Previously we discussed the GAP THEORY, but it is evident we must return to the subject repeatedly, as it constitutes a tremendous stumbling block of confusion for church people.
In recent days, I have read direct quotes or listened to television interviews that reveal among many others Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. John Hagee, and Dr. Benny Hinn all support The Gap Theory. This is absolutely astounding to me! I love to hear these men preach, especially Dr. Billy Graham and Dr. John Hagee, and have found myself in such strong agreement with them on some of the things said that I would even rise out of my chair in my living room and shout approval. I do not wish to be considered critical in any way of God's annointed, and would probably remain silent if I wasn't so old and maybe senile, but it is not possible to remain silent with such a strong different honest opinion on a subject.
The key to this discussion is in the supposed age of God's creation. Books exist on this subject. The public is constantly bombarded with propaganda that an ancient creation has been scientifically proven. However, true science (observation, experimentation and collection and evaluation of the data) reveal the creation cannot be ancient, but lets look at God's word to see if an imagined gap of millions or billions of years can exist between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
No one found a gap there until the late 1700's in response to intellectual demands by supposed geological science for vast periods of time to permit the supposed slow formation of the rock strata trapping fossils to occur, which are obviously present in the sedimentary strata around the world. Since God began the first word of every sentence in Hebrew with "wau" in Genesis 1, which in English is the conjunction "and", which is correctly translated in The King James, God grammatically prevented the insertion of a gap concept before any gap could even be imagined.
Additionally, Genesis 1:5 ends with: "And the evening and the morning were the first day". Not the first day after the first creation, or the first day after starting the second creation. A straight reading of scripture, up to verse 5 merely tells what happened from the beginning to the end of the first day of the creation week. Why wouldn't God simply tell us there was a gap of millions or billions of years there, instead of hiding the idea so that an expert would have to try to show us simpletons its existence. God is not capricious (tricky, fickle, inconstant), and would not hide such an important truth from us dumb humans.
In addition, if you are to believe the Bible account of Noah's devastating flood that geneologies show occurred 4,400 years ago, this flood of Noah's time would have obliterated any supposed fossils of pre-Adam times, and thus destroy the whole purpose of the imagined gap.
Also, Genesis 1:31 says: "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". How could everything be very good if the world was already full of pre-Adam fossil corpses showing previous death and destruction?
If you find no gap, you simply believe the word of God as written. If you find a gap that is not there to supposedly squeeze in millions of years, you could be taking authority over the word of God as Adam did in the garden when tempted by Satan, and you could be adding to scripture as we are sternly warned not to do. If death did not enter the world through Adam's disobedience as the Bible clearly tells, then Christ did not need to come and die. The gap gives us death before Adam, and thus makes Christ's death meaningless, and makes God a liar.
Sidney C. Phillips M.D. 1999.
