Day 2 Devotion – The Earth was Formless and Void

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2

If you study the natural history of the earth you will see that the earth is believed to be about 4.5 billion years old. However, the first rocks did not form until about 3.9 billion years ago (bya). This means that for the first 600 million years that the earth was basically a molten ball of lava. Lava is a liquid and liquids do not possess form of their own, they take on the form of their container. The earth was far too harsh at this time for life to exist so it was also void or empty. Some theologians teach that the Hebrew word for void means ruin and they have developed what is called the “ruin and reconstruction” theory or the “Gap” theory. They say God created in verse one and then the battle between God and Satan took place in the gap between verses one and two. The earth was destroyed during this battle and then God had to re-create the earth in the following verses. Developing theories based on things the Bible does not say is called a “testimony of silence” and it is a very dangerous thing to do. Maybe science can actually explain this better. During the first 600 million years the earth was hit about 17,000 times by meteorites, asteroids and comets. This is called the “late heavy bombardment”. This sounds very destructive but actually these collisions delivered elements and compounds such as water that would be necessary for life to exist. The ironic thing here is that science tells us that life only became possible through destructive forces. Who else but God can create by using destructive processes? Once the earth cooled, water condensed and covered the entire globe with water just as the Bible suggests here. The word hovering is actually referring to a bird that broods over her nest. God was brooding over the young planet to protect it, probably from Lucifer. Lastly, the word surface means to look down on something that is spinning. This fact about the earth’s rotation was not confirmed until the days of Copernicus and Galileo.