Ancient Earth – 2018/09/23 Pastor Dave Cottrell
Ancient Earth
Genesis 1:2
We have been told for the last 2 centuries, at least, that the Earth is billions of years old. This is taught in every school and university. It is on TV, on radio, in movies, books, online articles and videos – everywhere. All secular scientists and many theologians, as well as scientists who claim Christ as their Saviour, agree that the Earth is about 4.5 billions years old and sitting in a universe that is almost 14 billion years old.
The fact is that a very ancient universe is absolutely essential for there to be any chance for evolution to work. In reality, according to the laws of probability and statistics, there is no chance even for the most basic building blocks of life to form by evolutionary processes in a universe as young as they claim! Some scientists have calculated that there is less than one chance in 10 to the 40,000th power that the most basic life could have originated by random chance. Others have calculated the odds to be much better with approximately one chance in 10 to the 2,000th power. But even in a 30 billion-year-old universe, there are less than 10 to the 18th power seconds! There simply isn’t enough time, even with these odds. Or is there?
Genesis 1:2
Here we see the earth as a dark, empty, chaotic, water-covered planet. The Spirit of God is moving or hovering over the surface of the waters. It is a dark picture, chaotic picture, one that might conjure up ideas of violence even. Could it be that something terrible happened after the original creation of ancient Earth? Could there be millions, perhaps billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Could something that is called the “Gap Theory” be true? How could that work and Romans 5:12 still be true? “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”
I The Gap Theory
1. The Gap Theory is an idea some theologians employ to try to fit secular science into the Bible. First put forth by Thomas Chalmers, founder of the Free Church of Scotland, in 1814, it states that there was a vast gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, during which time, God fought a battle with Satan that destroyed the original creation. All the ancient fossils that have been found are the remains of animals and plant life from this period. All the vast ages of geology that have been recognized by secular scholars were laid down during this gap in the Bible record.
a) There are major problems with this theory. The main problem is not that it isn’t in the Bible, but that it actually contradicts the Bible.
II No Gap
1. First of all, there is no gap in the Genesis record. The Bible moves from verse one to verse two in a single moment, first stating that God created the Earth, then describing it when it was first created. A gap would have to be read into the passage.
a) Some theologians do just this. The Hebrew word, היה hayah haw-yaw, translated was in our text, is the verb, to be. Depending on the context, it can be translated to be, was, come to pass, came, has been, become, exist, happen, fall out, etc. Commentators like Barnes, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, and Scofied have made the leap to choose to translate this verb as became, suggesting that something went wrong after an original Genesis 1:1 creation. Again, however, that is read into the passage and cannot truly and honestly be drawn from it. Worse, such a forced interpretation does great damage to the gospel, itself.
III Without Form
1. Verse one tells us that in the beginning, God created the natural world. In verse 2, we begin to be told how it was created.
a) In the beginning, the first thing God created was the heaven, which includes the sky and the entire universe. (We know from elsewhere in the scriptures that God also created the supernatural world, but this is not what is being referred to here in Genesis.)
b) The very next thing God created was the Earth. At first, it was the only thing that existed, and it was a dark, empty, water-covered mass. The phrase, without form, refers to the fact that it was empty, without any particular order. It was just a massive, dark, wet, something, sitting in the empty heaven.
c) It did not become a chaotic waste, as those who hold to the Gap Theory postulate, but it simply was a big lump of watery mass, waiting for the Master’s hand, much like a piece of wet clay on the potter’s wheel, ready to be made into something.
IV Void
1. Once again, the Hebrew word used here is used by those who believe in the Gap Theory to support their argument. The Hebrew word is bohuw bo’-hoo, from an unused root (meaning to be empty). It’s only found 3 times in the King James, translated twice as void and once as emptiness. It can be translated waste, which is what those who hold to the Gap Theory do. This is actually circle reasoning; they believe that an earlier creation was destroyed by some kind of great cosmic war, and therefore that the Earth was wasted, like some bombed-out city, in the battle.
a) There is no reason in the context to translate the word any way other than to mean void or empty. God had just begun to create; the lump of clay was wet and ready to shape, but nothing further had been done.
b) There is no evidence in scripture that the Earth had been laid waste by a war between the forces of good and evil. That idea is solely foolish man trying to reconcile the Bible to secular science, rather than recognizing that secular scientists are Atheists who have always worked hard to explain a natural world without a Primary Cause.
V Darkness
1. It was dark. The Hebrew word is choshek kho-shek’ , meaning darkness, a complete absence of light. This is an important fact that once again refutes the Gap Theory. If the Gap Theory was true, it would have to mean that that everything in the universe that produces light, all the energy, would have to have been reduced to zero. At the same time, by some inexplicable process, we would have to accept that the Earth, while in a state of chaos at the surface, had somehow survived without any kind of energy in the universe to hold it together.
2. Secondly, note the order. Again, it was dark. We call the dark night, or evening. The Bible always uses, as we will later see, the order of evening and morning to describe a single, 24 hour period. In the original creation, evening came first. Evening began the first day.
a) Again, if we try to fit a great gap between Genesis 1:1 and 2, we make this point meaningless and open the Bible up to all manner of possible interpretations.
b) Darkness was upon the face of the deep.
VI The Deep
1. This is not simply describing some water that covered the Earth when it was first created. This implies a very great deal of water, possibly and even likely much more water than is present on the planet, today.
a) The Hebrew word translated deep is tᵉhowm teh-home’. The same word can also be translated as deep places and abyss. It implies a vast amount of water that covered the entire earth. This is very important to remember as we proceed throughout the creation record.
b) We are not told how much water was on the Earth at creation, but again, the language used implies that it covered the Earth to a great depth.
VII The Spirit of God
1. Here, again, is a major revelation by God, the Creator of all. Verse one tells us that God created everything in the beginning. Now verse two tells us that God is a spirit. Later on, Jesus, Himself, when he walked the Earth He created as a man told us, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24
a) The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The language is quite clear in English, as it is in the original Hebrew, that God was actively working in His creation. He worked closely in His creation, not from some infinite, imperial distance. The language shows great care and intimacy from God toward His creation. He was not a distant, emotionless power, but hands on, again, like a potter shaping the clay, except God was the very creator of the particles that made up the clay!
Conclusion
1. The Bible is the Word of God revealed to us in print. The Bible tells us that the entire Bible is given by direct inspiration from God (2 Timothy 3:16). Another way of putting it is that all scripture is God-breathed, just as God breathed into the first man the breath of life and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). God’s Word was “breathed” directly into the minds of the men who wrote the Bible. The Bible, itself, proves this. It is a collection of 66 books, written over 1500 years by 40 different authors from 3 continents in 3 different languages, yet it and never contradicts itself. This is humanly impossible, even with the best technology we have, today.
2. The same theme runs throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, God’s eternal plan and purpose, which is that at the end of time, he will gather together in one, all things in Christ. It’s accurate to say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ runs throughout the Bible from the very beginning to the very end, and no surprise, for Jesus Christ, Himself, the One by whom all things were made (John 1:3), the Living Word, is what the Bible represents. The Bible is the written Word of God, which represents the Living Word, who is Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all. Man sinned shortly after creation. The Bible says all have sinned. Yet Jesus Christ, almighty God who created the heaven and the earth, came to earth as a man, born as we are, fully human, yet fully God, and died a sinner’s death in our place, shedding his blood to take away our sin. He was buried, yet three days later, by his own glorious power, he rose from the dead and waits for sinners to accept by faith his all-sufficient gift of salvation. Once saved, the Bible teaches, always saved. The same God who by his own power stretched out the universe keeps all who place their faith in Him from ever falling again.