Question about the gap theory? Exodus 20:11 states that heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them was created in six days. Wouldn’t this include the angels and Satan? The Garden of Eden?
Wasn’t Satan in the garden of eden at some point in the creation drama? How could he have fallen and been judged and still be the anointed cherub and present in the garden of Eden before his fall.
God said that his creation was GOOD. It was good with a fallen and judged angel hanging around?? That doesn’t make sense to me.
I just recently found your site and have enjoyed your Revelation studies. I just can’t go along with the gap theory though. Why is it needed? It provides nothing and calls God’s word into question.
In Exodus 20:11 the Hebrew word for heaven is in the dual form, indicating that it refers to two heavens. They are the Earth’s immediate atmosphere and the vast reaches of space. The place of God’s throne, where the angelic host dwells, is called the third heaven in 2 Cor. 12:2 and is not included in Exodus 20. The creation account of Genesis 1 uses the same word, indicating that it wasn’t talking about the 3rd Heaven either.
The Garden of Eden was located on Earth and Satan was there. But the gap theory postulates that he was there after his judgment, after (according to Isaiah 14:12) he had been cast to Earth. Ezekiel placed this fact early in his narrative of chapter 28 to show that he’s not talking about the Earthly King of Tyre, but about Satan, the power behind him.
On the 2nd day of Creation, God did not pronounce His work good. This was the day on which He divided the first heaven, the Earth’s atmosphere, from the 2nd one, that we call space. In Ephesians 2:2 Paul called Satan the ruler of the Kingdom of the Air, leading many to believe that Satan and his forces immediately inhabited Earth’s atmosphere as it was being formed.
I like the parts of the Gap Theory that help to explain passages like Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 where Satan’s fall is described, Job 38:1-7 describing the angels singing as the Lord began the six days of creation, and Isaiah 45:18 where in effect God says he did not create the earth formless, as the English in Genesis 1:2 says, but ready for habitation. In fact it makes all of Genesis 1:2 clearer for me. So rather than adding nothing to or disputing God’s word it helps me to tie it all together.
But as I’ve said before the Gap Theory, as it’s used today, is much different than when it was first proposed. I do not agree with using it to explain fossils as evidence of a pre-Adamite race of humans and animals, including dinosaurs. Neither did its original proponents.