“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1.

As stated in the prior post on 8-7-21, “In the Beginning God”, the sentence above is a reference to the beginning of all things; whether in the heavens or on earth, both physical matter and life, again, everything.

It has also been shown that by the use of the name of God, it means that all of the trinity was involved in creation. This is further confirmed by the name used for God in this sentence, Elohim. Elohim along with a number of other names is one of many of God’s titles.

Names such as, El Elyon, the Most High; Shaddi, Almighty; Yahweh, the covenant name of God; Elohim, the Creator, to name some (all these names are used in Psalm 91:1-2).

The name Elohim is plural meaning that the entire trinity was being referred to during creation which undoubtedly is why Elohim also has the meaning of Creator.

Before you run with that, be aware that depending on usage, Elohim also has other meanings. The name is used to refer to angels:

“What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels [elohim], and You have crowned him with glory and honor.” Psalm 8:4-5.

Elohim also refers to men, Psalm 82:6, judges, Exodus 21:6, and idols, Genesis 31:30. If you were to tell someone that Elohim is proof that creation was the work of the triune God, they may very well throw these other meanings back at you.

While you would be absolutely correct in saying that Elohim is proof of the work of the trinity in creation, someone like a Jehovah’s Witness would quickly deny that and draw you into a discussion in which you would soon be out of your depth, unless you are a Hebrew scholar (it will not matter that they are not).

Little gems like this confirm for the Christian the things that they already know and should be shared freely from the pulpit, in Sunday school class or just with other Christians, and sometimes, carefully with someone who is open to the gospel.

Otherwise, you will just find yourself in a meaningless argument. Mark Twain gave some good advice, and while it is crude, I think you will get the idea.

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” Mark Twain.

Choose your battles carefully, avoid meaningless prattle with someone who likes to argue; they will only waste your time. If you do find yourself in something like this, just revert to quoting relevant Scripture without explaining it, let God do His job.

“In the beginning God created…” this is a reference to the dateless past. The Big Bang theorists think that the beginning occurred over 13 billion years ago, and while God, who is eternal, was around at that time, I have the feeling that the creation occurred closer to 20 million years ago, the age of the sun, as established by Lord Kelvin (1824-1907).

Kelvin’s age of the sun would coincide with the age of the universe since God created everything all at once, not piecemeal over eons.

However, the so called evolutionist scientists have continually come up with theories that contradict Kelvin’s findings. As we will soon see, the age of creation whether 20 million years or 13 billion is of no real impact, though the former, give or take several million will make more sense.

The problem I have with evolutionist is that they call themselves open minded scientist and yet they reject intelligent design as superstitious nonsense without looking at it honestly and rationally.

Yet the reason it is not taught in school alongside evolution is that an elementary school child will be able to compare the two models and realize, even with their limited education, that evolution is a ridiculous piece of badly written fiction.

Another thought is held by many conservative Christians, including a great number of scientists, and that is the young earth theory.

This group contends that the earth is about ten thousand years old. Their thinking goes something like this.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless, much as you might imagine a lump of clay before the sculptor begins to mold it into the shape he desires. Then in the six days, from verse 2 to 31 we have the description of this creation process.

One might well ask; if the earth is only ten thousand years old, how come we can see stars that are millions of light years away, realistically this light would not have reached us in such a short period of time?

This is not such a hard question when you consider that it is God who is doing the creating. Just as Adam and Eve were created full grown adults, so the stars could have been created with the light already having reached the earth; the necessity of a certain amount of age is a given, full grown animals, birds flying in the sky, sea creatures moving about, domestic and wild animals grazing.

Considering ecology, without a certain amount of age, the machine would not run properly.

Well and good, where do they get the age of ten thousand years? This answer too is very simple, they used the genealogies that are given in Scripture along with known dates of certain events added them up and got the age of man on the earth. Since Adam was created on the sixth day, they can be very precise about the years man has been on the earth.

Some folks say that the genealogies that are used have missing links, so to speak.

However, the line of ancestry given in Genesis chapter 5 and 11:10-26 has to be accurate because the ages of the fathers are carefully given; whereas in many other genealogies in which names may have been dropped, ages are not given.

Those genealogies take us from Adam to Abraham (Abram) putting his birth at about 2166 B.C. Moses was born traditionally about 1526 B.C. the children of Israel entered the promised land in 1400 B.C. David became king in 1010 B.C. Christ was born about 4 or 7 B.C. His genealogy is traced back to Adam in Luke 3:23-38 and today is 2021 A.D.

Bishop James Ussher (1581-1656) with considerable effort counted all of this up and came up with a creation date of 4004 B.C.

He even went so far as to give the date as October 23, 4004 B.C. being this exact is dangerous because even if he is scientifically right, it invites ridicule. If that is not enough for you, another man agreed with Ussher and went further still and said that creation began at 9 a.m. that day.

Personally, I think Bishop Ussher has pretty much nailed it, at least within a few hundred years.

The problem here is not with the genealogies, it lies with the differences in the ages of the patriarchs when their children were born, this is how it is calculated to find the amount of time from the creation of Adam to the call of Abraham.

The difficulty is in the variations of the original Hebrew text. For example the Hebrew text gives the age of Methuselah when his son was born as 187 years, another version, the Samaritan text gives his age as 67 years, and the Greek version, the Septuagint (also known as the LXX) gives Methuselah’s age as 167 years, which one is correct? The overall difference in years between these texts is very large.

The Hebrew text when added up from Adam to the call of Abraham comes to 2083 years, the Samaritan text adds up to 2324 years, and the Greek version adds up to 3489.

It depends on what version Bishop Ussher used to arrive at the date of 4004 B.C. whether it would have been the original Hebrew or the King James Bible, which used the Hebrew text.

The Hebrew text adds up to 2083 years from the creation of Adam to the call of Abraham, while the Greek version adds up to 3489 years, meaning that Ussher may be off by as much as 1406 years.

You can see the difficulty presented to the young earth theorists. This may be why they will give the age of the earth as about ten thousand years, while many go as far as twenty thousand years.

For those of you who are ancient history buffs, study prophecy, or just like a challenge these dates and many other curiosities in Scripture can be of deep theological significance, but do not bring these things up to the ungodly, often they will only mock you.

“But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:10-16.

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” Matthew 7:6.

Bless the unbelievers around you by giving them only the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, too often the deep things distract and cause endless, meaningless arguments.

“For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:22-24.

Without Form, and Void, Genesis 1:1 taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 4-4-14, updated on 8-10-21.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.