In the Beginning 1
Emails & Questions
In the Beginning – only 6,000 years old?
Q: Some Creationist are teaching everything is only about 6,000 years old and Genesis says that, right?
Also, where then, did all the water come from? D.
A: The word used in Genesis 1:2 for “moved”, according to Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary – H7363, mean to “relax” or even to “flutter”. This “relaxing” indicates a calm, nothing violent or aggressive, as HIS very Being settled “over the FACE of the water”. So, what does “face” mean? H6440 – this word “face”, used twice in this verse, has many applications and one of the first choices is anger. We have a deep body of water, then, that is the face or surface is angry, but YaHWeH’s Spirit settles over its surface and calms it – the beginning of our Creation on this Earth begins, it seems, in a calm and deliberate fashion, not one of violence and chaos – just the opposite of what men teach and this is typical of most teachings of men.
The whole line of think you are taking here could be explained by the possibility the Earth existed before the “beginning of Creation” from the earth’s point of view. Once we admit we do not really know anything about the Universe of our Creator prior to our own Earthly creation we have to understand we are entering the realm of speculation and this is what Sci-Fi writers live on, but we are truth seekers not Sci-Fi writers.
When we, as believers, are brought into the discussion ,“In the Beginning”, many take this to mean from the very beginning of everything, because the Heavens are mentioned and the word, “beginning” is used. This, however, is actually another kind of “speculation” it is a “relative” statement – relative to one’s point of reference, from where we are seeing what is happening, from this view on “earth”.
The Genesis account begins with this reference point called Earth, a planet covered in water. I understand in your view you are suggesting the “water” is somewhere else, not on earth itself, but from the view we are given the “water” is encompassing this planet, from the point of view from earth the water is here and we are not told where it came from or how it got here. What this suggests is that the “beginning”, stated in Genesis, is not the “beginning” of everything, only the beginning from earth and what we can see from earth. Obviously, this water and this planet existed before the creative process – NOT the creative process of all things but the creative process of the habitat we live on as humans.
Water, by itself, is not a creator of life. Life as we know it does need water but by itself water, pure water, is not a creative substance. Water is a medium of transport, it absorbs various minerals and nutrients from other substances, like dirt, which is little more than crushed and powered rock, or vice versa – rock is little more than compressed dirt in the extreme. A seed laying on a rock does nothing until you put water on it and the water causes the small nutrients in the seed to expand and sprout, but if not other substance, like soil, is available this seed dies. If, however, you place the seed in a nutrient laden soil, or dirt, the water then helps the seed collect what it needs from this dirt to continue on in life.
We are not told the water covering the Earth was just water, no life in it at all (void) and this would explain why our Creator’s Spirit is said to “hover (resting) over the waters”. Our Creator is the life giving force of all things. From His resting over this planet He began to call things into being. From the earths’ point of view we see the sun revealed and the stars. Something these things never existed before this, but if we take that as truth then nothing existed until around 6,000 years ago and I think we know that is not true. From a Heavenly point of view, we are not told where the “water” covering the earth exactly came from or how long it had been here before our Creator settled over it, hovered, fluttered, or rested over it. We are incapable of knowing the beginning of all things, or our Creator Himself, for we are told He always has existed and that is beyond our human ability to understand. Still, some insist on place Him in a box of human understanding. We are brought into a scene where a planet, covered in water already exists and this planet became known as “Earth”, to us. From this planet we are told we are made. Our personal relationship to this place, Earth, is our physical make up is the same as that of this planet – we are a composite of what the earth is made of, water and minerals and without the water we are but dirt. The water was here covering this planet which suggests this planet was completely flooded and this, for me, brings to mind the flooding of the Earth, later, again, in the days of Noah.
We are told, in just a few words that the preexistence of Earth had been flooded once before. When we are introduced to the story, “In the Beginning…” we assume, from our egotistical point of view, that we are the first, but look how it goes – the World Noah grew up in was completely destroyed by the Flood. Isn’t it strange how, “In the Beginning…” starts out with the Earth being totally flooded, just like in the days of Noah? The question about where the water came from is not a problem for we are told our Creator can and has called things into being that had never existed before – He commands and it is. Still, remember, the water was already here when the creative process begins for mankind, as we know it and from this Earth view point.
(Psa 33:9) For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm. ESV
(Psa 148:5)
Let them praise the Name of the LORD (YHWH): for He commanded, and they were created.
(Rom 4:17)
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed,
even God, who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were.
Modern science is only now admitting to creation having come from nothing. The scientist of the theory of evolution have gotten so tangled in their own imaginations about how creation happened that being unable to explain their view without wild speculations and under serious investigation have not been able to answer the really hard question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg”, or which came first, the water or the dirt, many have finally resorted to what is being called, “Spontaneous” creation, things just burst onto the scene in sudden, unexplainable happening. One day no humans and then suddenly there was. Like earth, and all of the stars, one day nothing, but maybe a small dot no bigger than a pin point then suddenly all the universe. Many have resorted to this new scientific explanation but I doubt they realize how close they agree with Scripture and the record of how our Creator did exactly that, He called things that had never existed before into being.
This takes away all other imaginations and speculations, of course. We are guessing from here on and must let common sense prevail. More than one doctrine has been built upon sand with very little nutrient available to survive outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.
We can all disagree on this, of course, but if the literalist insist everything is only 6,000 years old they ignore the literal statement that, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth” – a true statement but no time element is given – the narrative then shifts to the Earth’s surface and from here on Earth we are then told what happens, not about total creation outside the earth view and environment but from what we would see from this earth. And the placement of certain things in our solar system and of other things made visible from this earth, things not visible before but made visible at certain points in the act of creation on Earth. From a Heavenly Point of view all of this would be visible, even before our Earth was “restored”. I say restored because of our earlier observation that it appears the water covered earth already existed at the point of our creation -- the Earth being fully flood with water from a previous existence?
If this is the case then we can understand an even greater meaning to the promise made never to flood the Earth again. That is another speculation, of course, but it is a question we have not direct answer for and really, from the Earth’s point of view, means nothing when it comes to our Salvation, it is only an interesting observation.
Some one is bound to mention Exodus 20:11, a verse the Creationist use a lot but when they quote it they misread it. We will have a brief look at this in an effort to remove the fog --
(Exo 20:11) For in six days the LORD (YHWH) made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
You will notice, it does not say, “…made the HEAVENS...” (plural). If we insist on saying this this verse from Exodus literally means all of the “HEAVENS” then this would include the whole universe including the Heaven where our Heavenly Father’s throne is. But read it again, it only mentions “heaven” (singular) and it only mentions a single “earth”. Staying true to the context we have to conclude that the “heaven” mentioned here has to do with the one “earth”, the one "world", right? If we are to say this is talking about all of creation from the beginning of Universal time then we would have to conclude there is only one planet, on world, the earth in all of creation. Some, in times past, have said just this but again, this is not according to the Word --
(Heb 11:3) Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Remember this verse was mentioned earlier? This verse not only reveals our Creator creates from things we cannot see but that there are other “worlds”. Notice, it says that “we” understand this, so what happened to believers along the way?
Science, once again, has proven the inspired word of God is true and ahead of what men used to think and moderns think they have discovered other worlds in the Universe -- but -- really -- the inspired Word of the Living God has been telling us this all along, so, what is the real discovery? That the Word of God it true.
Now read Ex 20:11 again and what do we hear? YaHWeH, our Creator, made the “heaven”, of earth, and the “earth” (this world) at the same time. The heaven of earth is what we call our “atmosphere”, the heaven the birds fly in (2 Cor 12:2 – three heavens – Ps 68:33). The following quote demonstrates how the wording goes when the Third Heaven or the Heavens are framed, which demonstrates the wording of Ex 20:11 is not talking about any other heavens besides the heaven around the earth.
(Neh 9:6) You, even You, are LORD (YHWH) alone; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and You preserve them all; and the host of heaven worships You.
See what I mean by a "misreading" of Exodus 20:11? Nehemiah was fully aware of more than one heaven and if Nehemiah was made aware of this then so would have been Moses. If Moses had meant the beginning creation of earth and our surrounding heaven he would have used word like Nehemiah did but Moses did not, he wrote of only one heaven and one earth. If anything, Exodus 20:11 proves just the opposite from how this verse is used by the Creationist.
Do I believe in the Creation of this world just as it is recorded in the first Chapter of Genesis? Yes, of course, but I do not blindly believe everything being taught by those claiming to believe God's word not matter what others say. It is not a matter of blind belief, it is a matter of real truth, and what our Creator really says, not what someone wants Him to say. We have no idea whatsoever how old everything in all the Universe is. All we have is a few verse telling us about the creataion of our world, and the first part of that world, we call Earth, was destroyed by a Great Flood in the days of Noah, and accepting the Word as true we have to conclude the world before the Great Flood was far different from the world we live on today. The evidence for the FLOOD is all around us but men see what they want to see and come up with every kind of reasoning you can think of other than a Global Flood. We live in the forest but cannot see any of the trees because of all the trees -- that is an old saying but true, in this case, as far as the so called Earth scientist say. The Creationist may not have the perfect answer but their answer is closer and far better than those in Denial Science, even though the writings and research from those sciences continue to reveal and prove the Word of God over and over again.
Peace, Dan