1. Biblical Discipleship Ministries
THE GAP THEORY
Dr. Jobe Martin
Biblical Discipleship Ministries

2. NO SUN BETWEEN GENESIS 1:1 AND GENESIS 1:2
Gap Theory demands a sun during the period of the Gap and that the sun only appeared out from behind the clouds on the 4th day. If the sun appeared rather than was made (Gen 1:16) the author could have used the word “appear” since he had already used it in Gen. 1:9 (“…let the dry land appear.”)

3. DARKNESS OVER THE SURFACE OF THE DEEP
How could darkness be “…over the surface” if the sun was in existence in Genesis 1:2?
Obviously there was no sun or light in Gen. 1:1 and 1:2 since darkness prevailed and only in Gen. 1:3 does God create light.

4. GENESIS 1:3 LIGHT = IS IT GOD’S RADIANCE?
The light of Gen. 1:3 was not the light of God’s radiance since He had to create it.
God spoke this light into existence: “Then God said, Let there be light.”
So the light of the first three days was not the light of the sun nor God’s radiance.
God can make a light beam with no sun!!

5. MADE OR “RE-FASHIONED”
In Exodus 20:11 God says: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is….”
The verb “made” in Exodus 20:11 is not the common word for “remake or “refashion” as the Gap theory demands.
God made the earth, heaven, seas and all in them within the six days, not before 1st day of the six day week.

6. A PRE-ADAMIC FLOOD?
Was there a pre-Adamic flood as the Gap theory demands?
The Gap idea posits that wicked life-forms inhabited the earth and were judged by God with a global flood before the days of Adam.
There is no Biblical reference to a pre- Adamic flood. 2 Pet 3:6 is the global flood of the days of Noah.

7. NEVER A GLOBAL FLOOD?
Since fossil layers are accepted as evidence for millions of years there could never have been a global flood that produced the fossil layers in one year.
No global flood ever is the position of:
Evolution (Theistic and Atheistic)
Progressive Creationism
Gap Theory
Framework hypothesis
Day Age

8. “FORMLESS AND VOID”
These words do not mean that a previously formed and filled earth was judged, but rather, that God began His creation week with an unformed and unfilled earth.
Isaiah 45:18 “He is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited.

9. “BEHOLD, IT WAS VERY GOOD.”
Could God call everything in His creation (macro to micro) “very good” in Genesis 1:31, if terribly sinful pre-Adamic forms of life were buried as fossils?
Could billions of life forms have lived and died before the fall of Lucifer or Adam? “…sin entered into the world and death by sin….” Romans 5:12

10. “for since by man came death”
How could sin and death prevail in a sinless, deathless world before the entrance of sin and death at the fall of Adam?
If the majority of fossils were formed during the “Gap” and they testify to a past judgment of God on a form of life that did not work then why are fossils identical to present life kinds in most cases?

11. “THE EARTH WAS FORMLESS AND VOID”
Is the verb in Genesis 1:2 to be translated “and the earth was formless and void” or “and the earth became formless and void”?
The Gap Theory demands that Gen. 1:2 reads “And the earth became formless and void”. A look at the O.T. concordance is revealing. This same verb is used in

12. “THE EARTH WAS FORMLESS AND VOID”
Gen 2:25. Did Adam and Eve “become” naked or were they naked to begin with?
Did the serpent “become” more crafty or “was” he more crafty than any other beast of the field from his beginning (Gen. 3:1)?
The “was” of Gen 1:2 does not have to be translated “became” as in the Gap idea.

13. SAINTS DON’T ALWAYS AGREE!
The “Gap” theory was popularized in the old Scofield Bible footnotes and is still believed by true Christians to be true.
My view is that the Gap idea brings up problems with the Bibical text that are not necessary. Exodus 20:11 clearly states that nothing was here before the first day of the six days of the Genesis 1 creation week.