by Timothy W. Burnett
Based on what we've learned it stands to reason that something cataclysmic must have occurred to cause God's perfect creation to become without form and void. There are other areas of scripture, which might help to identify what happened.
Isaiah prophesied of an event that could be the most likely candidate for what caused such a drastic change in the earth's state. It is recorded in Isaiah 14:12, "How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!"
Utilizing the website Crosswalk.com Bible study section, the name Lucifer meant shining one or morning star and basically referred to a light-bearer. A closer study will reveal that Lucifer is the same spiritual entity as the Devil. According to Isaiah 14:12 Lucifer fell from heaven.
Revelations chapter 12 refers to an event that matches the information from Isaiah's prophecy, "And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven. And did cast them to the earth." According to verse 4, it is talking about the "great red dragon," which another name for the Devil.
Continuing at verse 7 of Revelations chapter 12, "And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought and his angels. And did not prevail. Neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out. That old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world. He was cast out into the earth. And his angels were cast out with him."
It says that the angel Michael and his angels battled with the Devil and his angels. The war took place in heaven and the Devil lost. The Devil and his angels were cast out of heaven into the earth. More accurately put, the Devil was cast out, and his angels were drawn with him.
Combining the record in Isaiah chapter 14 with that of Revelations 12, we learn how Lucifer fell from heaven. Isaiah 14:14 sums up why Lucifer fell, "For you have said in your heart�'I will be like the most High.'" Lucifer did not learn his lesson, for we find in Genesis 3:5 he told the woman, "you shall be as God."
It's interesting to note that only five verses after Isaiah 14:14 it says, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms. That made the world as a wilderness" (Isaiah 14: 16-17). In the earlier known texts, the word "wilderness" included different meanings, one of which referred to a wasteland. This fits with the phrase "without form and void" in Genesis 1:2.
Two important research principles were applied in this study. One was to rightly divide the integrity of God's word, and the other was to verify that a key word in the King James Bible was accurate with the earlier known texts.
By rightly dividing God's word, we could see a major conflict between Genesis 1:2 and Isaiah 45:18. Either God created the earth to be in a perfect and inhabitable condition, or He created it without form and void as an uninhabitable wasteland. God's word does not contradict itself. This is simply part of respecting the integrity of God's word.
Having seen the contradiction, we could then see that it centers on the word "was" in Genesis 1:2. One possible reason for an apparent contradiction in God's word is an error in translation. Thanks to the excellent work done by many scholars of ancient Greek and Hebrew, we can use certain study materials to compare the words used in the current Bible with the earliest known texts.
Maybe our readers can understand how refreshed my heart was upon learning that God did not create the earth to be an uninhabitable wasteland of nothingness, but instead He created and formed the earth to be inhabited. It was a perfect creation because that�s just God's style.
Home