Saturday Sermon: John Stott and Genesis 1

Today's sermon features John Stott. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what BioLogos believes here.

Each Saturday, we present an ongoing series recognizing sermons (and the pastors who give them) that are helping to promote the harmony of science and faith. Today's sermon comes from the late John Stott, who passed away last week. In honor of Stott’s work in promoting “balanced and thinking biblical faith”, we feature an audio excerpt from Stott’s address “Genesis 1: Called to Full Humanity”, which he delivered at the Lambeth Conference in 1998. The full audio can be found here..

On July 27, 2011, renowned evangelical John Stott passed away at the age of 90. His work was integral in moving conservative evangelicalism from a minority faith movement, particularly in his home country of England, to one of the leading movements in modern Christianity. Stott was a man of many talents – teacher, pastor, author, leader, Biblical expositor – and many passions -- missions, social issues, evangelism, intellectual growth. He was a man regularly described as “brilliant”, “hard-working”, “confident”, “intellectually strong”, and, perhaps most importantly of all, “a man of integrity” (for more on Stott’s life and legacy, see Christianity Today’s wonderful eulogy).

Chris Wright, the Langham Partnership International Director (appointed to the position by Stott), offers perhaps the best summary of Stott’s legacy:

His leadership of the evangelical movement, both in the Anglican Communion and in wider inter-denominational settings, was a major factor in moving it from rather narrow-minded fundamentalism after the Second World War, to the fastest growing part of world Christianity that it is today… His books have challenged and nourished millions of Christians into a balanced and thinking biblical faith.

Stott wrote about his views on evolution, which in many ways paralleled those of BioLogos. Here is an excerpt from his 1999 book Understanding the Bible:

“What may we say about the ‘how’ of God’s creative activity. Not many Christians today find it necessary to defend the concept of a literal six-day creation, for the text does not demand it, and scientific discovery appears to contradict it. The biblical text presents itself not as a scientific treatise but as a highly stylized literary statement (deliberately framed in three pairs, the fourth “day” corresponding to the first, the fifth to the second, and the sixth to the third). Moreover, the geological evidence for a gradual development over thousands of millions of years seems conclusive. …”

“It is most unfortunate that some who debate this issue (evolution) begin by assuming that the words “creation” and “evolution” are mutually exclusive. If everything has come into existence through evolution, they say, then biblical creation has been disproved, whereas if God has created all things, then evolution must be false. It is, rather, this naïve alternative which is false. It presupposes a very narrow definition of the two terms, both of which in fact have a wide range of meanings, and both of which are being freshly discussed today…”

“I myself believe in the historicity of Adam and Eve, as the original couple from whom the human race is descended*….But my acceptance of Adam and Eve as historical is not incompatible with my belief that several forms of pre-Adamic ‘hominid’ may have existed for thousands of years previously. These hominids began to advance culturally. They made their cave drawings and buried their dead. It is conceivable that God created Adam out of one of them. You may call them homo erectus. I think you may even call some of them homo sapiens, for these are arbitrary scientific names. But Adam was the first homo divinus, if I may coin a phrase, the first man to whom may be given the Biblical designation ‘made in the image of God’. Precisely what the divine likeness was, which was stamped upon him, we do not know, for Scripture nowhere tells us. But Scripture seems to suggest that it includes rational, moral, social, and spiritual faculties which make man unlike all other creatures and like God the creator, and on account of which he was given ‘dominion’ over the lower creation.” (John Stott [1999], Understanding the Bible: Expanded Edition; 54-56)

* Please note that in this regard, Stott’s view runs contrary to current scientific consensus and the BioLogos position. Although Adam and Eve may have been historical, the data indicate very clearly that there was never a time when there were just two human beings that gave rise genetically to all human beings on earth.