Gap Theory Debunked - Soul Choice Ministries

Let’s examine the claims of the so-called gap theory, which was developed to support an old earth perspective and the idea of evolution requiring millions or billions of years.

Advocates argue that there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, highlighting the phrase “and the earth was without form and void.” They suggest that God would not create the earth empty and uninhabitable and therefore propose a previous world existing before the creation of Adam—an alleged sin-filled world ruled by Satan that God later destroyed, leaving the earth “without form and void.”

However, when we look to the authority of Scripture, we find no evidence of a devil, sin, humanity, bloodshed, or death prior to the six literal days of creation. According to the biblical account, everything was created within those six days, encompassing the entirety of earth’s history.

Revelation 22:19 warns not to add or take away from the Word of God. The discussion of a gap theory contradicts the plain meaning of the biblical text.

Let’s look at ten key points that prove this theory is false.

Point One

If there was an old earth that God destroyed, then we would now exist on the second earth. Yet, Revelation 21:1 states, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were past away.

He is referring to the end of this world. Therefore, we are still on the first earth, and not the second, as they claim.

Point Two

Genesis 2:1, 3-4 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished…This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

This verse tells us that the entire history of the Earth, the heavens, and the hosts of heaven, which includes the angels, were all created during those 6 days.

The word, “Host” is the Hebrew word, “Saba,” which in the Strong’s means, “Armies, division, the heavenly armies.”

Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

Notice, all His works started at the beginning, and not prior to Adam and Eve.

Point Three

There was no death before man.

1 Corinthians 15:21, For since by man came death…

Romans 5:14 Death reigned from Adam to Moses.

The Bible clearly states that there was no death before man. The Gap Theory states that there was death long before the 6-day creation.

Point Four

No sin before man

Romans 5:12 Therefore just as through one man’s sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men.”

1 Corinthians 15:45 states, And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul.

The scripture is clear – there was no living beings before Adam. Man brought sin on the earth. Sin produced death. So again, there was no death before man, no sin before man, and no earth before the six days of creation.

Point Five

No blood shed before man

Luke 11:50-51, That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world…from the blood of Abel.

There was no blood shed before man.

Why would the earth have been destroyed if there was no bloodshed, no sin, no death, and no man living on the earth? And no earth.

Point Six

The devil sinned at the beginning, and not before Adam.

1 John 3:8 He that commits sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning.

John 8:44 he was a murderer from the beginning.

From the beginning of what? Creation of course! Satan could not have rebelled prior to man being placed on the Earth, because Satan’s sin was “from the beginning.

Point Seven

Man was from the beginning.

The Bible clearly states in at least 13 verses that man was placed on the earth at the beginning of Creation, thereby nullifying the theory of a pre-existing earth or other beings existing prior to man.

Isaiah 40:21 Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood from the foundation of the world?

Isaiah 41:4 Calling the generations from the beginning.

Isaiah 64:4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard…

Matthew 19:4 Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

Matthew 19:8 Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

Luke 11:50–51 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world… from the blood of Abel.

You notice that there was no blood shed on the earth until Abel.

Luke 1:70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began.

John 9:32 Since the world began was it not heard…

Acts 3:21 God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

Romans 1:20 From the creation of the world

Ephesians 3:9, which from the beginning of the world…

2 Peter 3:4 For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

God said 13 times and in 8 different ways man was from the beginning.

1. From the beginning of the world

2. From the creation of the world

3. From the foundation of the world

4. Since the world began

5. Since the beginning

6. From the beginning of creation

7. From the beginning

8. At the beginning

Then God said,

Isaiah 45:12, I have made the earth and created man upon it. (Deuteronomy 4:32)

Psalms 115:16, the earth has he given to the children of men.

God made man and placed him only on the earth, at the beginning of creation, and Adam was the first man.

Point eight

God created the earth and called everything He made “very good.” If Satan existed prior to the creation week, and there was such evil and death on the earth to warrant its destruction, then it’s hard to believe God would say everything He made was very good.

Point Nine

Jesus said in Matthew 24:21 and Mark 13:19 that the Tribulation would be the worst time in history. If God destroyed the earth prior to Adam and Eve, then that would have certainly been the worst time in history.

Point Ten

Matthew Henry’s Commentary pg. 4 explains why God would make the earth, at first, “without form and void.” He says, ”The Creator could have made his work perfect at first, but by this gradual proceeding he would show what is, ordinarily, the method of His providence and grace. Observe the description of this chaos. There was nothing in it desirable to be seen…If the work of grace in the soul is a new creation, this chaos represents the state of an unregenerate graceless soul: there is disorder, confusion, and every evil work; it is empty of all good, for it is without God; it is dark, it is darkness itself. This is our condition by nature, till almighty grace effects a blessed change.”

In other words, God made the earth in a similar fashion as how he formed man. At first, man in the womb is without form and develops over the time, just as the earth progressed over the six days. Then as man accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he goes from darkness to light, as the Spirit of God comes into him. This is just as the Spirit hovered over the earth and then came light.

Wayne Grudem states in Systematic Theology, pg. 288, “the sense is just that it (the earth) is not yet fit for habitation: God’s preparatory work has not yet been done.”

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown’s Commentary pg. 18, “the work of creation was gradual for the instruction of man.” Also, the word replenish is the word, “male” which means, “to fill,” not refill.

Now we are aware of the verse in Job 38:4-7, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?… When the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?”

This leaves the impression that the angels (sons of God) were already in existence prior to the earth being created. However, God could have made them at the beginning of the first day.

Wayne Grudem in “Systematic Theology” pg. 402, “If the angels (“the sons of God”) shouted for joy when God was making the earth inhabitable, this could imply that God created the angelic beings early on the first day.”

The gap theory people use this next verse to support their belief, but it is the opposite.

Isaiah 45:18 says, “God himself that formed the earth and made it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.” The word “formed” used here means, “shaped, fashion, to be formed, usually from existing material” (Strong’s Concordance)

So, this states it was formed not in vain. It was made with a purpose, to be inhabited. It was shaped in a manner just as a baby is formed in the mother’s womb.

Isaiah 49:5, “The Lord that formed me from the womb.”

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee.

We know that from conception a baby is shaped and formed. The new baby isn’t completed and ready to be born from the moment of conception. This is the same as the earth being formed in the six days. Man is arrogant to think God had to do things the way a man may reason.

Romans 9:20 states, “O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it; why have you made me like this.” In other words, who are we to question how he made us, or the way he formed the earth.

So, we see from the authority of the scriptures that there was no devil, no sin, no man, no blood shed, no death and no earth or heavens or angels prior to the 6 literal days. Everything created was within those six days, and that is the entire earth’s history.

Again, we are told in Revelation 22:19; Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:6, not to not add or take away anything from the word of God.

The gap theory not only ADDS to the scripture but contradicts what the Word of God clearly states.