japanese. Scotch, Irish, English, African, Mongoloid, Caucasian, they are all just human blood. There is no known method of analysis that will teach us anything about the creatures from whom these blood drops were derived, except only in the simple conclusion that he was, in each case, a human being. As it is written, the latest dictum of the science of anthropology cannot overthrow the revealed truth of the Word of God written two thousand years ago. Now, how did Paul know this? In the day when he walked the earth, race prejudice had reached its highest development because of the pride resident in Roman psychology and the outworking of the lines of segregation in the Jewish law and so forth. Yet this man who was born a Roman, anticipating all of the wisdom of our generation as far as it might be applied to the species that is called man, arrived by inspiration at the same conclusion that modern science has established by research. How do you explain that?

The Life Is In The Blood

21:29

There is no field of investigation open to men that has been so thoroughly explored in the past few years as has the field of blood. A long time ago, going back through the hundreds of years into the thousands, our present conclusions concerning the essential nature of the blood were anticipated in the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus. In verse eleven, there we are told that the children of Israel were forbidden to eat any manner of blood. The penalty for the violation of this prohibition was that the soul of the man who ate the blood should be cut off from among the people. This commandment is repeated and reiterated on the specific ground. That the life of the flesh is in the blood thereof. Three times this scientific dictum is repeated in the short space of five verses. Predicated upon this fact there is the further statement that because the life of the flesh is in the blood, the blood has been given upon the altar to make an atonement for our souls. The Bible says, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. In the days when Moses lived and wrote, very little was known about the laws of blood circulation, the composition of blood, and the marvelous system of blood distribution. Indeed, we can read in medical journals only a few generations old, and meet with surprising ignorance concerning the nature and purpose and function of blood. In those days, when it was the universal practice to bleed the patient, one author has ingeniously suggested that in the letting of blood the practitioner should carefully weigh and measure the amount of blood taken from one arm. He was then enjoined to remove carefully the same amount from the opposite arm, on the ground that if more blood were let from one side of the body than from the other, the body would thus become lopsided and the blood supply unbalanced. That's modern medical science. In the days when Moses walked the earth, according to the ancient legends, men believed that arteries were air passages which permeated the body. It would be fantastic to suppose that Moses or any of his contemporaries were in possession of our knowledge concerning the nature, analysis, and function of the blood. Yet anyone who has ever suffered from pernicious anemia would indeed concede the truth of the statement that the life is in the blood. When the blood dies, you die. Long before the immortal Harvey had done his pioneering work that made possible our present body of knowledge in the sphere of medical practice, Moses had anticipated the conclusions of our present day. The life of the flesh indeed is in the blood. If this be so, and the premise is thus established, then the conclusion that is based upon that premise is equally authoritative. The conclusion is that since the life of the flesh is in the blood, atonement is in the blood as well.

Atonement At Calvary And Invitation

24:03

That's what you find at Calvary. God's salvation. Not only scripturally justified, but scientifically vindicated. The life of the flesh is in the blood which permeates the flesh, and the life of the soul is in the blood that was shed when the flesh of the Son of God was riven and broken on Calvary's cross for the sins of men. Are you washed in that blood? The scientifically accurate word of God, the absolutely true Holy Bible says, The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses from all sin, and without the shedding of his blood there is no remission for your sin. You must be born again. Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? That's modern science, my friend. From the most accurate science book on the face of this earth, the Holy Bible. Thanks

Where To Listen Next And Resources

25:04

for tuning in today. Join us every weekday for another episode of the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast. For hundreds of hours of in-depth expository Bible teaching, please visit our YouTube channel, James W. Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptistland, or our website, Bible BaptistLand.com. Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.