After reading the book, "The Gap is Not a Theory," by Jack Langford, I ultimately came to disagree with his assessment. I partially agree, but there are areas where he is clearly wrong.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 NKJV)
Mr. Langford concludes that "the heavens and the earth" includes the stars, sun, etc. His evidence is that gravity exists, along with the matter that makes up the earth, and all governing principles that hold earth in place. Sure, I totally agree with the idea that all scientific principles needed to be fully functional in order for the earth to exist, but that does not mean that all of the celestial bodies needed to exist. In fact, that totally contradicts day four of creation.
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (Genesis 1:14-19 NKJV)
To get around the wording of day four, Mr. Langford says day four is describing a recreation event. That is clearly not true. Before day four, there were no lights in the firmament of the heavens. God created the heavens and the earth, but He didn't populate the heavens until day four. In addition, the Bible clearly states that "God made two great lights." He didn't move already existing ones, or rekindle the fires, or ignite the flames, or anything of that nature. The Bible explains why He created all these things as, "to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." There is no way you can fit a recreation into that. They didn't exist before day four, and on day four, God brought them into existence.
I do agree that there is an unspecified amount of time between verse one and three.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3 NKJV)
However, just because there is an unspecified amount of time after God created the heavens and the earth, doesn't mean that it had to be a long time, and it certainly doesn't mean that there were billions of years, or that the earth being without form and void means that there was some type of destruction event that took place for the earth to be in that condition. It simply means that God created the earth in the form of a mud ball and the heavens with nothing in them.
Another piece of evidence that Mr. Langford presents is 2 Cor 4:3-6:
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3-6 NKJV)
He explains that these verses are a type of the regeneration of the child of God. The argument is that Paul uses Gen 1:3 as a type to explain salvation. God has given us the knowledge of what it feels like to experience seeing the light out of the darkness. Just as the world was in darkness before Gen 1:3, Christians are in darkness before our rebirth. Before we are saved, we are in a state of chaos, just as the world was before the creation events. And before our rebirth, there was a period of time where we lived in darkness, just as the world was dark and without void for some unspecified period of time. He also adds that Lucifer sinned and became dead to God before Adam sinned. He points out as well that Eze 28:13 says, "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created." And for some reason, which I don't understand, Mr. Langford says that "the earth had been designated as Lucifer's residence." I have no idea where he got that. Those verses don't say anything like that at all. Just because Lucifer was in Eden doesn't mean that the earth was designated for Lucifer. I honestly don't know where he came up with that. It doesn't even flow logically. Who cares if Lucifer was in the garden or not? Lucifer is on earth right now too. God clearly didn't create the earth for Lucifer. God created the earth for us. Mr. Langford argues that Adam never saw Lucifer decked out like Ezekiel said, so Lucifer was trying to regain his dominion over this earth. Again, I have no idea where he's getting this stuff. It's certainly not in the scripture.
God never explained the creation of the angels to us. We don't know much about them. We don't know when they were created, where they lived - other than in Heaven - and we don't know much about their capabilities. We know they can travel from Heaven to earth and back, and that they can take on physical bodies. We know they can possess people and animals and influence our minds. We know they can control the weather and that they have principalities on earth. But to inject into the scripture that the earth was designated for Lucifer is far-fetched at best. If we read the Bible literally, we see nothing of the sort. Our personal experience of wandering in the darkness before our rebirth shining light into that darkness in no way correlates to anything more than just that. We were in darkness before, and now are in the light. We can't read more into that. I can see that the analogy shows that before we were saved, we were under the dominion of Satan, and after, the dominion of God. But that does not mean that I was designated for Satan until I chose otherwise. I was simply without form and void until accepting Jesus. At that point, the light of creation began in my life. I am a new creation, and the rebirth didn't start until God said, "Let there be light" in my life. I don't see how Mr. Langford can make the connection that this analogy shows the earth was created, then destroyed, then recreated. That would mean that I was created, then destroyed, and upon accepting Jesus, I am recreated. That makes no sense. I was born into sin, just as the world was born without form and void. There was no cause to make the earth into that state, other than that's how God conjured it into existence. It's clearly recorded that way.
Now, it seems that there must be a reason why anyone would argue for an extended period of time between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:3, and it inevitably comes down to wanting to appease scientists. Science shows that the earth is older than what is recorded in the Bible. And depending on the year of the science book, they say the earth is somewhere between 7 and 18 billion years old. These gap theorists want to fit the Bible to science, so they come up with this gap of time between verses 1 & 3, and say that the creation event isn't really creation, but a recreation due to the destruction of the world by Lucifer. Well, that's a nice tale, but it isn't in the Bible. The creation events recorded in Gen 1 clearly say nothing of the sort, and they need to stuff this whole fall and recreation into this gap, thus extending the age of the earth to something that science can agree with. However, just as God created man older than a baby, I don't see any reason why God couldn't create the earth aged as well. Seems something easy for God to do in my opinion. I mean, He created all the stars, the sun, and the moon in one day, including making all the light from the stars shine on earth (isn't that millions or billions of light years? How did He do that in a day?). It took Him three days to mold the earth. And how did God cause the plants to grow on earth without the sun? In my opinion, and I mean this respectfully, God isn't big enough for those who argue for this gap theory. God is capable of anything when it comes to the physical world. If He can create all of this out of nothing (try to reason that out if you want your mind to melt), I'm sure He can create the earth showing signs of age. The gap theory seems more like pandering than an actual Biblical account.
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