How Old is the Earth, According to the Bible? Is it Important?
Christianity.com: According to the Bible, how old is the earth? How important is this?-R.C.Sproul Jr. from christianitydotcom2 on GodTube.
In the video above, RC Sproul Jr. discusses the exegesis evidence for the biblical age of the earth and its importance relative to other Christian issues and questions. Find the transcribed text of the video content below for your convenience.
R.C Sproul Jr on the Age of the Earth, according to the Bible:
Historically, the Church has distinguished between those doctrines which are part of the well-being of the Church and those doctrines which are part of the being of the church. That is, the latter category if you get rid of this, you’re not the Church anymore: (such as) the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. Those things are necessary, without them you do not have the Church.
There are other issues where, we never want to say its good to be wrong, but you can be wrong on these things and still have peace with God. Among those would be the issue of the age of the Earth.
Now when you can be wrong on this, our errors don’t stay discrete where they don’t infect other parts of our lives. There are consequences to denying to I believe is fairly straight-forward. I’ll concede there isn’t a “born on date” for the universe in the Bible or on the universe itself, but I think the Bible’s abundantly clear that God created the world in six days. Those six days are made of twenty-four hours, those hours are made of sixty minutes, those minutes are made out of sixty seconds.
I think the Bible teaches that because of the sound exegesis. I don’t have to worry about what scientists say, whether they’re for or against young or old earth. My conviction came about because I looked at the Hebrew, the word says Yom and Yom almost always means day, not period, not epic, whose definitions are way down at the bottom of usages.
I’m thinking, too, what are God’s people hearing as Moses is telling this story as they’re on the Exodus, on their way to the promised land, and Moses says “On the first ‘Yom.’” I don’t think anybody sitting around that fire thought “Oh the first epic, ok” and that’s basic exegesis, basic hermeneutics. If you want to understand what the text means, you have to ask what did the original author want to communicate to the original audience. That’s how I ended up being a young earth guy, I was an old earth guy before that, but that was enough to settle it for me. I think its important but I don’t know anybody that would want to say if you’re wrong on this you go to hell when you die. That’s just crazy.
For more information about R.C. Sproul Jr., visit: www.highlandsministriesonline.org
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