Young Earth??
According to a rabid and well-financed group of biblical illiterates, the entire universe is only 6,000 years old. They claim that God created the entire universe in a “mature” state that only appears to seem much older than it actually is.
These so-called “Young Earth Creationists” (“Y.E.C.”) are mostly saved, well-meaning Christians, but they have no idea what they are talking about.
They are blind to biblical revelation because they have arrogantly become destructive critics who attack and alter the King James Bible whenever it suits them. When the Holy Bible kicks over their nutty notion that the universe is only 6,000 years old, the YEC’s do exactly what any God-defying atheist would do: they ignore and change the words of the Holy Bible and re-write them according to their own fancy.
Billions of years??
Of course, the so-called “scientists” have their own wicked agenda for pretending the universe is “billions” of years old. The older they can age the universe, the more time they have to imagine that their “evolution” myth occurred.
For example, the astronomers tell us that starlight from remote stars takes “billions of years” to reach planet earth. Yet when it comes to stars visible to the naked eye, the astronomers are forced to admit that the farthest ones we can see are probably only about 4,000 light years away! However all their calculations assume the theory that the speed of light is constant – a notion that has been disproved (to the utter shock and bewilderment of the “scientists”).
So the astronomers have only been guessing all along. It would be extremely foolhardy to assume that the universe is truly “billions” of years old in reliance upon their guesswork.
The Bible-believer can safely ignore both NASA and the YEC’s – we simply trust what the Holy Bible has to say on the matter as final authority. On the one hand we take it for granted that it is not possible that science would disprove the word of God; and on the other hand we do not box ourselves into a “6,000 year old universe” without checking carefully whether the Bible really says such a thing.
We do not scorn YEC-ism out of any misplaced reverence for “science” – but rather for their eager willingness to sacrifice fidelity to the Holy Bible in order to uphold their traditions. For that reason only we justly label them a bunch of Bible illiterates.
The Gap is a Fact.
The great nemesis of the YEC crowd is what they like to call “the Gap Theory.” Unfortunately for them, it isn’t a theory – it’s an unavoidable fact for anyone who simply believes the King James Bible as written and uses basic reading comprehension skills. In other words, the gap is a plain fact to any bible believer with a brain. Since they can’t see it, the YEC’s obviously don’t qualify in that regard.
The gap is a lacuna of unrecorded history that elapses between verse 1 and verse 2 of Genesis chapter one, as follows:
1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[... Time-gap ...]
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.
And then …
Nearly every verse in the first chapter of Genesis is sequential – the verse that comes next also comes next in time after the verse before it. This is apparent because almost all of them start with the word, “And.”
2 And the earth was without form…
3 And God said…
4 And God saw…
5 And God called…
6 And God said…
7 And God made…
8 And God called…
9 And God said…
10 And God called…
11 And God said….
12 And the earth brought forth…
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said…
16 And God made…
17 And God set…
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said…
21 And God created…
22 And God blessed them…
24 And God said…
25 And God made…
26 And God said…
28 And God blessed…
29 And God said…
30 And to every beast …
31 And God saw …
In the context of this chapter it is absolutely ridiculous to claim that verse 2, which begins with the word “And,” does not follow in time after verse 1.
But that is what the YEC people claim. They think verse 1 is a summary verse, and that verse 2 rewinds back to the beginning of time in verse 1 all over again and restates how God began to create the worlds. This notion is absolutely untenable and shows an utter disregard for the context and diction.
Out of Choas?
By misplacing verse 2 back to the beginning of time, the hapless YEC’s promote the pagan idea that the world was created out of chaos. This was the concept of the spiritually blind philosophers in ancient times and has absolutely nothing to do with the revealed nature of the God of the Bible. Our God’s creation does not exist in an original state made by him as dark, formless, and void. Rather, that is clearly the state of judgment – where God has absented his light, his beauty, his abundance.
Jeremiah describes what the land is like after God’s wrath has passed upon it:
“I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.” Jeremiah 4:23.
Hello? Sound familiar? The YEC folks think a black world without form is how God starts to create – when clearly the scriptures show us that it is how God destroys what he has made because of judgment.
How ignorant and blasphemous of these people to accuse God of pouring unjust wrath upon a pristine creation.
The Devil and the Deep
So what happened during the gap to make the world that God originally created into a formless and void wasteland covered with water? And when did the devil get created and when did he fall? And when and where did hell get created?
The YEC people can’t answer the questions.
Replenish the Earth
Here is where the YEC tips his hand as a rank heretic. The bible says Adam was to “replenish” the earth – plainly indicating that it had been full of life previous to Adam:
“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.” Genesis 1:28
Created and Made
The word “created” is used in the first verse to indicate an original creation that is produced from scratch for the first time. The word “created” is not the same as “made.” We know they are different because they are not the same – and things that are not the same are different. Got it?
(There is no YEC that gets that because they have no respect for the fact that God translated the Bible into English in 1611 with the Authorized Version. The average YEC imagines that he is the fourth member of the Trinity and able to interpret in English for himself what God meant in Hebrew. Such is the boundless hubris of the YEC and why God shows them nothing.)
God “created” the universe in Genesis 1:1, and in Genesis 1:2 he began for six days and “made” them again.
That is why it elsewhere says,
” “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.” Exodus 20:11.
God “created” the heaven and the earth in ancient times, but he “made” them in six days starting in Genesis 1:2.
[Next: The gap as explained by 2 Peter 3:6]
to be continued…
Posted on December 14, 2012