Genesis 1

Genesis 1 Age of the Earth. THE AGE of the earth is a profound secret hidden in 1. the depth of the eternal ages and known only to Almighty God. The Bible does not give the date of creation nor does it suggest anything which will enable us to ascertain this date. Some have erroneously stated, "The first chapter of Genesis says the earth was created about six or seven thousand ,years ago," while the first chapter of Genesis says no such thing. Granting that the events of the six days of Genesis 1 occurred six thousand years ago, we are still face to face with the fact that the heavens and the earth were not created on the first--nor any other--of these days. The heavens and the earth were created before the first day. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). How long this was before the first day which begins in Genesis 1:3 no one knows. Do some suppose that the earth had existed for millions of years? Certainly it did not exist before the beginning and that is when Moses said it was created. If it took millions of years for beds of coal to form and if our crude oil has been "mellowed 100 million years," Genesis 1 is still correct. It should be borne in mind, however, that God could have created these things instantly and He may have done so. No man knows whether the earth was created a billion years before the first day of Genesis 1 or whether it was created ten seconds before. We do know that "IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED the heavens and the earth." "He spake and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast" (Psalms 33:9).

First Condition of the Earth.

Moses tells us (Genesis 1:2) that "the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep." This is evidently not its original condition but its condition just before God "made," reconstituted or renewed the earth and prepared it as a dwelling place for man during the six days of Genesis 1.

"As to what the condition of the earth was when it was first created, what were its inhabitants, if any, during that remote period, the Bible furnishes but little information, as such matters have necessarily only an indirect bearing upon God’s revelation to man." (Sidney Collet, All About the Bible, p. 250.) Robert Milligan says,

"When this beginning (of Genesis 1) was, or how long it occurred before the Adamic epoch, we have no means of ascertaining with any high degree of certainty. But geology makes it quite probable, if not indeed absolutely certain, that it occurred many ages previous to the historic period; and moreover, that during these intervening ages, many distinct orders of vegetables and animals were created and destroyed at the beginning and close of each geological formation....But these matters have no direct connection with the Scheme of Redemption. And hence it is that Moses passes over them all in silence, and simply notices in the second verse of his narrative, the chaotic state of the earth after the last great cataclysm that occurred shortly before the first day of the Adamic era." (Scheme of Redemption, pp. 24-25.)

Some verses of scriptures indicate that the earth was created fair and beautiful beyond our highest imagination. Isaiah 45:18 says, "Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth, He created it not in vain." The word translated "in vain" is exactly the same as that translated "without form" in Genesis 1:2 and the Revised Version translates it "waste" in both places; hence God created the earth "not in vain," "not waste," "not void."

Job 38:4-7 tells us that when God first laid "the foundations of the earth" conditions were such that "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy" indicating the perfection and completeness of the work of creation. Some have suggested that the Hebrew word for creation "implies that the creation was a perfect work, in perfect and beautiful order." The words translated "The earth was without form and void" (Genesis 1:2) might equally well be translated "The earth became waste and void" implying as stated in Isaiah 45:18 that it had not always been that way, just as we read in Genesis 19:26 Lot’s wife "became a pillar of salt". The words are the same in the original. Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible translates the passage "Now the earth had become waste..." The Authorized Version says, "without form and void"; the American Revised, "waste and void"; the Chaldee Version, "But the earth had become desert and empty"; the Aramaic, "And the earth had become ruined and uninhabited"; and the Vulgate says, "dreary and empty."

First Inhabitants of the Earth. The length of the period (or periods) before the first day of Genesis 1 and the inhabitants of the earth (if any) is largely a matter of conjecture. These matters can have no bearing on the scheme of redemption as presented in the Bible, hence its writers do not discuss them.

There are scriptures which have led some to conclude that our earth was once the abode of Satan and his angels in their unfallen condition; that they had bodies of some sort and were fair to behold but that Satan led a rebellion against God and His power and God destroyed the earth until it "was waste and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep," that these angels of Satan were cast down and "reserved in chains until judgment." The scriptures used to support this theory are given here. The expressions translated "waste" and "void" in Genesis 1:2 occur together in only two other places in the Bible Isaiah 34:11 translated "confusion" and "emptiness" and Jeremiah 4:23 --and in both places they are used in connection with the judgment of God on account of sin.

Satan is called "the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), "the prince of this world" (John 12:31), "the prince of the power of the air," (Ephesians 2:2), and in tempting Christ he laid claim to the kingdoms of this world (Luke 4:5-8). The prophecy of Ezekiel 28:12-19 may be a glimpse of Satan under the titles of "King of Tyrus" (ver. 12) and "the anointed cherub" (ver. 14) when he in his pristine glory was set upon "the holy mountain of God" "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty" (ver. 12). These words would hardly be applied to any man. Afterward in his "iniquity" (ver. 15) "slander" and "pride" (ver. 17) he was "cast out" (ver. 16). The expression "cast out" was frequently used in connection with evil spirits. "How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer, son of the morning!" (Isaiah 14:12)

If this be the meaning of that prophecy, then it is clear why the sin of pride, haughtiness and arrogance is especially detestable in the sight of God. "Pride, arrogancy and the evil way--do I hate." (Proverbs 8:13). Pride is especially called "the condemnation of the devil" (1 Timothy 3:6). Again, "Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). The pre-Adamic destruction of the earth and heavenly bodies seems to be vividly described in Job 9:4-7, "He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength; who hath hardened himself against Him and hath prospered? Which removeth the mountains and they know not: which overturneth them in His anger. Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars."

If the sun "riseth not" and the stars are sealed up, then naturally the earth "became waste and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The withdrawal of the light of the sun would, within two days, bring down every atom of moisture from the air in deluges of rain and piles of snow. A universal frost would cover the earth and the temperature would reach two or three hundred degrees below zero. All life and probably even that within the germs of seeds would quickly be destroyed. This seems to have been the condition of the earth when we have it first presented to us in Genesis 1. It was "waste and void," perhaps a great ice age gripped it and "darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Earth Prepared for Man. At the end of Genesis 1:2 the reconstitution (erroneously called the creation) of the earth begins. Man and all living creatures were created (Genesis 1:21) but the earth, created perhaps ages before, was now renewed as we read in Psalms 104:30, "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, and they (all living creatures) are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth."

There is a vast difference between the words "create" and "make." "To create" is to make something which did not previously exist while "to make" implies the forming from existing materials. A tailor makes a coat but he does not create the coat. The Hebrew word "bahrah" means absolute creation while the Hebrew word "ahsah" simply means to make from something already in existence. These are the words used in Genesis 1. "In the beginning God created (bahrah) the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). "In six days the Lord made (ahsah) heaven and earth" (Exodus 20:11). In Genesis 2:2 we read "On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made (ahsah) and He rested from His work which He had made (ahsah) and He rested on the seventh day from His work which He had made (ahsah)." On the fourth day God caused the sun, moon and stars to appear in the heavens and made (ahsah) them our timekeepers. There is nothing in the text to indicate that they were just then created. Doubtless they had existed from the beginning as had the earth but were just now made to be our chronometers. No statement of this matter can be more conclusive than Genesis 2:3 where we read, "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Here we have both words in the same verse.

All the arguments against and attacks on the scriptures based on the time required for the formation of coal and the fossil remains of animals which may have lived on the earth in pre-Adamic times mean nothing even if we accept as correct the far-fetched guesses of pseudo-scientists who sometimes differ as much as a hundred million years about the age of some particular fossil which has been dug up.

It should also be borne continually in mind that an Almighty God who could create Adam full-grown could instantly create a full-grown bed of coal. The Christ who turned water into wine (John 2) and provided bread for the people in a moment (John 6) also created all things (John 1:1) and He could have done it instantly. The "Days" of Genesis 1. The seven days mentioned in Genesis 1 : Were they natural solar days of twenty-four hours each or were they long periods corresponding to millions of years of our time? The word "day" is sometimes used to mean a period of time as "In the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens" (Genesis 2:4) and "The day of temptation in the wilderness" (Psalms 95:8). We speak of the day of prosperity. The Hebrew word for "day" is "yom" and in the Authorized Version of the English Bible is translated more than 1100 times as "day", 67 times as "time", 30 times as "today", 18 times as "forever", 10 times as "continually", 6 times as "age", 4 times as "life", and 2 times as "perpetually". From this it appears that no one would be able to tell from the word "day" (yom) itself how long Moses intended to say each period was. That the days mentioned by Moses were ordinary solar days of approximately twenty-four hours each is obvious for many reasons. In the first place, these days were half darkness and half light. What other kind of days have ever been thus? (Let it not be objected that the sun and moon were not made until the fourth day as light was brought into existence on the first day and may exist quite independently of the sun.) When a definite number precedes the word "yom" or "day" in scripture a solar day is always meant--never a long period. There were one hundred and fifty days of the flood (Genesis 8:3), forty days the spies were gone (Number 13:25) three days Jonah was in the belly of the fish (Jonah 1:17), and our Lord was seen after His resurrection forty days (Acts 1:3), and the Lord made heaven and earth in six days (Exodus 20:11). On the third day of Genesis the grass, trees and shrubs were created. If this day was a "long period, perhaps millions of years" how do these things live in darkness for half that period?

God himself settles this question in Exodus 20:8-11, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do thy work but the seventh is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God...for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it." God gave the Jews the seventh day to keep as a sabbath; the original sabbath on which God rested was typical of this, hence both were twenty-four hour days.

(The objection is brought that "God is still resting in His sabbath" but Jesus said, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work (John 5:17). That God "rested" did not imply that He was tired but that He finished the work of Genesis 1 and hence "rested" from it. "God rested on the seventh day" (Genesis 2:2). "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested" (Genesis 2:3). "God did rest the seventh day" (Hebrews 4:4). God’s period of rest on the seventh day had already closed when He blessed that day and gave it to Israel as a sabbath.) The day mentioned in Genesis 1 had "evening and morning". The Jews still count time after this fashion, the day beginning at six in the evening, hence each day consists of "evening and morning".

Finally, whoever thought in the first place that it was necessary for God to have long periods of time to do the work which Moses says He did in six days? It seems clear to me that the days of Genesis 1 were solar days of approximately twenty-four hours each.

Conclusion. From this brief study we are led to conclude that Genesis 1 is scientifically accurate and, therefore, ought to be accepted as God’s word.