3 Sermon on Genesis 1:1
Back to CHAPTER 1: CREATION
Now, what kind of life forms may have existed upon the earth prior to the destruction, we don't know. God doesn't say. But man in his present form has existed on the earth for about six thousand years from the time of Adam. And so the adherents of the gap theory see Genesis l:l as original creation, and the rest of Genesis as a process of re-creation, as God began to re-create the earth in order to place man in his present form upon it. And thus, the days of creation in Genesis are actually re-creative days as God is now setting the earth to place man upon that earth. It is a very interesting theory indeed, a very plausible theory indeed. It would surely answer all of the problems that are raised by the scientists who are seeking to prove that the earth has been here for several million or billion years. It surely would not be out of harmony at all with what God has said here in Genesis one.
It is interesting that when Noah came out of the ark after the flood, when the inhabitants of the earth had been destroyed by the flood, the command of God to Noah was to "replenish the earth." The same command that God gave to Adam and to Eve, "to replenish the earth," speaking of perhaps a pre-existence of forms of life. But man in his present form has only existed for about six thousand years, and there is no way that anybody can prove that that is not true.
So we look at Genesis and we see in chapter one, the beginning, God creating the heaven and the earth. In verse two, we see the earth without form and void, darkness, covered with water, and the Spirit of God brooding over the face of the deep. In verse three, the beginning of the creative acts of God, notice: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," which would of course include the stars and all.
But now we see the first thing that God declares, because the earth was covered with darkness, God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Gen 1:3).
Now it could be that the earth was in a dark nebulae. That there was no light coming to the earth, that in this darkness, this dark nebulae, that the earth just froze, the great ice age.
It is interesting that when we look at the creative days, those forms of life, such as plant life, that could have survived in the earth during an ice age, are spoken of as not being created, "bara" but being assembled, "asa," the assembling. But the life forms that could not survive a great ice age are spoken of as being "bara," created. There are many forms of life that could have survived an ice age and all they needed was the proper environment to spring forth again.
Out here in the desert a few years ago, they had an unusual storm and a lake that had been dried for years was suddenly filled with water, and the next thing they knew, there was a form of shrimp in the water. That somehow the processes were there, still in the earth or whatever. When the water came, that was all that was necessary to bring forth this dormant form of life. And so there are many life forms that can survive. There are some that could not. When you get to the life forms that could not survive a great ice age, then you come again to the word "bara" as God began to form or create out of nothing the life forms that could not have survived a great ice age.
"Let there be light." The removing of those dark gasses which we do not understand, but we do know exist in the universe, that seem to shut out light, the dark clouds of the universe. Covered with a dark cloud, it would have frozen and could have been out here in its orbit, just a frozen mass, but now with the removal, coming out into the light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness (Gen 1:4). Now I'm sure that as this story was told, and as Moses later recorded from the records that were existent, they didn't realize the scientific implications of "God divided the light." But now with the coming of modern science, we have learned how to divide the light. And light can be divided into many things. In the spectrum you have a division of light, and we know that there are, on one end of the spectrum, even light that you cannot see in the ultraviolet shortwaves, on the other end of the spectrum, other light that you cannot see in the infrared division.
Darkness only testifies to the limitations of visibility. And light is actually divided into darkness, into the infrared or the ultraviolet on both ends of the spectrum, but then within the spectrum, many divisions of light. Light is divided into light, color and sound. All three are basically the same thing: vibrations at different frequencies. Slow the frequencies and the vibrations down and you pick them up audibly, increase them and you see colors. And so the division of light. Very interesting statement.
God called the light day, the darkness he called Night. And it was evening and morning, the first day (Gen 1:5).
So on the first day, if you accept the "re-creation" process, the earth was brought out of the darkness of the gasses and, still shrouded with a fog, you could distinguish between the evening and the morning, or the night and the day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament (Gen 1:6)
The word firmament in the Hebrew is "rocweah" which means a limitless expanse. Now describe for me space. It's a limitless expanse. "Let there be a space," God said, in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made this firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day (Gen 1:6-8).
So, the creation of the atmosphere around the earth, but above the atmosphere God put a great blanket of water, suspended the water in the atmosphere above the earth. Now that water suspended in the atmosphere above the earth would have done a tremendous thing as far as the climate of the earth is concerned. It would have caused a mild, equal kind of climate around the entire earth. It would have meant that you would not have violent storms. It would have meant that you would have had a balmy climate everywhere, even up in the North Pole regions.
It would surely explain the discovery of the mammoths in Siberia encased in ice that were frozen intact at some time in the history, who were living in a tropical jungle, because when they cut them open they found tropical vegetation in their digestive tracts. It would surely account for the forest that one time existed at the South Pole because we have found the charcoal deposits under two hundred feet of ice. This blanket of water around the earth would probably also have protected the earth from many more of the cosmic radiations that are constantly bombarding the earth.
Also, the earth would have been protected by the greater magnetic force that existed at that time that surrounds the earth. The earth is surrounded by a magnetic field. One hundred and thirty-six years ago, a Dutch scientist first measured this magnetic field. Each year since, we have been measuring the magnetic field around the earth, and we find that the magnetic field is diminishing at a constant rate. In fact, this is the longest age-dating factor that we have as far as the earth is concerned. We don't have anything that we've been able to observe over one hundred and thirty-five years. But this magnetic field around the earth is something that they've been measuring for one hundred and thirty-five years, and we find that it is decreasing at a constant rate.
Now this magnetic field around the earth is very important to life on the earth. It seems that it moves in a, sort of, an "eight," coming through the heart or the center of the earth, the equator and going around the poles. This magnetic field just dashes down through the equator, comes up and surrounds around the pole back and around. And it seems to have an interesting kind of an effect of shielding off or bouncing off, much of the cosmic radiation is bounced off of this magnetic field that surrounds the earth. It's sort of a blanket of protection from cosmic radiation.
We know also that there is the ozone blanket. God, talking to Job about the creating of the earth, said he made a blanket around it. He made a moisture blanket, He made an electromagnetic field blanket, He also made an ozone blanket around the earth to make the earth inhabitable by man, by shielding off these cosmic rays that are constantly bombarding. These little rays that go shooting -- what do they call them? Neutrinos or something?
They go right through the earth. You can't really shield yourself; they come right through and hit you from your feet up as they're coming from the other side. And they go right through your body, but when they go through your body, they have an effect of causing a cellular breakdown, so that your cells begin a mutation form, an aging process somehow gets involved with the cosmic rays breaking down the cells and their ability to reproduce themselves sufficiently. And thus the aging process, they really believe, is being caused by the fact that we are being bombarded by these cosmic rays.
Now, with the water blanket around the earth giving greater protection, and with this electromagnetic field being at a greater intensity, bouncing off, it would stand to reason that at the time of Adam there was much less cosmic radiation coming through to the earth, so than man could conceivably live much longer periods of time. In fact, as we study the human body and the ability of the cell to reproduce itself, aging is some kind of a weirdness in nature. The breakdown of the cell is an abnormality that has somehow crept in.
The body is so designed, if it weren't for this beginning of the mutants within the cells, that you could just go on living forever. Your body would keep renewing itself, the cells would just keep reproducing themselves and you could just go on and on and on living in this body. But somewhere along the line, there came a stray little neutrino or whatever, an introduction into the body of that which began to cause the aging processes.
Now, prior to the flood, and at the time of the flood this water blanket that surrounded the atmosphere was removed. And at the removal of this water blanket, there was probably the removal of the protection, and thus after the flood, the lifespan dropped dramatically, from an average of around nine hundred years down to an average of maybe one hundred years. Just almost overnight, within one generation, the tremendous longevity was reduced because suddenly the protective blanket was taken away.
But God, here in the second day of creation, created this protective blanket, this water, suspended it in the atmosphere above the earth. And He separated the water in the atmosphere from the water, and the firmament He called heaven. And the gathering together of the water He called seas. Now it is interesting that He called it "seas" plural, because at the time of the writing of Genesis all they knew was one sea, the Mediterranean Sea, really. Why "seas" plural? Because God knew that there were many bodies of waters, different oceans and seas, and so the plural.
Who wrote Genesis? Well, it is commonly accepted that Moses was the author, but certainly Moses had to get his material from somewhere. It is conceivable that Adam himself wrote the first record.
This evening, I was just fooling around with some of the ages here in chapter five, and I came up with an interesting little fact, and that is that Lamech, the father of Noah -- Adam was still alive when Noah's father was born, and they lived contemporary for many years. So it is very possible that Noah's father heard directly from Adam himself about the garden of Eden, and about their being put out of the garden and the angels that was put there to protect and all. And Lamech told his son Noah. Lamech heard it directly from Adam. And Lamech told Noah. And Noah told his sons Ham, Shem and Japheth. And Shem was living at the time that Abraham was born. So you really don't have the story passing through too many hands to get it down even as far as Abraham.
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