Theistic Evolution Part 1

Introduction

Greetings...

Throughout time people have striven to combine worldly ideology with theology.

Darwin’s evolution & evolution in general has been one of those areas wherein the world has sought to discredit God & His Word for years.

Unfortunately, those in the world have been so loud that many, even in the Lord’s church, have believed the lie of evolution and instead of teaching against such blatantly false science they have combined “evolution and the Bible” in an attempted to harmonize the two.

This combination is called “Theistic Evolution.”

Theistic evolution’s rise in the church.

One of the reason this has become so popular is because those that claim evolution is true have bullied their way to the top of the “so called scientific community” and present themselves as intellectually elite.

Richard Dawkins once wrote, “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to be believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”

First, those that claim evolution is true have bullied their way to the top of the “so called scientific community” and present themselves as intellectually elite.

The second reason this has become so popular, in the church particularly, is because we have been less studied in God’s Word.

The Word of God clearly explains the creation of the universe in six days and clearly demonstrates the earth is relatively young and cannot be billions of years old but rather less than 10,000 years old.

Two major theistic evolutionary doctrines.

Gap Theory

Other names include “Ruin & Reconstruction Theory; Pre-Adamic Cataclysm Theory; Restitution Theory.”

Day Age Theory

Though this theory has fallen drastically out of popularity over the years there are still some in the church that hold to this as well and thus we will study it next week.

With this in mind let’s look at our lesson today.

Gap Theory

Is gap theory even popular?

Yes, because it has become the vogue topic in the science departments in our Universities.

Harding has a mural of evolution on their main wall in the science department, OK Christian teaches this, the former chairman of the Bible department at Abilene, J.D. Thomas once stated “no man can prove that it is not true, at least in part.”

This doesn’t include “Christendom” as a whole and the move that has been pushed in this direction there.

One of the reason it has become so popular in the church is simply ignorance in both the fields of science and

What is gap theory?

Gap theory is found in two basic forms now.

The first states God created everything perfect in the beginning of time which when on for billions of years allowing development of the universe which includes the pre-Adamic people.

Then, right before comes into play Satan was thrown down to earth and started causing trouble for all of God’s creation including the pre-Adamic people.

Gap theory is the idea that God created everything perfect in the beginning of time which when on for billions of years allowing development of the universe.

Then, right before comes into play Satan was thrown down to earth and started causing trouble.

This caused God to destroy the earth and “start over” or “remake” the earth which is recorded from Genesis 1:2ff.

Some have “pre-adamic people” some don’t

Others state God created the universe and simply allowed evolution to take place over billions of years but some catastrophic event caused God to “remake” the earth as seen in .

They do not think there were pre-Adamic people before the event or that Satan was the reason for the catastrophic event but rather it was a natural event.

Gap theory submits five basic beliefs.

They suggest that the Hebrew word “bara” used in must mean “to create” while the Hebrew word “asah,” , , , means “to make.”

In other words “bara” is for creating from nothing where as “asah” is making from the already created.

They suggest that the Hebrew verb “hayetha,” translated “was” in , means became or had become.

This is required for there to be any attempt at a Gap between and .

They suggest that the phrase “without form and void” can refer only to something once in a state of repair, but now ruined.

This is typically related to the fall of Satan as is assumed read in & .

They suggest that which reads “God did not create it in vain (NKJV) or empty (ESV) uses the same word for “without form” in .

They say this indicates that the earth was not empty but destroyed.

Most suggest, though a some don’t, that there was a pre-Adamic creation of both non-human and human forms.

This is used to account for the supposed fossil records of humans evolution.

Summery

So basically God created the universe to come about through evolutionary means and all that took place between the gap of and .

Refuting The Gap Theory

The words bara & asah are not synonyms?

Remember they suggest the word “bara” means to create from nothing and “asah” means remake or make from that which has already been created.

This all falls apart if we can demonstrate God uses the terms synonymously with creation.

God states He created “bara” the universe and the things in it which included the angels in , however in Nehemiah we read of God making “asah” the same angels and other creation.

Psalm 148:1–5 ESV

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 2 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! 3 Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! 4 Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! 5 Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created.

Nehemiah 9:6 ESV

6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

Gap theory here is destroyed in .

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 2:4 ESV

4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

God “bara” the heavens and earth and “asah” the earth and heavens.

The Hebrew word “hayetha” means became?

There is no doubt this word can mean “became” or similar as seen in the little over 267 times it’s translated this way out of 3,501 times it is found in the Old Testament.

There is no doubt this word can mean “became” or similar as seen in the little over 267 times it’s translated this way out of 3,501 times it is found in the Old Testament.

This is without dispute.

However, context means everything and out of 50 different translations I had each one had the word “was” not became.

Would you rather believe the likely hundreds of translators or the few that just want this to be true?

The earth was in need of repair?

This is based on several misunderstandings of Scripture.

There is no evidence that or is dealing with Satan.

First neither state they are talking about Satan, Isaiah says it is talking about the king of Babylon and Ezekiel says it is talking about the king of Tyre.

Second both of these are assumptions are based on what is read in wherein we see “Satan fall” but if you look at the context this fall happens after Jesus’ ascention from earth back to heaven ().

There is simply no evidence that Satan fell from heaven and God destroyed the earth because of this.

Also it was the sin of Adam and Eve that brought sin into the world and destroyed it’s perfection not Satan.

Romans 5:12 ESV

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Rom

Isaiah proves God did not create the earth “without form?”

This is based on wherein the Bible reads...

Isaiah 45:18 ESV

18 For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Once again all this proves is that God created the earth to be inhabited not remade it to be inhabited.

If gap theory is true God messed up and allowed some catastrophe to destroy the earth and stop his plans.

Adam was not the first human on earth?

This is simply stated by most, but not all gap theorist, because they believe the fossil record demonstrates this and they cannot find this reality in anywhere stated.

However, the Bible is clear that Adam was indeed the first man on earth.

1 Corinthians 15:45 ESV

45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Summery

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Conclusion

Invitation

Isaiah 59:1–2 ESV

1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Philippians 2:6–7 ESV

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.