(Responding to Calvin Smith, “The Lost Path to the Roman Road,” Answers in Genesis, Nov. 23, 2020. Link here.)
Introduction:
The Romans Road: A Gospel Path, Not a Genesis Detour
Smith begins with the familiar outline of the Romans Road, but he abbreviates it: Romans 3:23 (“all have sinned”), Romans 6:23 (“the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life”), and Romans 10:9 (“confess and be saved”). The classic form, however, is fuller than Smith’s summary:
Romans 3:23 – All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 6:23 – The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 5:8 – God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 10:9–10 – If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:13 – Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
To be fair, Smith does affirm that the death and resurrection of Jesus are the epicenter of the Christian faith. Yet by reframing the Romans Road through Genesis, he makes the cross and resurrection contingent on a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) interpretation, effectively shifting the emphasis away from Paul’s gospel and onto Answers in Genesis’ apologetic formula.
In other words, the problem is not the Romans Road itself, but the way Smith and Ham reframe it. Instead of letting Paul’s gospel stand on its own terms, they tether it to their YEC presuppositions. The classic Romans Road leads to Christ. Smith and Ham’s version leads to Genesis 1-11. The gospel becomes less about proclaiming the risen Lord and more about defending a specific view on secondary issues. That is not the Romans Road. It is a detour.
Additionally, it is worth noting that Smith describes the ultimate treasure of salvation as dwelling with God in “a restored new heavens and new earth,” which he says will be “very similar to the way God created it in the beginning” citing Revelation 21:4 as his proof text. But this phrasing—a restored new creation—is theologically confused. How can it be new if it is simply a reset to Genesis 1 and 2? This emphasis on restoration over resurrection echoes a distinctly Adventist-flavored eschatology, where salvation is framed as a return to Eden rather than the radical transformation the New Testament proclaims. (1, 2) The apostles encouraged believers not with the promise of Eden restored, but with the assurance of resurrection and transformation in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:51–52; 2 Corinthians 5:17). By centering Christian hope on creation restored rather than believers resurrected, Smith redirects the gospel’s climax from resurrection life in Christ to the fate of the created order.
That said, Smith is right that many today struggle with the Roman Road. But the questions he lists—“What is sin?” “Isn’t death natural?” “How did Jesus’ death pay for sin?”—are not signs of rebellion. They are genuine theological inquiries that deserve thoughtful, historically grounded answers, not a recitation of YEC proof texts.
The Lost Path: Moses and the Old Testament
Smith and Ham argue that many—if not most—Christians today cannot answer these questions because they have neglected the Old Testament. They are right that the OT is indispensable. Jesus and the apostles constantly drew from Moses and the Prophets. But Smith’s claim that the gospel only makes sense if Genesis is read as literal history is neither the only—nor the historically dominant—Christian reading.
Here Smith employs a familiar YEC strategy: he takes Jesus’ statements about believing Moses (e.g., Luke 16:31; John 5:46–47) and reframes them to mean that unless one accepts a literalist, young‑earth reading of Genesis, one cannot believe what the New Testament teaches about Christ. But that is not what Jesus was saying. His point was that Moses wrote of him—that the Torah, rightly understood, pointed forward to Christ. To turn those words into a mandate for affirming a six‑day chronology, flood geology, or a pre‑fall vegetarian ecosystem is to collapse Christological fulfillment into an apologetic for origins.
When Jesus invoked Moses, he did so in order to reveal himself as the fulfillment of Israel’s covenant history. In Luke 24, the risen Christ opens the Scriptures to show “all that Moses and the Prophets said concerning him.” This is typology, not a scientific commentary on creation's timeline, but a theological unveiling of God’s master plan.
Ultimately, Smith’s answers—sin as law‑breaking, death as biological mortality introduced at the fall, salvation as courtroom acquittal—are true in part but incomplete. Sin is also idolatry, injustice, and systemic distortion. Death is not merely biology but the reign of sin, the alienation from God that Christ defeats in resurrection. Salvation is not only a pardon but also participation in God’s new creation.
The Road of Origins: Evolution vs. Creationism
Smith insists that evolution is an atheistic “road” incompatible with the gospel. He quotes Daniel Dennett’s “universal acid” metaphor to argue that Darwinism corrodes Christian faith. But this is a false dichotomy.
Christians throughout history have held a wide range of interpretations of Genesis, approaching the text with varying degrees of literalism. For example, Augustine suggested that God created the world in an instant and imbued living things with “seed-like principles” that unfolded over time, resulting in the emergence of new forms of life. (3) Calvin emphasized a that Genesis was written in accommodated language, not as a scientific manual. (4) And Charles Spurgeon taught that the earth was “certainly many millions of years” old. (5) Today, countless believers see evolution as God’s providential means of creation and accept the scientific evidence of an ancient universe.
Likewise, Smith’s claim that “if death existed before Adam, then death is not an enemy” confuses categories. The New Testament treats death as the reign of sin, not the biological mortality of plants and animals. Christ’s victory is not about rewinding natural history but about inaugurating a new creation (1 Corinthians 15:26).
Ironically, the real “universal acid” is not Darwinism but brittle fundamentalism. When Christians insist that the gospel stands or falls on a young-earth chronology, they set up fragile foundations that crumble under scrutiny. Many young believers have walked away from faith, not because evolution destroyed the gospel, but because they were told that accepting evolution or deep time meant rejecting Christ.
Two Roads, Two Messages: Romans Road vs. Genesis–Romans Road
Ken Ham’s Genesis–Romans Road (Gospel Reset, Master Books, 2018, Appendix A, pp. 115–116) highlights the problem we've discussed thus far. As previously noted, the classic Romans Road leads inexorably to Christ: sin, grace, faith, assurance. Ham’s version detours into Genesis and never returns.
Classic Romans Road: Romans 3:23 → Romans 6:23 → Romans 5:8 → Romans 10:9–10 → Romans 10:13.
Ham’s Genesis–Romans Road: Genesis 1:1 → Genesis 1:31 → Genesis 3:17–19 → Romans 5:12 → Romans 3:23.
The difference is stark. The traditional road ends with hope: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Ham’s road ends with guilt: “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23). One road leads to Christ; the other to an apologetic framework.
Even more telling is Ham’s interpretive gloss. His framework depends on the idea that creation was originally “perfect.” But Genesis 1:31 does not say “perfect.” The Hebrew text reads טוֹב מְאֹד (ṭôḇ me’ōḏ) — “very good.” The word טוֹב (ṭôḇ) means good, fitting, beneficial, beautiful. מְאֹד (me’ōḏ) intensifies it: “exceedingly.” By contrast, when the Hebrew Bible wants to express the idea of blamelessness, wholeness, or perfection, it uses תָּמִים (tāmîm). This is the word used for sacrifices “without blemish” (e.g., Lev. 22:21), for people like Noah who are called “blameless” (Genesis 6:9), or for Abraham’s call to “walk before me and be blameless” (Genesis 17:1).
The fact that Genesis 1:31 uses ṭôḇ me’ōḏ rather than tāmîm is significant. The text emphasizes that creation was functioning as God intended, not that it was metaphysically flawless or incapable of change. Ham’s “perfect creation” is therefore not a lexical conclusion but an apologetic necessity.
By reframing the gospel this way, Ham makes Genesis—not Christ—the gatekeeper of salvation. That shift is not incidental; it changes the very center of the message. The classic Romans Road ends with Christ crucified and risen, calling all who believe to salvation. Ham’s Genesis–Romans Road ends with Adam’s failure and humanity’s guilt, leaving the hearer stranded without the cross. The only caveat is that if Ham’s version were used merely as a springboard into the full Romans Road, it could serve as an entry point. But the truncated version he presents in Gospel Reset leaves people hanging without any clear direction toward the gospel’s climax in Christ.
Clearing the Way—or Obscuring It?
Smith concludes by urging Christians to “clear the way” by returning to a plain reading of the Old Testament. But “plain reading” is not the same as “literalistic reading.” The plain sense for ancient Israel was theological, not scientific.
Far from clearing the way, AiG’s framework often clutters it. When seekers are told that the gospel depends on rejecting the scientific consensus of the modern world, they are not drawn closer to Christ but pushed further away.
Clearing the way for the gospel means dismantling false dichotomies, rejecting anti‑science rhetoric, and freeing it from chains to origins debates—not defending a young‑earth chronology.
Conclusion: The Road We Clear for Others
Jesus said the way is narrow, and few find it (Matthew 7:14). But the difficulty of the way is not in memorizing the creeds and doctrinal statements of Young Earth Creationism. The true challenge is in following the crucified and risen Lord, whose road leads through humility, repentance, and resurrection hope.
When we make secondary issues the gatekeeper of salvation, we risk offering people a gospel that feels more like an entrance exam than good news. But when we keep Christ at the center, the road is narrow yet open — demanding yet invitational, costly yet filled with joy.
The question, then, is not whether we can win debates about fossils or rock layers, but whether our lives and our message point people to the risen Christ. The Romans Road was never meant to be a toll road, where only those who pay the price of a particular interpretation may pass. It was meant to be a path of grace, where sinners and skeptics alike can hear the call: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).
The real lost path is not the one Smith and Ham describe. Theirs is the path of a church that forgets its center, trading resurrection hope for apologetic detours. To clear the way again is to proclaim Christ crucified and risen, to embody his love in a fractured world, and to invite all people to walk the road that leads not back to Eden, but forward into newness of life.
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