The Age of The Universe: Can Billions of Years Be In The Bible?
Pastor David Green
11/1/2009

Genesis 1:1

Introduction. We begin our study with the Creation account. This is the complete record found only right here in the Bible. Moses wrote it, but since much of what happened occurred before the creation of man, it had to be revealed by God. As I said in our first lesson, we do not know the details of how God revealed it, we simply know He did. And The Scriptures themselves are a testimony to its truth:

Exodus 31:15-17
Matthew 19:4-6
Hebrews 4:4

In the early part of the last century, H. Boyce Taylor said, “It has been well said that, if one gets right on the teachings in the first three Chapters of the Bible, he is pretty sure to be right on the rest of the Bible. Because we believe this, we devote quite a bit of time to the study of these initial chapters. My brethren, there is much material here for the very preaching that we need today. Linger here in your study.” And oh what truth there is in that statement!

A Matter of Faith. Belief in the Biblical account of Creation is, as our enemies are so swift to tell us, a matter of faith. (See Hebrews 11:3). Yet, this is not a matter of “faith vs science” as so many assume.

Scientific theories must be testable and capable of being proven true or false. Neither evolution nor Biblical creation qualifies as a scientific theory because each deals with historical events that cannot be repeated. Both evolution and creation are based on unobserved assumptions about past events. It is wrong to say one is faith and the other is not, when in reality they both are faiths.

The whole of the debate boils down to one question: WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?

The differences between evolution and creation are vast, but it all comes down to the strarting point: Creationists have the Creator's account of the events of creation, while evolutionists have to create their own story.

How old is the earth? The age of the earth is one of the most contentious issues in the creation/evolution debate. There have been many theories that have been given down through the years as to how old the earth is. Obviously, we cannot be sure the date, but the most commonly taught age for earth is 4.5 billion years...at least thats what the textbooks of most schools teach these days, and what you'll hear in the television and read in some magazines. Furthermore, they teach that the universe is 14 billion years old

A straightforward reading of the Bible puts the age of the earth and universe somewhere around 6000 years old, far less than what is taught by many scientists, professors and teachers.

There have been some attempts to fit these long ages into the Bible, but I have rejected all of these. (We'll look at them in a moment, both because of their popularity and also because I have known some good and Godly men who have held to these beliefs..)

Here's how we can arrive at our 6000 year old earth using the Bible:

Five days of creation (from earth's creation to Adam).
Follow the genealogies from Adam to Abraham, which is about 2000 years.
Abraham lived about 4000 years ago.

Going backwards from our current date, we find the Creation to be dated 4004 BC. (You can also use the death of King Nebuchadnezzar as a reliable date upon which to anchor all the earlier biblical dates. Working meticulously backward from there, you will come up with the date for creation of 4004 BC.) This is the date that James Ussher arrived at in his Annals of the World which was first published in 1658. Also Floyd Nolan Jones arrived at that same date in his book The Chronology of the Old Testament which was published in 1993. We'll use that same dating method in our own study and timelines. In fact, if you have ever used Matthew Henry's Commentary, and noticed the dates on the left margin, these are based on Ussher's work.

Of course, cultures throughout the world have kept track of history as well. From time to time we may reference these cultures since everyone was descended from Noah and scattered from the Tower of Babel. Notice the following which are listed in Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible:

Prior to the 1700s, very few people held to the idea of an old earth. Those who challenged the idea of a young earth left God out of the picture. And of course now old earth ideas are so popular, to believe anything else is seen as being ignorant. Folks make fun of us and claim we believe the earth is square, etc.

Methods to add millions or billions of years to the Bible. Since old earth teaching became so popular and because many did not have answers to the critics of the Bible, some folks adopted theories to fit vast ages of world history into Scripture. We will now consider these theories and problems with them, all the while keeping in mind that some of the problems between one will be problematic for another.

The Gap Theory (AKA Ruin-Reconstruction Theory). This theory teaches that there is an indefinite period of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. What took place during that time or how long it was depends on who you ask. Most versions of this theory include millions of years of geologic time. Usually included in this gap are the dinosaurs, and other animals and creatures that are supposed to have occurred before man. Some versions of this theory include a pre-Adamic race of men, the fall of Lucifer, etc.

So the basic teaching of the gap theory is that millions of years ago God created the universe and everything in it as recorded in Genesis 1:1. Sometime during the subsequent millions of year, Lucifer rebelled and was thrown to earth. This resulted in Lucifer’s Flood, which destroyed all plant and animal life on earth, thus producing the fossil record in the rock layers.

At the same time as this flood, the earth was plunged into darkness and thus became “without form and void” as recorded in Genesis 1:2. The gap theory teaches that the fossils found in the earth’s crust are relics of the originally perfect world that God created, which was supposedly destroyed before the six literal days of creation (or re-creation) recorded in the rest of Genesis 1.

Ruin-Reconstruction interpretation first appeared about the end of the 18th century, evidently in response to demands by geological science for long periods of time for strata formation. This theory grew in popularity among Baptists during the 1960s-1980s. I do not find it is very popular these days as what it once was.

Bible study aids such as the Scofield Reference Bible, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, and The Newberry Reference Bible also include the gap theory and have influenced many to accept this teaching. The basic reason for developing and promoting this view can be seen from the following very telling quotes:

Problems with the gap theory. There are numerous problems with the theory and I will list them here.

Romans 5:12
Romans 8:19-23
The Bible teaches very clearly that there was no death on the earth until after Adam's sin. Yet the fossil record is full of death and suffering.

Genesis 1:28
This is supposedly the “proof verse” for the gap theory. Yet, let us examine the word “replenish” in the English first and then we will consider the Hebrew word mâlê' (pronounced malay).

English has changed a bit over the years. When we say replenish now in our common day to day speech we mean to fill again, but what did the word mean before?

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) shows that the word was used to mean ‘fill’ from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. In no case quoted in these five centuries does it unambiguously mean ‘re-fill’. The OED defines ‘replenish’ as having 10 meanings throughout its history:

  1. Replenished (adjective):

    1. fully stocked; provided, supplied;

    2. filled, pervaded;

    3. physically or materially filled;

    4. full, made full.

  2. To replenish:

    1. make full, fill, stock with, as in: ‘This man made the Newe Forest, and replenyshed it with wylde bestes’ (AD1494);

    2. inhabit, settle, occupy the whole of;

    3. fill with food, satiate;

    4. fill (space) with; fill (heart) with (a feeling);

    5. fill up again; fill up (a vacant office) (AD1632);

    6. become full, attain to fullness

Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) defines the word as “To fill; to stock with numbers or abundance.”

Just because a word begins with “re-” does not always mean “again.” The word “research” for example means “to search completely.” Or consider the word “refresh” which simply means “to make fresh.” So, with a proper understanding of the English we do not find here a “smoking gun” that points to an earlier filling of the earth with people.

But what about the Hebrew word mâlê' (pronounced malay)? I consulted Strong’s Concordance. In its various forms it occurs 306 times in the Old Testament. Only seven times does the KJV translate it as ‘replenish’, but 195 times ‘fill’, ‘filled’ or ‘full’ (see Genesis 1:22). It's meaning according to Strong's is “to fill.” The idea of refilling is completely absent from the Hebrew.

I Corinthians 15:45
The Bible does not teach of any man before Adam, soulless or otherwise. Adam was the first man.

Exodus 20:11
This verse makes it clear that Genesis 1 and 2 have no gaps in them. Either this verse is wrong or the gap theory is wrong. In the gap theory teaching, for instance, the sun was already created millions of years before Genesis 1:16. Yet, here we read that God created everything in six days!

Nehemiah 9:6
The gap theorists have tried to make a distinction between two Hebrew words used in Genesis 1: bârâ' (pronounced baw-raw' means "to create") and ‛âśâh (pronounced aw-saw' and means "to do" ). They claim that bârâ' means the original creation, and ‛âśâh means the recreation. However, this differentiation between the two words does not hold water when studied in light of Scripture and the words are used to mean the same thing. Consider the verse we have just read. It says that God made (‛âśâh) everything in heaven and earth, even the airy and starry heavens, and the sun, moon, and stars in them, and the third heaven, the seat of God, angels, and saints.  The gap theorists do not believe that God had to recreate everything, yet given the word used here in order to be consistent, they would have to believe this.

Genesis 2:4
Notice how the words are used interchangeably to mean the same thing here: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created (bârâ), in the day that the LORD God made (âśâh) the earth and the heavens,”

The Day-Age Theory (Progressive Creationism). This theory is another attempt to squeeze billions of years into the Bible. According to this theory, the word “day” does not really man day – it means an indefinite period of time. So when God's word says God did something on day one, then it might mean 1000 years, or perhaps it was 1,000,000 years or maybe even 1,000,000,000 years. Like the Gap Theory there are many problems here.

Problems of the Day_Age Theory.For one thing, this theory totally ignores the basic rule of interpretation: “When the plain sense of the Scriptures make plain sense, seek no other sense.” We need to take God's Word with the attitude that He said it and that settles it!

Genesis 1:5 (and verse 8, 13, 19, 23, & 31)
The only type of day that has an evening and a morning in it is a 24 hour day. We reckon our days as “morning and evening” but the Bible reckons the day as “evening and morning” because darkness came before the light. The Jews followed suit and their days started at 6pm.

Exodus 20:10-11
Are we to work for 6 billion years and then rest for a billion? Or do we take these as seven literal days?

The Bible is its best interpretor.

Genesis 1:8
Day-age followers point out that the Hebrew word for day (yom) does not always indicate a “day” in the ordinary sense, but can sometimes mean an unspecified period of time. This we agree, but when combined with an ordinal number (“the first day, the third day, etc.”) day means an ordinary day—not a period of time. Notice: Genesis 8:3, Numbers 13:25; Jonah 1:17.

It is important to point out that even if the day-age position were true, it would not bring the biblical account into alignment with the secular story of origins since the order of events is different between the two.


EVOLUTION

GENESIS

Sun before earth

Earth before sun

Dry land before sea

Sea before dry land

Atmosphere before sea

Sea before atmosphere

Sun before light on earth

Light on earth before sun

Stars before earth

Earth before stars

Earth at same time as planets

Earth before other planets

Sea creatures before land plants

Land plants before sea creatures

Land animals before trees

Trees before land animals

Death before man

Man before death

Thorns and thistles before man

Man before thorns and thistles

Cancer before man (dinosaurs had cancer)

Man before cancer

Reptiles before birds

Birds before reptiles

Land mammals before whales

Whales before land animals

Land mammals before bats

Bats before land animals

Dinosaurs before birds

Birds before dinosaurs

Insects before flowering plants

Flowering plants before insects

Sun before plants

Plants before sun

Dinosaurs before dolphins

Dolphins before dinosaurs

Land insects before flying insects

Flying insects before land insects

Matthew 19:3-6
Notice that according to Jesus, man was created when? At the beginning. Jesus is the Creator so He would know! According to the day-age theory (and the gap theory as well as evolutionary theory), Adam would have come into existence millions or billions of years after the beginning (Genesis 1:1)

Theistic Evolution. The only difference between theistic evolution and atheistic evolution is that God has been added. Notice:

The atheistic formula for evolution is:

In the theistic evolutionary view, God is added:

Problems with Theistic Evolution. The God of theistic evolution is a very weak god, a god who is not sovereign over all, a god who was not interested in the world or the people of the world. He is not the God of the Bible. Either the Bible is true or evolution is.

Genesis 1:31
At the end of the 6 days, God said everything was “very good.” Yet evolution is all about struggle, death, survival of the fittest. Death and disease were common according to the evolutionary time scale, yet God said it was very good?

Genesis 1:26-27
Man was made in God's image, according to the Bible. Did God make man from the dust of the earth as is recorded in Genesis or did He breathe into a primate the breath of life?

Genesis 2:17
The threat of death to Adam would have seemed insignificant if evolution were true. All of his monkey, ape, and ape-like ancestors would have experienced death and he would have expected it to be true also.

Obviously, we have already considered it is more than an issue of fitting in time. The order of Genesis does not match the order (or disorder) of evolution as we have already seen.

Conclusion. The issue is authority. Is God's Word the authority? Or is man's word the authority?

John 3:12
Romans 3:4

Recommended books for further reading on this subject:

Refuting Compromise by Jonathan Sarfati
The New Answers Book 1 by Ken Ham, et al.
The New Answers Book 2 by Ken Ham, et al.
Studies in Genesis by H. Boyce Taylor