Creation Issues I - Young Earth

Creation Issues I – Young Earth

Hilltop Bible Chapel

July 31, 2005

1. Introduction
1. Interpretation of biblical creation account controversial, even among conservative scholars
2. Will read the account in Genesis 1-2
3. Then look at 2 specific issues

                                                    i.     New-earth vs old earth

                                                  ii.     The form of the pre-flood earth

1. Gen 1.1 – 2.3 - 1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And 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. 3 ¶  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6 ¶  And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8  And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 ¶  And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10  And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11  And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12  And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13  And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 ¶  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15  And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17  And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18  And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19  And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20 ¶  And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21  And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22  And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23  And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 ¶  And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25  And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26 ¶  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29 ¶  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30  And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 ¶  And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 1 ¶  Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2  And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3  And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
2. Time span of creation
1. Introduction

                                                    i.     Questions arise largely out of modern science

1.     Traditional geology/archeology suggests millions/billions of years as the age of the earth

2.     Darwin’s theory of evolution

3.     Various attempts made to accommodate these

                                                  ii.     Lead to 3 major explanations for the creation story, two of which attempt to fit modern “science” into the Genesis account

1.     “Day-age” theory

2.     “Gap” theory

3.     “Young earth” theory

                                                iii.     Will look briefly at each of these

1. Day-age theory

                                                    i.     Proposes that the 6 days of creation are not 6 literal 24-hour days but much longer, “ages”

                                                  ii.     Popular among many modern writers – Merrill Unger (author of several commentaries), Kenneth Taylor (translator of  “The Living Bible”)

                                                iii.     Mainly based on biblical usage of Hebrew word “Yom” (translated “day”)

1.     12-hour day (as distinguished from night)

2.     24-hour day – these 2 usages 2008 occurrences

3.     As a year – 24 occurrences

4.     As a general reference to “time” – 65 occurrences

5.     “Continually” – 10 times: 1Sa 18.29 - And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David’s enemy continually.

6.     A few times as other indefinite lengths of time

7.     Other scripture references to days as something else - 2Pe 3.8 - But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

                                                iv.     Problems with this approach

1.     Creation “days” all modified by the phrase “evening and morning” which limits meaning to 24 hours. This is by far the biggest problem

2.     Plants created on day 3, yet the sun not until day 4. Would plants have survived for eons in the dark?

3.     Adam created on day 6. If days are ages, day 7 would be an age (which he lived through). Yet his age at death is stated as 930 years (Ge 5.5)

4.     Mt 19.4 - And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

a.      Jesus spoke of Adam & Eve being created “at the beginning”

b.     Is it the beginning if 5 long ages had passed by then?

                                                  v.     Biblically this approach doesn’t make good sense

1. The “gap” or “ruin-reconstruction” theory                                                     i.     Suggests that the earth was

1.     Created perfect in Ge 1.1

2.     Then destroyed and left waste by Satan sometime between Ge 1.1 and 1.2

3.     Then ultimately “re-created” by God in 6 literal days starting in Ge 1.3.

4.     The geologic ages, including dinosaur fossils etc, are placed into this gap

                                                  ii.     Supported by many conservative commentators

1.     Scofield reference bible notes promote this idea

a.      Old Scofield has notes at Ge 1.2, 1.11

b.     New Scofield I think has one at Is 45.16

2.     William MacDonald, J Vernon McGee & others

3.     Early assembly fathers – FW Grant, William Kelly both wrote on this subject (essays in the “Serious Christian” book series

                                                iii.     Scriptural basis

1.     2Pe 3.5-7 - For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6  Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7  But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

a.       Suggests that the earth was overflowed with water and perished, before the heavens and earth which now exist were created

2.     Is 45.18 - For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

a.      Used to support the concept that God didn’t create chaos, so it had to come later

b.     Therefore the formlessness in Ge 1.2 is the result of a judgment brought by God

3.     Other support – 2 passages relating to the fall and casting down of Satan from heaven

a.      Is 14.12-15 – How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

b.     Ezek 28.11-17 – Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 12  Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14  Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15  Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16  By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17  Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

c.      Additional arguments revolve around the Hebrew words used in Ge 1

                                                                                                                i.     “bara” for “create” in Ge 1.1, 21, 27

                                                                                                              ii.     “asah” for “made”, “yielded” in the rest of the chapter

                                                                                                            iii.     Theory tries to make a distinction between these, with the 1st referring to the original creation and the 2nd to the “re-creation”

                                                iv.     Problems with this approach

1.     Neh 9.6 - Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

a.      This passage uses the Hebrew word “asah” in reference to the initial creation

b.     Therefore the attempt to make meaning distinctions is invalid

2.     Bible says elsewhere that God created “everything” in 6 days” - Ex 20.11 - For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

3.     Requires there to be death and destruction in the earth before Adam’s fall, which isn’t Scripturally valid:

a.      Ro 5.12 - 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:

b.     1Co 15.22 - For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

c.      Geologic record shows evidence of death, including that of human-like creatures e.g. Neanderthals & others

d.     There were carnivorous animals then as well, in defiance of Ge 1.28-29, which show that animals were made to be herbivores

e.      All this seriously undermines the Gospel

4.     Requires explaining that

a.      All the geologic evidence of a worldwide flood pertains to “Lucifer’s flood”

b.     Noah’s flood either left no trace or was a local event; Ge 6-8 repeatedly refers to it as a worldwide event

                                                  v.     While this theory has held sway in evangelical circles for nearly 200 years, it has serious problems & may well not be correct

1. The “Young-earth” theory                                                     i.     Proposes that –

1.     Genesis 1 was a continuous uninterrupted event that was completed in 6 literal 24-hour days

2.     The chronology outlined later in Genesis also was literal according to our current calendar, making the current age of the earth around 6000 years

                                                  ii.     Support

1.     Allows for literal interpretation of everything in Scripture

2.     Doesn’t require the complicated linguistic and grammatical gyrations common to the other two theories

                                                iii.     Problems

1.     “The fossil record doesn’t support a young earth”

a.      Many recent observations (e.g. Mt St Helens) have shown rock formations, once thought to take a long time to be deposited, can actually be laid down in a single day

b.     Numerous instances of human footprints/remains being found in the same rock beds as fossils of animals presumed to be extinct long ago

c.      A catastrophic flood could both lay down and erode large rock formations very quickly

d.     Several instances of finding living specimens of creatures thought to be long extinct

2.     “Radiometric dating doesn’t support a young earth”

a.      Actually could spend a whole session on this

b.     Based on unproven assumptions about initial concentration of radioisotopes in newly formed rocks

c.      Multiple instances of rocks known to be recently formed, being dated as a billion or more years old

3.     “It violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics”

a.      Chemists call this “entropy”; basically says that energy flows from hot to cold bodies, and that, IF UNDISTURBED, systems tend to become more disorganized with time

b.     Amazing to hear evolutionists claim this, as evolution is the classic example of the 2nd law being violated!

c.      Some young-earth advocates say this didn’t begin until the fall of Adam; if so, how could the sun shine, food be digested etc?

                                                                                                                i.     Earth wasn’t a closed system during this time; God was constantly injecting new energy into it with His creative efforts

                                                                                                              ii.     DEATH wasn’t present until after the fall; nothing in the Bible says the other elements of entropy could not be present

                                                                                                            iii.     God is in control; he can start and stop things whenever he wants!

4.     “Doesn’t account for evolution”

a.      Evolution a theory, not proven fact

b.     So what?

                                                iv.     The best explanation, supported both by Scripture and an increasing body of scientific data

1. So why is this even important?
1. Any interpretation other than the literal 6 day creation casts portions of Scripture into doubt #. Inerrancy of the Bible is one of the foundational truths of Christianity – without it there is no reliable Gospel and no assurance of salvation
2. Conclusion
1. The young-earth theory is the one best supported by both Scriptural and scientific evidences
2. Other theories were derived to provide a basis for mingling geology/evolution and the Bible. So who REALLY wants to conform the Bible to evolution? Ask the question this way, and it answers itself, at least for Bible-believing Christians
3. I had wanted to talk about what the earth was like between creation & the flood but obviously no time today