Jer 4:23 KJV – 23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, [it was] without form, and void; and the heavens, and they [had] no light.

“In response to Lucifer’s sin, God cast him down to the earth and, consistent with the pattern we see in the second and third judgments, the earth was cursed (Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:18).

Genesis 1:2 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.

Jeremiah 4:23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light [cannot be Noah’s flood].
24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man [cannot be the tribulation nor Noah’s flood], 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.

During Noah’s flood, the cities and fruitful places would not be visible, and after the flood when the waters receded, it could not be said that it was formless and void and that there was no light. Clearly, this is a description of the earth in Genesis 1:2 before the recreation.“

Michael Pearl – The Gap Fact and Out-of-Whack Creation Scientism – 2018 – Page 21

“Earlier in verse 25 Jeremiah characterized the judgment as resulting in “no man” and no birds on the earth, conditions that did not occur in Israel’s judgment and will not occur during the Tribulation, for the Tribulation ends with the birds of the air eating the flesh of the damned (Revelation 19:17–18). But the judgment upon Israel will not result in the extinguishing of all human and bird life. It will result in the evacuation of the population of the city of Jerusalem only.”

“It is difficult to believe in the objectivity of anyone who would interpret verses 23–26 as anything other than conditions prior to the six days.”

Michael Pearl – The Gap Fact and Out-of-Whack Creation Scientism – 2018 – Page 23

• Page 21 Response
  • On the first sentence quoted above Brother Pearl says “In response to Lucifer’s sin, God cast him down to the earth”
    • There are multiple errors here:
      1. God has not yet cast him to earth. He still has free reign to go back and forth between heaven and earth as we see in Job 1:6
      2. The verses Brother Pearl quotes about the casting out of heaven are all future. Look at all the “Shall” and “I will” statements in these verses. They are all future.
         • Isaiah 14:12, 15-16 KJV – 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! … 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. 16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, [and] consider thee, [saying, Is] this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
         • Ezekiel 28:16-19 KJV – 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. 18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. 19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never [shalt] thou [be] any more.
      3. Brother Pearl highlights “no man” and inserts the commentary into the Bible text “cannot be the tribulation nor Noah’s flood”
         • What is odd is that he is attributing the destruction in Jeremiah 4:23-26 to a Flood at all?
           • There is nothing in Jeremiah 4 about a flood. That is a private interpretation.
      4. Brother Pearl claims these verses are from Genesis 1:2 because of his highlighted text “no man“.
         • Notice he ignored the end of verse 25
           • “and all the birds of the heavens were fled.”
         • Notice 25 says the “birds fled”, meaning they left. It did not say there were no birds.
         • Verse 25 CANNOT be before the 6 days of creation because birds were not created yet until day 5, just as Adam was not created yet until day 6.
         • He applies this logic to no man but ignores the “birds of the heavens were fled” in verse 25
           • This is what I mean by not consistent.
      5. This ties directly into his statement on page 23
         • “Earlier in verse 25 Jeremiah characterized the judgment as resulting in “no man” and no birds on the earth,…”
           • His sentence is disturbing to me, now he directly MISQUOTES the Bible, it’s a subtle change to the Word of God:
           • The verse DOES NOT SAY no birds on the earth… It plainly says there were birds and they fled the city
           • So its impossible for this to be before the 6 days of creation as Jeremiah clearly says the birds fled. This matches the text in Jer 4:29 “The whole city shall flee”

6. Brother Pearl’s quote: “It is difficult to believe in the objectivity of anyone who would interpret verses 23–26 as anything other than conditions prior to the six days.”
   • This quote from Brother Pearl is very difficult (impossible) to swallow in light of the changing of the biblical text in Jeremiah 4:25.
     • I am a bit shocked that no one has questioned Brother Pearl on this subtle change and interpretation?

I find it impossible to believe in his interpretation when he subtly changes and ignores the word of God to match his view. I am fleeing this view like the Birds are going to flee Jerusalem in the future.

So lets apply this “Law” to these verses

• When was Genesis written
  • Between 1440 and 1400 B.C.
• When was Jeremiah written
  • Between 630 and 580 B.C..
• So the time difference between the two books is between 770 and 860 years.
  • So for roughly 800 years they (God’s People (including Jeremiah)) read Genesis 1:2 as it stood. Not thinking it was from Judgement.
• So if you use the Law of First Mention then you start with Genesis 1:2 as the tone and basic meaning.
  • So the basic meaning of “without form” is simply something that is yet to be formed.
    • We get this from the creation account: In Genesis 2 for instance we see Adam is Initially without form when he is mere dust of the earth.
    • Then the bible tells us God formed him.
    • We see that something was NOT GOOD in Genesis 2 in that Adam was alone.
      • We see that this was NOT BECAUSE of Judgement but because God was not DONE. It was a process in Day 6 of creation as we spoke of in detail on previous pages.
    • In like manner God tells us in other scripture that he formed the dry land later on day 3
      • Psa 95:5 The sea [is] his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry [land].
• When Jeremiah 4:23 was written some 800 years later, the Israelite would have immediately said I have seen this before.
  • They would have looked at Jeremiah 4 and said something like, “oh my goodness, this judgement is going to be so severe that the earth (Jerusalem) will become as formless as it was before God formed it on Day 3.
• A simple way to interpret the second mention (Jeremiah) of the phrase that would have surely made sense to those reading Jeremiah is that the judgement coming to Israel is so severe that the Earth is going to look as unformed and empty as the Earth did in the Beginning of Day 1 of creation before God formed the Earth on day 3 of creation and filled the Earth as is plainly seen in Days 5 and 6.
• All the Birds and the people will flee the city.
• So as Brother Demopoulos said ” but by simply taking the concordance of the Holy Bible (KJV 1611) and looking up where the Holy Spirit has written the very same words concerning the earth elsewhere.” Gap Fact – Page 49
  • I agree with him, when you get to Jeremiah 4 and read this you see that the future destruction of Jerusalem will be devastating and resemble how the earth looked in Gen 1:2.
  • I disagree that context of Jer 4 (Judgment) is the same as the Context of Genesis Chapter 1 (Creation)
    • I know many Gap Fact believers are now thinking what about the DARKNESS! Its always BAD. Hold your horses brothers, I will get to that in a future page. Keep patiently reading, studying and checking what I say with Scripture.

Why is the earth void (empty of inhabitants) in Genesis 1:2? Because he doesn’t add any inhabitants until its habitable on Day 5 when whales, fish and winged fowl are the newly first inhabitants of the newly formed earth.

Genesis 1:21 KJV – 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

While we will go into much detail later about darkness and the reasons God Created it, its easy to apply the logic above see that the reason the Earth was dark in Genesis 1:2 is because that is how God made it in Genesis 1:1. Genesis 1:2 is a further explanation of Genesis 1:1. We also see God doesn’t not leave it that way and that before day 1 ends (Gen 1:5) he adds his light to the newly created single heaven and earth. Gen 1:3.

What is the cause of all the water? The Gap fact brothers will tell you its because of the flood described in 2 Peter 3:5-6, this also is addressed in its own dedicated page.

The truth is the reason all that water is there is because God made it that way and commanded it and it was created.

Psalms 148:4-5 (KJV) 4 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens. 5 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.

The waters above the heavens are moved into place on the creation of the firmament on Day 2. The waters existed from Genesis 1:1 when he created them as Psalm 148:5 above notes. Another reason they are there is that God uses the waters to lay the beams of his chambers in the 3rd Heaven as described in Psalms 104

Psalm 104:3 KJV – 3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:

The water is not there because of judgement. Its simply a core part of creation in Genesis 1:1. Without water there is NO LIFE ON EARTH. Its a core component of creation.

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” This phrase foreshadows God’s preparation to do something about this negative state. Note that the Spirit of God moves in darkness upon the face of the waters which completely cover the earth. At what point in the six days did this occur? The very first act is to remove the darkness with light. It is untenable that the moment described should ever exist in the six days. It is clearly describing conditions prior to the first day when light dispels the darkness.

He says the state of the earth here is “negative”. That is a private interpretation as shown above which incorrectly applies Jer 4. The plain reading of the scripture doesn’t support this.

He asks “At what point in the six days did this occur?” The answer is simple during day 1 construction process. Just as God doesn’t leave the earth without form or void and He fills them. God doesn’t leave the earth in darkness even for a single day, he provides a temporary work light in Gen 1:3. As mentioned earlier we will tackle the darkness is always bad from judgement argument in the next page in detail.

If you look up the phrase Spirit of God in the bible you will find it 26 times in 26 verses in both the old and the new testament and its always good. This adds to the argument that Gen 1:2 is not a judgement verse but rather just part of creation.

The Spirit of God it appears have given life to the water to prepare it for creation uses. I find it interesting that “breath of life” is what finally brings Adam to life. I also find it interesting that you never read about Spirit of God moving on the face of ANY other planet. Its therefore not shocking to me that there is no other planet with life that has been found.

Did God explicitly say or even imply that the Earth in Gen 1:2 was a result of Judgment?

Answer = No

•Did God explicitly say why all that water is there in Gen 1:2?

Answer = Yes, Psalms 148:5

Be careful with your hermeneutics and ask yourself if your coming to the bible with an agenda. There are many other versus that explain why God started Creation with the things mentioned in Genesis 1:2 and that creation was a 6 day process as we will see.

Next: Darkness in Genesis 1:2