Daniel 12:4 “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
The angel Gabriel made the above comment approximately 2600 years ago. Both predictions have since come to pass. With regards to the first prediction, i.e. “many shall run to and fro”, we see more people travelling throughout the earth today than ever before. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that internationally there were just 25 million tourist arrivals in 1950. 68 years later this number has increased to 1.4 billion international arrivals per year. This is a 56-fold increase.[1] With regards to the second prediction, i.e. “knowledge shall increase”, there has been an explosion of knowledge in the earth today. Until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today on average, human knowledge is doubling every 13 months. According to IBM, the build out of the “internet of things” will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours.[2] And so, it is in light of the increase of knowledge in the earth that this series is written, for more and more knowledge is coming to light regarding the universe, the earth and the history of life. In past generations this topic theologically was not very important, and ministers of the gospel could simply gloss over it by teaching the saints that God created everything over six days, six thousand years ago. The reason bible teachers could do that, was because knowledge in the earth was limited and there was no real scientific evidence available to challenge that point of view. Today things have changed however, and every day more and more scientific evidence is discovered that completely refutes that view of scripture, thus highlighting the error of that teaching. And so, bible teachers that continue to teach such error by not rightly dividing the word of truth about this subject, do a disservice to the church and young people in particular, because they are the ones confronted with “scientific facts” and theories, that ridicule a literal 6 day creation account that occurred 6 thousand years ago. Not all scientific theories and “facts” are correct however, and many are demonstrably false, but even though a lot that is presented as “scientific fact” is in actual fact error; because the church has not been taught correctly what God’s word says on the subject, many Christians become confused and some begin to question their faith in God. And so, this series is written to reconcile legitimate scientific facts and theories with what scripture actually teaches about the subjects of the universe, the earth and the origin/history of life. This series is not written for the world however, it is written for believers. The reason I say that, is because this series deals with both components of creation, i.e. the spiritual and the natural. And so, believers actually have an advantage in their ability to understand God’s creation, simply because we acknowledge that God is its creator. The world however (including its scientists), are at a disadvantage in their understanding of the universe in which they live, again simply because they do not acknowledge God as its creator. God, as the creator of both that which is seen and that which cannot be seen, has put laws into place that governs both the spiritual and the natural realms. Natural man however, does not believe that God and the spirit realm exist, thus limiting themselves to the study of the physical realm only. And so, although natural man through scientific study and discovery is able to understand the laws of nature that God has put in place, they are unable to understand how those laws came about. Christians on the other hand, are able to understand both, because our account of creation includes both the spiritual and the natural. There is also the added dimension of God creating the physical realm from that which does not exist (Roman 4:17). As we will see later in this series, this particular truth is a major stumbling block for natural scientists, because their scientific observations show them very clearly that physical elements appear seemingly out of nowhere. And so they are forced to create imaginative theories such as the existence of multi universes and evolution to try explain that which in the natural, is unexplainable.
Ephesians 3:8-9 “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, (9) and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.”
Scripture reveals to us that the method that God uses to create, is through the mechanism of ages. In other words, God decides when an age begins, what will transpire in that age, and when that age will end, thus ushering in the next age. In the above passage of scripture, the apostle Paul reveals to us that there have been numerous ages that have come and gone since the beginning. We are currently in one of those ages, and scripture also teaches us that there are ages still to come in the future (Ephesians 2:7). And so, one of the purposes of this series is to examine what the bible teaches us about the ages that have come and gone from the beginning of time, until this present age in which we live.
Job 38:17-21 “Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death? (18) Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. (19) "Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, (20) that you may take it to its territory, that you may know the paths to its home? (21) Do you know it, because you were born then, Or because the number of your days is great?”
Scientists today, estimate that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. When scientists estimate that age, they formulate that estimation through the use of the latest scientific tools that are available to them. One of the main tools they use is a process called radiometric or radioisotope dating, which is a technique that is used to date materials, such as rocks of meteorites that have fallen to the earth, lunar rocks and the crust of the earth itself.[3] But even though this method is far more accurate than anything that has been available in the past, not all scientists today agree with its accuracy. It is quite possible however, that future scientific discoveries will help to shed further light on the subject. Nevertheless, as we will see later in this series, scripture reveals to us that the age of the earth is actually far older than natural man’s estimate. In the above passage of scripture, the Lord clearly indicates to us just how ancient the earth actually is. For in this passage He questions Job’s knowledge of when God created the earth, by asking him if Job was alive at the time to see its creation. God tells Job that in order for him to qualify, that the number of Job’s days would have to be great. God Himself is called the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9), thus giving us some idea of just how great the number of days God is referring to. Most bible scholars agree that Job lived after the flood of Noah and before the time of Abraham, which means that God appeared to Job in this vision roughly 12000 years after God had created Adam. We also know from scripture, that Job himself lived a long life of well over 200 years (Job 42:16-17). Nevertheless, when God said to Job that the number of his days would have to be great, God was not talking about Job’s age, or even the ages of those who lived on the earth before Job. For just two of Job’s predecessors, i.e. Methuselah and even Adam himself accounted for almost 2000 years of elapsed time since man first appeared on the earth. For Adam lived 930 years and Methuselah (the 8th from Adam) lived 969 years. But even though most men before the flood lived for almost 1000 years, their ages were not considered “great” in God’s eyes, for a thousand years in God’s eyes is as one day (2 Peter 3:8). And so, the number of days that God is referring to in this passage is a period of time that is beyond our understanding. We know that to be the case, because when God refers to the creation of the earth in this passage, He links it to His creation of the gates of death, which is located in the centre of the earth. And as we will see later in this series, God created the realm of death (including the gates of death) long before even Lucifer rebelled against God. And we know that Lucifer’s rebellion occurred long before the creation account as recorded in the book of Genesis. And so, when God says that in order for one to have been present on the day He created the earth, that the number of their days would have to be great, God is talking about a period of time that is far greater than we can even begin to imagine.
Michael E.B. Maher
[1] Max Roser (2020) - "Tourism". Published online at OurWorldInData.org.
[2] Knowledge Doubling Every 12 Months, Soon to be Every 12 Hours By: David Russell Schilling | April 19th, 2013
[3] Wikipedia
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