The name of Jesus, which was given him, is an alteration from Joshua. It was a very common name; but afterwards mysteries, and an allusion to his character of Savior, were naturally sought for in it. Perhaps he, like all mystics, exalted himself in this respect. It is thus that more than one great vocation in history has been caused by a name given to a child without premeditation. Ardent natures never bring themselves to see aught of chance in what concerns them. God has regulated everything for them, and they see a sign of the supreme will in the most insignificant circumstances.
The population of Galilee was very mixed, as the very name of the country indicated. This province counted among its inhabitants, in the time of Jesus, many who were not Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and even Greeks). The conversions to Judaism were not rare in these mixed countries. It is therefore impossible to raise here any question of race, and to seek to ascertain what blood flowed in the veins of him who has contributed most to efface the distinctions of blood in humanity.
He proceeded from the ranks of the people. His father Joseph and his mother Mary were people in humble circumstances, artisans living by their labor, in the state so common in the East, which is neither ease nor poverty. The extreme simplicity of life in such countries, by dispensing with the need of comfort, renders the privileges of wealth almost useless, and makes everyone voluntarily poor. On the other hand, the total want of taste for art, and for that which contribute to the elegance of material life, gives a naked aspect to the house of him who otherwise wants for nothing. Apart from something sordid and repulsive which Islamism bears everywhere with it, the town of Nazareth, in the time of Jesus, did not perhaps much differ from what it is today. We see the streets where he played when a child, in the stony paths or little crossways which separate the dwellings. The house of Joseph doubtless much resembled those poor shops, lighted shop, by the door, serving at once for kitchen, and bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest.
The family, whether it proceeded from one or many marriages, was rather numerous. Jesus had brothers and sisters, of whom he seems to have been the eldest. All have remained obscure, for it appears that the four personages, who were named as his brothers, and among whom one, at least, James, had acquired great importance in the development of Christianity, were his cousins-german. Mary, in fact, had a sister also named Mary, who married a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these two names appear to designate the same person), and was the mother of several sons who played a considerable part among the first disciples of Jesus. These cousins-german who adhered to the young Master, while his own brothers opposed him, took the title of “brothers of the Lord.” The real brothers of Jesus, like their mother, became important only after his death. Even then they do not appear to have equalled in importance their cousins, whose conversion had been more spontaneous, and whose character seems to have had more originality. Their names were so little known that when the evangelist put in the mouth of the men of Nazareth the enumeration of the brothers according to natural relationship, the names of the sons of Cleophas first presented themselves to him.
His sisters were married at Nazareth, and he spent the first years of his youth there. Nazareth was a small town in a hollow, opening broadly at the summit of the group of mountains which close the plain of Esdraelon on the north. The population is now from three to four thousand, and it can never have varied much. The cold there is sharp in winter, and the climate very healthy. The town, like all the small Jewish towns at this period, was a heap of huts built without style, and would exhibit that harsh and poor aspect which villages in Semitic countries now present. The houses, it seems, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without exterior or interior elegance, which still cover the richest parts of the Lebanon, and which, surrounded with vines and fig-trees, are still very agreeable. The environs, moreover, are charming; and no place in the world was so well adapted for dreams of perfect happiness. Even in our times Nazareth is still a delightful abode, the only place, perhaps, in Palestine in which the mind feels itself relieved from the burden which oppresses it in this unequalled desolation. The people are amiable and cheerful; the gardens fresh and green. Anthony the Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, drew an enchanting picture of the fertility of the environs, which he compared to paradise. Some valleys on the western side fully justify his description. The fountain, where formerly the life and gaiety of the little town were concentrated, is destroyed; its broken channels contain now only a muddy stream. But the beauty of the women who meet there in the evening — that beauty which was remarked even in the sixth century, and which was looked upon as a gift of the Virgin Mary — is still most strikingly preserved. It is the Syrian type in all its languid grace. No doubt Mary was there almost every day, and took her place with her jar on her shoulder in the file of her companions who have remained unknown. Anthony the Martyr remarks that the Jewish women, generally disdainful to Christians, were here full of affability. Even now religious animosity is weaker at Nazareth than elsewhere.
THE FOSSIL RECORD
Does the fossil record present a problem in the origin of man? Anthropologists, constantly uncovering human bones, tell us exactly how long ago they think these people lived, what they were, where they lived and the importance of their place in man’s ancestry. How do they obtain all this information and how trustworthy is it?
We begin with the Cambrian strata, supposed to be the oldest rock strata containing fossils. Note first a major mystery in the fossil record: the outburst of life in the so-called Cambrian period, though there should be billions of years of evolution represented before this. Tremendous amount of Precambrian rock were laid down, yet they contain only single celled fossils. An index fossil is a particular type of fossil presumed to identify rock formations or strata. The great index fossil of the Cambrian rocks is the trilobite, presumed to be one of the earliest forms of life. Trilobites are really very complex little animals with a nervous system, compound eyes and jointed legs. The eyes in some species incorporated advanced principles of optical science. They certainly are not primitive animals. Evolutionists claim that once life evolved to the one-celled animal, we were more than halfway to man. A trilobite is much farther up that scale, yet we have no record of evolutionary development before it. Trilobites and most other invertebrates are found represented in the Cambrian strata.
My files include a photograph of a particular fossil acquisition in the Cambrian strata. About twenty little trilobites are imbedded in rock in what appears to be a sandal print. This presents a slight problem. The sandal print had to be formed while the trilobites were still living; no other logical explanation can be conceived. However, after scanning this photo carefully one paleontologist at the University of Utah stated that the whole print must be a new type of trilobite that we have never seen before. He is talking about trilobite fossils in what would appear to be a ten-inch sandal print which has deeper impression in the heel mark area than in the toe.
The uncovering of other fossils in Texas tend to make man contemporary with dinosaurs if the findings are accepted at face value. For instance, human prints were located in the same strata with dinosaur prints in the Paluxy river bed in Glen Rose, Texas. In locating the eighth track in one series, we pumped out the water and scraped off the debris until we came to the rock sheet on the bottom, where we found the print in limestone. This human track crossed a three-toed dinosaur track, and one could discern fainter prints going on out into the river. Recently a gentleman who is continuing work on this project has found four good size tracks, approximately sixteen inches long and nine inches across, revealing toes. As more research is completed in the Glen Rose area, a number of questions concerning man will be answered.
How do we confront the claims of those scientists who state that the remains of pre-historic men have been found? The Neanderthal man was for many years considered one of man’s ancestors. Evolutionists suggested that he lived some 80,000 years ago – the dating depends upon which book one reads. Recently it was discovered that Neanderthal is really not much different from modern man. Because a Neanderthal skeleton used 80 years ago as a basis for museum displays had a diseased spine, scientists concluded and the world believed man did not always walk upright. Then they found skeletons from Neanderthals which stood perfectly upright. Subsequently the first skeletons with the curvature of the spine were re-examined and found to have suffered from a form of arthritis. In essence, we located an early human ancestor with an arthritic problem.
Study the skull of the first Neanderthal. Byron Nelson took the side view and compared it to a painting of the Revolutionary War here LaFayette. He found that one can put his features on the skull without any difficulty at all. A Neanderthal skull can be made to look very modern or very primitive depending on how the reconstruction is made. If skull capacity means anything, the Neanderthal man has a capacity larger than modern man, about 1600 cc. Modern man has somewhere between 1200 and 1500 cc. If brain capacity means anything, Neanderthal man would be more intelligent than modern man. Brain capacity may not be the whole answer, but Neanderthal has been identified as very similar to modern man.
The Peking Man has an interesting story. Records and accounts of several men such as Boule and de Chardin, avowed evolutionists who were on the scene in China, state that they never found any fossil men there. They merely found skulls of macaques and gibbons and a few perfectly human skulls. Then the personnel changed on the dig itself, and the third or fourth leader started making extraordinary proposals for the skulls found. A major problem exists today: none of these skulls is available. Drawings and casts of the skulls exist, but the actual skulls were supposedly lost during World War II. Frankly, we are entitled to doubt “scientific” claims when the evidence is missing and the story has progressively improved through the accounts of the individuals who headed up the various excavations.
Java Man, Pithecanthropus Erectus, was found by a man named Dubois. Pictures in the museums and reconstructions of the complete body, including all of the hairs of his head, suggest that the specimen must have been quite intact. One never gets the impression that excavators found only a piece of skull cap, a femur, and a thigh bone! Dubois reported thirty years after the original disclosure that the skull cap of the Java Man was nothing more than the skull cap of a silver gibbon. He also found in Java the large-brained human Wadjak skull. But he hid it for 30 years because his interpretation contradicted its obvious significance. Yet Java Man is still presented in textbooks as one of our ancestors in a long, long line of evolutionary development.
An individual found a tooth in a Nebraska field. He mailed this particular tooth back east to some scientists who were fascinated with such an amazing find. Here, they felt, was proof of early man on the North American continent. This was their first evidence, so they published an article concerning the significance of the find. The London Daily Illustrated News displayed a full-page spread on Nebraska Man – Hesperopithecus Harold Cookii – Harold Cook’s “Ape of the West.” They reconstructed this creature from his tooth, exhibiting his exact shape, even to the extreme brow ridges and the broad shoulders. More significant was the fact that they reconstructed not only his form, but that of his wife as well. So here are Mr. and Mrs. Hesperopithecus, reconstructed from a tooth. Back in Nebraska they were able to find the entire jaw bone. Then they fit the tooth into the jaw bone – to their horror, the jaw bone was that of a pig. Well, men will make mistakes; such is scientific frailty.
You are probably aware of Piltdown Man, which has a perfect skull cap of a man and an ape-like jaw bone. Unfortunately, they do not match. One is fossilized, one is not. One has been fossilized for a length of time, whereas one is modern. The teeth of the ape have been filed down to make them look human in appearance. For some thirty years this was reported as the greatest proof for evolution. The original skull was not accessible, but casts and drawings were placed in many museums. Some time later, determining that the skulls should be carefully re-examined , scientists applied fluorine and other tests. Skull pieces were shown to have different ages. The Piltdown Man in reality was composed of the jaw bone of an ape and the skull cap of a man. This hoax, presented in all of the textbooks, was decisively unmasked by Kenneth Oakley and published in magazines and scientific journals. Scientists claim that with new modern dating methods such a mistake could never be made again.
Zinjanthropus is reconstructed from 400 fragments of skull, the largest of which is the size of a silver dollar. One who views a good picture of the skull usually wonders what it could be, for it doesn’t really look like any type of skull. Yet it is said to be from one of our ancestors. An interesting corollary to the problem is the lava flow immediately under the bed in which Zinjanthropus is found. Under Zinjanthropus they found Homo Habilis, supposedly a more modern man. Evolutionists explain that this bed is overturned, and thus the Zinjanthropus is indeed one of our ancestors – some one and three quarter million years old. The lava flow underneath, when dated by potassium-argon, gives a lesser age of 1.3 million years. Problems are involved in the dating of lava flows by potassium-argon. Recently a lava flow formed in 1801 in Hawaii was dated by the potassium-argon method and found to have an age of 230 million years. Since the lava flow took place in modern times, one wonders about the accuracy of this dating system. Certainly there is strong evidence against the acceptance of the potassium-argon dates given to Zinjanthropus.
We will never know three things about Zinjanthropus from looking at the pieces of skull. One, we will never really know what his fleshy parts looked like. Two, we never know if he had the capacity to think. Three, we will never know if he had the capacity to speak. These are the three criteria for man. In fact, if Zinjanthropus were living today, we might find him caged in a zoo with a special name for him and other supposed ancestors of man. Or we my find him a type of man which has become extinct before our time; we will never know for sure by merely looking at the bones.
Ramapithecus was built around a few fragments, some of which are teeth. Scientists say the teeth are humanoid, human-like. But there is a baboon living in Ethiopia today which has the same teeth as Ramapithecus. How can we decide whether the teeth really belong to an ancestor or to one of these baboons?
We have the tendency to think that if something is primitive, it is very old. In fact, when looking at a skull, anthropologists consistently judge that the older it is, the more primitive it must be. However, such a conclusion cannot be gained just from looking at the skull itself. What, then , is the significance of picking up skulls and fragments of skulls? What can we really learn by looking at a few bones? Not very much. When we consider that many of these creatures are reconstructed from a few teeth, a jaw bone, a small piece of skull, what is really being demonstrated? When one realizes that scientists cannot date the skull itself to determine how old it is, nor directly date the strata (sedimentary layer laid down by water) in which it is found, what is the significance of the ages placed upon these creatures?
In discussing and looking for primitive man, anthropologists seem to proceed with one preconceived idea in their minds – man has evolved. Because of this, they have tried to demonstrate the ancestry of man. With this basic assumption they present what they claim as evidence to support the idea and have made conclusions depending upon the assumptions involved. Nothing is ever said about the missing links between birds and reptiles, between amphibians and reptiles, between vertebrates and invertebrates, although a great deal of time is spent talking about the missing link between man and the ape. Even here the evolutionists cannot agree as to how man came about. Some say that man and the ape have a common ancestor; some suggest that man and the ape evolved through the same fish; some insist they can trace the ancestry back through separate fish down to separate protozoa; some would tell you that man evolved from the chimpanzee, or from the orangutan or from the gorilla. (One man actually proposed that this explains the origin of the races: the white race from the chimpanzee, the oriental from the orangutan and the Negro from the gorilla). These are ideas being proposed by science as to how man came into existence.
CREATION OF MAN
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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them. 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 fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26-28
Does God say, let man be one of the fish of the sea, one of the fowl of the air, or one of the cattle of the earth; let him be related to all the animals on the earth? No, He instructs man to have dominion over these creatures. The purpose of God in creating man was that he would be distinct from the animals. Nothing happened to man until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life – then man became a living soul. God did not do this with the animal kingdom.
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 soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Genesis 2:7-10, 15-20
Notice something about Adam: God did not create a baby and wait for him to grow up. On the day Adam was created he possessed all of his faculties, reflected intelligence, and was full-grown with all the appearance of age. That tells us something about God’s creation. When He created the tree, probably it had growth rings. When He created the mountain, it may have had the appearance of erosion and other indicators of age. Genesis 1:9 says that God caused the waters to gather and the dry land to appear. Some mountain-building probably occurred and possibly some erosion. In any case, the dry land and the mountains would have gained an appearance of age. Adam, created on the sixth day, could see light coming from stars created on the fourth day, though apparently millions of light years away. God created a full-grown, developed universe.
Adam named all the animals, but he did not find anyone who met his specification for a mate. Adam was totally unique. There was no help meet for him. “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:” and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto man” (Genesis 2:21-22). This is a most interesting portion of Scripture and probably one of the most scientific texts in the Bible. Investigation with frogs and other animals has led to some interesting results. Every cell in the body contains the same genetic structure. The nucleus of the skin cell of a frog can be used to replace the nucleus of an egg and eventually cause a tadpole to hatch. The cell, even though a skin cell, has the full template for the entire structure of a frog within it. In other words, every cell in the body has the same template. We do not as yet understand enough about this experiment to transfer the nuclei of skin cells to human eggs.
However, this scientific information suggests something about the method God used to create Eve. He took from Adam a rib. Some people charge the Bible with inaccuracy because men now have the same number of ribs as women, but this is a specious argument. If I lose my hand, my children will still be born with two hands. Adam had one less rib than Eve, but their offspring inherited the proper number of ribs. God took this particular portion of the body because it contained bony substance and fleshy material. From this He could perform a cell reduction (taking half of the chromosomes) and create woman. He could have created woman instantaneously of dust as He did Adam, but He chose to take a rib from Adam. Why?
1) This negates the possibility of theistic evolution or any other evolution. God says He took a rib from man and created woman. In biology we learn that the male has an X and Y chromosome, the female two X chromosomes. These separate and recombine to make makes and females. In taking a rib from Adam God was able to take two X chromosomes and create a female. Suppose He created woman first? She has only two X chromosomes – where would He get the Y? This parallels the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin. There is such a thing as parthenogenesis in rabbits, of course, with a female giving birth without the help of a male, but she always produces a female. One uniqueness of Jesus is that Y chromosome.
2) Adam was created first; then God taking the rib, produced a female. Why is that important? It demonstrates the uniqueness of Adam’s existence, for Adam came not from a woman. Every other male in this world came from a female. Why did God go to all the trouble to do it this way? It demonstrates the unity of the human race. Notice what Adam says in Genesis 2:23: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Have you ever wondered about the fact that on the day God created them, He created only one individual? Adam and Eve were one: the same genetic constitution, one individual, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. That is why Eve could partake of the fruit and not plunge the whole human race into sin; Adam was the one held responsible. If God had created man from the dust and woman from the dust, Adam and Eve individually would have had to fall. Jesus Christ could come to save because Adam fell, and as all men die in Adam, so in Jesus Christ all men can be reborn into God’s family and be made alive (Romans 5:12).
Adam is the individual responsible for the fall of the human race. Eve fell in Adam, for he is the racial head, the one held responsible. This principle is important concerning the fall because our salvation is based upon it. Adam fell into sin, and every man born into Adam’s family was born to die. Thus every man must be reborn into God’s family through Jesus Christ in order to have eternal life. As in Adam all are children of Satan, so in the second Adam, Jesus Christ, all become children of God. Without man’s unity and fallen nature we would not have one way of salvation obtainable by all men.
Why be concerned with how man and woman came into being? God was very specific in how He created man and what He designed and created for him – so specific that we can take no position other that that He created them perfect. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
God created Adam and Eve and gave them the genetic potential for all people on the earth today. Unfortunately, many men do not choose to believe this, but would rather say that somehow man evolved from a lower form of life. Or they may take the position (as some do) of a theistic evolutionist and say that two apes for some unknown reason fell on their knees; they looked upward, God mistook that for prayer, and He created man and woman. Or perhaps somehow God allowed them to evolve and, when they were ready, gave them a soul. in opposition to these variant possibilities, we must accept what God says or accept theories which go counter to the Biblical account.
THE GAP THEORY
In the light of the weaknesses found within the day-age theory, some people have invented another theory called the gap theory. The gap theory, or ruin and reconstruction theory, proposes that God originally created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1. There was then a judgment and a cataclysm, some kind of catastrophic event by which the earth was judged and became “without form and void,” as noted in verse 2. Proponents suggest that there is good evidence for this in the text, because “darkness was upon the face of the deep,” and darkness is evidence of sin. Then “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” According to the gap theory, the word for “moved,” which connotes brooding, indicates that God was brooding over this evil chaos, thus providing additional evidence for a gap and a judgment. The basic tenet that nothing chaotic comes from the hand of God demands a context of judgment upon sin between verses 1 and 2.
With Genesis 1:2 viewed as evidence for some catastrophic event, many people have tried to place all the geologic ages between the opening verses of Genesis and thus provide adequate room for evolution. They project that God created an original heaven and earth which He judged. He then recreated some of the animals, so a six-day creation could still be maintained.
First, let us consider the arguments presented in favor of this theory. The Bible says. “And the earth was without form, and void” (Genesis 1:2). The word for “was” in Hebrew is the verb hayah, the basic Hebrew word for being. It is used 1522 times in the Pentateuch alone. Fifteen hundred times it is translated by its simple usage “was,” but twenty-two times it is used with the idea of “became.” Each time it is translated “became,” the context denotes a change taking place: Lot left the city with his wife, she was walking with him, she was a woman, she turned and “became” a pillar of salt. Such a change occurs in all of the instances translating this word “became.” However, one cannot supply this translation in Genesis 1, which demands the simple usage of the word “was.”
The proponents of the gap theory say that the words “without form and void” indicate some chaotic condition as a result of judgment. They point to verses in Jeremiah 4:23-26 and Isaiah 24:1, where the same words are used to refer to some type of catastrophic event. But both of those instances refer to a time when people living in an area experienced a judgment, a destruction, because of which the whole territory was laid waste and desolate to the extent that it became unpopulated. With that in mind, note Isaiah 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.” In this description there are no people. It is the description of an earth which is incomplete and unfinished. The word “vain” here is the same word which is translated “void” in Genesis 1:2. The earth was empty and void of life or empty and vain. God said He created it not in vain, but to be finished and inhabited by people. In this particular verse (Isaiah 45:18) the earth is not complete, so there can be no reference to any destruction and judgment, for in order to have a judgment there would have to be inhabitants to judge.
“And darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Those who insist that darkness is evidence of sin conclude that verse 2 gives evidence of sin on the earth which resulted in cataclysm and judgment. True, darkness sometimes gives the impression of evil, but notice what God does with the darkness. He says, “Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:3-5). If darkness is evidence of evil in verse 2, then it is also evidence of evil in verse 5. But the latter darkness He calls night. Must night, then, be considered evil? To the contrary, God, who sets up a system of light and darkness, says the whole system is “very good” (Genesis 1:31). The darkness of verse 2, then, simply means the absence of light. God solves that problem by creating light.
The final statement of verse 2 is quite direct and literal. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” merely signifies that the Spirit of God was present and that water existed.
To argue for a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2 and to place the geologic ages there is to formulate some very serious difficulties. If a judgment had been placed upon these earliest life forms, they would be buried in the earth, producing some kind of fossil record. This fossil record is found in the various geological strata and is really a record of the death, decay and destruction of plants and animals on the earth, laid in sedimentary strata by some kind of water action. Philosophically, if we try to correlate this with the Genesis account of chapter 1, then we are saying that death is the element to bring new forms of life upon the earth. This assumes that man is really the result of death over a vast period of time. Certain types of animals unfit to survive lost their ecological niche and died out; some new form of life entered, and ultimately man came upon the earth.
In opposition to this argument, Genesis 1-3 proclaims that man was created perfect by God. Because of man’s disobedience to God, sin and death entered into this world for the first time. The Bible states that death came as a result of man’s disobedience to God’s law, whereas, according to evolution, the geologic record says that man is the result of death, having evolved from earlier animal ancestors that are now extinct.
What will we find, then, if we place the record of the geologic column into a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2? We will discover buried in all the strata throughout the earth – every square foot of ground upon which Adam walked in the Garden of Eden – evidence of the destruction of animals and plants. But God created this garden in which (according to the gap theory) every rock contained evidence of death and destruction of animals in the past, and He said of this garden that it was “very good.” In addition Romans 5:12 tells us that by Adam’s disobedience death entered into this world for the first time. A gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, into which the fossil record is placed, demands that Adam find death evidenced in every rock he looks at. How, then, can one honestly say that by Adam sin and death entered into the world for the first time? If we destroy that premise, we basically destroy the doctrine of sin and ultimately the basis for salvation, which is established upon the premise that Adam, a perfectly created individual, fell into sin, and his disobedience brought death into this world for the first time. On that basis Jesus Christ came to save that which He created.
Proponents of the gap theory suggest that the sun, moon and stars were created in verse 1 but that God did not make them appear until Genesis 1:16, which introduces two different lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night. They claim that the word “made” (verse 16) does not mean that God directly created them on that day, but that He unveiled them – He uncovered the cloud or vapor that kept them from being seen. This explanation is given in the Scofield Bible, whose notes contend that the verb asah indicates that God made the sun, moon and stars to appear. If this is true, and God simply remade them or made them to appear, we must ask what is meant by the verb asah in Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image.” Does this mean “Let us make man to appear”? Does it suggest that God uncovered man from the dust, perhaps taking one of the destroyed fossil men and remaking him? Was man merely unveiled or allowed to appear? To be consistent, one would have to accept such a description.
God seems to use two words asah and bara, interchangeably, for in Genesis 5:1 He says, “In the day that God created [bara] man, in the likeness of God made [asah] he him.” And the Lord God says He made (asah) the earth and the heaven, whereas in Genesis 1:1 God created (bara) the earth and heaven. Genesis 2:4 tells us, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created [bara] in the day that the Lord God made [asah] the earth and the heavens.” In Exodus 20:11, “For in six days the Lord made [asah] heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” We must conclude, therefore, that asah is not to be translated “made to appear,” but simply “made” or “created.”
A number of serious theological questions arise if we accept the thesis that God remade the sun, moon and stars. Does that mean that He also remade man? And if He made man over, then was man pre-existent before Adam? If so, this pre-existent mortal was totally destroyed and God did not save a remnant; in other words, His first creation was a total failure. But can God fail? If so, must we be fearful that He is failing now? And what about the souls of the men who were eliminated in this gap judgment before verse 2? Were they living souls condemned to hell? We may forego such questions if we remember the Bible’s clear statement that Adam was created as the first man. In fact, because the first Adam, though created perfect, fell, Christ, the second Adam, came to save.
Since many gap theorists place most of the fossil record in the gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, serious problems arise for them concerning the Flood. If any evidence of this gap judgment survived today in fossil remains of animals and plants buried by a cataclysm after Genesis 1:1, one could not affirm the occurrence of the worldwide Flood in Genesis 6,7 & 8. This catastrophe would probably erase most of the evidence of any previous cataclysm and rearrange the fossils so that one could not separate the fossils and determine which were from the gap judgment and which were from the Flood judgment without limiting the effects of the Flood. In light of this, it seems contradictory to place the fossil record in the gap and thereby deny another portion of Scripture, namely the universal Flood.
The gap theory requires cataclysmic judgment upon sin in order to produce an earth “without form, and void” (Genesis 1:2). Heretofore we have considered judgment upon pre-Adamic man; however the gap theory at times assigns the cause to the fall of Satan. That is, Satan was ejected from heaven and was cast to the earth, supposedly causing judgment upon it. We read a description of this fall in Ezekiel 28, beginning with verse 12, and in Isaiah 14, beginning with verse 12. God says that Lucifer was a created being, the “anointed cherub that covereth” (Ezekiel 28:14). He was perfect from the day of his creation until the day that iniquity was found in him. Satan at one point decided that he himself would like to be the recipient of worship. He decided in his heart that he was as high as God: “I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:14). He worshipped himself rather than God and placed himself before the Word of God. Satan was created perfect, but he fell.
The Biblical statement concerning Satan’s fall is quite clear, but keeping in mind the gap theory’s contention, let us turn to Genesis 2:1. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” The “host of heaven” refers to two things in Scripture: stars and angels (cf. Nehemiah 9:6, Revelation 12:4). Throughout the Psalms, Job, and several other books the “host of heaven” is repeatedly referred to as angels. In addition, the Bible tells us that angels rejoiced at the creation, but it does not say which particular stage of the creation. In Genesis 2:1 God finished the heavens and the earth and all the host of them, which would include the angels’ creation within that six day event. Exodus 20:11 concurs, explaining that God “made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is” - including angels – in six days. Affirming, then, that angels (including Lucifer) were part of the six-day creative process, we find God saying in Genesis 1:31 that He saw “everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” If God saw everything that He had made, He saw Satan. But if we accept this aspect of the gap theory, we would have to say that god beheld all that He had made, and, behold, every thing was very good – except Satan. In terms of the conclusion to this Genesis chapter, any evidence of sin on the earth or in heaven would transform God into a liar. And He does not say His creation is just good, but “very good.” In other words, Satan could not have fallen before the end of the sixth day.
Scripture itself does not seem to validate the gap theory’s argument that the fall of Satan and his followers, who were “cast . . . to the earth” (Revelation 12:4), fashioned an earth of darkness, without form and void. In fact, a full reading of Revelation 12 (cf. verse 9) speaks again of Satan being “cast out into the earth,” but this is yet a future event. Since his fall Satan has argued with God over the tempting of Job and debated with Michael over the body of Moses, and at present he has access to the heavens as the accuser of the brethren to Jesus Christ, the Christian’s advocate with the Father. Scripture fails to support any view that Satan’s fall caused a cataclysm, whether past or future.
-by Mimi Rothschild
As autumn comes on, we love to get outdoors into the crisp fall air! You don’t have to choose between study and fresh air when you take some learning scavenger hunts to support your studies.
Just give your students paper and writing implements, maybe a digital camera or a sketch book, and a list of things to hunt for. Have a great walk, and come home with a lot of teaching points for the rest of the day.
Signs of Fall
• Birds flying south for the winter – monarch butterflies, too.
• Color in the leaves of trees and shrubs.
• Seed pods on the ground, sticking to your socks, and floating in the air (collect them and make a lapbook or labeled display).
• Chipmunks chattering.
• Ripening fruits: grapes, pumpkins, apples, more.
• Blooming flowers: Michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemum, and bittersweet.
• Cooler temperatures at night.
• Morning mists.
• Pine cones fallen on the ground, along with some nibbled acorns and nuts.
• Yellowjackets getting busy.
Architecture Walk
• A-frame
• Arch
• Casement window (a window that opens by swinging out, not sliding up)
• Columns
• Dutch door (a door divided in half, so the halves open separately)
• Eaves
• Gables
• Keystone
• Mullions (the vertical piece between windows)
• Oriel (a box-like window that sticks out from the wall)
• Shutters
Alphabet Walk
• Try to find an example of every letter before getting home.
• Decide whether you’ll include “accidental letters” – the half-circle gate that looks like a C or the O-shaped manhole cover.
You can take scavenger hunt walks at any time of year, but the fall is a particularly nice time to do it.
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of Learning By Grace, Inc. the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.