Then again science says it is many millions of years old.

One day I had occasion to discuss this with a "Church goer", I almost couldn't believe what he said to me, and he said it so fast that I couldn't respond at all. Words to this effect: "The world is 6,000 years old, the rocks are millions of years old because God created them that way!" He then went on to discredit carbon dating and any other non-Biblical method of dating the world.

I was once a student of geology and mineralogy, although I never made it any further than "hobby level" I did understand, without any doubt that the earth is millions of years old. Plus there is no doubt that there fossils within the layers of rocks.

Nobody is going to tell me that God created the world 6,000 years ago to look millions of years old complete with dinosaur bones and ancient fossils of animals that must never have existed because the bones were older then 6,000 years old.

We, as Christians need to always keep in mind that God is not the author of confusion:

1 Corinthians 14:33
33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
KJV

If we accept that God is not the author of confusion, as stated in the Bible, and since the Bible is full of information about his plan, where we came from and are going, and why. I for one believe 1 Corinthaians 14:33. But why would Churches teach that the world is 6,000 - 14,000 years old. Well, if Genesis is not read correctly, that is to say, an incorrect assumption placed on the meaning of even the first two verses of Genesis 1:1-2 one would start off in the wrong direction from almost the word go.

Let's apply a technique called "rightly dividing the word of God" and look at Genesis 1:1-2. I am sorry, but we can't do this right without using the Strong's concordance to find out what the original Hebrew words in these two verses mean.

Genesis 1:1-2
1:1 In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
KJV

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning... Is there any mention of just exactly when the beginning was? I don't see anything.

Now, the second verse is very interesting, there are three key words of which we must have a full understanding before we can go on:

was   without form,   and void

was: OT:1961
hayah (haw-yaw); a primitive root [compare OT:1933]; to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary):
KJV - beacon, altogether, be (-come), accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), do, faint, fall, follow, happen, have, last, pertain, quit (oneself-), require, use.

without form: OT:8414
tohuw (to'-hoo); from an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), i.e. desert; figuratively, a worthless thing; adverbially, in vain:
KJV - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.

void: OT:922
bohuw (bo'-hoo); from an unused root (meaning to be empty); a vacuity, i.e. (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin:
KJV - emptiness, void.

OK, so here is Genesis 1:2 again:

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

2 And the earth became wilderness, and an undistinguishable ruin; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Now we understand what happened in Genesis 1:1-2

Sometime in the distant past God created the Heaven and the earth, we have no idea when!
Something happened, the earth became a wilderness, an undistinguishable ruin.

OK, so didn't God create the earth that way in the first place?

No, because Genesis 1:2 says it BECAME WILDERNESS and AN UNDISTINGUISHABLE RUIN!

OK let's go to the book of Isaiah for some more information:

Isaiah 45:18
18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
KJV

OK, so Isaiah 45:18 tells us more about Genesis 1:1, more detail about how the earth was formed.

So something must have happened between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, what could have been?

Jeremiah 4:23-26
23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
KJV

So we see in Jeremiah 4:26 that the fruitful place was a wilderness and there were cities that were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

There were even cities in the earth before Genesis 1:2. I must admit, that is amazing.

It is good to remember that Jeremiah 4:26 states "there was no man", this means that there was no Noah's Ark with eight people and a boatload of animals on board. There was nothing left, complete destruction.

2 Peter 3:4-7 gives us a good overview of the destruction of the first earth age and the reformation of the earth into the second earth age:

2 Peter 3:4-7
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
KJV

Here in 2 Peter 3:5-6 tells us that the earth, not the mountains but the earth was standing out of the water and in the water. Before and after the destruction. Verse 6 states that the earth perished, again no Noah and his Ark.

The extent of this paper is simply to explain that there were/are three world ages. The first before Genesis 1:2. The second world age which is reformed after Genesis 1:2. Then the third earth age is going to be when Jesus returns which is yet to come to establish his eternal kingdom.

I will be covering more topics in the very near future.

Ed Wilson