Is the concept of Lucifer's Flood biblical?

It is a common idea that Genesis 1 contains an account of the seven days of creation. This is quite a mistake, as a small amount of reflection will convince. One verse only—Genesis 1:1—contains the general account of creation, whilst the next verse states that “the earth was without form and void.” God did not create it thus. Isaiah 45:18 proves this, “God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He has established it, He created it NOT in vain, He formed it to be inhabited.” The same word in Hebrew occurs in Genesis 1:2, and Isaiah 45:18, quoted in our texts as “void” and “in vain.” So that what this verse states is that God did not create the earth “without form and void.”

"The Lord said, I will destroy man." Nothing less would do. There must be the entire destruction of that which had corrupted God's way on the earth. "The mighty men, and men of renown," must all be swept away, without distinction. "all flesh" must be set aside, as utterly unfit for God. "The end of all flesh is come before me." It was not merely the end of some flesh; no, it was all corrupt, in the sight of Jehovah — all irrecoverably bad. It had been tried, and found wanting; and the Lord announces His remedy to Noah in these words, "Make thee an ark of gopher wood."

Verse 1 stands alone in its solitary grandeur. We have no means of telling how long a time intervened between verses 1 and 2. Verse 2 tell us the earth was "waste and empty" (JND trans.), but Isaiah 45:18 declares, "not as a waste did He create it" (JND). Some have sought to prove that the earth became a waste at the time of Satan's fall, but though it might be true, scripture does not clearly state this. When it became waste, or how long it remained in that state, we do not know. The fact is clear that something took place to cause this desolation. In a similar way, though Adam was created upright, his fall brought ruin into his moral nature. "Darkness was upon the face of the deep" describes man's fallen condition too, just as it describes the condition of a desolate creation, all covered with water, a state of instability and restlessness.Go upto Index

Verse 1 stands alone in its solitary grandeur. We have no means of telling how long a time intervened between verses 1 and 2. Verse 2 tell us the earth was “waste and empty” (JND trans.), but Isaiah 45:18 declares, “not as a waste did He create it” (JND). Some have sought to prove that the earth became a waste at the time of Satan's fall, but though it might be true, scripture does not clearly state this. When it became waste, or how long it remained in that state, we do not know. the fact is clear that something took place to cause this desolation. In a similar way, though Adam was created upright, his fall brought ruin into his moral nature. “Darkness was upon the face of the deep” describes man's fallen condition too, just as it describes the condition of a desolate creation, all covered with water, a state of instability and restlessness.

It is of the greatest importance to understand that the condition in which the earth (not the heavens) is described in the second verse is not how God created it in the beginning. Scripture itself tells us this. Read Isaiah 45:18. The Hebrew word for "without form" is _tohu, which means waste. "The earth was waste and void." But in the passage of Isaiah we read, "He created it not a waste." The original earth passed through a great upheaval. A judgment swept over it, which in all probability must have occurred on account of the fall of that mighty creature, Lucifer, who fell by pride and became the devil. The original earth, no doubt, was his habitation and he had authority over it which he still claims as the prince of this world. Luke 4:5-6 shows us this. The earth had become waste and void; chaos and darkness reigned. What that original earth was we do not know, but we know that animal and vegetable life was in existence long before God began to restore the earth. The immense fossil beds prove this. But they likewise prove that man was not then on the earth. Between the first and second verses of the Bible there is that unknown period of millions of years of which geology gets a glimpse in studying the crust of the earth. God waited His own time in majestic calmness when He would begin to carry out His plans He had made before the foundation of the world.

The well-known and flexible particle of connection in the Hebrew text introduces the verse. Its meaning, usually and simply copulative, is often modified, as almost all words in every language must be, by contextual considerations. Hence the learned Dathe, in 1781, renders it here "posthaec vero," expressly to distinguish the state of things in ver. 2 from that referred to in ver. 1, and sends us to such instances as Num. 5:23, Deut. 1:19. Now there is no doubt that the Hebrew conjunction admits of an interval as often as facts demand it; but there is no need of departing from its primary force, "and" (though our conjunction is not so pliant); or it may readily have a somewhat adversative force as we see in the LXX. The true determination lies in what follows. For the usage of the past verb when thus employed is to express a state subsequent to, and not connected with, what goes before, but previous to what follows. Hebrew idiom does not use that verb simply as a copula, as may be seen twice in this verse, and almost everywhere; or it puts the verb before the noun. The right conclusion therefore is that Moses was led to indicate the desolation into which the earth was thrown at some epoch not made known, after creation, but prior to the "days" in which it was made the habitation for Adam and the race.

With this agrees the occurrence of the remarkable phraseology "waste and empty" elsewhere. There are but two other occasions: — Isa. 34:11, "the line of confusion [or waste] and the stones of emptiness;" and Jer. 4:23, "I beheld the earth; and lo! it was waste and emptiness." In both it is a desolation indicted, not the primary condition. So it is in Genesis 1:2. It is the more to be noted, as in Jeremiah it is said of the heavens at this time, that "they had no light." Thus is confirmed, by each of the other occurrences, the conviction that our text describes a state which befell the earth, possibly long after its original creation as in the verse before. It is to this interval that the successive ages of geology apply. Here are undeniable facts, full of interest, and implying creation made existent and extinguished. One's confidence in the hypotheses reared on all this may be otiose or enthusiastic; but the exact meaning of Moses' words in this verse leaves all the room that could be desired for those vast processes which may be gathered from the observed phenomena of the earth's crust. There is nothing in scripture to exclude a succession of creatures rising to higher organization from lower as the rule, with a striking exception here and there, from the Eozoon in the Laurentian rocks of Canada to the Mammalia, which most nearly resemble those of the earth as it is. But all the brilliant ingenuity of Sir C. Lyell, with others of kindred view, fails to explain or evade the proofs of change at this very period, immense as it may have been, incomparably vaster and more rapid than since man appeared. No doubt the deluge had the deepest moral significance, and is thus unique, because the human race, save those in the ark, was then swept away. But physically its traces were superficial compared with those far more ancient convulsions so apparent except to those who worship Time and Uniformitarianism.

In the beginning God created everything — the heavens and the earth. Then the earth is described as void and waste, and (not as succeeding, but accompanying it) darkness upon the face of the deep, contemporaneously with which the Spirit of God broods upon the face of the waters. All this is an added account. The real and only force of the <span style="font-family: 'H ebraica'">w]</span> "<i>and</i>" "and" is another fact; not at all as if it implied that the first and second verses spoke of the same time, any more than they decide the question of the length of the interval. The phraseology employed perfectly agrees with and confirms the analogy of revelation, that the first verse speaks of an original condition which God was pleased to bring into being; the second, of a desolation afterwards brought in; but how long the first lasted what changes may have intervened, when or by what means the ruin came to pass, is not the subject-matter of the inspired record, but open to the ways and means of human research, if indeed man has sufficient facts on which to ground a sure conclusion. It is false that scripture does not leave room for his investigation.

The first verse of the Bible records the original creation of the heaven and the earth; whilst the second verse states that the earth was in a state of chaos and darkness. Comparing these Scriptures one with the other, earnest Bible students have plainly seen that there was an original fair creation, and that some unrecorded catastrophe must have occurred, which reduced this earth to a state of ruin and chaos. The time that elapsed between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1, is sufficient to allow for any demands that may be deemed necessary for geological changes in the structure of the earth’s surface. But what that time was we cannot conjecture. Scripture is silent as to this and also as to the cause of this tremendous catastrophe to our planet. When Scripture is silent, it is impertinent for us to speculate. We must respect the silences of Scripture, as well as its revelations.

Some have found a difficulty (which I simply touch on in passing) from the conjunction with which verse 2 commences. They have conceived that, coupling the second verse with the first, it suggests the notion that when God created the earth it was in the state described in the second verse. Now not only is it not too strong to deny that there is the least ground for such an inference, but one may go farther and affirm that the simplest and surest means of guarding against it, according to the style of the writer, and indeed propriety of language, was afforded by here inserting the word w&ldquo; "and." In short, if the word had not been here, it might have been supposed that the writer meant us to conclude that the original condition of the earth was the shapeless mass of confusion which verse 2 describes with such terse and graphic brevity. But, as it is, scripture means nothing of the sort. We have first the great announcement that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. There is next the associated fact of an utter desolation which befell not the heavens, but the earth. The insertion of the substantive verb, as has been remarked, expresses no doubt a condition past as compared with what follows, but pointedly not said to be contemporaneous with what preceded, as would have been implied in its omission; but what interval lay between, or why such a desolation ensued, is not stated. For God passes rapidly over the early account and history of the globe — I might almost say, hastening to that condition of the earth in which it was to be made the habitation of mankind; whereon also God was to display His moral dealings, and finally His own Son, with the fruitful consequences of that stupendous event, whether in rejection or in redemption.

I believe the flood was all over the earth, wherever man was. There is no mistake. People have called the universality in question, using general terms, as if it only covered the inhabited earth. But scripture says, "the mountains were covered," "and the tops of the mountains were seen," and so on; this looks like universality. You must let in a miracle in any case: and so it is all one after all. Suppose Mount Ararat, fifteen or sixteen thousand feet high, in northern Armenia, was covered; well, if the waters were not all round, and away too, they would have run off, and covered somewhere else; there must have been a miracle anyhow. The universality of the flood, absolute universality, seems to me to be positively meant and intended, because of destroying the world that then was. God puts an end to the whole system of the world. It was as complete a judgment of the earth and all that was on it, on the part of God, as it will be presently by fire. Everything in the whole order and system of the world that had life perished, "the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished": so Peter tells us, and anything that enfeebled it I should not admit: all mere physical things are consequent upon it. Either reject the word of God, or else Mount Ararat was covered. As to universal destruction, everything in the world was put an end to. The world that then was is distinct from the world that now is; and this is of immense moral import to us. God says He will never do it again, but the next time it will be by fire.