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The Gap Theory


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As I understand it, the Gap Theory theorizes that there is a period of time, perhaps a long period of time between Genesis 1: 2-3. Time is not mentioned. So it seems to me to be an unproveable article of faith regardless of which side you hold. I believe it is harder to hold to a 24 hour period than a long period of time. For me it is not an important issue as I believe the universe if billons of year old. But that is not the issue here. To me the important issue is answered in the first four words of Genesis 1 ... "In the beginning God ........."

Which position do you hold? And why?

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It is not faith to believe something God has not said. The Bible teaches God made everything in Heaven and earth, including the hosts of Heaven (can refer to angels or stars). Faith is believing what the Bible says according to Romans 10:17.

Nehemiah 9:6
Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Based on the wording of this passage compared to Genesis 1, angels could not have fallen prior to day four when the foundation of earth (ie. land) was created as ALL the sons of God shouted for joy at that point - no angels had fallen yet.

Job 38:6-7 
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?
or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

No death before Adam sinned means no need to have a rebuilt or restored earth.

Romans 5:12
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Angels were created to minister to mankind; therefore no Biblical reason to have them rebel and fall before man even came into the picture.

Hebrews 1:14
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

It’s impossible for the devil to be in Eden before he fell, if Eden wasn’t created until the sixth day according to Genesis 2-3.

Ezekiel 28:13-15
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

How can you have a recreated earth, atmosphere, etc. in Genesis 1 when Revelation says it is only after the battle of Armageddon that the first heaven and earth are finally destroyed.

Revelation 21:1 
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Edited by Jerry
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1 hour ago, Bouncing Bill said:

As I understand it, the Gap Theory theorizes that there is a period of time, perhaps a long period of time between Genesis 1: 2-3. Time is not mentioned. So it seems to me to be an unproveable article of faith regardless of which side you hold. I believe it is harder to hold to a 24 hour period than a long period of time. For me it is not an important issue as I believe the universe if billons of year old. But that is not the issue here. To me the important issue is answered in the first four words of Genesis 1 ... "In the beginning God ........."

Which position do you hold? And why?

I hold there's a gap but I want to be clear I also believe in the literal seven day creation. It was more of a re-creation. Every gap theorist I know of does not believe that each day of the seven day creation is millions or billions of years. That would be a theistic evolutionist who holds that positions. And yes, that would be heresy. Even Wikipedia seems to grasp this but many of the brethren continue to slander and accuse those who believe the Gap Theory as being heretics.

One of the main reasons I believe it's there is because it would explain the timing of the fall of Lucifer. That is the only place it could have happened unless you have Lucifer and the angels falling almost immediately after the creation which seems to me too short a span of time. 

It could also explain the dinosaurs. I never bought the bit that they died off after the flood because of climate change. Why would God even have them enter the ark if they were to immediately die off?

My guess, yes guess, is Lucifer and the angels ruled over a pre-Adamic earth then rebelled against God who drowned the planet out, and recreated it again with Adam as the son of God. Satan in his jealousy immediately tempted Eve.

I will not disfellowship a believer over this teaching, or call him a heretic, which has happened numerous times from both sides of the aisle.

Again, the Gap Theory does NOT teach millions of year per day as many insist no matter how much it is explained. That is the "Day-Age Creation" teaching. Sometimes I sense a dishonesty among some of the brethren who keep insisting that is what the Gap Theory teaches. At least nobody I know personally. 

So, there may be millions of years between verses 1 and 2 but each day of creation is a literal 24 hour period. 

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26 minutes ago, Jerry said:

It is not faith to believe something God has not said. The Bible teaches God made everything in Heaven and earth, including the hosts of Heaven (can refer to angels or stars). Faith is believing what the Bible says according to Romans 10:17.

Nehemiah 9:6
Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Based on the wording of this passage compared to Genesis 1, angels could not have fallen prior to day four when the foundation of earth (ie. land) was created as ALL the sons of God shouted for joy at that point - no angels had fallen yet.

Job 38:6-7 
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?
or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

No death before Adam sinned means no need to have a rebuilt or restored earth.

Romans 5:12
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Angels were created to minister to mankind; therefore no Biblical reason to have them rebel and fall before man even came into the picture.

Hebrews 1:14
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

It’s impossible for the devil to be in Eden before he fell, if Eden wasn’t created until the sixth day according to Genesis 2-3.

Ezekiel 28:13-15
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

How can you have a recreated earth, atmosphere, etc. in Genesis 1 when Revelation says it is only after the battle of Armageddon that the first heaven and earth are finally destroyed.

Revelation 21:1 
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

If the cherubim and angels were created in Genesis verse 1 (before that there was nothing but God) then Lucifer and his angels would have rebelled almost immediately after they were created. This makes no sense. 

The "sons of God" who rejoiced at the creation could have only been the angels who didn't follow Lucifer.

Eden, the garden of God, was the Eden in the mount of God in heaven. Remember, there's a mountain called Zion in heaven as well as a heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22).

You point about Revelation 21:1 is a good point why the Gap Theory may be false.

 

Edited by SureWord
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The problem, as I see it, with the word day is we are using English. But even in English the word day does not necessarily mean 24 hours. Example, "In the day of the Christopher Columbus Japan was almost unknown in the West." Here "the day" covers a number of years. So, the argument that in Genesis the English word 'day' means 24 hours does not hold. Neither does the argument that it means more than 24 hours. So, it comes down to an article of faith and does not make the supporter of 24 hours or the nonsupporter a heretic.

The word 'day' in Hebrew is not restricted to 24 hours. It has a number of meanings.

The Hebrew word יום (yom, Strong's #3117) means a "day," but not specifically a twenty-four hour period, but instead more generically like in "a day that something occurs." An example would be "a day of the month" (Genesis 8:4), "in that day Yahweh made a covenant" (Genesis 15:18) and "until the day" (Genesis 19:37). This word can also refer to the light part of the day in contrast to night (see Genesis 1:5 and Exodus 13:21), but the related word יומם (yomam, Strong's #3119) specifically means "daytime" as in Job 5:14. This word can be used for a time, age or season, but that is only when this word is in the plural form, which is ימים (yamim), and in my opinion should simply be translated as "days" and not time, age or season, as this can lead to incorrect interpretations of the text. The word היום (hayom) is the word יום (yom) with the prefix ה (ha) added and it literally means "the day," but we would translate it as "today."

https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/definition/day.htm

Personally I believe the 7 days were varying periods of time. Genesis was never meant to be a book of science. If it had been written as science no one in the distant past would have understood it and the book would never have made it to our time. And, there are two creation stores; one in Genesis 1 and the second in Genesis 2. 

 

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There are not two creation stories. Chapter 1 gives the overview of all six days of creation, and chapter 2 gives more specific details of what happened on day 6.

you wouldn’t go to any other book and not take the details literally. Last week, I spent six days at my grandma’s place and on the seventh day came home. Oh wait, what if each day was 1000 years or a vague indeterminate amount of time?…

Exodus 20:9-11
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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.

Pretty clear it was six literal 24 hour days. You can’t have something be symbolic until there is an actual reality first. You can’t follow the Lord’s example and rest on the seventh day if each day was 1000 years or more. The oldest man only lived to be 969 years old - that means no one not even Adam (who lived 930 years) got to take a rest - and Adam wouldn’t have even lived to or through the seventh day.

Genesis 1:31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

After each day God said it was good- and the end of the 6th day, God said it was very good - yet it couldn’t have been good or very good if there was sin in His creation before the end of the sixth day, and He would have wiped out the world with the flood in the middle of the seventh day, the day of rest.

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Just now, Jerry said:

There are not two creation stories. Chapter 1 gives the overview of all six days of creation, and chapter 2 gives more specific details of what happened on day 6.

you wouldn’t go to any other book and not take the details literally. Last week, I spent six days at my grandma’s place and on the seventh day came home. Oh wait, what if each day was 1000 years or a vague indeterminate amount of time?…

Exodus 20:9-11
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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.

Pretty clear it was six literal 24 hour days. You can’t have something be symbolic until there is an actual reality first. You can’t follow the Lord’s example and rest on the seventh day if each day was 1000 years or more. The oldest man only lived to be 969 years old - that means no one not even Adam (who lived 930 years) got to take a rest - and Adam wouldn’t have even lived to or through the seventh day.

Genesis 1:31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

After each day God said it was good- and the end of the 6th day, God said it was very good - yet it couldn’t have been good or very good if there was sin in His creation before the end of the sixth day, and He would have wiped out the world with the flood in the middle of the seventh day, the day of rest.

I respectfully disagree with much you said. Why do you think time is not mentioned between versus 2 and 3?

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Hebrews 11:3
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

I don’t need to call anyone a heretic, but anyone who tries to force a gap or an indeterminate amount of time into Genesis one is certainly not taking the Word of God at face value - and therefore does not have faith in the Biblical account of creation.

Why try to fit some sort of evolutionary theory anywhere into Genesis 1? Just believe the Lord and His Word, take all relevant passages into consideration, and study out sound Bible-believing material on the things you don’t understand. There are fossil evidences of dinosaurs walking with man, there are literal Biblical references to several dinosaurs alive during the time of man - who may now be extinct due to perhaps the flood or mankind hunting and killing these beasts, no need for them to have existed and died out millions of years before man - which contradicts God’s Word, which says death on all creation came through Adam’s sin, not before then.

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2 hours ago, Jerry said:

Hebrews 11:3
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

I don’t need to call anyone a heretic, but anyone who tries to force a gap or an indeterminate amount of time into Genesis one is certainly not taking the Word of God at face value - and therefore does not have faith in the Biblical account of creation.

Why try to fit some sort of evolutionary theory anywhere into Genesis 1? Just believe the Lord and His Word, take all relevant passages into consideration, and study out sound Bible-believing material on the things you don’t understand. There are fossil evidences of dinosaurs walking with man, there are literal Biblical references to several dinosaurs alive during the time of man - who may now be extinct due to perhaps the flood or mankind hunting and killing these beasts, no need for them to have existed and died out millions of years before man - which contradicts God’s Word, which says death on all creation came through Adam’s sin, not before then.

Accepting the Gap Theory or rejecting it has nothing to do with evolution. That is a red herring and does not hold logically. Also, it depends on what type of evolution you are speaking about. Are you denouncing microevolution or macroevolution? 

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Sure it does have something to do with evolution. What other reason is there to try to fit a gap anywhere into Genesis 1? There is certainly no Biblical reasons whatsoever - you have to bring something from outside of the Bible and try to force it into the passages.

Microevolutions is not evolution at all - adapting colour, etc. to fit in with a new environment is not a change that wasn’t already part of a creature’s biological makeup. And macroevolution is just (false) “scientific” theory with no truth to back it up (true science is something that can be observed, studied, tested - and no one has ever observed evolutionary changes taking place; there are no transitional fossils anywhere). 

Better to stick with God and the truth of His Word, without forcing opinions into the Bible or twisting it to fit some humanistic/alternative religious philosophy.

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10 hours ago, SureWord said:

One of the main reasons I believe it's there is because it would explain the timing of the fall of Lucifer. That is the only place it could have happened unless you have Lucifer and the angels falling almost immediately after the creation which seems to me too short a span of time. 

The fall of Satan happened in the garden when he was in the serpent. The iniquity that was found in Satan was moving mankind to go against God's Word. 

Genesis 3:13-15 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Also scripture is clear that all things were made in the seven days and there were not extra things from another age. 

Exodus 20:11 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.

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My father believed in the "Gap Theory." It's just that...a THEORY, just as a literal 6, 24 hr day creation is a THEORY. God doesn't tell us that it's this at all. It doesn't say it isn't either. Remember, the sun wasn't created until the fourth day. So, what would signify the "evening and morning?" This was from my dad's thoughts on the subject. He believed it also would explain many of the fossils found (dinosaurs, GIANTS, etc.) and he had some interesting Scriptures to back the theory up. I don't have them on hand, as I can't locate the Bible he had the notes in. They're on a paper in that Bible, and I believe I have it out in the garage with other study books. It's sort of fruitless to be talking about something we can't prove. It's sort of like asking "How many angels can fit on the head of a straight pin?" We've got better things that deserve our attention and study. JMHO

 

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11 hours ago, John Young said:

The fall of Satan happened in the garden when he was in the serpent. The iniquity that was found in Satan was moving mankind to go against God's Word. 

Genesis 3:13-15 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Also scripture is clear that all things were made in the seven days and there were not extra things from another age. 

Exodus 20:11 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.

So Lucifer was created and then a few days later rebelled and fell?

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4 hours ago, BrotherTony said:

My father believed in the "Gap Theory." It's just that...a THEORY, just as a literal 6, 24 hr day creation is a THEORY. God doesn't tell us that it's this at all. It doesn't say it isn't either. Remember, the sun wasn't created until the fourth day. So, what would signify the "evening and morning?" This was from my dad's thoughts on the subject. He believed it also would explain many of the fossils found (dinosaurs, GIANTS, etc.) and he had some interesting Scriptures to back the theory up. I don't have them on hand, as I can't locate the Bible he had the notes in. They're on a paper in that Bible, and I believe I have it out in the garage with other study books. It's sort of fruitless to be talking about something we can't prove. It's sort of like asking "How many angels can fit on the head of a straight pin?" We've got better things that deserve our attention and study. JMHO

 

I agree that it's not something to get hung up on it just would explain some questions like the dinosaurs and clear up some of the verses about Lucifer's rebellion for example:

The "garden of Eden" (Gen. 3) is not the same as "Eden the garden of God" (Ezekiel 28) no more than is Jerusalem the same as New Jerusalem. 

Edited by SureWord
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4 hours ago, BrotherTony said:

My father believed in the "Gap Theory." It's just that...a THEORY, just as a literal 6, 24 hr day creation is a THEORY. God doesn't tell us that it's this at all. It doesn't say it isn't either. Remember, the sun wasn't created until the fourth day. So, what would signify the "evening and morning?" This was from my dad's thoughts on the subject. He believed it also would explain many of the fossils found (dinosaurs, GIANTS, etc.) and he had some interesting Scriptures to back the theory up. I don't have them on hand, as I can't locate the Bible he had the notes in. They're on a paper in that Bible, and I believe I have it out in the garage with other study books. It's sort of fruitless to be talking about something we can't prove. It's sort of like asking "How many angels can fit on the head of a straight pin?" We've got better things that deserve our attention and study. JMHO

 

I do not have time to go into this in detail ... maybe later when I am not so busy. But the use of light in the first verses of Genesis seem illogical and impossible if taken literally. For instance, what was the light before the sun and stars were created ... and yet in verse 3? How darkness and light mixed requiring separation? Just  musing here.

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