Forget The Gap Theory...It's Genesis As Written
The “Gap” theory of creation is an attempt to wedge evolution’s claim of “20-billion years” of earth and life history into the book of Genesis. But this theory of a “recreated” or “redesigned” earth following an original creation is not supported by the facts of the Bible. Nor is it required by the facts of geology or paleontology.
But it is the Bible that is our guide.
The Bible says that ALL THINGS were created by God through Christ when it declares “apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”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 came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John 1:1-3 NASB)
It says that these “ALL THINGS” included those things in the “heavens” including the highest heaven, which included “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,” otherwise known as angels (Eph. 3:10; 6:12). For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him. (Colossians 1:16 NASB)
This created order of “ALL THINGS—INCLUDING ANGELS” was accomplished in 6 days, for the Lord made “all [not part] that is in them” in that 6 day period.”For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:11 NASB)
This agrees with the Genesis account. In 6 days the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. ”Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done… (Genesis 2:1-2 NASB)
In summary, then,
the Bible tells us that everything in the created order— including angels— was created WITHIN THE 6 DAYS of Genesis chapter 1.
Nehemiah’s account of the creation agrees with this. Note that the heavenly host “bows down” before their Creator. Note also that they live in the “heaven of heavens. “Thou alone art the LORD. Thou hast made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them. Thou dost give life to all of them And the heavenly host bows down before Thee. (Nehemiah 9:6 NASB)
The 6 days are LITERAL 24-HOUR days
Jeremiah says that the 24-hour day is a FIXED ORDER, GUARANTEED BY THE EXISTENCE OF ISRAEL.
Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day, And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease From being a nation before Me forever.” (Jeremiah 31:35-36 NASB)
This 24-hour day also agrees with Genesis. You couldn’t get a better definition from Webster’s Dictionary for a 24-hour day than that given in Genesis 1:14-18.Then God said,
“Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:14-18 NASB)
Since God created ALL that exist [outside of Himself, the triune God], and He did so within a 6-day period, then why do we need to insert 20-billion years between Genesis 1:1 and verse 2? God simply created ex-nihlo the time-space-matter of the heavens and the earth in verse 1, apparently creating the third heaven and the angels during that period, and then began to form the raw material of the earth beginning in verse 2. We see from that point on the shaping of the raw material into land, sea, atmosphere, plant life, animal life.
And, finally, as Jesus the Creator Himself said, “”But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. (Mark 10:6 NASB). Note that if was not 20-billion years after some proposed previous creation, but “FROM THE BEGINNING OF CREATION” (the Greek term means “at the outset”) that man was created. No need for a Gap Theory here!
The Gap Theory of creation-destruction-recreation, and all such attempts to insert 20-billion years into the Word of God, is the result of pressure from the illegitimate evolutionary idea that the trillions of dead things called fossils in the mud-layered earthscape reflect the true facts of earth history. This is neither scriptural, nor good science.
The fact is, these “trillions of dead things called fossils in the mud-layered earthscape” is precisely what one expects to find as a result of the Global Flood of Noah. So, rather than squeezing a 20-billion-year unrecorded span of time into Scripture between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, why not accept the Biblical record verbatim? Read four gigantic and episodic chapters, chapters 6-9 in Genesis, to find the “20-billion-year phantom evolutionary time-span” crunched into a single year of catastrophic watery judgment from the God. We must believe it, because God says their is a twin judgment just like it, but a cataclysmic firey one, coming upon those who deny the first one. (2 Peter 3:5-7)
If the coming judgment described in 2 Peter is true, so was the first one. And it accounts for the mass of mud-encased dead creatures in the geologic column, as well as the huge reservoirs of dead creatures which formed the vast pools of oil reserves and the destroyed plant life that is the basis of massive coal beds.
The record of the creation of the earth and the entire cosmos in Genesis is literally true, and, as such, forms the very basis of the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.