GOD SAW YOU: IN ETERNITY Eons Before You Were Born

By Robert E. Carpenter D.D.S

In God Saw You, Dr. Carpenter takes the reader through a fascinating journey that focuses on the modern sciences of genetics and biochemistry, uniting them with the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Over 1,400 footnotes are presented on the page, referring to them so the reader has immediate access to the truths presented.

Modern science and the Holy Scriptures conflict with each other. On these pages, the battle lines are reduced unapologetically from assumptions, possibilities, hypotheses, and theories to raw truths, many of which you might find to be inconvenient.

The author finds an amazing number of scriptures that deal with genetics, ranging from simple concepts (such as seeds and conception) to complex references to DNA and the human genome. The book's real pay dirt is when he reveals the beautiful spiritual truths that are metaphorically parallel to these physical sciences. This is the true sense of the word apocalypse, meaning "an unveiling." The entire Bible is an apocalypse…an unveiling of who God is, His kingdom, His expectations, and all of history-past, present, and future. This book does just that, lifting the veil off of familiar scriptures and revealing the rich and thrilling images previously hidden in the mysteries of God's Word.

Get ready to see into the mind of God as He planned and programmed your genome. As King David said in Psalm 139, "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book, they all were written…when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!"

Yes, God actually Saw You. And when you see that, you will never be the same again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 11, 2025
• ISBN: 9798893098761

Book preview

God Saw You

Robert E. Carpenter, D.D.S.

ISBN 979-8-89309-875-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89309-876-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2025 Robert E. Carpenter, D.D.S.

All rights reserved

First Edition

All Scriptures quoted in this book are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson unless otherwise noted. The initials KJV refer to the King James Version. Occasionally certain words or phrases will be underlined. Since this literary convention is not resident in the original manuscripts, nor in the NKJV or other versions but is added by the author for emphasis, I will not acknowledge it as emphasis added. Here is an example found in chapter 11: "Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Contents

Foreword

Preface

The Road to the Master Science

Biblical Genetics

The Birth of the Science of Genetics

Life: God’s Prospectus

Genetic Machinery

Christ in You—the Hope of Glory

Genetics and Eternity

Genetics and Information

Genetics and Life

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ

Levi, Abraham, and Melchizedek

There’s the Word, and Then There’s the Word

The New Birth

Types and Mysteries in the Bible

Four Temples

The Vessels of the Lord

Evolution: A Faith-Based Religion

The Dark Side of Darwinism

Receiving the New Birth

Eternity—the Fourth Quarter

Afterword

Appendices Disclaimer

Appendix A God’s Laws of Genetics

Appendix B New Testament Word Meanings (The Symphony of Salvation)

Appendix C The Foundations

Appendix D Heavenly Event Sequence from the Rapture to the Resumption of Eternity

Appendix E Israel’s Clock and the Seventieth Week of Daniel

Appendix F Dichotomy

Appendix G Great Scientists Who Believed in God

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Landmarks

Cover

Foreword

I have known Dr. Robert Carpenter since I was a freshman history major in college. I knew him first as a practicing dentist from Baylor University College of Dentistry. He was also a talented and gifted musician, teacher, and elder at the church I attended in Kerrville, Texas, in 1972. Some of the common traits that have laid the foundation of our friendship are a love for our Redeemer, Jesus Christ; a love for the marvels and wonders of the Word of God; and a love for the marvels and wonders of God’s creation.

Even now, our conversations run the gamut of theology, the end-time, Israel, music, biology, physics, etymology, the Founding Fathers, church history, and more. As Socrates said two thousand years ago, Wisdom begins with wonder. And three thousand years ago, Solomon wrote, It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.¹ In fact, that might be a great scripture for both of us on our headstones!

In 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul states, We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. In a similar vein, I always told my students that knowledge makes you arrogant, but learning should make you humble. Dr. Robert Carpenter is a living embodiment of that thought.

Let me forewarn you: Buckle up and get ready for a fascinating and mind-stretching time as Dr. Carpenter takes you down the scientific and philosophical rabbit hole that he has indeed searched out!

Blessings as you read, and may I suggest a number of highlighters and paper (old school) or your device of choice to take notes. In the words of C. S. Lewis in his Narnia stories, Further up and further in!

James L. Fleetwood

BA, Columbia Bible College

MA, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

MA, Concordia University

Preface

It was a simple yet sacrificial act. Mothers are good at those, and after bringing four kids through the Great Depression and adding two more to her little flock in the next five years, my mom excelled. But who would expect that the seeds planted in this particular act would inspire me to doctorate-level studies in the life sciences and a lifetime of digging treasures out of those fields?

In 1949, Mother made her annual pilgrimage with four of her children to the city of San Angelo, Texas, to buy staples. That meant one hundred pounds of sugar, one hundred pounds of flour, and other grocery items that were much cheaper there than in our little town. I still remember arranging the flour bags that were stacked on the floor for her so she could see which patterns went together best for the flour-sack dresses she would be making out of them for her four daughters.

One of the real treats of going to a big city of nearly fifty thousand people was a visit to the Hemphill-Wells department store.² They had a bookstore section that Mother would park us in while she shopped for sewing supplies and other goods. We had been going there every year for nearly a decade, but this year was special for two reasons. For one, I’ll never forget the blast of cold air that greeted us as we walked in off Beauregard Avenue’s one hundred-degree Texas heat. That was my first experience with refrigerated air! Secondly, I was stunned when she bought a huge and very expensive book about butterflies for me.

I remember telling her that it said monarch butterflies migrate somewhere out of the United States. Even at the young age of nine, I was perplexed by the ability of an insect with a pinhead-sized brain being able to navigate across a huge nation to its secret winter grounds. (The Michoacán, Mexico, winter destination for monarch butterflies was not discovered until January of 1975!)

I don’t remember the exact conversation now, but she said something like Why don’t you figure that out for everyone? That book and that conversation set me on a career path to a zoology degree at Texas A&M (1963) and a DDS degree at Baylor College of Dentistry (1967). The progressive discovery of the treasures of knowledge in the natural world and in God’s Word have brought me to this book.

*****

This work is unapologetically presented from my personal perspective as a Christian. I believe that God has revealed Himself to mankind in a textbook sovereignly dictated to chosen men. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

God’s ways are higher than ours.³ Considering His omniscient⁴ intelligence, that should be no surprise, even though I frequently see people who are morally and intellectually shipwrecked over the perception of God not doing things their way. Even with believers, there are difficulties in attempts to constrain Him to stay in the little theological and ideological boxes we try to put Him in. But 2 Timothy 2:10 says, The Word of God is not bound.

Paul, with divine prophetic insight, warns us, by the inspiration of God, to "keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred" (1 Timothy 6:20–21).

Science is defined as the search for the truth by testing hypotheses and comparing them with evidence. That’s the kind of science that I love. But there’s another kind of science nowadays, and that’s finding materialistic explanations for everything. That’s materialistic science, not empirical science. For empirical science, the evidence matters the most. For materialistic science, the story matters the most.⁵

This dichotomy invariably presents many battlegrounds where truth has been trampled by zealots of materialism placing their cherished beliefs above common sense and logical evidence. I have fought this battle with false, materialistic science for eight decades now, beginning in grammar school and proceeding through twenty years of formal education and decades more of constant harangue about the proven fact of evolution. I admit there were times when my faith was shaken. In fact, leaning on the faith of my parents and my church was insufficient for standing against the onslaught of godless science when I got to college. But God graciously distilled all that into a personal faith of my own that rose to the occasion and sustained me in those vulnerable times and situations. Joyfully, the last seventy-plus years have been a gradual revelation of fundamental, repeatable, documented testable science—the real stuff—triumphing over science falsely so called. What a great joy it has been to watch the sciences mature and gradually paint Darwinian gradualism into a corner that requires religious zeal and bizarre theories to reassure doubters. (These will be discussed in the following chapters.)

I have been wonderfully blessed to be able to study college and professional-level curricula saturated with chemistry, physiology, genetics, comparative and gross anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, to mention a few of the life sciences so encompassed. These covered the complete phylogenetic tree from single-celled life-forms to humans. I have been thoroughly saturated with the ever-changing concepts of modern science concerning biology and physics. Over these decades of continued study, I have watched Darwinian gradualism⁶ evolve (no pun intended) into an eloquent far-reaching theory, overflowing the life sciences and dominating every other field of science including physics, astronomy, and chemistry, to name a few. During this tenure, I have watched, with dismay, the dark side of Darwinism progress from presenting known false evidence⁷ to declaring the theory to be absolute fact.⁸ In this process, it has bullied its way into a totalitarian position that tyrannically stifles or destroys any reporting or research, teacher, or scientist that would dare to impugn the holy grail of gradualistic evolution.

After the onslaught (of the constant correction and revision) of absolute science, I am very thankful to be able to build my spiritual and academic foundation on a book (the Holy Bible) that deals with many fundamental points of science and whose original documents never need revision or changes. I have joyfully observed the vindication of God’s original textbook in every instance where it touches on science, from hematology to genetics to history to geology and many other scientific disciplines.

The purpose of this book, then, is to present relevant truths from God’s Word and His perspective on the fascinating sciences of genetics and others. It has been a great and liberating joy to find numerous scriptures illuminating these academic disciplines in the Bible. Excavating these divine treasures has shown how deep the roots of science (when it is true science) are in God’s book.

I have not been able to find some of the main ideas presented here published anywhere else.

Much of the fundamental scientific thinking presented here that has been so helpful and inspiring to me is taken from the groundbreaking work of Steven C. Meyer (Signature in the Cell, Darwin’s Doubt), John C. Sanford (Genetic Entropy), Werner Gitt (In the Beginning Was Information and Without Excuse), and Michael J. Behe (Darwin’s Black Box). I am deeply indebted to these and other academic and philosophical giants and the countless hours of education, research, and journalism necessary to bring these wonderful scientific truths to us.

More importantly, I am indebted to those who have contributed to my understanding of spiritual matters. Were it not for these liberating truths, this book would have never been conceived.

The obvious cornerstone of this is the Holy Bible. Without that inspired Word of God, there is nearly no understanding of man’s spirit and soul, and without that, all other knowledge is temporary and pointless.

I am so thankful for the Chinese martyr Watchman Nee for his seminal treatise The Spiritual Man, which greatly expanded my understanding of the tripartite nature of mankind. The truths he taught are foundational for much of my understanding and teaching of God’s Word. I am also very thankful that God placed me under two special men who were very knowledgeable and gifted in teaching the Word of God. First, Dr. Charles Ryrie, then professor of systematic theology and dean of doctoral studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, who is now considered one of the most influential American theologians of the twentieth century.⁹ He was my Sunday-school teacher at First Baptist Church of Dallas for the four years I was a student at Baylor College of Dentistry. He opened my eyes to how contemporary and practical the Bible is. He always answered my questions with an appropriate scripture. The other man is Dr. Keith W. Lamb. He was my spiritual mentor and co-elder at Grace Bible Chapel of Kerrville, Texas, for twenty-eight years. Like Dr. Ryrie, he always answered my questions (and helped keep my theology straight) by quoting the Bible.

My prayer is that as you read this book, it will take you on a spiritual journey through God’s Word and bring you joy, edification, and peace and that you will become fascinated and familiar with the Creator and His creation.

I rejoice at Your Word as one who finds great treasure. (Psalm 119:162)

Chapter 1

The Road to the Master Science

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were persuaded of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

—Hebrews 11:13–16

As we shall see, this scripture is biographical in type for all Christians.

Most people on planet Earth, civilized or not, have seen the promises afar off.¹⁰ Some were persuaded of them but tragically stopped there. But some embraced them. When this happens, the next part is a package deal. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

I’m still on this pilgrimage. Here’s a little bit about how it started.

First of all, please understand that I am a man of very average intelligence (and I’m probably exaggerating at that), the son of a sheepshearer and a substitute teacher from a small town in West Texas.

That being said, please consider Matthew 11:25, where Jesus said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes.

Again, in Matthew 13:11, He said, It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

As I have pored over God’s Word, I have found that the more you feast on the scriptures and love it, the more His Word begins to excite faith and love in you. After reading the wonderful new scientific treaties mentioned in the preface, I suddenly find the principles presented there popping out all over the Bible. Having been browbeaten by so-called science¹¹ for eight decades now, this is a joyful, healing, and edifying experience.

A little background here. In 1959, the Russians successfully launched the first orbital spacecraft dubbed Sputnik. The proud citizens of the United States felt scientifically embarrassed about this stunning achievement. A national commitment was declared from the president down to elementary schools to regain our position as the world leader in scientific achievement. As a senior in high school, I promptly adopted this goal and went off to Texas A&M University to save the world. I ostentatiously declared my major in physics and set out to enjoy the academic superiority of the physics department at A&M, openly declared so by the acquisition of a brand-new nuclear reactor. Texas A&M and MIT were the only two colleges in the world to have such a facility at the time, and I was understandably proud of it.

Well, you know, pride goes before a fall. It quickly became obvious that I was not going to be a nuclear physicist. I could not do the math. I did love physics and understood it, but it was obvious that with such low math skills, I would never excel in the field of physics. So I fell in love with the idea of becoming a jet pilot in the air force (another great way to save the world). I worked hard to impress the officers in my ROTC squadron and the Trigon (the A&M military building named for the triangular shape of the building). I was successful in earning one of the twelve 1P¹² contracts awarded that year and was ecstatic about the possibilities.

Then something strange happened. I was supposed to sign the contract at the end of the summer of my sophomore year, but at that time, I got interested in dentistry. I went to the Trigon on the first day of the fall semester to tell them I was refusing the contract. I naively thought it would be a simple matter of giving the much-coveted position to another student who wanted it. Boy was I wrong! The commandant jumped up from his desk and began to shout at me, scolding me for such ignorance and disregard for the future of our country. I began to back out of his office, figuring that since I was no longer in the ROTC, I did not have to listen to his berating. As I turned and went down the hall, I heard him shout, Young man, I will have you drafted. (Visions of Vietnam shot through my mind.)

And sure enough, in a few days, a letter arrived from Uncle Sam saying, Greetings. Your country needs you. Report to the induction center listed for your preinduction exam. I wrote them back and explained I was protected from the draft by my 1C status, being a student at an accredited college with passing grades. They acknowledged my protest, and I thought I was through with the matter. I went on to earn a BS degree in zoology (the most common premed, pre-dent preparatory degree), and I enrolled in Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, Texas, for the next four years.

Immediately on graduation, I moved to Kerrville, Texas, and bought an existing dental practice to launch my career. Wrong! A few days later, a familiar letter arrived from that dear uncle who had not forgotten me. Greetings from Uncle Sam. Report to the induction center at San Antonio, Texas, for your preinduction exam. With Vietnam on another escalation cycle, some friends advised me to buy a Volkswagen camper and move to Canada. That was just a joke to me. I took the exam and was told to wait for orders.

They never came! A combination of a praying mother and a de-escalation cycle in Vietnam apparently buried my papers in the forget these pile somewhere in the Pentagon.

Then came one of the biggest changes in my life. I had been a Christian for seventeen years but was very disappointed with my inability to serve Christ at the level my heart was longing for. At that time, the Jesus movement swept across the United States, bringing salvation and a charismatic renewal to thousands of people.

After some deep searching of the Scriptures and a great desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit, I had a life-changing experience. Suddenly, all I could think of was the love of God. His Word became so precious to me that I read it until two or three o’clock nearly every night. There was a powerful communication of His presence, power, and love in my heart. And suddenly, I was successful in evangelism and bringing people into God’s kingdom.

Despite times of failure, this zeal and hunger for His Word is still as fervent fifty-eight years later as it was in 1968, when I was overshadowed by His grace. Marriage brought new responsibilities, but with God’s help, I was able—with two other people from our prayer group—to form a new church, which I co-pastored for twenty-eight years. I also began teaching Bible classes in several surrounding towns, going into Mexico and the Dominican Republic on medical missionary trips, and ministering in Texas prisons with the Bill Glass Evangelistic Ministries, all the while maintaining a busy dental practice (for fifty-five years).

Somewhere around 1977, I got a copy of Henry Morris’s classic book The Genesis Record. This book was very fulfilling to my hunger to understand solid scientific principles of science and God’s Word. In my heart, I had known these facts and principles to be true but was never able to document them.

Since then, I have read over sixty similar books as the sciences of genetics, anthropology, geology, and other related sciences and watched them rapidly mature.

Again, thanks to the men and books mentioned in the preface, I began to believe that genetics is the master science that all the other sciences must agree with to comprehensively fit into God’s revealed creation. I realize this is a bold statement from an unqualified academic drudge, but this conclusion is not without a great deal of contemplation. I also realize that physicists, astronomers, and others from the specialty sciences will be unhappy with this conclusion. I just humbly beg you to consider the message without shooting the messenger.

So how could this be? How could genetics be the master science?

Well, first of all, it is the most referenced science in the Holy Bible (this book is made possible by this truth). If that is true, that God Himself says much more about genetics than any other science, it becomes the de facto argument for its supremacy in the sciences.

So let’s do that!

Let’s find these hidden treasures together.

The word apocalypse is frequently used to mean the cataclysmic events of the end time referred to in the Revelation. However, the word simply means an unveiling. Although the Revelation is sometimes called The Apocalypse, the entire Bible is apocalyptic: it is God’s unveiling of Himself, His kingdom, His purposes, and the future including eternity. This book, then, is an apocalypse. Its purpose it to unveil, to reveal hidden secrets and truths, and to bring deep Bible mysteries to light to bless and liberate those who read.

Chapter 2

Biblical Genetics

The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

—2 Corinthians 4:17–18

Christians live in a multidimensional existence.

This is not spooky or silly stuff like the multiple universe theory or SETI.¹³ This is the reality of being a Christian. God tells us right up front¹⁴ that we are created in His image and after His likeness,¹⁵ so this should be expected. He tells us that, without exception, we are involved in a great spiritual battle,¹⁶ that we are seated with Him in the heavenlies,¹⁷,¹⁸ that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,¹⁹ and that we are a new creature in Christ.²⁰

We should not be clueless when things happen to us, our families, and the world around us that are inexplicable in natural terms. God addresses this, saying, For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.²¹

Elisha at the siege of Dothan²² is a good picture of unseen realities. His servant got up early and went out and saw the Syrians surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, Alas, my master! What shall we do?

Elisha answered, Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

That’s my prayer for each soul that reads this book: Lord, I pray, open their eyes that they may see.

Now, concerning all these spiritual matters, don’t make the mistake of saying we are a spirit. We are not. We are a spiritual being because we have a spirit, but we are a soul. Genesis 2:7 nails it: The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. The dust is the body, the breath is the spirit, and the soul is the self. Think of it this way: we are a soul, we have a spirit, and we live in a body. The body is world-consciousness, the soul is self-consciousness, and the spirit is God-consciousness. We are thus a tripartite being just like God is (Father, Son, and Spirit). After all, we are created in His likeness and in His image.

If there were any doubt left about this, Paul reaffirms our tripartite nature in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 when he says, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Jesus also makes it clear that He was not a spirit. When the apostles saw Him walking on the water, they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.²³

Now as we start this chapter (and this book, for that matter), let me give you what I consider to be one of the most important extra-biblical principles you will ever hear with regard to Bible interpretation. It is this:

How could you ever understand the new (spiritual) birth if God had not brought all of us through the natural birth scenario? Or perhaps even observed the birth of a son or daughter?

How could you ever understand a heavenly Father if you had never known a natural father?

How could you ever understand the distressing effects of spiritual sickness or uncleanness if you had never had the flu or stepped in something dirty?

How could you ever understand God’s heartbreak when His people commit spiritual harlotry²⁴ if you had not heard of the devastation or perhaps personally experienced the pain it causes in the physical world?

How could you understand phrases like "grow up into Him,"²⁵ "in Christ Jesus walk according to the Spirit,²⁶ and stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free"²⁷ if you did not have a physical concept of what it means to grow up or walk or stand?

The disciples questioned this in Matthew 13:10–11. They came and said to Him, Why do You speak to them in parables?

Jesus answered them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given."

So rejoice when the Bible uses metaphors, imagery, similes, types, parables, allegories, and analogies. God is simultaneously hiding meanings from outsiders while, at the same time, making them clear for God’s people to understand. These are rich illustrations to give us a better picture of the multilayered truth He is presenting to us.

The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned… But we have the mind of Christ.²⁸

We can complain about the invisible world around us, the spiritual warfare, the secretive codelike nature of the Bible, our complex being, and so on. Or we can rejoice that it has been given to us to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.²⁹ And if we ask, it will be given to us; seek, and we will find; knock, it will be opened to us.³⁰

So let’s open our eyes that we might³¹

see the unseen eternal things hidden in the natural world and in God’s Word;

see the tripartite godlike nature of man and how God’s nature is at work in us;

see how God has foreordained natural examples to help decipher spiritual truths; and

discover the treasures God has encoded in metaphors, imagery, similes, types, parables, allegories, and analogies in His Word.

Genetics is one of those treasures. It is used frequently and powerfully in the Bible in its full spectrum but never mentioned by name. The Scriptures conceal it in such words as seed, inheritance, loins, likeness, image, kind, flesh, offspring, heir, genealogies, born, father, knit, frame, woven, begotten, and so on. As we look into the mysteries of God’s Word, keep in mind that God gives us natural examples to help us understand spiritual truths.

We are plunged into the concept of genetics in the opening words of Scripture with a double hit in the eleventh verse of Genesis when God says, "Let the earth bring forth…according to its kind, whose seed is in itself."

Let’s think about this. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to His people. It is not an academic textbook of systematic theology, but it is a spiritual textbook of systematic theology! In it, He gives us, in storytelling form, a progressive revelation of Himself, His Kingdom, and His creation³² from past eternity to future eternity (with a little parenthesis in between called time). The book of Genesis is a seminal treatise³³ presenting the foundation for every concept in time and eternity! Its importance would be nearly impossible to exaggerate.

The placement of a double reference to genetics in the first few words of this revelation divinely ascribes tremendous importance to this subject:

The word kind here defines this creative act to mean biological entities closely related enough to interbreed. So from one first canine kind, the genetic latitude is wide enough to eventually produce a dog family tree of numerous and very diverse species from wolves to dingoes, jackals to foxes, and Chihuahuas to Great Pyrenees. They are all dogs. Their looks may vary greatly, but they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, so they are the same kind. Attempts to cross the kind barrier by interbreeding with other animals (like sheep and bears) fail at the first step. Conception cannot occur because the germ cells (sperm and egg) of the parents have different chromosomal structures that will not line up properly to allow a viable offspring to begin developing. I will illustrate this concept later in graphic form. Likewise, everything else in the league of kingdoms of living things—whether animals, plants, fungi, and so forth—is bound by the same constraint.

The word seed here defines this creative act to mean the combined genetic material from each parent necessary to propagate a species.³⁴

First of all, we must recognize that the omniscient God chose to reproduce species¹⁶ by writing a computerlike code on their chromosomes and providing a method of combining these coded packages from male and female parts to produce offspring. Every multicellular plant and animal does this. Each has a full set of this DNA code in the chromosomes of every cell in its body—with one exception. God has provided that the seed cells of plants³⁵ and animals have only half of the normal DNA package. (If you want to be technical, these seed cells are called haploid cells, or gametes, whereas other cells with full DNA packages are called diploid cells, or somatic cells.) Female seeds are called ova or egg cells, and male seeds are called sperm. The combination of these cells (conception) produces the plant or animal involved, which can then go to maturity.

This now brings us to a very interesting fact that is not commonly understood. It is interesting and very important to understand if we want to make sense of

the creation of man,

the virgin birth,

certain Bible prophecies, and

God’s omniscient method of individual physical human predestination.

These will be discussed in detail in the following chapters.

Chapter 3

The Birth of the Science of Genetics

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.

—Jeremiah 33:3

For some of you, the term seed concerning the ova or egg may have raised a red flag. Most conversations about sexual reproduction refer to the sperm as the seed and the egg as, well, the egg. For the record, the egg is also (albeit infrequently) referred to as seed.³⁶ Most importantly, the Bible talks about the seed of the woman,³⁷ which will become extremely important when we discuss the virgin birth.

The seeds of living things are a special kind of cell. All living things are composed of cells. Cells link together to form tissues, and as such, they are the basic building blocks of life. They occur in all shapes and sizes, from microscopic bacteria to fifteen-inch bubble algae. All plants and animals are composed of cells. They are very complex and have been likened to huge cities with energy production, transportation, nutrition, repair centers, reproduction, and waste management.

Here are a few diagrams to help understand the explanation of biblical genetics that will follow.

The cell is enclosed in an extremely complex bilayer membrane that contains many inclusions called organelles. The gel-like liquid in the cell is called cytoplasm.

The nucleus is the cell’s control center and the repository of genetic information (DNA). It is like a huge industrial computer building running an entire metropolis and all the machines in it. Within the nucleus are the chromosomes, which contain the DNA. The nucleolus contains RNA and is where ribosomes are made. Other organelles include the Golgi apparatus, the endoplasmic reticulum, microtubules, centrioles, mitochondria, ribosomes, peroxisomes, vacuoles, and secretory vesicles, among others. Each of these items is wonderfully complex and deserves a whole chapter (if not a book) to explain their structure and function, but that is outside the scope of this book.

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, monkeys have 21, king crabs have 104, spinach has 6, elephants 29, butterflies 190, and so on. Chromosomes provide the scaffolding for the DNA molecules, which are usually wrapped around histones to keep them from tangling. When needed, the DNA can be unwound, split, reproduced, and doubled so another cell can be made.

Within the chromosomes is DNA.

DNA is like the software that runs all the cell functions. This molecule carries the code of life. The information recorded in code there is responsible for supervising the single cell of conception while it multiplies trillions of times and ultimately constructs a mature body with thirty trillion cells and all the organs and tissues that comprise it. This data package, which is far larger and far more complex than any software package man has ever written, is about seven microns in diameter. It would cover about seventy-eight billionths of a square inch.

In 1961, Francis Crick (the discoverer of the DNA double helix), along with three other men, first demonstrated that three bases of DNA code for one amino acid. That event is considered the moment that scientists cracked the code of life. (However, sixty-plus years later, they still don’t know how this code produces life in an organism equipped with this molecule.) For the record, I was a junior in college in 1961, and this knowledge was slow to be integrated into biological and biochemical curricula. In other words, I did not understand much of the knowledge presented in the diagrams above till I was forty-plus years old. So watching these nascent sciences grow to today’s level of maturity has been a wonderful journey for me.

To understand what this means, consider this: The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.³⁸

I would like to stop here and consider a characteristic of God that is coming into focus. Bear with me while I tell you an experience of my childhood that is relevant to this point.

My mother taught me how to play Go Fishing when I was a preschooler. For those of you who don’t know the game, it is a children’s card game where you are dealt seven cards. When it is your turn, you ask another player for any card of the rank you have in your hand. The player who is addressed must hand over all the matching cards requested. If the player has none, they say, Go fishing! And the player who made the request draws the top card off the deck and places it in their hand. When a player gets all four cards of the same rank, they put them face up in front of them. Go Fish is over when one player runs out of cards or there are no more cards in the pool. The winner is then determined by who has the most piles or suits of cards in front of them.

So what is the theological spin-off here? My dear mother would help me when I was losing by looking over her shoulder at an imagined distraction. In doing so, she would inadvertently expose her hand so I would know what to ask for. This is a powerful and precious theological attribute of God. He seems like a doting Father who enjoys tipping His hand to His children. In fact, the entire universe appears to be designed as a tipped hand so we can understand His creation. Books have been written about the coincidence of God’s accommodation of our inquisitions. See Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards’s The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery, Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen C. Meyer, Creation: The Evidence of God’s Design by Grant R. Jeffrey, and so on.

All this has combined to give me an attitude of discovery. Since that wonderful divine encounter in 1968, I have chosen the unfathomed constructions of God’s Word as my treasure-hunting grounds.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

So a handful of related verses and a few carnal proverbs have combined into a life quest for me:

I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure. (Psalm 119:162)

Those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

The cosmos is designed for discovery.³⁹

"I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, Who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel." (Isaiah 45:3)

The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

God gives us natural examples to help us understand spiritual truths.⁴⁰

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, it will be opened unto you. (Matthew 7:7)

If God has revealed it, I want to understand, or even discover, it wherever He has buried the treasure, whether in His written Word or His unwritten word.⁴¹

A major insight into understanding certain scriptural truths began in 1689 when Gottfried Leibniz invented binary encoding. Then in 1860, a chemist in Switzerland named Johann Friedrich Miescher first identified the molecule of DNA. In 1944, Oswald Avery and his colleagues at Rockefeller University in New York demonstrated that hereditary units, or genes, are composed of DNA. In 1953, American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick identified its double-helix structure. The final key to the puzzle was presented in 1957 by Crick in a paper describing work begun with Vernon Ingram and continued with Sydney Brenner in which he proposed the sequence hypothesis. Their premise held that genetic information was encoded in the sequence of the bases in DNA and that the sequence of the four bases formed a code that specified the order of the twenty amino acids that make up most proteins.

While all this was happening, the emerging computer phenomenon gave us a glimpse into the power of cold sterile code (just zeros and ones) fleshing out math, art, video, audio, and so forth. And voilà! Suddenly, everyone has the resources to understand how a microscopic sperm and egg can grow into birds, reptiles, insects—or, for that matter, people. This enigma has been gnawing at men for at least 2,500 years.

Here’s the way God presented it in 970 BC to the wisest man that ever lived (King Solomon). You do not know…how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God, who makes everything.⁴²

This awesome chain of discovery opens the door to some wonderful mysteries of God’s Word. Let’s look at them.

Chapter 4

Life: God’s Prospectus

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

—Romans 1:20

God’s signature is all over His creation. Ignoring or denying it does not change this great truth.

The same applies to His written Word, the Bible. Its inspiration can be proven beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt by calculating the probability of its many prophecies that have already been fulfilled. For example, the prophet Micah predicted the birthplace of the Messiah seven hundred years before it happened.⁴³ King David described His manner of death one thousand years before it happened.⁴⁴ In 538 BC, Daniel predicted the exact date of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.⁴⁵

There are over three hundred such prophecies in the Old Testament, but the chances of only eight of them being fulfilled have been calculated at 1×10¹⁷!⁴⁶ To give an idea of how spectacular that confirmation is, consider this. Evolutionists believe the earth is about 5.54 billion years old. That is about 1×10¹⁷ seconds, meaning that if eight random prophecies were uttered and recorded every second since the formation of the earth, you would have only one chance to pick the lucky second that got them all right! Those are staggering odds for a person to bet his eternal soul against. Now consider the odds of getting three hundred of them right. That number would have a five- or six-digit exponent. There is no number in astronomical science that even comes close to it.⁴⁷ That gives the Bible credentials that can’t be touched by any other book.

The Bible is not written to be a scientific textbook. But where it touches on science, those credentials cannot be ignored.

And it touches on science frequently.

The Bible is replete with references to what is known today as the science of genetics. Some are right on the surface, and others require a little digging to find them. Following are some of the items we will sift through to discover these truths: the seed concept, Adam’s creation, Jesus’s incarnation, an argument Jesus had with the Jews at the Feast of Dedication, information theory, and Levi, Abraham, and Melchizedek. We will also look at modern computer science and how it helps us understand genetics, codes, and the basic processes of life.

In the very first few words of the Bible, concepts in the field of genetics are lavishly sprinkled throughout the narrative. Genesis 1:11 says, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth; and it was so.

First, it mentions seeds with obvious physical meaning. Then it talks about kinds, which constrains breeding latitude. And then, shockingly, it jumps deeper into genetics. God mentions the seed of the woman, which opens the door to spiritual and eternal things! God, being the master storyteller that He is, has woven layers of meaning into these words that open vast new levels of meaning in both the physical realm (which is tangible and temporary) and the spiritual world (which is invisible and eternal). The genetic ramifications are enormous and tantalizing. And like ripe low-hanging fruit on a tree, these are just begging to be harvested and tasted.

The Bible is also a complex and sometimes confusing story of