The Bible Gap Theory

The Bible can be an extremely fascinating treasure of insights if one spends time to study it.

In Ezekiel 28:11-19, God spoke about Satan's state before he fell from grace. We know that this king of Tyre wasn't human because Ezekiel has already spoken about the human king of Tyre in verses 1-10 whom God called the leader (or prince) of Tyre. There, all the descriptions was decidedly human in nature. When we moved to verses 11-19, the king of Tyre was described in decidedly angelic form.

Here, God described Satan's dwelling place before his fall as being in the garden of Eden. However, this garden is totally different from the one that Adam and Eve were given by God. In Satan's case, he was in a garden filled with many different types of precious stones. It was also in this garden that Satan's pride got the better of him (see Isaiah 14:12-14) and he declared war against God . Verse 18 in Ezekiel went on to say that the earth became waste and void.

This was probably the context that Genesis began with.

[1] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

In this 2 short verses, we can deduce that there there was possibly a gap of time between verse 1 and 2. The evidence can be found in Isaiah 45:18 which says:

For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited),

If God did not create the earth as a waste place, then it is strange indeed that Genesis described the earth as formless and void (or in an alternative NASB translation, waste and emptiness). The question to ask is whether God created the earth in a state of chaos (which Isaiah 45:18 disproved) or did it became a state of chaos (which Ezekiel 28:18 provided for such a possibility).

Furthermore, the Hebrew word describing formless/waste (tohu) and void/emptiness (bohu) were used together only in two other Old Testament passages and both pointed to the concept of divine judgment (Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23).

But pelican and hedgehog will possess it, And owl and raven will dwell in it; And He will stretch over it the line of desolation [tohu] And the plumb line of emptiness [bohu]. (Isa 34:11)

I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless [tohu] and void [bohu]; And to the heavens, and they had no light. (Jer 4:23)

Finally, the Hebrew word that was translated as "was" in Genesis 1:2 (The earth was formless and void) is hayah which can be translated as "to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out". Hence the verse can be translated as "The earth became formless and void".

Hence, we can deduce that the fall of Satan occurred between Genesis Chapter 1 verse 1 and 2. This is the Bible Gap Theory to account for the fall of Satan and the description of the earth in a state of waste and emptiness. However, this gap is not to be confused with the one which some used to accommodate supposedly long geological age of the earth. In Romans 5:12, death only came about with Adam's sin so it is biblically not possible for death to occur before Adam's sin to account for the fossil records of the billions of years.