“The servant of the Lord must be gentle.” (2 Tim. 2:24.)
WHEN God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature, and we get deep visions into the Spirit of Jesus we then see as never before the great rarity gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world. The graces of the Spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern certain states of grace, and choose them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened in our mature or behavior. Every advance step in grace must be preceded by first apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to have it. So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is a real breaking and crushing of self, which wrings the heart and conquers the mind. There is a good deal of mere mental and logical sanctification nowadays, which is only a religious fiction. It consists of mentally putting one’s self on the altar, and then mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift, and then logically concluding therefore one is sanctified; and such an one goes forth with a gay, flippant, theological prattle about the deep things of God. But the natural heartstrings have not been snapped, and the Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and the bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of Gethsemane; and not having the real death marks of Calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet, gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, triumphant life that flows like a spring morning from an empty tomb.—G. D. W.
‘Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.’ Isaiah 40:2 SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Ephesians 1:1–10
She has received double. Not, as some suppose, that her afflictions had already been over-proportioned to their procuring cause—sin. We shall always have reason to say, He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities. Others, who are rather too eager to strain texts beyond their proper import in order to support a favourite doctrine, suppose that the suffering of the Messiah would be greater than the exigency of the case—more than necessary. But the truth is best proved and supported by texts which expressly teach it. The efficacy of the atonement is indeed greater than the actual application and sufficient to save the whole race of mankind, if they believed in the Son of God. But he groaned and bled upon the cross till he could say, It is finished [John 19:30]—but no longer. It becomes us to refer to infinite wisdom the reasons why his sufferings were for such a precise time, but we may be sure they were not beyond what the cause required. I think the true sense of the words is that Jerusalem should receive blessings double, much greater, than all her former afflictions. And in general to us, to every believing sinner, that the blessings of the gospel would be an unspeakably great over-balance and compensation for all afflictions of every kind by which we have been or can be exercised. Afflictions are the fruit of sin, and because our sins have been many, our afflictions may be many. But where sin has abounded, grace has much more abounded.
FOR MEDITATION: Behold the goodness of God. Infinitely happy and glorious in himself. He has provided for the comfort of those who were rebels against his government and transgressors of his law.
Of sinners the chief, And viler than all, The jailer or thief, Manasseh or Saul: Since they were forgiven, Why should I despair, While Christ is in heaven, And still answers prayer?
Genesis 1:1–2 states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The gap theory is the view that God created a fully functional earth with all animals, including the dinosaurs and other creatures we know only from the fossil record. Then, the theory goes, something happened to destroy the earth completely—most likely the fall of Satan to earth—so that the planet became without form and void. At this point, God started all over again, recreating the earth in its paradise form as further described in Genesis. The gap theory, which is distinct from theistic evolution and the day-age theory, is also called old-earth creationism, gap creationism, and the ruin-reconstruction theory.
In young-earth creationism, Genesis 1:1 is seen as a summary of the complete chapter 1 in the Hebrew storytelling form. God created the heavens and the earth. Then verse 2 begins a detailed breakdown of the step-by-step process that verse 1 summarizes. However, the statement that “the earth was formless and empty, [and] darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:2) can be puzzling. The idea that God created a useless and shapeless earth is an uncomfortable position for some conservative theologians, and this leads them to the gap theory, or an old-earth perspective.
According to conservative proponents of the gap theory, Genesis 1:1 describes the original creation of God—perfect in every way. Then, between verses 1 and 2, Satan rebelled in heaven and was cast out. Satan’s sin “ruined” the original creation; that is, his rebellion brought about its destruction and eventual death, and the earth was reduced to its “formless and empty” state, ready for the “re-construction.” The length of time involved—the size of the “gap”—is not specified but could have lasted millions of years.
Of course, Satan must have fallen before Adam did; otherwise, there would have been no temptation in the garden. Young-earth creationists say that Satan fell sometime after Genesis 1:31. Gap creationists say that Satan fell between Genesis 1:1 and 2.
One difficulty of the gap theory is that it requires that creation suffer death and destruction before Adam’s fall. Romans 5:12 says, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” The gap theory counters by positing two worlds. Satan’s sin brought death to the original creation, whatever that was like; and Adam’s sin brought death to the re-creation, the realm of mankind. Through Adam’s sin, evil entered our world and the realm of man was cursed. But rebellion already existed outside the realm of mankind (in the spiritual realm), since Satan and his angels had already fallen (Isaiah 14:12–14; Ezekiel 28:12–18). Sin could not enter the realm of man until man chose it. And Satan, via the serpent, successfully tempted man to make that choice.
Objections to the gap theory include the idea that, if something important had occurred between Genesis 1:1 and 2, God would have told us so, rather than leave us to speculate in ignorance. Also, Genesis 1:31 says God declared His creation to be “very good”—a statement difficult to square with the theory that evil already existed because of Satan’s fall in the “gap.”
It is possible to hold to a literal, six-day creation week and still hold to the gap theory—the gap theory does not require evolution to be true, since the gap falls before the events of Day One in Genesis 1:3. And that’s why some conservative scholars do believe the gap theory, although its acceptance has waned since the days of proponents C. I. Scofield and J. Vernon McGee.
However, many of those who hold to the gap theory do so in order to reconcile old-earth, evolutionary theories with the book of Genesis. But it seems to be a strained reconciliation. The plain reading of Genesis 1 does not at all intimate a length of time between the first two verses. Genesis 1:1 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:2 informs us that, when He first created the earth, it was formless, empty, and dark; it was unfinished and uninhabited. The rest of Genesis 1 relates how God completed the formless, empty, and dark earth by filling it with life, beauty, and goodness.
Progressive creationism (also called “process creation”) is the belief that God created the heavens and the earth over a period of billions of years, not the six 24-hour days that is the basis for the traditional creationism view. Progressive creationists can be liberal or conservative in their theological belief system, but they generally agree on the following:
• The “Big Bang” was God’s way of producing stars and galaxies through billions of years of natural processes. • The earth and universe are billions of years old, not merely thousands of years old. • The days of creation were overlapping periods of millions and billions of years. • Death and bloodshed have existed from the very beginning of creation and were not the result of Adam’s sin. Man was created after the vast majority of earth’s history of life and death had already taken place. • The flood of Noah was local, not global, and it had little effect on the earth’s geology, which shows billions of years of history.
Progressive creationism is a belief that opposes both atheistic evolutionism and young earth creationism. The teachings of progressive creationism are not new, but in recent years they have received favorable publicity through Christian radio, television, magazines, and books.
In our view, the error of progressive creationism rests on the assumption that the biblical account of creation in Genesis 1–2 is not meant to be understood literally. According to progressive creationism, the “days” in Genesis 1 are not literal, 24-hour days but actually long periods of time, amounting to millions or even billions of years (see our article on the days of creation). Progressive creationists accept the evolutionary viewpoint of the age of the earth, which we feel is in error (see our article on age of the earth).
Another disagreement we have with progressive creationism is that it posits that death existed prior to the Fall, which undermines the teaching that all physical death is a result of sin (see Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21–22).
In some circumstances, progressive creationism is an attempt by some Christians to harmonize the teachings of modern science with the Bible. However, the theory actually precedes modern evolutionary thinking and was suggested by some of the earliest Christian writers. While we disagree with progressive creationism, it is a view held by a sizable proportion of the Christian community.
All that being said, the traditional interpretation of Genesis has mostly been that of young earth creationism, not progressive creationism. This is because the strongest evidences suggested for progressive creationism come mainly from the field of science, not directly from the words of the Bible.
The historical creationist view affirms that the creation account in Genesis 1—2 is indeed intended to be a historical account—not poetry or mythology. At the same time, the historical creationism interpretation relieves much of the tension between modern science and Scripture that seems to be inherent in the young-earth creationist view, which also uses a “historical” reading of Genesis 1. Historical creationism is also called “historical” to point out that it is not new but has been held by many throughout church history, especially before the rise of modern science.
Historical creationism has been promoted of late by John Sailhamer (professor of Old Testament at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Brea, California) in his book Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account (originally published by Multnomah, 1996; second edition by Dawson Media, 2011).
Historical creationism maintains that Genesis 1:1 is the account of the creation of the universe. This creation took place “in the beginning”—in an unspecified period of time that may have lasted a very long time and may have been a very long time ago. The Genesis account simply does not give us any time frame for when the physical universe was created. It could well have been created long ago (even millions or billions of years in the past), or it may have been created very slowly over time. Therefore, the historical creationist interpretation of the Genesis account does not require a “young-earth” view.
When we pick up the story in Genesis 1:2, the earth is unformed and unfilled. Prior to modern science, there would have been little or no understanding of the concept of Earth as a planet. Thus, according to historical creationism, the word earth would have been understood as a specific area of land, not “Planet Earth.” Genesis 1:2—2:24 recounts the preparation of a specific area of habitat for mankind—the Garden of Eden—which took place over a literal six days.
The relationship of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2ff can be stated in the following paraphrase: “In the beginning, God created the universe. After He did this, He turned His attention to a specific area for man to live in. It was dark, so He said, ‘Let there be light.’” The words formless and void in Genesis 1:2 (KJV) can refer to a wasteland or wilderness that is unable to sustain life. (The term translated “formless” is also used in Deuteronomy 32:10 to refer to the wilderness at the time of Israel’s wanderings. Had it not been for God’s special provision, the people could not have survived their time there.) So, according to historical creationism, rather than Genesis 1:2 referring to the whole earth as a formless mass, it refers only to a specific section of wasteland that God had chosen for man to live in. (The whole planet may have been a barren waste, but that is outside the scope of the text.)
So, God spent a week of literal, 24-hour days to get the Garden of Eden ready for man. He first commanded the sun to rise: “Let there be light.” On Day 4, God did not bring into existence the sun and moon (they had already been created in Genesis 1:1); rather, He declared their purpose. Instead of “let there be lights in the vault of the sky,” historical creationists would argue that the best translation of Genesis 1:14 would be something like this: “Let the lights in the vault of the sky be signs.” The lights had existed since Day 1 and were already providing light, but, on Day 4, God proclaimed their significance—just as the rainbow may have existed before Noah’s time, but after the flood God gave it special significance. In Genesis 1:14 God revealed that the purpose of the heavenly bodies is to serve mankind.
The rest of the historical creationist interpretation of Genesis 1—2 would proceed along the same lines as other creationist views, based on a somewhat literal reading of the text.
There are strengths and weaknesses to the historical creationist view. Genesis 1 definitely seems, upon a literal reading, to be describing the creation of the universe and the entirety of the earth. However, it is absolutely true that the Bible does not offer extensive or specific information about God’s process of creation. For instance, some assumptions required for a young-earth interpretation might be valid, but they are still assumptions, not direct statements of Scripture itself. At the very least, the historical creationist view is an example of how people can interpret the Genesis 1 account in a faithful and theologically valid way but come to different conclusions on certain points.
Historical creationism should also challenge all believers to examine their understanding of the creation account, as well as any other passage of Scripture. It is important that our view is not overly influenced by English translations, traditions, or modern scientific concerns—either in capitulation or opposition to them.
This is my personal collection of thoughts and writings, mainly from much smarter people than I, which challenge me in my discipleship walk. Don't rush by these thoughts, but ponder them.
Milo 