STUDIES IN GENESIS

Following are remaining objections and replies to previously submitted arguments favoring a young earth:

(5) Hugh Ross, who is not a “former” astrophysicist, but a current astrophysicist, wants Christians to be open to science informing them in regards to Scripture. One can look at many moments in history where we have fought science only to be proven wrong: For instance, the former belief that the world was flat because Scripture stated that the earth had four corners.

Reply: Hugh Ross is a former astrophysicist in the sense that he has a PhD in astronomy and formerly researched galaxies and quasars at the California Institute of Technology. Though still regarded within the scientific community as an expert in that field, he is currently in a full-time apologetics ministry dealing with Bible and science issues. Ross is president of Reasons to Believe, a Progressive Creationist ministry he founded in 1986 which claims to be dedicated to showing how the latest scientific discoveries point to the God of the Bible. To his credit, Ross says he affirms without reservation the absolute authority and inerrancy of Scripture. However, he has embraced selected theories of big bang cosmology which he regards as undisputed fact—including the notion that the universe and earth are billions of years old—and he employs those theories as lenses through which to interpret Scripture. In effect, he makes scripture subservient to science without separating scientific fact from scientific theory. The Progressive Creationism view he espouses opposes both atheistic evolutionism and a literal six-day creation and young earth. At best, then, Ross is a theistic evolutionist. In summary, within the framework of progressive creationism, Hugh Ross adheres to the following unbiblical notions:

• The ‘Big Bang’ origin of the universe occurred 16-billion-years ago; death, bloodshed, and disease existed before Adam & Eve.
• The days of Creation were long periods.
• Noah’s Flood was a local event.
• Sin has only a regionally limited effect on the world.
• Man-like creatures that behaved much like us—and painted on cave walls—existed before Adam and Eve, but didn’t have a spirit and thus had no salvation.
• The record of nature is just as perfect as the Word of God.
• Over millions of years, God created new species as others kept going extinct.

In regard to the above reply (with example) where we have fought science only to be proven wrong, no where does Scripture signify that the earth is square. That allegation likely stems from the apostle John’s statement in Revelation 7:1, “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.” The term “the four corners of the earth” is but a Bible expression depicting north, south, east, and west—the four points of the compass. The four angels, standing at these four positions administering judgment, are commanded to relent so there might be a time of great revival during the Tribulation as the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. The Bible has always taught a spherical earth. Job 26:10 says, “He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness.” Proverbs 8:27 says, “When He established the heavens, I was there, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep.” And Isaiah 40:22 says, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.” Today, we chuckle at the people of the fifteenth century who feared sailing because they thought they would fall over the edge of the flat earth. Yet the Bible revealed the truth of the earth’s circular shape in 1000 B.C. 2500 years before man discovered it for himself!

Following are objections and replies to the flood of Noah’s day being global:

(6) In Matthew 24:39 (“The flood came and took them all away”) Jesus does not say that the waters covered the entire planet, but simply that the flood took every human life outside the ark.

Reply: Many Christians today think the Flood of Noah’s day was only a local flood, confined to somewhere around Mesopotamia. This idea comes not from Scripture, but from the notion of ‘billions of years’ of Earth history. But consider the problems this concept entails:

· If the Flood was local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and missed it.

· If the Flood was local, why did God send the animals to the Ark so they would escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce that kind if these particular ones had died.

· If the Flood was local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, the Ark could have been much smaller.

· If the Flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range.

· If the Flood was local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters or 22 feet) above the mountains (Genesis 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It couldn’t rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched. Furthermore, those who believe in a local flood claim it took place only in the Mesopotamian Valley—but a major problem emerges when we see the ark ended up in the mountains of Ararat!

· The text says that “all the springs of the great deep burst forth” (Genesis 7:11), and that this continued for a minimum of five months (7:24-8:3). Such geological upheavals in the oceanic depths cannot be reconciled with a local flood. The water of this planet is sufficient to cause a global flood; torrential rainfall alone is not. The Bible doesn’t say the Flood was caused by rainfall alone; it was caused be geologic upheaval of the ocean depths.

· If the Flood was local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not be affected by it. They would have escaped God’s judgment on sin. If this happened, what did Christ mean when He likened the coming judgment of all men to the judgment of ‘all’ men (Matthew 24:37-39) in the days of Noah? A partial judgment in Noah’s day means a partial judgment to come.

· If the Flood was local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a flood again.

(7) Usage of 2^nd Peter 3:5-6 to substantiate belief in a worldwide flood is unwarranted since Peter uses the term “world” (kosmos) to describe humanity in general rather than the heavens and the earth.

Reply: Just as Peter, in chapter 3 of his 2^nd Epistle, referred to the flood of Noah’s day, so did Jesus Himself (Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27), accepting it not only as a fact of history, worldwide in its extent and effects, but even making it a specific type of His promised coming, which also would be worldwide in its extent and effects. Here in the last chapter written by the Apostle Peter, just before his execution as a Christian martyr, he gives a remarkable prophetic foreview of Christ’s second coming, by comparing it with the worldwide flood of Noah’s day.

“First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this coming He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2^nd Peter 3:3-7).

According to this prophecy, the Flood (literally “the cataclysm”) was primarily hydraulic in nature and caused the primeval cosmos (literally “the heavens existed long ago and the earth”) to “perish.” That is, the pre-Flood atmosphere and geosphere (“heavens and earth”) were destroyed as a “cosmos” (or ordered system), so that “the present heavens and earth” (verse 7) are drastically different, with their primeval perfection and order now disfigured and chaotic in comparison. Furthermore, the “heavens and earth” which perished include also, by obvious implication, the inhabitants of the heavens and earth, or sky and land. As Genesis 7:21 states, “Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.” They were all overflowed with water and thereby perished.

Three Greek words are translated “world” in the New Testament: (1) oikoumene, denoting the populated world; (2) aion, which is usually rendered age, or a period of time marked by spiritual or moral characteristics; and (3) kosmos, which is used in 2^nd Peter 3:6, and means primarily order, system, arrangement, ornament, or adornment. It may denote the material world (Rom. 1:20) or even the totality of heaven and earth (Acts 17:24); the sphere of intelligent life (1 Cor. 4:9); the place of human habitation (1 Cor. 5:10); mankind as a whole (Jn. 3:16); society as alienated from God and under the sway of Satan (1 Jn. 5:19); and the complex of ideas and ideals which govern men who belong to the world in this ethical sense (1 Jn. 2:15-17; Jas. 4:4). Among the Greeks, kosmos became used for the universe, since it expressed the order noted there.

Considering the above evidence from the context (as a prophetic foreview of Christ’s second coming) and usage of kosmos for “world” in 2^nd Peter 3:6, limiting the effect of the flood of Noah’s day to humanity in general by forcing “world” to mean as such, and using it as an argument for merely a local flood seems rather unwarranted.

(8) It is unreasonable to believe that two of every land animal and bird on the planet, as well as enough food for a year for all of them could fit inside the ark. It’s more credible that two of every animal in the region could fit inside the ark.

Reply:

• God told Noah to bring two of each kind (seven of some), not of each species or variety. Noah had only two of the dog kind, which would include the wolves, coyotes, foxes, mutts, etc. The “kind” grouping is probably closer to our modern family division in taxonomy, and would greatly reduce the number of animals on the ark. Animals have diversified into many varieties in the last 4400 years since the flood. This diversification is not anything similar to great claims that the evolutionists teach.
• Noah did not have to get all the animals; God brought them to him (Genesis 6:20).
• Only land-dwelling, air-breathing animals had to be included on the ark (Genesis 7:15, “that have the breath of life”). Aquatic wildlife was excluded. Noah also did not need to bring all the thousands of insect varieties.
• Many animals sleep, hibernate, or become very inactive during bad weather.
• All animals (and people) were vegetarians before and during the Flood according to Genesis 1:20-30 and compared with Genesis 9:3.

(9) Genesis portrays mankind as failing to spread throughout the world. A global flood would be unnecessary, then, to wipe out all of humanity.

Reply: The population of the world in Noah’s day was not just in the Mesopotamian Valley, as those who teach a local flood want to claim. The Bible claims they were spread over the face of the entire globe. Not until we come to Genesis 11:1-4 do we read of man’s deliberate attempt to collectively migrate eastward to the plain of Shinar (Sumer), motivated by the attempt to reach the heavens by building the tower of Babel, which resulted in God causing the human race to disperse or "divide." By the time Adam died there were seven generations of his own offspring on the earth. A very conservative population growth calculation places the world population at 120,000 persons, minimum, by the time Adam died! One can only imagine how grand family unions must have been in antediluvian times! A tight reading of the genealogy using the Masoretic Text of Genesis adds up to 1,656 years from Adam to Noah. (That is, there do no appear to be any gaps in the genealogy from Adam to Noah). 1656 years is more than sufficient time to completely fill up the earth with people. A conservative population growth calculation would place the population at the time of the flood at 7 billion people at least, perhaps it was even higher. In fact, modern global population is probably less than the peak pre-Flood population, and is certainly less than the cumulative total of all people who have preceded us. In fact, there were probably population explosions in the Pre-Flood world and also immediately after the Flood. In contrast, there is no modern population explosion. Global population is rising, but at an ever decreasing rate. It will soon peak and then begin to drop. Our modern view of population has shaped our view of the world’s past population. We see rising population as a threat to the environment, but the truth is that the earth’s environment is actually improving, not degrading. Fears of over-population have colored our view of God’s command in Genesis 1:28 – and repeated after the Flood in Genesis 9:1-3 -- to "multiply and replenish [fill] the earth." We insist that God could not have meant for this command to apply today, but people before the Flood evidently took this command literally and seriously. Before the Flood, the earth had a large population. Genesis 6:11 says, "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." This implies that the earth was also filled with people. Calculations show that in 1656 years between creation and the flood, global population could have been expected to rise into at least the tens or hundreds of millions.

I would urge us to read carefully Genesis 6-9—chapters dealing with the Flood. If God was really trying to describe a local flood, He surely could have written a little more clearly, for over and over again the wording demands a global flood. In fact, I have counted more than 100 times when the wording implies a global flood. It is true that some of the individual words could be understood in a local sense, but in the context, no other position than that of a global flood is defensible. Consider these few quotes of the many: ‘the face of the earth (i.e. planet)’ (6:1); ‘end of all flesh… the earth is filled with violence … I will destroy them with the earth’ (6:13); ‘destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die’ (6:17). If God had intended to describe a global world-destroying flood, He couldn’t have said it any more clearly. In the final analysis, the local flood concept is both theologically and scientifically unsound. As near as I can tell, the primary reason to hold to this concept is to gain the acceptance of secular scientists who deny God’s Word. Consider this quote from one of the world’s foremost astronomers and self-proclaimed agnostic Robert Jastrow as he writes in his book “God and the Astronomers” -- “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

STUDIES IN GENESIS

Answering Young Earth's Critics - Part 1

(An Evangelical Response to Darwin Day)

     February 12^th of this year marked the 200^th anniversary of the birth of our 16^th U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln, who by most Americans, is considered along with George Washington as one of our two greatest presidents, and known for his high regard for Scripture. By contrast, however, many people around the world celebrated the 200^th anniversary of someone else's birth, the infamous Charles Darwin, known for his view of naturalistic evolution. Most of us have likely been taught Darwin's "theory" of evolution, as if it were not only theory but scientific fact, along with his belief in billions of years of earth's history, originating apart from God. However, naturalistic evolution fails to qualify not only as scientific fact, but also as scientific theory. In popular usage, a theory is just a vague sort of fact and a hypothesis is often used as a synonym to "guess." But to a scientist a theory is a conceptual framework that explains existing observations and predicts new ones. A hypothesis is a working assumption. As part of the scientific method, a scientist typically devises a hypothesis and then sees if it holds water by testing it against available data obtained from previous experiments and observations. If the hypothesis holds water, the scientist declares it to be a theory. A scientific theory, then, represents a hypothesis which has been confirmed through repeated experimental tests. When understood in this context, it's evident that evolution falls outside the realm of scientific theory. Moreover, science can never speak with any real authority when it comes to the question of the origin of the universe, for science can deal only with present processes, to which alone it has access. If we really want to know anything about the creation period (other than the fact that there must have been such a period, to produce the universe, a fact required by the law of cause and effect, and the 2^nd law of thermodynamics, or entropy, which says that the amount of usable energy in the universe is running down), then such knowledge can only be acquired by divine revelation. Scripture is that revelation.

     Ironically, however, many Christians, in an effort to maintain credibility with the modern scientific field (which is largely secular), have capitulated, not to belief in evolution per se, but to the evolutionary time-scale of modern unbelieving geologists and astronomers to support their belief in old-earth creation with long geologic ages. In an effort to be Biblically correct (as opposed to politically correct), a friendly response to critics of young earth creationism (hereafter referred to as YEC) may help to bring clarity to certain issues, to spur us on to further Bible study, and to challenge our thinking in this area with our primary source of authority: Scripture itself.

     Previous challenges to arguments I've submitted favoring a young earth include the following:

     (1) How can there be 24-hour creation days when the sun was created on the fourth day?

     First of all the Hebrew grammar of the creation account in Genesis 1 translate literally into "day one," "day two," and so on. That means each day was equal to all the others.  Genesis 1:3 tells us that on day one "God said ‘Let there be light,' and there was light." Verse 16 says that the sun and moon were created later (on day four) to govern time on the earth. As to what God made on the first day, we might quickly say He made "light." But actually God made "day" and "night." God used light to create day and night. Till then the whole earth was only night (dark), but now God divided the light from darkness. And God called the light part as "day", and the dark part of the earth He called "night". Darkness had been all over the earth, so making night was not necessary; God had to only separate the darkness by causing the light to shine on one side. And the light side was called day, and the dark side of the earth was called night. There are 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness, normally in a 24-hour day. The Lord Jesus Himself said, "Are there not twelve hours in a day?" (John 11:9). God brought light to shine on one side of the earth, while the other side remained dark. It's interesting that the text says "the evening and the morning" commenced the "first day," and not with "the morning and the evening." So with the dark part of the 24-hour period begins a new day and then follows the light part of it, probably because darkness was there before light was introduced on earth. Concerning what kind of light God used to create "day and night" and from where it came, we're not told. It certainly wasn't the sun, moon and stars, since God didn't make them until day four (Gen. 1:16). However, scripture tells us that God Himself is light (1^st John 1:5); His Word is light too (Psalm 119:105). Similarly, as Jesus described the day of His future return in glory at the end of the Tribulation period in Matthew 24:29-30, "The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light," resulting in a period of absolute darkness, and yet the brilliance of the Lord's return will light up the sky and the glory of God will fill the heavens. The whole world will observe Jesus (but not on television, since there will be no power) returning to earth in power and great glory. Revelation 21:23 says the New Jerusalem will have no need of the sun or the moon, because the glory of God will illumine it. Thus God can create light from sources other than the sun, moon, and stars. They were meant to rule the day and night that already existed. They were made "to mark seasons and days and years" (Gen. 1:14). With the first day of light, time began, and the 24-hour period began with the rotation of the earth on its own axis; and with the sun and the moon around from the fourth day onwards, the rotation continued, along with the revolution around the sun.                        

     It's also interesting to note that the ancient Hebrews considered the light of the daytime sky to be separate from that of the sun. In that scenario, a full day consisted of both the light of daytime and the dark of nighttime, so the sun was not necessary to mark a full day. Moreover, the belief that the biblical days of creation could have encompassed millions of years has several serious problems. If the length of each of the days in the creation week were the equivalent of an inordinate length of time that would mean the earth would have days and nights that were also of correspondingly long duration. After all, each creation "day" consisted of nighttime and daytime, i.e. the biblical "evening" and "morning," as Genesis 1 specifically states. Therefore, if each biblical "day" were an eon that was, for example, 1,000,000 years in length, then the period of daytime would have been 500,000 years in length, and the period of nighttime would also have been 500,000 years. One might therefore ask how the plants could have survived the scorching heat that would have resulted from a daytime that consisted of the equivalent of 500,000 years of continual sunlight for each of the remaining days of the week. Moreover, the living things that were created on the fifth and sixth days would therefore also have had to deal with days and nights that were each the equivalent of 500,000 years until the end of the creation week. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this is that, because the days in the creation week consisted of an evening and morning, any attempt to hold that those days were anything other than normal 24-hour days raises some serious problems and simply does not make sense.         

     (2) It would be a circular argument to say that the seven days in Genesis 1 & 2 were 24-hour periods because our days of the week are 24-hour periods.

     The basis for the point considered is the 4^th of 10 Commandments God gave Israel in Exodus 20:8-11, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." The manner by which this day would be set aside and made holy was that no work would be performed on that day. The precedent for this is found in the creation week of Genesis 1, for then "the Lord created the heavens and the earth in six days but on the seventh day He rested". This verse may reflect on the very chronological nature of the creation week, for if that week is considered analogous to the calendar week of the Hebrews, then the creation days must be regarded as normal 24-hour solar days. Otherwise the institution of the Sabbath in Exodus 20:11 has no basis in its reference to the days of creation, and the analogy loses its effect.  

     (3) To say that there is no evidence for a "day" to represent a longer time period (than 24 hours) in relation to creation is misleading. Genesis 2:4 states: "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."

     This alleged point was never made. In fact, in the previous article entitled "How Long Were the Days of Creation?" I stated that "There are other uses of the word ‘day' in Genesis in which a 24-hour day is not intended (e.g. 2:4); but anytime a numeric adjective is used with ‘day,' a 24-hour day is always intended." An observation of the day-by-day creation account in Genesis 1 (in distinction from Gen. 2:4) shows each use of the word "day" preceded by a numeric adjective, as well as the analogy drawn to the 4^th command in Exodus 20:8-11, thus indicating a 24-hour period.

     (4) Romans 5:12 ("Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned") is not describing death in general coming to creation, but the death of man. . . If God is just, how could He punish animals for Adam and Eve's sin? If animals and plants were created to live forever, then why are they doomed to die because Adam and Eve sinned?

     A normal reading of Romans 5:12, as compared with Romans 8:19-21, indicates that the effects of Adam's fall stretched to all creation, which included death to all living creatures, and the fact that death passed on to all men, with grammatical emphasis on the word "all" (since we all sinned in Adam, who was acting as the federal head of our human race). It's true that 5:12 doesn't explicitly mention death to the animal kingdom, but not because death came exclusively to man as a result of Adam's sin, but because only man inherits Adam's sin nature. Animals don't sin because they don't have the components of personality that bear God's image, but since Adam's fall, they have received its negative effects.    

     According to Genesis 3:17-18, the ground became cursed as a result of Adam's sin, which resulted in certain plants becoming weeds producing "thorns and thistles." But sin did not bring about death to plant life because the Bible never ascribes to plants the status of life. Life, according to the Bible, resides in the "soul," or the Hebrew word "nephesh." This might be equated roughly with the concept of consciousness. This quality is ascribed only to man and some animals, but never plants. The Bible is also very clear as to what happens to plants: "they wither and fade" (Isaiah 40:6-8; James 1:10) but plants never die. They have biological life, but not biblical life. Before sin, men and animals ate plant life without death, in biblical terms, taking place. In Leviticus 17:11 we're told that "the life of a creature is in the blood," which plants don't have. Thus the saying, "You can't get blood out of a turnip." 

     We shouldn't look at today's sin and death-filled world and think that this was God's intention or the end result of His creation. When God was finished with His creation He said it was "very good" (Genesis 1:31). If lions were ripping apart zebras, and animals were brutally killing each other at this time, then surely God would not have declared His creation "very good." This brutal fight for survival had not yet begun.

     According to Genesis 3:21, after Adam sinned, God let an innocent animal die in Adam's place because "without the shedding of blood there is not remission [forgiveness] of sin" (Hebrews 9:22). Either Adam had to die or an animal had to die in his place to atone for sin. This was only a temporary covering, however, and later Jesus Christ died not to just cover our sins, but cleanse them. He died in our place, and suffered for us. The Bible tells us when the very first animal died - in Genesis 3:21 when God killed an innocent animal to cover man's nakedness and man's sin. The death of an innocent animal also demonstrated to Adam the seriousness of his sin. If animals had been dying for millions of years, Adam wouldn't have taken it as seriously. It would be just another animal. But to look down and see the lifeless body, a death caused by your sin would always stay in Adam's mind, reminding him of the seriousness of his sin.   

     Death extended to the animal kingdom because sin had effected the entire creation, including the animals man had dominion over. Romans 5:14 says, "Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come." This verse again states that death started when Adam sinned, and nothing died before Adam sinned. The primary point of this passage is that sin was not formally charged to men's accounts until Moses came, because it was not until then that the law was given. Yet men died because Adam had sinned. However, this verse could secondarily include the animals that man had dominion over. Animals are without sin, yet are affected by the consequence of sin. Animals did not die before sin entered the world. Death entered the world when Adam sinned.               

     Due to the thoroughness in which I've attempted to deal with challenges to previous arguments favoring YEC, remaining challenges to YEC arguments I've submitted will be addressed in the next blog post (Part 2). I must admit I've become engrossed in study of these issues to a much greater degree than I originally anticipated, perhaps due in part to my love for "digging" into doctrinal issues on which various Christians differ. Thus the issues I'm addressing are not tests of orthodoxy for distinguishing Christians from non-Christians. Yet, study of these issues may prove beneficial for our growth as "approved workmen who correctly handle the word of truth" (2^nd Timothy 2:16), and may help us to "be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have" (1^st Peter 3:15). I do intend to expedite my OT blogging process, to eventually catch up to where we are on Sunday mornings. According to biblical chronology, I'm already a few thousand years behind, but hey, if I adhered to OEC, it might be a few million!                      

Studies in Genesis

Many Christians today think the Flood of Noah’s time was only a local flood, confined to somewhere around Mesopotamia. This idea comes not from Scripture, but from the notion of ‘millions of years’ of earth’s history, and the attempt to squeeze them into or before the six days of creation described in Genesis 1.

We need to realize that for the first 1,800 years of church history virtually all Christians believed that Noah’s flood was a global catastrophe. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that Christians began to abandon this belief, as deistic and atheistic geologists developed new hypotheses of earth history involving millions of years.

Advocates of the old earth insist that proof of such vast ages lies in the rocks and fossils of the earth’s crust. They claim that these were laid down by either slow and gradual processes, or by occasional rapid processes of local extent.

But if the flood actually happened the way the Bible seems to describe it (i.e., a year-long, mountain-covering, world-restructuring event), it would have laid down many layers of mud full of dead things (i.e., now rocks and fossils) covering immense areas, having been deposited under catastrophic conditions. A proper interpretation of the rocks and fossils speaks of a global, dynamic, watery catastrophe: the Biblical Deluge. Only denial of Biblical teaching could lead one to misinterpret the rocks and fossils to support long ages. If the flood happened the way the Bible says it happened, then it laid down the rocks and fossils, and there is no remaining evidence for an old earth, or evolution, for that matter.

There are several Biblical reasons for believing in the global flood:

1. Jesus Christ believed the Old Testament record of the worldwide flood. Speaking of the antediluvian population, He said, “The flood came and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39). Evolutionary anthropologists are all convinced that people had spread over the entire earth by the time assigned to Noah in biblical chronology, so a flood wiping out all mankind (except Noah and his family) would clearly have required a geographically worldwide flood.
2. The apostle Peter believed in a worldwide cataclysm. “By these waters also the world [Greek, kosmos] of that time was deluged [Greek, katakluzo] and destroyed” (2nd Peter 3:6). The world was defined in the previous verse as “the heavens … and the earth.” Peter also said that “God did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood [Greek, kataklusmos] on its ungodly people, but protected Noah” (2nd Peter 2:5).
3. The Old Testament record of the flood, which both Christ and Peter accepted as real history, clearly teaches a global flood. For example, the record emphasizes that “all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered” with the waters of the flood. “The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet” (Genesis 7:19-20).
4. Since “every living thing that moved on the earth perished ... everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died” (Genesis 7:21-22), Noah and his sons had to build a huge ark to preserve animal life for the post-diluvian world, an ark that had more than ample capacity to carry at least two of every known species of land animal. Such an ark was absurdly unnecessary for anything but a global flood.
5. God promised that “never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:11), and He has kept His word for over 4,000 years, if the flood indeed was global. Those Christians who say it was a local flood, however, are in effect accusing God of lying, for there are many devastating local floods every year.

The worst floods since Noah’s day are like a Sunday school picnic on a sunny day compared to Noah’s flood. The geologic features of the earth today are exactly what we should expect to result from such a complex, destructive event. To say that Noah’s flood left no geological evidence or that it was all erased by relatively miniscule processes of geological change since this unique event is quite absurd.

So either the rock record is the evidence of millions of years, or it is largely the evidence of Noah’s flood. It can’t be both. If we believe what the geological establishment says—then that belief contradicts our belief in Noah’s flood. If we accept God’s inspired, inerrant testimony regarding the flood, we cannot logically believe in millions of years. Noah’s flood truly washes away millions of years.

Studies in Genesis

As indicated in Acts 15:14, during this present time God is dealing primarily with the Gentiles “by taking from them a people for Himself.” God is forming a body, the Church, a “dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). One day this group will be completed, this age concluded. Then the next event on God’s program will occur—the next step on the divine timetable—the coming of Christ for His own church, even as He promised.

“In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” – John 14:2-3

We would expect that such a momentous occurrence would have foreshadowings, illustrative portrayals prior to their clear articulation in New Testament Scripture. One particular character in Genesis I find so fascinating is Enoch because of the way he graphically illustrates the rapture of the church – the blessed hope we as Christians have as proclaimed by the apostle Paul.

“According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” – 1st Thessalonians 4:15-17.

A brief reference in Genesis 5 concerns a man who anticipated by thousands of years the highest form of redemption, which awaits believers who will be alive at our Lord’s return. The account is short, but filled with divine drama!

“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” – Genesis 5:24.

The New Testament commentary on this event is recorded in the book of Hebrews.

“By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God” – Hebrews 11:5.

Genesis 5 has been aptly called the epitaph chapter of the Bible, because of its oft-repeated phrase, “and he died.” This is the history of all men until we reach the seventh from Adam, and he did he did not see death. Enoch escaped dying by one solitary means—translation. God took him out of the way because a judgment was due for the earth and God had made no provision for Enoch on the earth during that judgment. Through divine intervention Enoch became the exception to the rule of physical death. Just so, prior to the release of judgment upon this world, there will be living on earth a generation of Christians who will not see death but like Enoch will be translated into the realm of heaven.

We learn from the New Testament letter of Jude that Enoch was a prophet, perhaps the first mentioned in the Bible. His prediction is the earliest recorded revelation of the second coming of Christ. Enoch declared,

“See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words spoken against Him” – Jude 14-15.

An examination of the day in which Enoch lived enables us to understand readily why he prophesied about ungodliness. Enoch lived at the beginning of that time of crisis in the world just preceding the flood. Our Lord said,

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also it will be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all” – Luke 17:26-27.

We’re left in no doubt as to the character of the times. It was an era of ungodliness marked by an enormous increase in population. Genesis 6:1 indicates a surge of human population, which of course tended to intensify sin. The day in which Enoch lived was also characterized by a rapid advance in civilization, art, and science. The world of that day was fashioned by the sons of Cain, as we’re told in Genesis 4:16-22. Every form of civilization occurred during this time. In turn, moral barriers were eliminated. In these days before the flood of Noah’s day, people were, as Jesus said “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (Matthew 24:38), to the point of gluttony, drunkenness, and sexual immorality. Enoch’s time corresponds to our own, with its exploding population, mastery of the arts and sciences, breakdown of moral standards, and profaning the name of God. That’s quite a frightening repetition!

Yet in the midst of a civilization characterized by materialism and godlessness lived a man not walking in “the way of Cain,” namely Enoch, whose name means “dedicated,” or “narrowed.” God had separated this man unto Himself. For the first 65 years of his life, prior to the birth of his son Methuselah, the record in Genesis 5:21-23 suggests things were different:

“When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether Enoch lived 365 years.”

Evidently the birth of his son, whose name signified the approaching crisis of the flood, was the event which made Enoch begin to walk with God. (Interestingly, the reality of fatherhood is what causes many men today to come to terms with God as well.) Of only two people is it said that “they walked with God”—Enoch and Noah. The days were increasing in wickedness, and God took these men into His way and confidence, because of their walk of faith.

Thus in the opening records of human history, God chose one man out of the race to be translated without dying, taken into glory. One moment Enoch was walking by faith with God on earth; the next he was communing with God by sight in another world. That’s a fascinating picture of the rapture of the church as described by the apostle Paul:

“I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” – 1st Corinthians 15:51-52.

Enoch’s hope was not death but translation. This is the sure hope of each of us as believers. Paul expressed it in these words, “to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1st Thessalonians 1:10).The next event on God’s prophetic timetable is this translation of the church, comprised of every born-again, saved person.

God took Enoch out of the world by translation because a judgment was due upon the earth, and God made no provision for Enoch to be on the earth during that judgment. Likewise, God has no provision for taking the church through the coming tribulation period; He’s also going to give the Body of Christ a translation. A remnant of Israel will be preserved through the tribulation period, the great judgment that will come upon this earth, even as Noah and his sons were preserved through the flood. But the Church will have been translated as Enoch was before the flood came. The Church, like Enoch, will be removed from the evil of the world and the judgment to come. Noah’s deliverance, like Israel’s, was earthly; Enoch’s, deliverance, like the church, was heavenly. One stayed on the earth; the other was taken to heaven.

Just as ancient Enoch became God’s messenger of warning about coming judgment, we as believers are commissioned to warn the lost of our day about coming judgment. Enoch was not left to the hour of destruction in the flood, but was delivered out of earth to heaven. What a picture this is of the saints in the last days! To these saints the Lord Jesus says,

“Since you have kept My command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth” – Revelation 3:10.

At any moment we may hear the shout, the voice of the archangel, the trumpet call of God! Then to be translated, carried over from earth to heaven without seeing death, is the imminent possibility of each of us living saints. But if our Lord tarries and we are not to remain and be alive when Christ comes, even physical death has no terrors for us as believers. For “the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words” – 1st Thessalonians 4:16-18.