Gap Theory - Unacceptable Compromise

THE GAP THEORY – UNACCEPTABLE COMPROMISE

 

The plain and simple reading of the text of the Bible clearly demonstrates that the creation of the earth and universe took place about 4,000 B.C. We have dealt at great lengths about the overwhelming scientific evidences, using over 400+ Geochronometers (earth/universe time clocks) that support the biblical account of a young creation.

In this article, instead of using the scientific arguments, we want to stress the extremely important theological arguments that make any attempt to support an old earth/universe totally unacceptable within Christianity. However, any attempted compromise that would insert millions/billions of years into the Bible in order to make an old creation acceptable destroys the power of the Cross, whether the person understands it or not.

SALVATION

We want to declare it first and foremost that the acceptance of an old creation by an individual does not prevent a Christian from going to Heaven. A person’s belief in an old or young creation is not the salvation issue. The salvation issue deals with a person’s relationship with the Father through the Son. John 14:6.

INTRODUCTION

Since the time of Christ, almost all significant Christian theologians up until about three hundred years ago agreed on a young earth position because of biblical authority. There were some exceptions, men who thought that there was a “pause” or a “gap” in the Bible’s historical record.

Those who believed in such positions did it for a variety of reasons. Some simply thought that after the initial creation God had paused to take a breath. Some were influenced by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Some did it in order to compromise the Bible with what they thought were the “scientific” discoveries of evolutionists and to make those supposed discoveries compatible within a biblical context.

Jesus and His disciples were adamant about a young creation. Some early Church theologians, however, started publishing various compromises within 200 years after the Resurrection.

While not a complete list, we may start with Origen (185 - 253 AD). He proposed an allegorical interpretation of Genesis and speculated about multiple ages or cycles of creation preceding the current one. He did not believe in a “gap”, but he did consider that there might have been a pre-Adamic time period. A pre-Adamic period is a part of the Gap Theory. He was influenced by Plato to view the creation account as symbolic and that pre-history was a theologically acceptable concept.

St. Augustine (354 - 430 AD) did not propose a “gap”, rather he thought of the Genesis creation account as being allegorical, perhaps more of a logical rather than chronological sequence. In his books, City of God and Confessions, he emphasized that God’s creation was timeless, that the Bible could accommodate unrecorded eras, and loosely agreed with a pre-Adamic history.

Thomas Burnet (1635–1715) was a very controversial theologian. He did not propose a “gap” but in his book Sacred Theory of the Earth he speculated about the earth having geological changes over long ages.

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) was the first person to formulate the modern Gap Theory in 1813. He was a highly regarded Scottish Presbyterian minister, a leader of both the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland. He sought to reconcile the discoveries within the fossil record and the evolutionary interpretation of them and to fit them into the Bible. His basic idea was to accept the Dual Revelation view of biblical interpretation: that there is Special Revelation contained in the Bible proving that God is the Creator, and that there is General Revelation in nature proving that evolution is true.

Thomas Chalmers referred to his idea as The Ruin-Restoration Theory but today it is generally referred to as The Pre-Adamic Theory. The Pre-Adamic belief usually takes one of three general positions:

1) There were millions/billions of years prior to Gen. 1:2 during which plants and animals were alive on the earth, but there were no people.

2) There were millions/billions of years prior to Gen. 1:2 during which plants, animals, and people with no souls were alive.

3) There were millions/billions of years prior to Gen. 1:2 during which plants, animals, and people with souls were alive.

William Buckland (1784–1856) was a Natural Theologian, a term used to describe certain Anglican clergy in 19th century England, that were accomplished in Christian theology but believed that the study of geology and paleontology proved that the earth was old. He did not accept the Flood of Noah as the cause of the sedimentary layers that we see today.

George H. Pember (1837–1910) A theologian who authored the book, Earth’s Earliest Ages (1876).  He took Chalmer’s ideas and greatly expanded upon them, even to the point that he included end-times prophecy.

Arthur Custance (1910–1985) was the last great promoter in defense of The Gap Theory. He was a Canadian with degrees in ancient biblical languages and a Ph.D. in Education. He authored the book Without Form and Void (1970), an in-depth treatise on The Gap Theory. He stated that the opening of Genesis should be translated: “In a former state God perfected the heavens and the earth; but the earth had become a devastated ruin.” He argued that the Hebrew grammar of Genesis 1:2 suggested a change in a state of being rather than describing an original state of being, implying a prior creation that had been judged and destroyed.

All these Gap proponents held to these general beliefs:

1) There was an original creation (Genesis 1:1) by God that was a perfect world.

2) That the fall of Satan occurred between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2 at the time that the Earth was ruined.

3) Genesis 1:2 describes the Earth in a ruined state, not its original form.

4) The six-day creation account (Genesis 1:3-31) is a restoration, not the original creation of all things.

BRIEF REVIEW OF “THE GAP THEORY”

1. God created a first earth; later destroyed it (ruined it); and created a second earth (restored it); and the beginning of Genesis 1:2 should read “and the earth became”.

2. There is a “gap” of millions/billions of years between Gen.1:1 and 1:2 during which life, death and evolution occurred.

3. There may have been a “Pre-Adamic” race.

4. “Lucifer” fell to earth during the “gap”, prior to Adam and Eve being created

5. Noah’s Flood was a “local” flood

6. The flood of the entire earth, called “Lucifer’s Flood”, is described in Gen. 1:2 and is different than Noah’s Flood.

Does Gen. 1:2 start with “was” or “became”?

Dr. James Barr, former Professor of Hebrew at Vanderbilt University and former Regis Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University wrote: “... so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew of Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the idea that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience …”

“Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the ‘days’ of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the Flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by such professors, as far as I know.”   [Emp. added]

Dr. Bert Thompson, former Director of Apologetics Press, wrote in Creation Compromises (1995) about those who believed in the Gap Theory in order to then accept the biblical record:

“Surely it is one of the bitterest of ironies that those who were so determined to find a compromise allowing them to believe the biblical record are those who, because of that very compromise, ended up believing the Bible less and less until finally they do not believe it at all.”                                                                                                                                    [Emp. added]

Concerning the authority of the creation account in Genesis and the factual nature of the seven days of creation, Reformer Dr. Martin Luther wrote:

“When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, ... But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His Word in the direction you wish to go.”                                                                                   [Eph. Added]

What Luther Says. A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, compiled by Ewald M. Plass, Concordia, 1959, p. 93.

How important was the historical account of the seven-day creation account to the New Testament writers? Only five books of the New Testament (Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Titus, Philemon) do not refer to the Book of Genesis.

The “modern” Gap Theory or any other “old earth” compromise, such as, Day Age Theory, Allegory Theory, or Framework Theory, are founded upon the writings of three men.

In 1795, James Hutton published his two volume Theory of the Earth. His books proposed that the earth had “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.” He caused people to doubt that the age of the earth/universe was 6,000 years old.

In 1813, Thomas Chalmers invented the Gap Theory in order to compromise the Bible with the new supposed “truths” of evolution science.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his most famous book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. He offered people who wanted an alternative to biblical authority a supposedly scientific way to believe that there was no Creator.

The Gap Theory, or any of the other old earth compromises, were never the historical position of the Church. However, many non-Pentecostal churches accepted it because it was included in the Scofield Reference Bibles of 1909/1917. Many Pentecostals accepted it because it was included in the Dake Annotated Reference Bible in 1963.

What Does the Word “Day” Mean?

Old earth believers do not accept the inerrancy of the Scripture and they want to believe that the “days” of creation mean something other than one rotation of the earth, that the days do not represent days of 24 hours each.

The normal word in Hebrew for “day” is “yom”. It is used 2,301 times in the Old Testament. In the KJV, outside of Genesis Chapter One, it is used in the following ways:

1. 410 times with a number, it refers to a normal 24-hour day.

2. 38 times it is translated “evening” and “morning” without the use of the word “day”.

3. 23 times it is translated “evening” and “morning” with the use of the word “day”.

4. 52 times it is translated “night” and “day”.

5. It is the word used to describe the most singularly solemn day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement.

6. And, perhaps the greatest of all references to the meaning of the word “yom” is to be found in Exodus 20:8-11 when God says:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” (NAS95)

The word yom does have various other uses in the Hebrew language, such as, “In my father’s day.” or, “The day of Jacob’s trouble.” But these statements refer to specific times in the past or the future. The word cannot be used to mean a long period of time with an indefinite beginning and an indefinite beginning. It cannot be used to mean an epoch, and era, nor an eon.

I consider the definition of yom to be so important to God that in my book, Creation: Our Worldview, I included three pages recording every use of the word yom found in the two largest Hebrew Lexicons. Nowhere can the word be used to support the concept of an old earth/old universe.

How did the idea of the Gap Theory come into existence?

Evolution is not a new concept; it did not start with the modern-day evolutionists of the 1700s and 1800s. It started in the Garden of Eden. There have always been people that believed in some form of evolution in order to deny God’s existence and His authority. Evolution is not science, it is religion.

As the Modern Scientific Method was restored by Christian creation believing scientists four hundred years ago, the non-believers saw an opportunity to reverse and corrupt the Modern Scientific Method and to declare that evolution was science and that creation was religion - a patently false belief.

By 1800, the believers in evolution had become a strong influence in western societies. Rev. Thomas Chalmers, a brilliant highly influential Presbyterian minister in the Church of Scotland, and Vice President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, was influenced into becoming a “Natural Theologian”.

Natural Theology seeks to provide arguments for theological topics based on human reason alone. It is distinguished from Revealed Theology, which is based on supernatural sources such as scripture or religious experiences.

Chalmers used the Bible for his evangelistic work, but he did not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. He used human reasoning to merge evolutionary “deep time” into the Bible. Rationally, the only place where he could insert millions and billions of years of time was to artificially place it between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.

Thus, the Gap Theory came into existence.

A Detailed Review of the Gap Theory

Initially, Chalmers referred to his concept as The Ruin-Restoration Theory. The idea was that God had created a perfect creation; however, it became imperfect (it was “ruined”). Supposedly, then God “restored” it and placed Adam and Eve into the Second Creation. Then, the narrative from Genesis 1:2 on is the record of events that bring us to our current time. This allows for the prophetic future given to us in the Scripture to take place.

The Ruin-Restoration Theory postulates that there were millions/billions of years that occurred during the “gap”; that creatures were living, dying, and evolving during this supposed time; and, that none of the details are given to us.

There are at least three major branches of Theory. The first major branch denies the existence of any humans during the “first” creation in order to eliminate the problem of death before human sin.

The second major branch opines that while it is not necessary, there may have been a “Pre-Adamic” race of living people, but that they had no souls. This concept, again, eliminates the problem of death prior to Adam’s sin and the need for salvation.

The third major branch does include humans like us today, persons with souls, existing during the “first” creation, but that during that time, the human population became so wicked/evil that God had to completely eliminate them (they could not be saved) and that He had to start over with a second creation with Adam and Eve having dominion over it.

In addition, Chalmers placed the fall of Satan, referring to him as “Lucifer”, within the time of the “gap” and before Adam and Eve were created. Thus, the ruination (the catastrophic/cataclysmic destruction of the entire earth/universe) of the creation by the presence of Satan was because of a worldwide flood that occurred at that time. This “flood” was supposedly what the Holy Spirit was flying over as described in Genesis 1:2. Therefore, Chalmers labeled the “waters” of Genesis 1:2 as “Lucifer’s Flood”. This concept relegated the later flood of Noah’s time to being merely a local flood.

Why Are the Various Gap Theories Wrong?

There are six major flaws in the various Gap Theories. I will list them and then go back and debunk them in detail.

1. God is not omniscient

2. God is not omnipotent

3. God does not always have a witness

4. God is a liar

5. God cannot save a remnant

6. The death of a nephesh organism occurs before human sin

I will combine the first and second items as they are basically inseparable in their nature.

What is wrong with saying that God is neither omniscient nor omnipotent?

To do so is to say that God does not know everything, that He is ignorant about some things, and that He must learn things before He can complete the creation. If He does not know all things, He lacks knowledge about the past, and He certainly cannot prophesy the future.

Such a position would negate the clear teaching of the Old and New Testaments in verses such as: 1 John 3:20, Ps. 139:1-24, Job 37:16, Is. 46:10, Ps. 139:16, Mt. 10:30, 2 Tim. 3:16, Ps. 147:4-5, Rev. 1:8, Luke 1:37, Mt. 19:36, John 1:3, and John 16:30. If He does not know everything, then He is not El Shaddai - the Almighty, Self-sufficient, Self-existent God!

What is wrong with saying that God does not always have a witness?

To say that God does not always have a witness is to deny the clear teaching of Scripture.

In Romans 1:20, the Apostle Paul records:

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (NAS95)                                                                                                       [Emphasis added]

The Apostle Luke records the words of Jesus:

“For this reason also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.” (NAS95)                              [Emphasis added]

Written in the Hebrew manner in order to double the importance of the message, Matthew and Mark record the commentary of Jesus quoting the Old Testament concerning the origin of Adam and Eve:

“But from the beginning of creation, God ‘MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.’”

In his second letter, the Apostle Peter prophesizes about the time that we live in; the time of evolutionists, atheists, and mockers looking for reasons not to believe in the God of the Bible.

“Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” (NAS95)                                     [Emphasis added]

Peter tells us that people have always been on the earth since the time of creation, therefore, there has always been a human witness of the truth of a young creation.

What is wrong with saying that God is a liar?

To doubt the inerrancy of God’s statements on any subject is to call God a liar. If God is a liar, then He cannot be trusted to tell the truth about a recent creation occurring about 6,000 years ago in six days like the ones that we experience today. Therefore, if this is not true, then the Gap Theory might have credence and the evolutionary time scale might be true. God’s other statements about the global flood, its consequences, and observations about the creation and the creatures within the creation would also be brought into question.

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it?” Numbers 23:19 (NAS95)

We have already covered that each day of the Creation Week is one rotation, one day.

What are God’s descriptions concerning before and after the global flood? In Genesis 6:7, 7:4, 19-22 God said:

“The LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.’”

“For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.”

“The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died.” (NAS95)

After the Flood, in Genesis 9:12-17, we find:

“God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’

God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.’” (NASB)                                                                         Emphasis added

Psalm 104 is one of the eight great creation psalms and it is referred to as a “summary psalm” because it summarizes the chronological events and specific order of creation from the Creation Week, through the Flood of Noah, and ends at the time of the psalmist. Verses five through nine describe the Flood of Noah:

“He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter forever and ever. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters were standing above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled, at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass over, so that they will not return to cover the earth.” (NAS95)           Emphasis added

In Exodus 20:8-11, and 31:17, God says:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” (NAS95)                                                                                                  Emphasis added

350 years after the Flood of Noah (Job 40:15-18), God draws special attention to a dinosaur and He says that He created “Behemoth” (a large terrestrial dinosaur) “with you”, meaning on the same day (Day 6) that Adam and Eve were created. (“the beasts of the earth”, Genesis 1:25)

In Isaiah 45:18 God tells us: “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste [empty] place, but formed it to be inhabited), ‘I am the LORD, and there is none else.’” (NAS95) Emphasis added

God did not create the earth empty, void, nor unfilled and then over a long period of time (millions and billions of years) slowly “evolve”, nor did He “progressively create” creatures - plants, animals and humans - to fill the earth. He created them to fill the earth immediately, during the Creation Week: Days 4, 5, and 6.

Finally, in Revelation 21:1, we find this definitive statement: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.” (NAS95)                                                                                                            Emphasis added

This verse clearly states that “THE FIRST HEAVEN AND THE FIRST EARTH PASSED AWAY.” If the Gap Theory, or any other theory attempting to support an old creation view were true, then the first earth was destroyed in Genesis 1:2, a second earth was formed, and Revelation 21:1 should record the second earth being restored, followed by a third. 

The importance of Noah’s Flood being global not local cannot be overstated when considering the merits of any old earth proposal. I will summarize below a quick list of points as proof texts for a global flood.

1. Genesis 7:19-23 and 9:12-17

2. Psalm 104:5-9

3. Luke 17:26-27 (Flood destroyed them all)

4. 2 Peter 3:3-7 (the world was destroyed)

5. If it was local why not just walk away?

6. Why build an Ark? 

7. If a few thousand animals were to perish, they would have been quickly replaced.

8. Does “All”, “every”, and “all” really mean “a few”, “some”, and “a few”?

9. The “rain-bow” sign was not a promise from God.

10. God said He would never destroy again like in the day of Noah, but we have had many local floods since then.

What is wrong with saying that God cannot always save a remnant?

Old earth advocates believe that all life on the earth was destroyed by the so-called “Lucifer’s Flood”, and that God had to start over a second time with Adam and Eve introduced to us starting in Genesis Chapter 1:26.

Such an idea is totally contradicted by the character of God revealed to us throughout Scripture. He always saves a remnant!

At the time of Noah’s Flood, all of humanity that then existed died, but God saved eight people inside the Ark of Noah.

At the time of the seven years of famine in the Middle East, when Joseph was Vizier in Egypt, God saved 70 persons.

During the 40 years of the Exodus, and after the rebellion of the people in the desert, God tells Moses to separate himself from the rest and says:

“Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” Exodus 32:10 (NAS95)

Although it was never going to happen, God says that if all of Israel had been destroyed, He could have raised up a new nation from just Moses and his wife. God always saves a remnant!

What is wrong with saying that the death of a nepesh organism occurs prior to human sin?

In Genesis 2:7, we are told that: “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (NAS95)

God creates the body of the first man, Adam, not by speaking him into existence, but by reaching down and selecting atoms that He had already spoken into existence in the ground, and forming the man’s body like a potter forms a clay object. But the body was not alive, it was inanimate. All the bones and tissues were present, all the things necessary for life were present, but the body was not alive, it was not animate.

Second, God breathes the “breath of life” into the inanimate body and it becomes animate. This is when God places the “soul” into Adam’s body. The soul is defined as the intellect, emotion, and will - it is what makes the body animate. The soul is what you think, what you feel, and how you direct your body to move around.

Third, God inserts the spirit of Adam prepared beforehand, into his body, and Adam becomes a complete whole human being with body, soul, and spirit.

This is where we must differentiate between biological death and biblical death or we may say between physical death and spiritual death.

In Genesis Chapter One, God gives us the skeletal outline of the days of creation. On Days Five and Six, He creates the animals and people. When we read the Hebrew, He creates the insects as living things, but He does not use the word nephesh when speaking of insects (nor of plants on Day Three). The word nephesh is used only when dealing with animals from shrews to dinosaurs and people.

Animals and people have nephesh; however, while people live in a biological body similar to animals, people are not animals. Animals are two-part beings, having a body and a soul. People are triune beings, having a body, a soul, and a spirit. Animals are temporal beings because they don’t have a spirit that would give them an eternal nature. Only people have a spirit that gives them an eternal nature.

The truth of this statement is revealed in Genesis, but it is perhaps best seen by reading Ecclesiastes Chapters 3 and 12.

“For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. Who knows that the breath [ruwach = spirit] of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?”                                                                                       Ecc. 3:19-21 (NAS95)

“... then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”                                                                                                                         Ecc. 12:7 (NAS95)

These verses clarify that when animals die, their body and soul go into the ground and they cease to exist. However, when a person dies their body does go into the ground, but because their soul is united with their eternal spirit, they go forward into an eternal state; they return to the God that created them. Whether they go to Heaven or Hell is determined by their decision made while they were alive. They will be reunited with their body at the time of the final resurrection of the dead.

Humans are triune beings because they reflect the triune nature of the God that created them. God has a Spirit, a Soul, and a Body. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. God has a soul; He has intellect, emotion, and will. God has a Body through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God made man and woman in His “image”:

“Then God said, ‘Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make man [mankind - man and woman] in Our [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] image [tseh'-lem - a representative figure], according to Our [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] likeness [dem-ooth' - resemblance, similitude - but not equal]; and let them [man and woman] rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”        [Emp. Added] Genesis 1:26 (NAS95)

Why have I gone through all this material when addressing “What is wrong with saying that the death of a nephesh organism occurs prior to human sin?”

Once again, I want to stipulate that the age of the earth/universe is not the salvation issue. Your relationship with the Father through the Son is the salvation issue! However, what a person believes about the age of the earth/universe are critical to the Gospel.

Romans 5:12 says: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned …” (NAS95)

Paul is very clear in his statement. The death of a nepesh organism did not occur until after Adam’s first sin.

Paul continues to emphasize this position in Romans 5:14-17:

“Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”                   Emphasis added

Paul repeats in 1 Cor. 15:21-22, 45:

“For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” “So also, it is written, ‘The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”                Emphasis added

Lastly, the half-brother of Jesus, the Apostle James, comments in James 1:15:

“Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”                                                                                                               Emphasis added

Clearly, these six categories and a thorough examination and analysis of the scriptural texts contradict any consideration of the Gap Theory (and any of the variants of the Gap Theory) being taken seriously. The Gap Theory is nothing more than a modern heresy composed in order to compromise the Bible by inserting evolutionary “Deep Time” into the text.

Any time that you compromise the Bible with an outside idea you degrade the Bible, reject biblical inerrancy, and force a non-biblical personal position into the text. Either the Bible is the inspired inerrant Word of God, or it is not.

Additional Problems to be Considered        

There are additional problems with the Gap theory that need to be addressed when doing a thorough study of its validity.

The Gap Theorists posit that the water covering the earth’s surface as described on Day One were not the waters of the initial creation, but instead are supposed to be a worldwide flood (Lucifer’s Flood) that destroyed the “first” earth that was than replaced by a “second” earth”. They then relegate Noah’s Flood to be only a minor local flood, like the thousands of local floods that occurred since that time, only about 4,350 years ago.

But, if we take the Bible as inerrant, and Noah’s Flood to be the actual worldwide flood of the entire earth, wouldn’t Noah’s Flood have erased all evidence of the “billions of years” taught in the Gap Theory?

If Lucifer’s Flood were true, and it destroyed everything including all the animals and plants that were inhabiting the “first” earth, then the prior animals and plants would have no relationship to the present animals and plants. Yet the prior animals and plants look surprisingly like the animals and plants that are alive today. This would require a belief (a faith position) in an exact duplication of a supposedly undirected random chance evolutionary lineage over eons of time. Such an event would stretch their belief system beyond credulity. 

The basic question that this brings to our minds is whether the “fossil record”, the fossils found in the ground, are the result of Lucifer’s Flood or Noah’s Flood?

Paul further expands his statement in Romans 5:12 and gives us a biblical commentary by writing Romans 5:14-17 and 1 Cor. 15:21-22, 45 (NASB):

“Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam [not before] until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one [not before] the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned [not before]; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression [not before] resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.”                                                                                                        [Emphasis added]

“For since by a man came death [not before], by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die [not before], so also in Christ all will be made alive. … So also, it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”                                                                                                                                  [Emphasis added]

A final tag line is given to us in James 1:15 (NASB):

“Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”                                                                                                            [Emphasis added]

Plants and animals cannot sin; therefore, their actions cannot bring death into the universe.

More problems

There are additional problems with the Gap Theory that many people do not take into consideration.

1. Wouldn’t Noah’s Flood have erased all evidence of the “billions of years” taught within the Gap Theory?

If all the animals and plants were destroyed prior to “Lucifer’s Flood,” they would have no biological relationship to the present-day animals and plants, yet they look like the animals and plants that are alive today.

This evolutionary concept is a totally random process. How could a second totally random process bring about such identical creatures? Surely such a belief would stretch the boundaries of credulity beyond the breaking point.

2. Is the “Fossil Record” the result of “Lucifer’s flood” or The Flood of Noah?     

Trillions of dead single cell organisms, plants, animals, and humans are found fossilized, mummified, and unfossilized within the dried-out mud, “sedimentary layers,” from flood water deposited materials. Everyone agrees with that statement. But which flood deposited them, Lucifer’s or Noah’s?

If they were deposited in “Lucifer’s Flood”, then Adam and Eve were walking on top of the evidence of death/destruction and that would not be very good. If the same evidence came from Noah’s Flood, then it would fit the description of an initial perfect world filled with perfect creatures that died later in a worldwide destruction called Noah’s Flood.

How can Day Six be “very good” if Adam and Eve are standing on a worldwide graveyard of trillions of dead things; a record of death, pain, cancer, killing, disease, suffering, and extinction?

3. It is not the character of the God of the Bible to use misfits, blind chance, and death.

He gets it right the first time! He is the One Who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies; He is the One Who fills and makes fruitful; He is the One Who pours out all sustenance and blessing upon us abundantly. He is the all-sufficient, self-sufficient, all bountiful, all-powerful, Almighty One!       

4. The “god” that would need to use evolution to create what we see around us would be cruel, wasteful, and deceitful.

Evolutionary theories propose that there is no god, no purpose, no outside intelligence influencing what goes in the universe. Evolutionists do worship a god called “Random Chance”.

In 43 B.C., Marcus Terentius Varro wrote De Lingua Latina (The Latin Language). In it he recorded the Latin proverb “canis caninam non est” or “a dog does not eat the flesh of a dog.” According to this proverb, even a dog has its limits.

An American author reversed this logic in an essay touting a mercantilist U.S. trade policy in The Examiner: Containing Political Essays on the Most Important Events of the Time; Public Laws and Official Documents, a historical journal published in United States, December 5, 1813. In his article he referred to our economic system as having become a “dog eat dog” world.

In 1850, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote his poem, In Memoriam A. H. H. He penned that nature was “red in tooth and claw”, referring to the bloody violent nature of predatory animals.

In their efforts to deny the existence of the Creator God and in order to denigrate the Christian faith, Charles Darwin used this terminology in “The Origins of the Species” in 1859, and Dr. Richard Dawkins used it in his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene”.

However, what appears to be cruelty in nature is not the result of millions of years of random mindless evolution. It is the result of a Creator that made a perfect creation and gave Man a perfect unbridled freewill. The imperfections that we see are the result of human sin.

The God revealed to us in the Bible is perfect in all respects. He is loving, kind, and gracious. He is not cruel and wishes that all of us would go to Heaven. He is not wasteful; He requires us to be good stewards of the resources that He provided for us. He wants us to be conservationists (not preservationists). Nor is He deceitful, He is not a man, He is the God who cannot lie.

It is only the disobedient sin of Adam that started a downward cycle of disease, destruction, and death.

5. The authors of Matthew, Luke, Hebrews, and 1 and 2 Peter refer to Noah as a real person.

Jesus descended from Adam through Noah (Luke 3:23-38).

If Jesus did not descend from Adam as a historical person, then how could Christ’s payment for all sins on the Cross apply to any of Adam’s descendants?

Jesus is our kinsman redeemer and that requires that we must have a family relationship with Him. In the future we are to be joint heirs with Him, but how could we be heirs without having a brother-sister relationship with Him?

6. Water seeks its own level and flows downhill.               

Those who desire to make Noah’s Flood a local flood and not a global flood have a serious problem with basic physics. Gravity keeps water level and makes it flow downhill. It would take a major miracle to keep a local flood going for a year, including but not limited to: replenishment of the water at just the right rate to maintain a consistent level; and, the fact that the fossils covering the earth were almost all water deposited.

If that supposed local Flood was located in the Middle East, the problem becomes even greater. The Golden Crescent is shaped like a long half bowl, with the open end pointed towards the Indian Ocean. Even if a local flood could somehow last for a year, when it drained, the Ark would have been carried toward the Indian Ocean - the opposite direction from the mountains of Ararat.

7. Did thistles and thorns exist in a perfect creation?

Genesis 3:17-18 tells us that thistles and thorns are the result of the curse given by God because of, and grew after, human sin occurred.

“Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field …” (NAS95)

Prior to human sin no thorns or thistles were growing and the ground was much more fertile than it would be afterward, especially after the Flood. But, if thistles and thorns had existed for millions of years, as evolutionists and old creation believers say, then human sin had nothing to do with their existence.

If human sin was not the cause of the curse with thistles and thorns growing, then when Adam left the Garden, the thistles and thorns would have already been there to meet him. Thus, the Scripture text negates the existence of them prior to human sin and the Fall.

Thistles and thorns came into existence as a degeneration of previously existing perfect plant parts. They are either branches that failed to develop as originally designed, or they are spines that are degenerate leaves that are tightly curled upon themselves. They are the result of post-Fall genetic mutations, the result of genetic entropy.

These mutations are representative of the truth declared in Romans 8:22.

“For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” (NAS95)

Genesis 1:30 clearly states that, like humans (Gen. 1:29), God gave only the green plants as food for all the animals. This statement is universal in its application.

However, when we examine the sedimentary rock layers, we find that they contain the fossils of animals eating one another and eating plants. Some of the plant fossils have thistles and thorns. These sedimentary layers must be the result of the Flood and cannot represent the flora and fauna of the pre-Fall world.

Is. 11:6-9 describes the appearance of the creation after the restoration to perfection, that time when the effects of sin no longer corrupts the universe. There will be no more hurt, no more pain, and no more destruction. In the beginning there were no thistles nor thorns, and there is coming a time when thistles and thorns will be no more.

8. Does the Gap Theory take into account its affect, if any, on alien life forms?

God created humans in His “image”. We are the only creature in the universe made in the image of God. God gave mankind dominion and rulership over the earthly creation (Genesis 1:26-28). God did not create any alien life form in His image. When Adam fell the entire creation was cursed (Romans 8:18-23). If they existed (which the Bible clearly declares that they do not) then logically wouldn’t the curse have included the Vulcan, Romulan, and Klingon home worlds?

The whole creation will be redeemed because God took on human nature in the Incarnation of Christ, specifically the descendants of Abraham (Hebrews 2:14). Christ became our kinsman-redeemer (Isaiah 59:20), a fellow descendant of Adam, not of any alien lifeform. Jesus never took on any Vulcan, Romulan, nor Klingon nature.

All the redeemed people will be one bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33; Rev. 19:7-9), Christ will be monogamous, with only a human bride, not polygamous with Vulcan, Romulan, and Klingon brides as well.

As we conclude our study of the unacceptability of The Gap Theory, or any other old earth/universe compromise being applied to the Bible, it is appropriate to consider one more question.

It is a question that I am frequently asked: When did Satan fall to the earth?

While it is not a salvation issue question, it is a highly significant question when addressing the age of the earth/universe, the amount of time since the creation occurred, and when did sin start the deterioration of the entire creation.

Everything in the seen and unseen universe was created in six real days as we experience today. Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:8 - 11; Is. 42:5, 44:24, 45:12; John 1:3; Col. 1:16

God created the Heavens (shamayim), this includes the supernatural realm, and the earth on Day One. Gen. 1:1 Satan was created righteous on Day One. Ez. 28:12-15

The Garden was created on Day Six. God had created the Garden on Day Six. After creating Adam, the next thing that God created was work. God placed Adam in the Garden, God planted the Garden in order to show Adam what work was, and then told Adam to do the same thing.  Genesis 2:8

Satan became unrighteous and was cast down to The Garden after the Creation Week. Ez. 28:15-17 The creation was complete at the end of Day Six, and God declared that it was all “very (meh-ode' = vehemently) good.” A fallen Satan could not have existed in The Garden and God describe it as “very good.”

Angels were created on Day One, and they were created in order to be “ministering spirits sent forth to minister.” (“leitourgikos pneuma apostello eis diakonia”) Matt. 18:10 and Heb. 1:14

Angels were originally intended to be ministering spirits to them who shall be heirs of salvation. Why would God create such “ministering spirits” millions of supposed years before Man? The truth is that that there were no angels prior to Day One, because nothing physical or supernatural existed prior to Day One except the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Human sin does not occur until Genesis Chapter 3. After God performs the first marriage, He “rests” on Day Seven, not because He was tired, but to give us a template by which we are to live our lives. Through Day Seven, everything is perfect, without flaw or blemish.

Was Satan the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) when God gave Adam dominion over the earth? Gen. 1:26-30 the answer is obviously no.

God gave Adam the responsibility to fill, to subdue, and to rule over the earth. Adam was the final authority, the king of the earth, responsible to administer God’s Law on the earth. Adam forfeited his role to Satan when he sinned.

God created Adam and Eve to voluntarily worship Him and to propagate. Until sin entered into the universe, in order to perfectly fulfill God’s command, Eve would have conceived within about two weeks after the Creation Week ended.

No child could be born perfect, sinless, except Jesus Christ. Therefore, Adam had to sin and the universe had to become imperfect within the first two weeks following the completion of the Creation Week in order for his offspring to be able to inherit the Adamic Nature.

Anyone attempting to defend an Old Earth/Universe view and trying to insert billions of years into the Bible by believing in the Gap Theory, Day-Age Theory, Allegory Theory, Framework Theory, or any other deep time theory is doing serious damage to the biblical record, is ignorant to the facts, biblical and scientific, and has a weak faith.

We need to be equipped, ready to lovingly teach them the truth!