In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, Genesis 1:1.
One of the things that troubles me about the Gap Theory is that it is largely held by men for whom I hold high regard. These are men who would not correct a King James Bible for any reason. These are men who are weary of the Henry Morris approach to Genesis wherein the King James Bible is corrected or disregarded in order to defend the Genesis record.
These men can plainly see that there is simply no way that all of the events of creation and the fall of Lucifer cannot possibly fit into the first few verses of Genesis if Genesis 1:1 had said "At the beginning". What these men don't consider is that it doesn't say "at the beginning"; it says, in the beginning.
These men have far too much respect for their bible to try to jam Ezekiel 28:1-19, Isaiah 14:4-14, Jeremiah 4:23-26, Proverbs 8:22-29, and Revelation 13:8 into such a tiny space. It would be like trying to cram the entire Russian army into a phone booth. There is no room.
Why is in the beginning different from "at the beginning"? At the beginning of the Black Creek Baptist Church in 1822 it was considered a Presbyterian Church by those founding it. In the beginning of the church (those early years) the church conformed to Congregational Church discipline and membership. By the late 1800s and until about the 1950s it still paid dues to the Congregation denomination, but adhered more closely to Wesleyan tradition.
Between 1911 and 1939 it had two different female pastors who were both out of Houghton College and were of the Salvation Army stripe. Obviously, I disagree with female pastors, but from what I understand, in their Salvation Army fervor, they were more of a man than the average Fundamentalist blah, blah blah pastor is today.
In the late 1940s, a great man by the name of Elmer Francisco became the pastor and recognizing the faith demonstrated by the congregation in the bible itself, he coaxed them into joining a Baptist association. Ultimately, a few members refused adult baptism and so his application to join the association was rejected. (I am glad of that.).
What did change is that the church no longer paid dues to any outside organization. It became the Independent Church of Black Creek. By the 1980s the few recalcitrant individuals who refused adult Baptism passed on to appeal their case in the courts of heaven and the church now practiced adult baptism. Wiser heads changed the church's name to the Black Creek Baptist Church.
I can honestly say that in the beginning, this church was a Congregational Church because in its beginning years it was. Yet, to be more precise, at the beginning it was a Presbyterian Church. A man may have a crop planted in the end of his field, but the boundary is at the end of the field. This is just simple English. That is how our bible is written, simple English.
In the beginning encompases the creation of all three heavens, the creation of angels, the fall of Lucifer, the creation of the heaven and earth that we now have, the creation of man, the fall of man, the calling out of Abraham, and the migration of the Jews to Egypt. It ends with in a coffin in Egypt, Genesis 50:26.
For those of you whose respect for the words of a King James Bible is sacrosanct, please consider the simple English of Genesis 1:1 and realize that you don't need a gap. As Winston Churchill said after the first decisive British victory over a German land army:
