Order in the Court of the King! (Creation Or Evolution? 1)

Grace Thoughts

Order in the Court of the King! (Creation or Evolution? 1)

Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Medraws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. John 6:43-45

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. John 16:7-8

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in Hiskindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:1-9

I am under no allusions about the fact that God saved me without any help from me. I am thankful that I had no part in it because I would have messed it up. People who are ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ do that, you know – mess up. I’m glad Jesus Christ established an ‘orderly’ system for salvation based on, ‘by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone.’

I want to make that clear so you don’t misunderstand the points I’m about to share. I take no credit for my salvation. It was all of God. I ‘boast’ in Him and Him alone.

On Challenging God

It seems like just yesterday. I was live on air challenging God to ‘prove’ He existed. I challenged God to sit across a table from me and let me interview Him on live radio. I waited several seconds, but nothing happened. God didn’t appear. As an arrogant, mocking atheist radio talk show host, I laughed and said maybe God was sick or on vacation. What I didn’t know was that He was with me in the radio control room and heard my challenge. I also didn’t know that He loved me with an ‘everlasting’ love. He accepted my challenge, but His way of responding wasn’t what I expected.

Months later I interviewed a scientist who was in town to speak at a local church about leading a group of scientists to Mt. Ararat to search for Noah’s Ark. I thought it would be a good laugh to have him on my show. What I didn’t know was that God was answering my earlier challenge that day. The scientist was a leader in the ‘Creation Science’ movement.

Dr. Henry Morris had earned degrees from Rice University in Houston, Texas with a BS in Civil Engineering, and the University of Minnesota with an MS in Hydraulics and a Ph.D. in Hydraulic Engineering. He was a professor and Chair of Civil Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University, and Department Chair of Civil Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). In 1961, Dr. Morris worked with Dr. John C. Whitcomb, an Old Testament expert, to publish The Genesis Flood. They used data from several scientific disciplines (e.g. geology, archaeology, and hydrology) to demonstrate that they believed science supported the biblical record of the worldwide Flood in Genesis.

Dr. Morris answered questions from an atheist (me) with kindness, patience, and the kind of detail that was truly impressive. God touched my mind that day in a way that no one ever had before. That caused a small crack in my ‘atheist armor.’ That crack grew larger as I investigated the scientific answers Dr. Morris had given to my questions, plus other information I found and confirmed.

God met me again when I had an evangelist on my radio program, and through him met an expert in Old Testament archeology. I wanted to know if God existed, if the Bible was a credible historical document, and if Jesus of Nazareth had actually lived, died, and risen from the dead. By the time my investigation was completed, the evangelist introduced me to the God I had challenged. I became a believer.

As I wrote earlier, I am under no allusions about any part I played in my salvation. All I did was challenge God to meet with me. I didn’t believe God existed, so I never expected Him to show up. Show up He did, and I am so glad He did.

Creation

Did I mention that as an atheist I believed in ‘evolution?’ Makes sense. No God, no Creation. I had been taught ‘evolution as fact’ since I started attending public schools. Evolution was the way people viewed things in the 1950s and 60s when I was in various public schools and college. To suddenly learn that God existed and had created the ‘heavens and the earth’ was quite a surprise to me. I was also surprised that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, had made ‘all things,’ and that without Him ‘nothing was made that was made’ (John 1:3).

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. Colossians 1:15-18

So, imagine my surprise after becoming a Christian to meet Christians who didn’t believe in ‘direct creation.’ By that I mean they didn’t believe God spoke matter into existence. They believed God got things started (somehow), then looked on as matter and life ‘evolved.’ What? How could a Christian who had read the same Bible I had read say they believed in evolution instead of Creation? No wonder God sent a Creationist for me to interview. If I had interviewed a Christian who was an evolutionist like me, how would that have put a crack in my armor as an atheist? It would have demonstrated to me that Christians believed what I believed – except they believed in the existence of God. Okay, but where’s the evidence if things just evolved? I know God saves people in any way He wants. I’m just sharing from my perspective. An evolutionist wasn’t who I needed to talk with. I needed someone who knew science and the Bible, and that’s who God sent me.

Direct Creation

I want to spend a few minutes on ‘direct creation’ because it will help share my perspective as a young Christian (and now as an older believer). What I mean by the word ‘direct’ is that God created space, time, and matter without anyone or anything’s help – including millions or billions of years of ‘evolution.’ As an atheist researching the Bible, the claim was clear – God ‘directly’ created. In fact, that’s one of the problems I had with the credibility of the Bible. It clearly claimed that God directly created everything. That didn’t fit with my view as an evolutionist. I struggled with that during my investigation prior to becoming a Christian.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Psalm 33:6
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Hebrews 11:3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:1-3
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. Colossians 1:16
I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded. Isaiah 45:12
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. Psalm 8:3-5
But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Mark 10:6-8
Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. Psalm 33:8-9
He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, And has stretched out the heavens at His discretion. Jeremiah 10:12
Let them praise the name of the Lord, For He commanded and they were created. Psalm 148:5
You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created. Revelation 4:11
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:4-7
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Genesis 1:31

These were some of the Bible verses that directly countered my belief in ‘macro-evolution.’ So, how could any Christian who also read these and other verses about God’s direct creation without the help of an evolutionary process possibly believe in ‘evolution?’

Creation In The Gap

I was sharing my testimony at a church and a man walked up to me after the service. I must have said something about how God’s ‘direct creation’ of all things impacted me as an atheist because he asked me if I was familiar with the ‘Gap Theory.’ I wasn’t, so he briefly explained that Genesis 1:2 is where the millions and billions of years of evolution are found in the Bible. Really?

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2

That didn’t seem like a difficult verse to understand from a ‘direct creation’ perspective. God the Holy Spirit was involved in ‘direct’ Creation even as God the Father and God the Son had been involved. Genesis 1:1 was thematic – it told us what God was going to tell us. Genesis 1:2 began the process of God making spaces (the heavens and the earth), then filling those spaces (e.g. water, land, sun, moon, grass, herbs, trees, animals, birds, fish, humans, etc).

God is often referred to in the Bible as a ‘Potter.’ He is the Creator. He creates space and time, then makes things to fill space and time. Have you ever watched a potter make something? They start with clay or dirt that has no form, then add water. They take the formless clay, mix it with the water, spin it on the ‘potter’s wheel’ and ‘form’ things. What had no form became a functioning piece of art or functional cookware, etc. Genesis 1:2 didn’t seem like a big mountain that I needed to climb. However, I promised the man at the church that I’d look into this Gap Theory.

When I ‘look into’ something, I really look into it. That’s just the way I’m built. I’m an investigative journalist, which means I love to research things. So, I started researching the Gap Theory.

Researching anything in 1971 and 1972 was not like researching things today. I actually had to drive to the library and do my research there or check books out of the library and read them at home. I also asked some of my mentors and friends what reading materials on the topic they had that I could borrow. One of my mentors was a PhD with a large personal library at his house. He kindly opened his home to me and allowed me to use his library as part of my ongoing research into several topics.

The first step of an investigation is to ‘observe.’ That simply means to look at everything and take notes about what you see. Questions come next, followed by answers to those questions. Once an investigator has observed everything, asked all their questions, and heard all the answers to their questions, the process of interpretation begins. Application follows after that. Too many people want to hear something and immediately go to ‘interpretation’ and ‘application.’ That leads to believing many things that are not true, and doing many things that are not right.

The first thing I noticed about the ‘Gap Theory’ was the name. Two words – ‘Gap’ and ‘Theory.’ The man had told me that Genesis 1:2 was the ‘Gap Theory,’ so somewhere in that verse must be the alleged ‘gap.’ The verse seemed to flow naturally from verse 1 and I saw no ‘gap,’ but I wasn’t going to make any interpretation until I finished the investigation. As for the word ‘theory,’ that was easy to understand. It’s ‘an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events’ (The Britannica Dictionary). Just the title told me that the ‘Gap Theory’ was an idea or set of ideas intended to explain how God created the heavens and the earth.

As I continued to research the ‘Gap Theory,’ I discovered that there was more than one ‘gap’ theory. I didn’t know that when the man at the church asked me about it. If I had, I would have asked him more questions. However, I didn’t know how to find him to follow up, so I didn’t know which ‘theory’ he believed. It didn’t really matter though because I had learned that there were multiple ideas about the alleged ‘gap’ in Genesis 1:2.

Theory #1

The first ‘gap theory’ I found was where God created a perfect ‘heavens and earth’ filled with life, including animal and human life, but Satan rebelled and God threw him and his angels out of Heaven and onto the earth. Satan’s rebellion allegedly ruined God’s creation, brought death into the world killing all the created beings, and caused the earth to become ‘formless and empty.’ God had to start over again – ‘re-creating, rebuilding.’

I came across some theorists who believed God only ‘re-created’ the Middle East and left the rest of the world to somehow survive and evolve on its own.

Some people who believed this theory spoke of it as the ‘Two Creation Theory,’ or ‘Two Earth Theory,’ meaning that God created the earth twice because He destroyed the first earth after Satan’s rebellion.

Some believed there were ‘two Adams’ – one from the first earth that God destroyed, and one from the second earth that God ‘reconstructed’ after the ‘destruction’ (Destruction to Reconstruction Theory). According to this theory, you and I are living on the second or ‘reconstructed’ earth, and what we read in the Bible about Adam being the ‘first Adam’ and Jesus Christ being the ‘last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45) was based on the ‘reconstructed’ earth theogy. I found no information explaining what happened to the human-like beings destroyed on the first earth. Did they have souls? Did Christ’s death on the second earth cover their sins? Will we meet some of them in Heaven? All I had were questions – no answers – at least not yet.

I did find some Christians who believed that God created the first earth for His angels where they enjoyed it as their ‘home,’ along with the animals and human-like beings until Satan rebelled against God and took many of the angelic host with him. Some of the ‘theorists’ quoted from Ezekiel 28 as a proof-text of that occurrence and ensuing destruction from God against the earth, and the restoration through earth #2. Was that the context of the text? We’ll see as we continue investigating.

I read that people who believed in this ‘catastrophe/reconstruction’ (also known as ‘ruin/restoration’) theory believed the length of the ‘gap’ between verses 1 and 2 could have been millions of years on earth (or longer), thus fitting in better with an evolutionary view of how God created the heavens and the earth. That theory was gaining ground in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of the early ‘gap theorists’ included Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers and English theologian G.H. Pember. The theory was included in the Scofield Reference Bible in the early 20th century and became more mainstreamed within many churches. Evangelist Harry Rimmer also helped popularize the Gap Theory in the 20th century.

Prior to the 19th century some in the scientific community discovered what they believed supported lengthy geological eras. 18th century French anatomist Georges Cuvier and French naturalist Alcide d’Orbigny held to the idea of God destroying and re-creating various parts of the earth, thus supporting the various stages in the geologic time scale. That was a way of attempting to make the Creation account in Genesis fit with what were then new scientific discoveries and theories.

Keep in mind that ‘theory #1’ puts death on earth between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. That seems to contradict what we read in Genesis chapters 2, 3, and 4, and what Paul wrote in Romans 5:12, but it’s not time to interpret yet. Just an observation with a bunch questions so far.

Theory #2

The second ‘gap theory’ I found was where Christians believed God put things in motion (think ‘big bang’), then left it alone to slowly evolve. What came from God’s ‘beginning’ would have been what Darwin discovered and spoke of in terms of ‘evolution.’ Some people who believe ‘theory 2’ think God just got things started (somehow), then sat back and let the heavens and earth do its thing without any personal involvement from Him. Others believe God stepped into the evolutionary process from time to time to give it some ‘direction’ when and where He desired.

Next Time

My challenge as a new Christian was how my research would affect my beliefs about how God created the heavens and the earth. Did God create one earth or two? Was there something to the ‘Gap Theory?’ I needed to get answers and come to a conclusion based on my research. What did I decide? How would my decision affect my relationship with Christians who believed differently? How should it affect relationships in the Church? How would a ‘gap’ theory affect the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? That’s next time as we continue our special series, Order in the Court of the King!

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Founder & Director of GraceLife Ministries View all posts by gracelifethoughts

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Order in the Court of the King! (Creation Or Evolution? 1)