In The Beginning

Man was designed to live on this planet. The earth was designed to be the home for man. This was the plan God had from the very beginning. He began by creating the heavens and the earth, and He spent six days preparing it for His man. When it was finished, he put Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them dominion over the earth.

Genesis 1:
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Psalm 8 also says that man was made to have dominion:

Psalm 8:
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.

Man sinned and lost the rulership he was meant to have. But God had a purpose for man, and still has a plan to return man to his original state. And that original state included rulership of the earth. That plan is the overall subject of the entire Bible, which ends with man (specifically the man, Jesus Christ, along with his church) ruling on earth.

There are many who have proposed that man, rather than having a purpose, evolved by random mutation and natural selection. There are a number of problems with this theory, not only because it contradicts the Bible, but because even scientifically there are flaws in it. Many scientists will not even consider creationism because they say it is not science, because the belief in a supernatural creator is outside the domain of that which can be tested. However, there is nothing about the theory of evolution that can be scientifically tested either. The truth is neither side can "prove" or demonstrate, by scientific testing, how life and specifically man originated. I will not go into the details of this vast and fascinating subject here, as there are a number of websites that do that far more competently than I ever could (see the Links page). What I would like to discuss here, though, is a Biblical theory that I believed in for many years. It is commonly known as the Gap Theory, although we didn't call it that at the time. It is also sometimes called the Ruin/Restoration theory.

I have a Closer Look article about it that goes into more detail, but briefly, the theory states that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. Then in Genesis 1:2, the earth "became" without form and void. The remainder of chapter one, according to this theory, describes not the creation but God's rebuilding of His creation that was destroyed. The theory actually brings up more questions than it answers, though. Among them is, why would God make a heaven and earth with some form of people in it (or at least hominids, human-like creatures) only to have it be destroyed when the devil rebelled? And why, if God did make an earlier heaven and earth, does He tell us nothing about it in His Word? Also, is the devil so powerful that he can destroy all of God's creation the way I was taught that he did? Also, Romans 5:12 says, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin..." so there could have been no death before Adam's sin. Therefore, how could the creatures in the first heaven and earth have been destroyed?

It must be remembered that the Gap Theory was largely popularized by a 19th century minister, in an attempt to reconcile evolution and the Bible. The theory was adopted by many theologians, including E. W. Bullinger who influenced much of what V. P. Wierwille taught. (Before the 19th century, most Christians believed that fossils were the result of Noah's flood.) I had to ask myself, even though I believed in the Gap Theory for many years, is it in the Scripture?

Those who attempt to reconcile Genesis chapter one with long periods of time do so with either the gap theory or by interpreting the "days" of Genesis 1 as "ages." There is much disagreement over whether the "days" in Genesis 1 are literal or figurative. But Exodus 20:8-11 tells us that the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week is to be holy, because "...In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." If the six days were actually six "ages," did God rest during the seventh "age?" This also does not fit with the Gap Theory, which says that God made heaven and earth all at once, and the six days were merely "rebuilding."

Furthermore, Jesus said in Mark 10:6 that "...from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." God's creation of Adam and Eve on the sixth day could not therefore be after a long gap of billions of years, nor could it be after a series of five earlier "ages." He made them male and female "from the beginning" and it was part of His original plan.

The implication of the Gap Theory is that what God started out to do in His creation, the devil made ruin of and God had to start over. Did God know what was going to happen when he created the heavens and the earth? For that matter, when he finished what He did in Genesis chapter one, He said it was "very good." If Satan had fallen before that time and become the Evil One, how could all creation be described as "very good?" And if Satan had fallen before man was put in the garden, why did God give Adam no warning of the Evil One, as He did in so many other places in the Bible?

Perhaps the most important point to consider is this. Any theory that allows for death and decay before the fall of Adam misses the whole point of God's redemption plan. The theory of evolution, as well as various old earth theories, including the Gap Theory and theories that interpret the six days of creation as six long ages, all have one thing in common. They all have death and corruption before the fall of Adam, whereas Romans 5:12-21 and I Corinthians 15:21-22 tell us that death was the result of man's sin. If death existed before man sinned, then it is a normal, natural part of the cycle of life. But the Bible teaches us that God designed man with a purpose, and that purpose included everlasting life. Death was not part of that plan, but rather something that was introduced which marred it and hindered it, and had to be overcome. It was first introduced as the penalty for man's sin. God told man that if he sinned he would die. Satan said man would not die. (The same lie is propounded everywhere to this day. See the Closer Look article on The State Of The Dead.) While the penalty for sin is death, God also provided the payment when he sent His Son to die in our place, and overcame death when He raised Christ from the dead. None of this has any meaning if death is just a natural part of life that has always existed.

God's plan from the beginning was for man to inhabit this planet, and to rule over it. Since man fell, God has been unfolding a plan to restore man to his original condition. His first promise was the eventual defeat of the devil by someone who would be of the woman's seed, in Genesis 3:15. He also planned to restore the earth to the way it was, referred to in Acts 3:21 as "the times of restitution of all things." Romans also speaks of this.

Romans 8:
19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

The word "vanity" in verse 20 means "futility." The world is subject to futility because it is not currently able to measure up to its intended purpose. God subjected it to that futility "in hope," because His plan involves one day delivering it from the bondage of corruption and returning it to its former glory. This is the foundation of the good news about the Kingdom of God.

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