Bible Study: Study of Ages — Christian Theology on God's Creation

Age of Eternal Past(Pre-Adamic Age) and the beginning of the Adamic Age

14 min readDec 24, 2023

The age of the Eternal Past began at the creation of the heavens and the earth and ended at the start of the six-day creation week in which Adam and Eve were created.

It helps us to appreciate and understand the following five important facts-

Our Earth is much older than 6000 years.
When God created the heavens and the earth in such a beautiful and perfect condition the angels responded with joyful singing and shouting.
There was a massive cataclysmic global judgement from God against the
world of Lucifer (who became Satan) who rebelled against God during the Pre-Adamic Age-awaiting their final judgement in the Lake of Fire.
Earth’s geology has been greatly impacted and shaped by this massive pre-Adamic cataclysmic global judgement from God.
There will be another massive cataclysmic global judgement from God against this present sinful world, at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The heavens mean the whole complete universe consisting of billions of galaxies with billions of stars and planets. Our minds cannot even begin to grasp the wonders, wisdom and limitless power of God, which the universe displays. God singles out the earth as the most important planet in the entire universe.

So, how did God create the universe and the earth in the beginning? The Bible says that God simply commanded and they were created.

Psalm 148:2–5
2 Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! 
3 Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all you stars of light! 
4 Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, And you waters above the heavens! 
5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for He commanded and they
were created.

Psalm 148:5 - ‘He commanded and they were created’. 

Isaiah 45:12 - says that God stretched out the universe, when
He first created it, which agrees with the scientific observation 
that the universe is expanding.

The Beginning of the First Age marked the Beginning of Time

Time began when God created the earth, the sun and the moon with the rest of the universe, in the beginning. This was when the First Age of the other Ages in God’s Plan for All began. The very first verse of the Bible (Genesis 1:1) is a summary statement of the six-day creation account, which is described in Genesis 1:3–31. The first day is without the sun, sun, and it wasn’t until the fourth day that God created the sun, the moon and the stars. The Bible is extremely logical and it does not contradict true science, after all, God Himself is the creator of all things and science is a study to understand His creations.

Job 38:4-7 (NIV)
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth‘s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 
6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone 
7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

Here, God challenges Job about his knowledge of the creation of the earth. God did this to make Job acknowledge God’s greatness and to show Job that he knew absolutely nothing about how and when God had created the earth.

Notice in Job 38:7 above that all the angels sang and shouted for joy when God laid the foundations of the earth. In this verse, the ‘Morning stars’ also refer to angels. This reveals two important truths:

God created angels before He created the earth and the universe.
The Angels responded with joyful singing and shouting about the creation.

However, shockingly, in the second verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:2, we read that the earth had changed from its beautiful and perfect state, when it was first created in the beginning, to a totally different ruined state. It had become formless, empty, in darkness and submerged underwater.

Genesis 1:2 (NIV)
Now the earth was (hayah, meaning became) formless, and empty, 
darkness was over thesurface of the deep, and the Spirit of 
God was hovering over the waters.

Since God did not create the earth in a formless, empty, dark and flooded state in the beginning, then it must have become that way at a later date. This is exactly what might have happened to the earth, because an accurate translation of the Hebrew word “hayah”, in Genesis 1:2 above, is “became”. It is often misunderstood as the age of the construction of Earth. However, the truth of the Bible is that Genesis 1:2 is the description of the Earth resulting from God’s massive cataclysmic global judgement because of the sins of angels.

God’s global judgement of rebellious angels in the Pre-Adamic Age

The Bible is abundantly clear that the inspired Hebrew words tohuw and bohuw in Genesis1:2, when used together, are the descriptive words for God’s global judgement.

The Hebrew word tohuw occurs 20 times in the Old Testament with meanings of chaotic, nothing, confusion, waste, wilderness, emptiness, formless and vain. The best meaning of tohuw in Genesis 1:2 is chaotic-something that is in a confused, wasted, empty, flooded and dark state.

The Hebrew word bohuw occurs 3 times in the Old Testament with meanings of void and waste. We believe that God inspired the use of the Hebrew word bohuw in Genesis 1:2 to reinforce the meaning of tohuw, which we have just shown means chaotic.

The Bible specifically confirms in Isaiah 45:18 that the earth was not created in the chaotic state that we see in Genesis 1:2.

Isaiah 45:18
For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, 
Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, 
Who did not create it in vain (tohuw, meaning chaotic), Who formed it to be
inhabited: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other’.

It is abundantly clear from Scripture that there was a gap of time between the creation of the beautiful earth of Genesis 1:1 and the totally ruined chaotic earth of Genesis 1:2. This gap of time is the Pre-Adamic Age, which lasted for many millions of years — The Gap Theory.

So now, the key question is: ‘Why did the earth become chaotic and ruined as described in Genesis 1:2?’ Let us now go on to understand that Genesis 1:2 is the description of the earth resulting from God’s global judgement because of the sins of angels.

The sins of angels

2 Peter 2:4-6
4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell (tartarus) and
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
 
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of
righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; 

 
6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to
destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly.

Sin has consequences and it brings judgement from God in the form of death and destruction. The judgment against the angels who sinned happened first, followed much later by the judgment against Noah’s world, which in turn was followed much later by the judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jude 6
6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned 
their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting
chains for judgment on the great Day.

We will now examine relevant scriptures in some detail to see how sin first entered the Pre-Adamic world through Satan and his fallen angels.

Isaiah 14:12-15
12 How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer (heylel), son of the morning! How you are cut
down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: ‘I
will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the
mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the
heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ 15 Yet you shall be brought down to
Sheol (meaning the Pit), To the lowest depths of the Pit.

Luke 10:18, And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven”. When did Jesus Christ see Satan fall like lighting from heaven? It can only have been during the Pre-Adamic Age, and not during the Adamic Age. This is because Satan was already a sinful fallen angel confined to earth at the start of the Adamic Age. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible to suggest that Satan was cast down to earth from heaven after God had created Adam and Eve, during the Adamic Age.

It is important to note that Isaiah 14:12–15 is specifically speaking about Lucifer, who became Satan. Notice that Lucifer coveted the throne of God and he wanted to become like the Most High. However, God judged him for his sin of rebellion by casting him down to the lowest depths of the pit of
this earth. As a result, the earth became chaotic, empty, dark and submerged under water because of God’s tohuw and bohuw judgement of the sinful rebellious angels, as previously described.

Let us now read a parallel scripture about the fall of Lucifer given in Ezekiel 28.

Ezekiel 28:12-15
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord
GOD: “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in
Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and
diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The
workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.”
14 You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy
mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect
in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.

Lucifer was created perfect in his ways. He was the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, the anointed cherub and perfect in beauty before iniquity was found in him when he rebelled against God. The Garden of Eden was not the same Garden of Eden of the Adamic Age, where Satan was present as a sinful fallen angel who lied and deceived Eve.

Three Gardens of Eden

It is important to understand that the Bible speaks of at least three Gardens of Eden in three different ages. There was the first Garden of Eden in the Pre-Adamic Age, as given in Ezekiel 28:13. There was the second Garden of Eden during the Adamic Age, as given in Genesis 2:15. There will be yet another, the third Garden of Eden, in the coming Millennial Age of Jesus Christ, as given in Ezekiel 36:35.

The beautiful Pre-Adamic Garden of Eden earth was destroyed after ‘war
broke out in heaven’ between the holy angels led by Michael and the fallen angels led by Satan.

Revelation 12:7-9
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the
dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in
heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil
and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast
out with him.

Jude 6
And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

Angels ‘did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode’. This was during the Pre-Adamic age when iniquity (sin) was found in Lucifer’s heart. The holy angel Lucifer became the sinful angel Satan, who along with a following of his angels, left planet Earth (their proper domain) and ascended above the clouds in rebellion to try to usurp God’s throne in
heaven. God cast them back down to earth and they are now kept in chains of spiritual darkness, restricted in movement to this earth and its heaven (earth’s atmosphere), and reserved for their final judgement that will take place in the Lake of Fire during the age-to- come.

Job 1:6 says, “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them” This does not mean that Satan can leave earth and its atmosphere to have access to God’s throne in heaven.

To summarise the events that led to the fall of Lucifer and his angels. Lucifer was the anointed cherub who governed the beautiful luxuriant Garden of Eden earth in the pre-adamic world. He was adorned with precious stones and gifted with musical instruments to worship God. He had freedom of movement as a trusted holy angel of God to move back and forth from earth to heaven (God’s dwelling place). Lucifer became tempted and sinned when iniquity was found in his heart. He became jealous of God and decided to lead a rebellion to try to usurp God from His throne in heaven. Lucifer, a holy angel and bearer of light, became Satan, a sinful angel of darkness, because of his sin of rebellion. Satan and his angels (a third of the angels) ascended from the earth to rebel against God in heaven. War broke out in heaven and Michael and his angels defeated Satan and his angels, who were violently cast back down to earth (Revelation 12:9) with cataclysmic global consequences for the earth. Satan and his angels are now confined to earth and its atmosphere, chained in spiritual darkness, until their final judgement in the Lake of Fire.

Jeremiah 4:23 (NIV)
I looked at the earth, and it was formless (tohuw), and empty (bohuw); 
and at the heavens, and their light was gone.

Jeremiah4:24-28
24 I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, And all the hills moved back and forth.
25 I beheld, and indeed there was no man, And all the birds of the heavens had fled. 26 I
beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness, And all its cities were broken down at
the presence of the LORD, by His fierce anger. 27 For thus says the LORD “The whole land
shall be desolate; Yet I will not make a full end. 28 For this shall the earth mourn, And the
heavens above be black, Because I have spoken. I have purposed and will not relent, Nor will
I turn back from it”.

The Hope

Although God destroyed the Pre-Adamic earth, it was always in His Plan to
renew the earth and start the Second Age, the Adamic Age. This was when God created man in own His image, the pinnacle of God’s creation. God created the first man, Adam, at the beginning of the Second Age when God renewed the earth and its atmosphere in the six-day creation week.

The Beginning of the Adamic Age

Genesis 1:1 refers to the beginning of time, many millions of years ago, when God first created the heavens and the earth. This also marked the beginning of the First Age, the Pre-Adamic Age, in God’s Plan of the Ages.
Genesis 1:3–5 refers to the first 24-hour day at the beginning of the Adamic Age, the Second Age, long after God had destroyed the Pre-Adamic world through His global tohuw and bohuw judgement because of the sins of angels. The Adamic Age started about six-ten thousand years ago.

Genesis1:3-5
3 Then God said, “Let there be light“; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light that it
was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the
darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

The rest of the Genesis account of creation, Genesis 1:3–31, makes complete sense, once we understand that God had darkened the sun and withdrawn its light from the earth in His Pre-Adamic tohuw and bohuw judgement against Satan and his angels. When God began the Second Age, the Adamic Age, He reintroduced the light of the sun to the earth and renewed the earth’s surface and its atmosphere. Then, God recreated plant and animal life and finally, He created mankind for the very first time, as described in the six-day creation account of Genesis 1:3–31, which happened approximately six-ten thousand years ago.

God’s creation in the first six 24-hour days of the Adamic Age

Once we see and understand that the whole of the six-day creation account is written from man’s earthly perspective rather than from a cosmic perspective, then the scriptures become clear and everything makes sense.

DayOne (Genesis 1:3–5): God reintroduces the light of the sun to reach and shine directly onto the surface of the frozen deep flood waters that completely covered the ruined earth. The effect of this direct and scorching heat, without any protective cloud layer on this first day, and the sudden temperature change resulted in a massive global ice melt. The massive ice sheet covering the surface of the whole earth must have been so thick that the Spirit of God first needed to shake, break and soften the ice in preparation for the melting process. We believe that this is exactly what God did. This is because Genesis 1:2 translated in versions of the Bible to mean, “And the Spirit of God was hovering or moving (rachaph) over the face of the waters” is more accurately translated to mean “And the Spirit of God was shaking (rachaph) the surface of the waters”, the Hebrew word rachaph can also mean shaking. God’s Spirit first actively shook, broke up and softened the deep ice sheet covering the whole earth, before Day One, in preparation for the great ice melt that took place once the intense sunlight with its heat was reintroduced onto the earth’s surface on Day
One.

DayTwo (Genesis1:6–8)
God forms the firmament by lifting the ‘waters from the waters’.

DayThree (Genesis1:9–13)
God forms the dry land by causing the melt-waters to recede from areas of the flooded earth. He also causes plant life on land to start germinating in this warm, humid, cloud-darkened, cocooned environment.

Day Four (Genesis 1:14–19)
At the beginning of Day Four, God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven’. Therefore, we can certainly conclude that by the end of Day Three the firmament of the heaven (the space between the earth’s surface and the clouds) had become darkened by the
dense clouds of water vapour formed on Day Two. These clouds would have blocked out light — sunlight, moonlight and starlight — from reaching the firmament and thus the earth’s surface. So, on Day Four God thinned and dispersed these dense dark clouds so that the sunlight, moonlight and starlight could shine through the firmament down onto the earth’s
surface.

DayFive (Genesis1:20–23)
God creates sea life and bird life.

DaySix (Genesis1:24–31)
God creates animal life on land. Then, God creates man in His own image, the pinnacle of His creation.

Who sinned first, angels or man?

The fact that angels sinned before man cannot be disputed, because Satan was already present as a sinner in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve sinned. This obvious truth is confirmed by the historical sequence of the three judgements listed in 2 Peter 2:4–6, as commented previously, where, the Bible places the sins of angels before the sins of man. Romans 5:12 above specifically speaks about the sin of one man affecting the whole of the human race. Yes, sin entered the human world through one man, Adam, thus God judged man’s sin by bringing death (the wages of sin is death) and death spread to all men because of Adam’s sin.

2Peter2:5(Noah’s flood)
and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of
righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.

2Peter3:5-6(Lucifer’s flood)
5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth
standing out of water and in the water, 
6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.

The understanding of the Genesis account to creation and acknowledgement of the Pre-Adamic World. The creation is obviously beyond human understanding, however, is revealed to us by the Word of God. Amen!