THE GAP THEORY


From the middle of the 19th century, a group of English, Scottish and American theologians and historians promoted the idea that the world we read about in the first chapter of Genesis, was not the original creation of the Earth; and that instead this was a newly re-organized planet, after a previous original creation not mentioned between verses 1 and 2 of the first chapter of Genesis.

The reason was double. Firstly, it could match with new theories of and old Earth, proposed by the Geologists of the time; by saying that the planet itself was much ancestral than the story of seven days in Genesis. And secondly, that God being perfect, could not possibly create an Earth that was initially in chaos and darkness, attributing this condition to an act of Satan and his angels after they were thrown out of God’s presence and descended to Earth.

This theory became much popular among American Pentecostal evangelicals by the beginning of the 20th century, and was in fact, included as truthful in the explanatory notes of the Scofield Study Bible, and still today has a stronghold among certain sects and American evangelical movements.

ANALYZING

This theory, even when it was attributed by the men who made it popular in the 19th century, to earlier sources, in reality is based on pure baseless speculation, and a misinterpretation of God’s nature and the record of Genesis as it stands today.

1 – There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that may refer to an earlier creation of the planet before Genesis 1. The ‘idea’ that there was another creation prior to Genesis, it is sheer speculation without any base.

2 – It is an absolute error to think that God concluded a creation act in verse 2 of Genesis. This is only an introduction to the start of the Creation process, which officially starts in verse 3. The final result was total perfection (Genesis 1:31).

3 – There is no reason why God would take millions of years in creating human life, to then create it in supposedly ‘seven days’, specially when human creation was the purpose of the creation of this planet (Genesis 1:26-28).

4 – There is no reason why God would allow Satan to destroy his creation violently, as it if was his property, and God would not be able to stop him.
Furthermore, there would not be a reason why he Satan would not do the same afterwards, or be allowed to tempt Adam and Even in Genesis.

CONCLUSION

The Gap Theory is a false doctrine taught through a distorted understanding of Scripture.

The same as the story of Eve being a ‘second wife’ to Adam, while another woman not mentioned in the Bible, so called ‘Lylith’ was the original woman of Creation; the Gap theory belongs to the group of obscure biblical speculation promoted by misguided modern people who only tried to call attention to themselves.

“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
2Timothy 4:3

Omar Flores.



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