August 27, 2025 Show with Dr. John P. Marcus on “How Biochemistry Relates to Creation”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

The Purpose of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 27th day of August 2025.

I ask for your continued prayers for me as I depart Pennsylvania next week, next Thursday, to be more specific, to head to my old stomping grounds, as they say, on Long Island, New York for a visit there and to host the memorial service for my late brother, Andy.

I would appreciate your prayers, not only for safe travels and a blessed time of fellowship there, but also that some of my brother's lost friends would be present at the memorial service and that they would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, which will be proclaimed by my very dear friend, Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, and that lost souls would come to Christ as a result of this.

If anybody is in the Coram area or on Long Island and you would like to attend this service, I would love to see you there. The website for directions to Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, is hopereformedli .net, hopereformedli .net, and the memorial service will be held Saturday, September 6th at 3 p .m.

So, I hope to see you there. But today, I am so thrilled to have a first-time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. John P. Marcus, pastor of Peace Protestant Reform Church in Dyer, Indiana, who received his Ph .D. in biochemistry from University of Michigan.

He's a former research officer at the Cooperative Research Center for Tropical Plant Pathology at University of Queensland, Australia, and contributor to the book In Six Days, Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, and he is addressing how biochemistry relates to creation.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. John P. Marcus.

Thank you, Chris, for having me on. It's a privilege for me to interview with you. I'd like to express also my sympathies in the passing of your brother, and my prayer too, is that the gospel will go forth, and God will use that to bring honor to his name.

Amen. I appreciate that very much. Well, tell us something about the congregation where you are pastoring, Peace Protestant Reform Church in Dyer, Indiana.

Peace Protestant Reform Church is a congregation of about 33 families. We preach the gospel of sovereign, particular grace. We want to honor God in all of our lives, and we have a lovely congregation of old and young.

And this congregation is a strong supporter and adhere to the three forms of unity. Am I correct? The Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort.

That's correct.

Our churches hold to those three forms of unity, and usually I preach through the Heidelberg Catechism about once every year and a half, so going through the entire catechism.

Great.

Well, if anybody wants more details on Peace Protestant Reform Church, especially if you live in the Dyer, Indiana area, or are traveling through there, or have family, friends, and loved ones in that area, and you'd like to recommend them to this congregation, the website is PeacePRC, for ProtestantReformChurch .org.

That's PeacePRC .org. Before we go into our major theme today, how biochemistry relates to creation, we have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, whenever we have first-time guests, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them.

And I know that although there is one gospel, and only one means of salvation, and only one Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, at the same time, the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ, or even the circumstances vary differently.

You have people who were raised from infancy in godly homes and were instructed in the Scriptures since they were little children, and you have others who did not know the gospel until they were well-grown, perhaps even elderly, and some have traumatic experiences involved and dramatic conversion experiences of being rescued out of drug addiction and prostitution and all kinds of things, even behind the bars of a prison cell.

And then you have also stories of men and women who were preserved and protected by God since infancy from having to experience those kinds of more dramatic, rebellious years. And that in itself is a testimony of God's love, mercy, and power when He preserved someone since childhood.

But tell us about your story.

Salvation Testimony and Calling to the Ministry

Yeah, I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were missionaries in Mexico. I was born in Mexico, grew up down there. And really, from my earliest recollection, I believed everything that the Bible said.

I knew I was a sinner in need of Jesus Christ. I can remember in high school being convicted that I had not loved God. As I ought to love God, I prayed that God would work that love in my heart. And daily, I pray for forgiveness on the basis of the perfect work of Christ on the cross.

And daily, I want to live a life that is obedient and shows my thankfulness to God for His grace to me.

And when did you come to the realization that God had placed a call upon your life to enter into the pastoral ministry?

You know, I had thoughts when I was in high school and put it off. And I went to college. I went to graduate school. During graduate school, I asked a pastor for his advice as I had thought about the ministry.

He said, well, finish your degree first. I was going for my Ph .D. at the time, and I think that was good advice. But after I got my degree in 93, I went out to Australia and worked out there in Brisbane.

And while I was out there, I kept thinking more and more on just the need for ministers and the conviction that I thought I should pursue the ministry. And one of the professors I talked to, Professor Hermann Hanco—he's passed away since then—he said, well, there's only one thing to do, and if you're serious about it, you ought to come back and begin preparations.

And I did that, and the rest is history.

Praise God. And what led to you entering into the field of biochemistry, which is largely to do with our subject today?

I loved science. I pursued a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry, and I liked the chemistry of life because I think it just shows the amazing wonder of creation, how complex life is. And so I thought that biochemistry would be a good field to go into, as I had an appreciation for that.

Great. And can you tell us specifically what that field entails? Obviously, without going too far over the heads of the average listener here today that doesn't have a scientific background, but breaking it down for the layman, what does that field of science cover, biochemistry?

Sure. It's quite broad, but basically the chemistry of life. So how do living organisms, what are the processes that contribute to life and sustain life? So it has to do with all the way from what does a sugar molecule look like to how does a living organism convert sugar into energy?

And so it's very broad, and definitely you can specialize in different ways in that field.

Biochemistry as Evidence for Creation

Well, you are a six-day creationist. You believe that the account in Genesis of the creation of not only human beings, but to the creation of the earth, is an account that should be read literally and believed literally, that this took place over six literal 24-hour days.

And you, as I mentioned earlier, are a participant, a contributor to a book published by Master Books, which is an official publisher of Ken Ham's ministry. Ken Ham, the world-renowned young earth creationist.

Perhaps you can tell us an overview of this book. I know that you scientists choose to believe in creation. Why don't you give us an overview of that? And also, basically, in your own words, tell us why you believe this is such an important issue.

Although I believe I have, or we have, brethren in Christ who are truly our brethren and are truly saved, who disagree with us over this, nonetheless, I believe it's a very important issue. Well, when I say they disagree with us, they believe in an old earth, and I think that that is a serious flaw in their thinking.

But if you could, tell us about this book and why this issue is so important.

The issue is important because it has to do with the authority of Scripture. Is God really telling us the truth when he says that he created the earth, the heavens, and the earth in six days? And is there a literal Adam and is there a literal Eve?

Were they tempted by a literal serpent in a literal garden so that by one man came sin into the world? That impinges on the gospel. If there was not a literal Adam, then we run into great difficulties when it comes to the second Adam who represents his elect people.

So it is a salvation issue from that perspective, and it certainly impinges on the authority of Scripture. If Scripture cannot be trusted in Genesis 1 -11, I'm going to have trouble trusting it when it speaks of other things, too.

When in your life did this issue become an important issue? Because I don't know whether or not the original denomination you were in, the Christian Reformed Church, which has become very liberal since you were raised in that denomination, there are some true believers who are holdouts standing firm in that denomination, but I think that they are few and far between, it seems.

Most of the biblically Orthodox members having departed for other denominations. But was the Christian Reformed Church, also known as the CRC, universally young earth believers, or was there a significant number of old earthers in that group?

I would say there are a number of theistic evolutionists, old earthers, and growing up in Mexico, it was not an issue while I was on the mission field, although there were already then, even before I was 10 years old, people that I remember having as teachers on the mission field, even one of the teachers that came down that believed in an older, but thankfully the other missionaries were strong enough to say that's not going to be taught down here.

So it certainly has been an issue for a long time. I knew that it would become an issue for me when I chose to go to graduate school, and knowing I would go to a secular graduate school, I knew that I would be taught evolution, so I took a greater interest at that time to study the issues.

And the topic at hand today, how is biochemistry related to creation? Please tell us why this is such an important link, and also please feel free to be as lengthy in your answer as possible so that we can really get a full description of this.

Scientific link. Can you repeat the question, Chris? I'd basically like you to give a full,.

Detailed answer to my question of what is the link between biochemistry and creation? Why is it such an important link? And be as detailed as you can.

The doctrine of creation in Scripture, of course, Scripture does not go into biochemistry per se. It doesn't tell us how sugar is converted to energy. It doesn't tell us many of those things. But biochemistry, when viewed through the eyeglasses of Scripture, confirms everything that Scripture says.

So even though the Bible is not a science textbook per se, everything it says about science is absolutely true. So really, it's above any science textbook, and everything we discover ought to fit into what Scripture says.

And that includes anything it says that even relates to biochemistry. It ought to be consistent. So science and Scripture are not at odds. Biochemistry and the Scriptures are not at all at odds. But when we look at the science of biochemistry through Scripture and through the eyeglasses of faith, we will see that it is completely consistent.

And if there are questions yet, well, then, of course, the question is on the side of, well, we still don't have a full understanding of the science, but we know that Scripture is true.

Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. If anybody has a question for Dr. John Marcus, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with Dr. John P. Marcus.

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Go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Shoppin's Iron Radio. We are now back with Dr. John T. Marcus, and we are discussing how biochemistry is connected with creation. And before I go to some of our listener questions that have already come in, if you could address in as much detail as you can your contribution to the book that we already mentioned, In Six Days, Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation.

If you could tell us what exactly the chapter that you contributed to this book is about, in as much detail as you.

Could provide. Sure. I started out the chapter, when I initially wrote it, emphasizing that I believe in the doctrine of creation because that's what the Bible teaches. And I have to say the editor was more interested in the scientific evidence, and he cut down that section on Scripture.

But I think it's important to emphasize, even though it maybe is only one paragraph in the chapter that I contributed, is that I believe in the doctrine of creation because that's what Scripture says.

Hebrews 11 verse 3, through faith we understand that the world's refrained by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. And there's so many portions of Scripture that teach the doctrine of creation.

Jesus himself believed that Adam and Eve were there at the beginning, that the apostle Paul, Luke goes back with his genealogy all the way back to Adam and Eve. So there's no question that Scripture, if we're going to take it seriously, we start with that faith.

By faith we understand. Then in the chapter, there are two things. Once we have that faith that God has given us, once we start with Scripture and the sure word of God, then we can see that Scripture makes absolute sense, and evolution makes no sense.

I talk in the chapter about the fact that design is the evidence of a designer, and that's very obvious to recognize. We should be able to recognize it. The illustration I use, if we go out in the desert and see this round object lying in the sand, and it's a cylindrical object, we see it has an opening at the top, we'd say, well, that's obviously a pot made by a human being that obviously has design.

Well, what's evident for a simple object like that is millions of times more so the case for something that has the design that we see in creation. That's something that in biochemistry, people have studied proteins, and it's just astounding the more we study how incredibly complex living organisms, even the most simple organism, could be.

In that chapter, I use the example of the process of converting DNA information, the blueprint of life is the DNA, and converting that into proteins, say, like enzymes or other components of living cells.

Well, just that process alone requires at least 75 different protein molecules. But now we have a chicken or the egg question. Well, how could you get the DNA to be converted into the proteins unless you have all the mechanisms in place that includes those proteins that are being produced?

So it's really impossible that there's, you can put a number on it, but it is absolutely impossible that that could come about by chance. That was the first section that I talked about, just evidence of a designer.

And then I went, I have to admit, it's a little bit dry, because it goes through calculations, and I won't go through the calculations on air here. But I calculated the probability of just one, just one average size protein coming about by chance.

Well, every protein is composed, there's 20 different amino acids, different amino acids that can form a chain. And if you calculate the possibility of a right sequence of amino acids being all formed together by chance, and getting the right one, it's an astronomical number.

And maybe for the mathematicians, one in 1 .3 times 10 to the 130th power, so almost 130 zeros, just for one. And then it just goes down, the probabilities go down from there. So even biochemistry textbooks, one popular one that's used today, this is one quote, our hypothetical nucleic acid synthesis system therefore is analogous to the scaffolding used in the construction of a building.

After the building has been erected, the scaffolding is removed, leaving no physical evidence that it was there. Most of the statements in this section, they're talking about the life coming from non-life, they say most of the statements in this section must therefore be taken as educated guesses.

Without having witnessed the event, it seems unlikely that we shall ever be certain of how life arose. Well, we can, that's the quote, they themselves admit that they do not have evidence. But thankfully, we do have someone who was there, who gives us an eyewitness testimony.

God himself tells us how he created, he spake, he said the word, God said, let there be, and there was. So I concluded the article that life in its totality must have been created in the beginning, that the whole package has to be there, or none of it can be there.

Questions on Radiometric Dating, Evolution, and Irreducible Complexity

Okay, we have a listener, Ted in Moundville, Alabama.

Does your guest believe that accelerated nuclear decay was a part of God's creation plan, and if so, how would such an accelerated decay square up with the heat problem?

Chris, I'm vaguely familiar with that. It's not a biochemistry question, but there have been creation scientists that have addressed that accelerated decay and believe that radioactive elements, there's evidence that radioactive elements decayed more rapidly at some point in the past.

So I'm not qualified to really speak on that specific issue. But I could say this, even that dating the earth using radiometric dating, there are modern volcanoes that have erupted in living history that give millions of years the wrong date.

So I'm not going to trust some radiometric date that a scientist gives when they can't even get it right for a volcano that's erupted in modern history, when I know what scripture says. But there are other clocks, if we look through scripture, that show the age, for example, of the human race.

There are certain errors that are introduced from one generation to the other in human cells, in the mitochondria. And based on the known rate today, it fits exactly with what the Bible says. And then I can say, okay, it agrees with scripture, with God's inspired, sure word, then I can accept that.

Okay, Ted, well, guess what? You are a very blessed individual today, because you have won two books by virtue of your sending in today's question. The first is the book to which our guest contributed a chapter, In Six Days, Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation.

And that is compliments of our friends at MasterBooks, whose website is masterbooks .com. And also, the massive $60 hardback from our friends at Reformed Free Publishing Association. This is the Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism by Zacharias Ersinus, and this is a very large work, and it's considered by scholars to be a classic on the work.

And if you give us your full mailing address, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, we'll ship those two books out to you. And we want to thank masterbooks .com, and also Reformed Free Publishing Association, whose website is rfpa .org, rf, for Reformed Free, p-a, for publishing association, dot org.

We want to thank them for the generosity in shipping and providing us with these books, and we thank Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, for shipping them out to our listeners. We have another question from Joey in New Rochelle, New York, and Joey says, What specific biochemical process are you aware of that is inconsistent with evolutionary theory?

Chris, the process, if we want to call it a biochemical process, it's the mythical process of life coming from non-life. It's inconsistent with the principles of logic. It cannot happen. So, I guess that's not a real biochemical process.

The problem with evolution is that it is so malleable that no matter what evidence is put forward, evolution can simply come up with its explanation, and therefore, philosophers call it non-falsifiable.

There's no evidence that could possibly be brought up that would prove it false. It's non-falsifiable, and therefore, also, it cannot be proven. But I would say the biochemical process of mutations being introduced that can be measured in the mitochondria of human beings, and those mitochondria are passed down from the mother to its baby, and those have been measured.

There are some nice articles on Answers in Genesis that talk about that. Well, there's a process that's happened that is consistent, exactly consistent with what the Bible says, but it's not consistent with millions of years.

It's completely inconsistent. Well, see, evolution could say, oh, well, but that's because they could come up with an explanation. They could say, well, that's because most humans died out almost 6 ,000 years ago when there was—I'm making this up—when there was a meteorite that hit the earth, and that's why two humans survived.

They could always come up with an explanation, but the biochemical evidence is completely consistent with what the Bible says about the age of the earth.

Okay, and Joey has one more follow-up question. Please discuss the single cell, and then he has in parentheses, wrongly named simple cell, and how the operation of the single cell cannot be produced by an evolutionary process.

Yeah, I like that, putting simple in quotations. One of the most simple organisms that has been studied is called a mycoplasma, and that simple organism has something like 480 different proteins, and all of them have to be there, or that simple cell cannot replicate, and it cannot produce another simple cell.

So for life, for a cell to be alive, it has to be able to make another cell, it has to be able to take in energy, it has to be able to make a new copy of its own DNA, and the studies that have been done have found that you can't get any more simple than that.

So you have to have at least 400 to 500 different complicated proteins. They all have to be held in by all the components that are produced by all those proteins, and you have the chicken and the egg issue again.

It all has to be there together, or it can't be there at all. Well, thank you, Joey, and guess what?

As you likely assumed, you are also a winner of the two books that I mentioned, In Six Days, Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, by my guest today, Dr. John P. Marcus, and also, you are going to receive the massive commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism that we mentioned by Zacharias Ursinus, and we want to thank, once again, masterbooks .com and rfpa .org for contributing these three books to us today.

Make sure, Joey, that we have your full mailing address in New Rochelle, New York. We have to go to our midway break right now, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the USA, and we look forward to hearing from you, and don't go away.

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