2 Sermon on Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1).

The word "created" is the Hebrew word "bara" which speaks of creating something out of nothing, a capacity that only God has. Man cannot "bara". We cannot, out of nothing, create something. We create with the idea of "asa," the Hebrew word "asa," which is the assembling together of existing materials. Now the word "asa" is used in much of the creative acts here in the book of Genesis, the assembling of an order from pre-existing materials. But the existing materials from which the things were assembled were originally created, and how long ago, we don't know.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

But the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (Gen 1:2).

Now, it is inconsistent with the nature of God to create something without form and void, to create something wasted and desolate. And thus, many Bible scholars see a time gap between verses one and two of Genesis. A time gap between "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and the next verse which declares "and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

In Isaiah, the forty-fifth chapter, it declares that God did not create the earth without form and void, but He created it to be inhabited. Now, there are several fields of thought concerning creation, and each one of them has it's own peculiar problems. There are arguments for and against each concept:

There is what is called "Theistic Evolution." The acknowledging that God began everything, but then set it free to evolve. He formed the first protein molecule, but then He let it free to evolve into many forms of life. Acknowledging God in the beginning, but then it is sort of a god who is removed from His creation, because now the creation develops on its own evolutionary processes, with God's hand having been removed.

There is the theory that all of this happened just about between six thousand and ten thousand years ago. And the universe, in actuality, is not any older than ten thousand years. That all of the guesstimates of man for the long period of time are just that: guesstimates of man. They are without proof, they are only theories. And that in reality, the universe is an extremely young universe, rather than an old universe as would be supposed.

That the only reason why the scientists have sought to propound an old universe theory is to harmonize with the evolutionary theory, which would demand an old universe because surely all of the life forms could not have evolved in a ten thousand year period. And that the fossils, rather than having been laid down over eons of time, were actually laid down in one great cataclysm: the flood. And that the flood more accurately accounts for the fossil record than eons of time during the evolutionary processes of the world.

It is interesting that, as far as we can ascertain, there is not any current fossils being embedded in the strata of the earth. That most of the mammals and leaves and everything else disintegrate and disorganize. That there are not fossils really being formed on the ocean floors. That there is that process of disintegration and encrustation on the ocean floor that takes place, but not the developing of fossils now. So if the ocean is not presently developing a column of fossils, than what were the circumstances that caused it to develop this long column of fossils in the past?

Of course there are trees that grow up through several of the strata's of the fossilized forms, and how could one tree grow up through several millions of years? If you look at the fossil orders and the strata's in which they exist, it's difficult to explain how that you can have trees that grow up right through several millions of years of these fossil forms. How is it that you have the footprint of a man within the footprint of a dinosaur if the dinosaurs were extinct long before man ever inhabited the earth?

There is an interesting new book called "Earth in Upheaval" by Emmanuel Vilikovski, which is a great treatise against uniformitarianism, which is the basis of the evolutionary theory. And he points out in this new book, "Earth in Upheaval", how that there is definite evidence of a great cataclysm that has taken place upon the earth, that suddenly destroyed masses of animal forms.

And all kinds of bones mixed together from the various kinds of animals that do not have a natural habitat together, which are naturally enemies. But yet their bones broken and crushed, mixed together in caves in England and in other places, showing that they were thrown in there violently by force and were buried in the sand together. And that there was some great cataclysm, a testimony against uniformitarianism.

Now, basically the evolutionary thesis is that all of the processes that are going on today have been going on for millions of years, so that any of the life forms can be understood by the processes today. That there has been an uniformity to the whole cycles of life, from the time that the planet first cooled sufficiently for the water bodies to be formed, and that all things are going on in a uniform way. Well, the book "Earth in Upheaval" is just a very powerful demonstration against that particular theory. If you destroy that theory, then you've really destroyed the evolutionary theory. And that's why so many scientists, without really good reason, cry out against Emmanuel Vilikovski's works, but more and more, his works are being tested and proved to be quite accurate indeed.

There are those who say that the "days" of Genesis were geological eras. That the word day, "Yom" in the Hebrew, has a variety of meanings, which indeed is true, it is used some eleven hundred times in the Bible and it's translated fifty-one different time spans, I think, even to an indefinite period of time, "the day of the Lord", "the Yom of the Lord," an indefinite period.

So that, they say that the "days" of Genesis are indefinite periods of geological eras, but that of course, as I say, each of the theories presents it's difficulties; if they be indefinite periods of geological eras, the difficulty with that is that if God created the plant life upon the earth in the third geological era, and did not have the sun really shining in it's position on the earth until the fourth geological era, how did the plant life survive for a whole geological era without the sun? And if God created man in the sixth geological era and He rested in the seventh geological era, it means that Adam would have been kicked out of the garden, at the earliest, the eight geological era, and thus, was much older than the nine hundred and twelve years or whatever is ascribed to Adam's life span. So that creates problems too.

Now, the idea that God created everything just about ten thousand years ago is an interesting idea and an interesting concept. Which, if you look at it, it is difficult to argue against. There are scriptures that say "for in six days God created the heaven and the earth and everything that is in them." The fact that death entered with Adam's sin, then how could the fossil record testify of death before Adam's sin? Interesting arguments.

One of the things that makes it impossible to challenge is that how old was Adam the first day that God created him? He was one day old. Well then how could he have a full set of teeth, a fully matured body? We don't know if he had a navel or not. But he was created with age-dating factors. In other words, if you would look at Adam the day he was created, you'd say "why he might be thirty-five, forty years old," because he had certain designs that would testify to more than just a one-day old. So there were already, at his day of creation, age-dating factors.

Thus, God could have created the earth and the universe with age-dating factors, with fossils already there, or with the galaxies already at a certain distance from the planet earth. So that God could have created it with age-dating factors which, if you would look at it, you'd say "well, it's ten billion years old," when in reality, it was just created just a moment ago. And God is surely great enough and big enough to do it that way if He so desired. So, that makes that particular argument a very interesting argument, and a very plausible argument.

One of the major difficulties that I see with it is that it doesn't really give us much opportunity for the understanding of angels and their creation. When did God then create the angels? Now when God came to Job and began to challenge Job in the thirty-eighth chapter of that book, God said to Job, "where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?"(Job 38:4) And God speaks in the laying of the foundations of the world: "when the morning stars sang together" or "the angels singing together" when God laid the foundations of the world. So the angels were existing when God laid the foundations of the world.

So when were they created? And how is it that if they were created, the foundations of the world, one day, and then a few days later, Satan is in the garden tempting Eve. When did Satan fall? When did he rebel against God? And if he was such a new creature, and had been in heaven or been also in Eden, the garden of God, and had a dominion, an authority, a reign until the day that iniquity was found in him, and then was cast forth, when did this all take place, because Satan was there soon into the garden, to lead man astray? And how could it be that, being created so newly, could he have such influence over the other angelic beings that he could draw with him, in his rebellion, a third of the angels? So that presents a difficulty to me, to the idea that the earth just has existed for maybe six thousand to ten thousand years.

The, what is known as "gap theory" seems to be, to me, a very plausible explanation and it is, of course, not without its problems completely. But I think the problems are not insolvable. Looking at it from the gap theory, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. How log ago? We don't know. As God created the heavens and the earth He also created the angelic beings. He created the earth to be inhabited and so there were inhabitants upon the earth. There is even the suggestion that Satan perhaps ruled over the sphere of the earth. The "anointed cherub that covereth in the garden of God, every precious stone his covering," (Ezekiel 28:14) and so forth, that in reality it was here upon the earth that he had his dominion and his rulership, and that there were life forms upon the earth prior to the introduction of man, that there was plant life, and various life forms.

But the earth became, and this is a possible rendering of the Hebrew in verse two rather than "and the earth was." "And the earth became wasted and desolate." How it became wasted and desolate; it is suggested that perhaps at Satan's rebellion, the wrath of God was poured out and the earth was sort of put in a "deep freeze." Waters covered the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. That the earth was just covered with water, frozen, and set aside for a period of time; a great "ice age".

Now there is a lot of evidence to show that the earth has emerged from the last ice age, maybe less than ten thousand years ago, and for this I would suggest the book "Worlds in Collision" by Emmanuel Vilakovski. And in this particular book he points out the fact, which is interesting indeed, that there is a canyon being created by Niagara Falls. This canyon is being created at a constant rate of one foot a year. Niagara Falls coming over, a tremendous amount of water, is eroding away that shelf at the rate of one foot a year.

There is a hotel on the Canadian side that a hundred years ago was built right at the edge of the falls. Now it's a hundred feet away from the falls, as the water keeps eroding away at a fairly constant one foot per year. The canyon that has been formed by Niagara Falls is seven thousand feet long. And it would stand to reason in the earlier time of the glacial regression, that the flow of water could conceivably have been much greater at that time than it is presently, and so the erosion rate could have been greater, hardly lesser. And there are other evidences that show that the earth emerged from the last ice age maybe less than seven thousand years ago. Which, of course, would be very interesting indeed as we look at the account of Genesis, which places man upon the earth in his present form just about six thousand years ago.

Back to CHAPTER 1: CREATION