Billions and billions of years

July 20, 2020 (Tuesday)

 

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” [1 Corinthians 13:11 NLT] Ever been embarrassed when you think back to your childhood and remember the childish things you did and believed when you were young.

 

I grew up in the public school system where “billions and billions of years” were taught as “fact.” I learned all the ages and the various creatures that supposedly occupied those ages. Yet, I grew up in a parsonage and heard about creation. At some point, I tried to reconcile the two. After all, they both had to be correct. Correct?

 

I read in Genesis 1 things like, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” [Genesis 1:3 – 5 ESV] This gave me the impression God created stuff, all in one day.

 

If you look close at the verse that detail each day of creation they are clear. The word translated “day” is a 24-hour period of time as opposed to an unspecified time (such as “the day of the LORD). The detail “And there was evening and there was morning” reinforces the idea that each of day of creation was a literal 24-hour period of time. So, the idea that a day represents and age (“day-age” theory) cannot be correct. The “framework hypothesis” denies these days as history, but denies something more important. More on that later.

 

So what about the “billions and billions of years?” As a child, without mature understanding of the Bible, I heard about the “gap theory” and swallowed it “hook, line, and sinker.”  The “gap theory” suggest in distant “billions and billions of years” ago, God created a world ruled by Satan. The world was populated by “people” of a sort. Because Satan fell, the earth was destroyed by a flood (Genesis 1:2). Thus, the Genesis creation account was the Re-creation of the earth. One theory goes on to state these pre-creation creatures have become what the Bible later identifies as “evil spirits” (different than “demons” which are fallen angels).

 

Eventually the “gap theory” became part of the Scofield Reference Bible and the Dake Annotated Reference Bible. This theory hinged on understanding ruin and re-creation from “the earth became formless and void” (from Genesis 1:2). I could go into a very length analysis how all this is nonsense. By saying that, I’m being kind.

 

I could go into a lengthy Biblical and theological explanation why the “gap theory” is impossible. For instance, in Genesis 1:5 “the first day” is literally “day one.” In other words, there were no days where anything that has form existed before the first day of the Genesis creation account. I could do that, but will spare you. What made the difference for my understanding is a person.

 

When doing research on history, eye witness accounts tend to take precedence over secondary or tertiary accounts and interpretations. What makes the difference for me is THE eye witness to creation. Jesus said, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” [Mark 10:6 ESV]

 

Think about it.