RELIGION NEEDS SCIENCE (PART 2)

In part 1 of this topic on pazionmedia.com,  the writer elaborated on how religion needs science to help strengthen our faith in God. The part 1 helped us to know that using radiocarbon dating, some animal fossils have led us to believe that this earth has been in existence way longer than some religious interpretations give us. We examined some passages from the Bible to know that Gen 1:1 is the beginning of the creation of the earth and Gen 1:3 is the renewal of the earth after a sudden destruction. In this part, we are going to look at what probably happened before Gen 1:3’s re-creation was done. Please keep keen attention to this part.

Jeremiah had a vision concerning the future of Israel after their rebellion against God. Let’s observe how he described the vision. Jeremiah 4:23-26 (KJV), “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens wled.” From the vision, Jeremiah described how Israel was nicely built but the people thereon rebelled against God and Israel later became formless and void like the state of the earth in Gen 1:2. If we believe this vision to be from God and the parallelism of Israel to creation, then the world was once perfect before a rebellion against God occurred which caused the earth to become void and formless. The only rebellion against God before men was that of Lucifer and his angels. If this rebellion really happened, at what timeline did this happen? Did it happen before or after man was created? Was it a spiritual war or physical one? Let’s observe the following scripts about the rebellion of Lucifer against God.

Some portions of Isaiah 14:4-17 give answers to the postulated questions. “…How you have fallen from heaven, morning star (Lucifer), son of the morning! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!… Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?” This vision also draws parallelism to the fall of Lucifer and a certain King of Tyre. Which beings saw Lucifer fall from heaven? If Lucifer fell after the creation of Adam and Eve, then they might have witnessed that war. This is the first indicator that the fall of Lucifer happened before man was created. According to Jewish thought, the passage in Isaiah was used to prophesy the fate of the King of Babylon, who is described as aiming to rival God, but the following verse particularly was about Lucifer, “…How you have fallen from heaven, morning star (Lucifer), son of the morning! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations…” This answers the question that there was heaven and earth before the Gen 1:3 began. Again, there were cities and nations during that time before his fall. As to who and how these cities and nations were made for would be answered in another topic.

In Ezekiel 28, God ddescribesLucifer through Ezekiel ssaying “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created, they were prepared.” The materials used to create Lucifer are physical things and the first Garden of Eden too was a physical place on earth, so it implies that Lucifer was a metaphysical being and the war in the heavens was a metaphysical battle.

The heavens and heaven are separate concepts. The heavens consist of the physical sky that we can see from our solar system outward to the dark space in the universe. Heaven is also a physical realm behind the dark space in the universe which is only accessible by supernatural efforts. Imagine this: Putting the universe in a deep dark barrel and covering it tightly. Anything in the barrel cannot come outside the barrel to know what is out there but whoever is outside can gain access to the barrel. That part which is outside the barrel is the biblical heaven. That heaven was where the angels and God were when Gen 1:1 began. God created the angels before creating earth. At some point in time, we shall consider how that creation was done.

After the creation of the earth, God gave the earth and everything therein to Lucifer to watch over them because God created the earth using the light from Lucifer (the light bearer). Since the light of the world was Lucifer, his light illuminated the earth in which all living things on earth survived. This period of time lasted for a long time before Lucifer decided to rebel. After the fall of Lucifer, darkness fell upon the earth because he had lost his glamour and power as the Light bearer.

Although Lucifer had dominion over every thing on earth, he resided in the first Garden of Eden according to the Bible. Whether out of jealousy or pride, Lucifer decided to ascend to Heaven to continue his rulership there. As the bible says, a great war occurred in the heavens. Lucifer and his angels were defeated and thrown down to earth. The war caused chaos in the universe, including the earth, that creation was totally destroyed. All the planets (nations) went dead and could not support life anymore. This was when the dinosaurs and other ancient animals, both aquatic and land animals, died. If we go by this reasoning, then Lucifer fought as a metaphysical being and considering how mighty he was, his fall on earth should also have caused great destruction to the earth. Not considering a third (millions) of the angels who fell with him, you could imagine the impact of their fall on earth. If something falls like a lightning then that thing might have fallen with supersonic speed and force which Jesus described in Luke 10:18. According to Revelation 27:17 an angel’s height is 144 cubits (cubit equals 45 centimeters), doing the calculation gives an angel’s height to be approximately 66 meters or 216 feet tall. Imagine millions of these angels falling on the earth with great impact, then there would be chaos upon the face of the earth. This impact caused the earth to be without light, formless and void as Gen 1:2 described. So, during the re-creation of the earth, God commanded the light (Angel Michael, a manifestation of Christ before his human birth) to appear first before even the sunlight and moonlight re-appeared.

One point of note is that Lucifer is not the same as Satan or Devil. Satan (the adversary/old serpent) is a spirit created by God to deceive or test mankind of his faith in God. He has free access to God, unlike Lucifer or Devil. The Devil (the great dragon) is also a spirit whose form is that of a dragon and the ruler of Hell where Lucifer and all disobedient angels have been locked up awaiting final judgment. Hell, and the Devil existed before Gen 1:3 started. Mistranslation of the Bible by some scholars has caused Lucifer to be equated to the Devil or Satan. This topic would be discussed later so be checking this website for more.

Evidence from radiocarbon dating of animal fossils shows that the gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 lasted over billions of years when we use 24 hours as our measurement of day and night. Later, for the sake of God’s love for the earth, He decided to re-create the earth (Gen 1:3) and gave the dominion of it to human beings ohich He created in His own image. We also sinned and re-introduced Lucifer as the new ruler of this world once again. This world is now Lucifer’s and his kingdom, but one day we shall regain our possession.

Thanks for reading.

Smart Asante-Mireku