COSMOLOGY SUPPLEMENT

COSMOLOGY

SUPPLEMENT #2

THE OLD EARTH vs. THE YOUNG EARTH
(The When of Creation)

Before we enter the study of Gen. 1-2, there is the natural question asked, "No matter when God created the heavens and the earth, 6000 years ago or billions, wouldn't it still have had to be created with an instantaneous age? An apparent age; i.e., ages it didn't have? All the degeneration of elements with their daughter elements, evidences of entropy (Lit. "after energy", from the randomization of energy into a lesser usable form.

The answer is "NO". But as He created it perfect from His hands, at the beginning, there would be no evidence of running down, but a perfect complete winding up, in the highest state of arrangement and order, dual tention, as when He shall make a "New heavens and a new earth", after the Great White Judgment throne. In the New Heavens and the New Earth,
the eternal one, there can be no degeneration, wearing out, entropy. God shall make "ALL THINGS NEW". There can be no former things, "for they shall all be passed away." In fact, the former, "earth and heaven flee away from His face; and there, was found no place for them" Rev. 20:11. There is little doubt that God is using Ps. 104:7,8 here of the original destruction of the earth in the first creation as we shall use later. BUT THIS ONE SHALL NEVER RUN DOWN, as all previous ones did, BUT WILL CONTINUALLY, BY DIVINE POWER, BE RENEWED, AS AN ETERNAL HABITATION. That is, it will be held in perfect poise, equilibrium, since God calls it "ETERNAL". (as 2 Cor. 5:1)

We may ask, "Why then did He make this one to run down as evidenced everywhere? God in His omniscience, and "in His plan of the ages which He planned for (Eph. 3:11) His Son, Christ Jesus our Lord," knew the temporalness of this present creation, for the drama of the ages in redemption, and not the eternal one. In "the New heavens and earth", wherein dwelleth righteousness, "there will be no aging, sickness, senility, deterioration, abating of any life forces, no decay, no waxing old like a garment." This is why in the original heavens and earth, the scientist is dead wrong in trying to use any decaying process to date the ages. Carbon, or atomic, as the daughter elements, not one of these worked in the original creation as they will not work in the new creation of the New heavens and the New earth. Each one in the millennium will again be as in Pre-Noaic Flood, thus beheld in equipoic - for which 1000 years as no one will die except in Judgment. No
present law of entropy worked then. The very law of entropy, proves that there had to be a winding up, a time of highest arrangement order, and everything since, has been down hill, decaying - "wax old like a garment" - from a higher to a lower level.

All human cosmoganies start with Chaos, ruin, emptiness, disarrangement, but not God's. His starts with the very opposite, with order out of nothing, a perfect creation, but sin entered and wrecked it. We are

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ready to consider Genesis 1:1Ä2. (One reason why I must disagree with the 6000 year old earth.

The A.V., "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 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" (Why even Henry Morris has to postulate two floods - one in Gen. 1:2, and one in Noah's day.
Rotherham, "In the beginning (at the first) God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth had become waste and wild (tohu va bohu) and darkness was on the face of the roaring deep (tehom-the abyss, abussos, Septuigent) but the Spirit of God was brooding on the face of the waters." (With very interesting footnotes by Rotherham)

The argument, but not all of it, has hinged around this little verb "was" which Rotherham translates, "HAD BECOME".
The Heb. verb, "hayetha", since the Heb. has no word, "to become", the author of the 0.1. often used the verb, "was", to declare it. The context must determine which. The verb "hayah" means to exist, to become, come to pass, so either "was" or "became". In the latter sense it has the force of, "change of order". Here the imperfect of hayah, "hayetha" in the sense of "to become" is used 68 times in the 0.1. as in construction of the verb. It cannot mean here always was, but at that time "he became". And the A.V. accurately so renders it. The same in 19:26, Lot's wife, "became a pillar of salt", the same identical
construction. She surely wasn't before a pillar of salt, or Lot would not have married her. Though salt was probably more valuable than Mrs. Lot, to read her story and social climbing.

The creation of Gen. 1:1 was not a chaos. That is all heathen cosmology and contrary to all Scripture presentation. God never made a Chaos. Everything that ever sprung from the creative fingers of God, did so perfectly. God is not only "not the author of confusion", doctrinally or ceremonially in the service, but creatively either. Satan is the author of confusion, Chaos. If earth was created a Chaos, confusion, then so was heaven. For in the same breath, God created the heavens and the earth, if one was confusion so was the other, so the Young Earth theorists must believe. Page 63, "Biblical Cosmology, Henry Morris "The Heavenly bodies occupying the heavens, in fact, were made only on the fourth day" etc. "The plural "HEAVENS" indicates all three heavens, you cannot separate atmospheric and stellar from the "Heavens of' the Heavens" the abode of angels. But was the highest heavens created a Chaos? It was, if the earth was. You cannot divide Gen. 1 into two creations, the language wont allow it. Like Rev. when God "Creates a New heavens and a new earth", all of it since sin entered God's first heaven, but even the new earth theorist make the Tohu Va Bohu, "Without
form and void" only of the earth, by creation that isn't fair interpretation. If Gen. 1:1 is of both heavens and earth created, and the Chaos only of the earth, Heaven is not effected by the 6 day recreation. Why? Not until Satan's long career is over for the old earth years, and God "makes all things new", both the heavens & the earth have been by Satan's sin defiled.

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God didn't use 6 days to create the heavens, heaven predated the earth, since its inhabitants sang, at the creation of earth, how did He create the heavens, any of them, a chaos. Job 38:7. Therefore, I can't believe He created the earth a Chaos either. In fact Chaos is the very opposite of creation, but a destruction of creation. You cannot equate creation and destruction. The one is of order, arrangement, form, the other is the destruction of that form, the ruining of creation. It is no wonder the Bible disagrees with human cosmoganies. Show me one place where creation is of disorder, confusion, chaos, emptiness; it is always of the very opposite - order, design, purpose. Look at the illustration of salvation, the new creation in man, in righteousness and true Holiness, after the image of God, "Perfect", bringing man back into the perfect image of God. Chaos is judgment as we shall see, wherever Tohu is used, it means, destruction of creation, never creation itself. Everywhere the two terms occur together, Tohu Va Bohu (Thohu va Bothu") only three times in the Bible (2 other) and Thobu, 20 times alone, every time is in Judgment, destruction. In the other times they are used together - the meaning is clear:

1. Is. 34:11
The Holy Spirit by the law of DOUBLE REFERENCE, uses the original destruction to portray the desolation of Idumea. The perfect picture, what better one could be given than Gen. 1:2. (it would be good to read the whole chapter) Both words here signifying God's judgment for sin; (Thohu va Bothu) "The cormorant (R. Pelican) and the bittern (R. Porcupine) shall possess it the great owl and the raven shall dwell in it. Now, AND HE SHALL STRETCH UPON IT THE LINE OF CONFUSION (Rev. 11:1,20 Thohu) and the stone of emptiness" (Bohu). Plummit, = weight of balance, to measure the judgment perpendicularly for perfect uprightness. This is what the Hebrew word "righteous" means. Hebrewism, "line" = measurement, or extent of territory horizontally for judgment and destruction. "Stone" Hebrewism weight of balance, to mete out the right amount of judgment Prov. 16:11, "A just balance and weight are the Lord's, and His work are all the stone of the cup." (Weight = "stone" in Hebrew), used for counter-weights to measure weights on other side of balance scale. Here is the basic idea of Gen. 1:2, "Without form and void", no inward or outward measurements, or dimensions, but as the result of Judgment.

2. Jeremiah 4:23-26
The other time the two words occur together (Thobu, and Bohu) and coupled with blackness or darkness; and judgment upon Israel is not an accident, but intentional of the Holy Spirit to give the picture. Vs. 14, "0 Jerusalem, wash thine hands from wickedness, vs. 22, "My people is foolish."

Then:
"I beheld the earth and lo it (was) (no verb in the Hebrew) without form and void, (waste and wild, Thohu va Bohu and the heavens (is this accidental?) and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo they trembled and all the hills moved lightly (R. omits lightly). One translation of Jer. "All the lights astir". The Hebrew signifies great convulsions, upheaval, cataclysism. "I beheld and lo, there was no man

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(Rotherham "no human being"), and all the birds of the heavens were fled."

Jeremiah 4:23-26
Note Jere. gives the five primary characteristics of Gen. 1:2:

(1) The wild and waste, empty and confused (Thohu va Bohu)
(2) The total darkness, no light breaking through
(3) The violent catastrophic upheaval, mountains shaking, and hills moving violently.
(4) Emptying of the land of its inhabitants.
(5) All life disappearing (fleeing of the birds of the heaven.")

THOHU - occurs by itself 20 times in the 0.1., variously translated, emptiness, nought, vain, and vanity, as meaning empty, useless, of what before had been order, good arrangement. In Deut. 32:10 it is translated, "Waste, howling wilderness. In Job 4:18, the streams in the summer go into Thohu, perish, into nothingness. In Is. 24:10, It is Ruined of a city, "city of confusion". In Is. 40:17; 40:23; 41:29; 49:4; 50:4, and I Sam. 12:21, it is used of it that is utterly vain, formless, worthless, of no account, vanity. Everytime it pictures the very REVERSE OF THE PROCESS OF CREATION, FORMATION, BRINGING OF ORDER OUT OF CHAOS, BUT THE BRINGING OF CHAOS OUT OF CREATION AND OR JUDGMENT AS THE CAUSE. In fact, the word set in apposition to the double description in the first part of the verse in Gen. 1:2, "Without form and void", is the "Deep" in the last part. "Tehom", in the Hebrew, "Abussos" in the Septuagint, "Bottomless Pit" is the translation in the N.T. for the Greek "Abussos". DID GOD CREATE THE EARTH A TEHOM, AND ABUSSOS, A BOTTOMLESS PIT? "WILD and WASTE", in vain as it came from His creative fingers? (That is not the way God creates anything)

Let us consider one more conclusive text. I note that Morris in his book "Biblical Cosmology", and Witcomb and Morris in "The Genesis Flood", while trying to prove a young 6000 year old earth, use much science and a few misinterpreted texts, but omit this one completely:

Is. 45:18 It is unequivocable, plain, cannot be misunderstood or explained away. It is a flat statement by God that He didn't create it in a chaotic state. Common sense must so accept it. "This verse has the same three words found in Gen. 1 and also in Is. 43:7 Bara - never used with man as the subject, since he, cannot create. It means to truly create, make out of nothing, as all through Isaiah, 18 times in the last chapters of Is. 40-66, and especially in 41Ä45. Just by way of example, 40:28, "The everlasting God the creator of the ends of the earth" 42:5, "Thus saith God Jehovah, He that created (Bara) the heavens, and STRETCHED THEM OUT; He that spreadeth forth the earth and giveth breath to the people. "Then in the chapter we are using vs. 12, "I have made the earth, and created man upon it; I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded." Vs. 18, in a minute.

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Made = "Asah" (awÄsaw) "To make, form, fashion, assemble, allow, out of existing material." The common word here in Gen. 1:2, "To fashion out of the material -- at hand."

"Yatzar" - to squeeze into shape, used of the casting of molten metal, as 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground." Not the idea of creating the material, but the fashioning of it to a pattern, and for a definite purpose. Is. 43:7, "I have created man for my Glory, I have formed him, Yea, I have made him." Barah, Yatzar, asah. "Formed for my glory." We shall see all three in Gen. 1,2.

Look at all three in Is. 45:18 - And no way can any be "Without form and void," or a chaos, when God created it, but it became so because of judgment.

"For thus saith Jehovah that created (bara) the heavens; (ALL THREE), God Himself that formed the earth (Yatzar- fashioned it), and made it (asha~made IT TO A PATTERN, ORDERLY ARRANGEMENT.) He hath established
it (perfected, and secured it), HE CREATED IT NOT IN VAIN, (a waste, (Tohuw Ä To'hoo) very same word as in Gen. 1:2, an accident? unintentional, meaningless? Thohu. A waste, a chaos? Note well there is no misunderstanding here. The language is clear and emphatic, God said He didn't create it, at the time of creation a Thohu, a chaos. So, it must have become one since He created it. And further, "I formed it (fashioned it, Yatzar,) to be inhabited." Three things - God created it oxnihilo, he formed it after a pattern or design or orderly arrangement and He fashioned it according to a purpose.

Whatever theory of origins of the material creation, you have to fit your theory into God's explicit statement even if it disagrees with your "science". Science has been wrong on origins and creation all along. God never has, since He is the One Who created it all. If men would build their cosmoganies on the Word of God and not the guesses of man, they wouldn't have to change it so often.