An Interview with C. H. Spurgeon: C. H. Spurgeon on Creation and Evolution

Seemed a bit like a book with an agenda : to discredit Spurgeon's belief in a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, while using him at the same time to denounce evolution. The last brief chapter depicted Spurgeon as quite humbly acknowledging he may be wrong - oh! that young earth creationists had a bit of his humility. Might have been a bit more fair to quote a few of Spurgeon's references to his belief. Here's a few for any who might be interested, with a nugget from D.M. Lloyd-Jones as well: OBSERVE the method of creation. I will not venture upon any dogmatic theory of geology, but there seems to be every probability that this world has been fitted up and destroyed, re-fitted and then destroyed again, many times before the last arranging of it for the habitation of men. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;” then came a long interval, and at length, at the appointed time, during seven days, the Lord prepared the earth for the human race. - Spurgeon (Withering work of the Spirit - July 9,1871) Observe the work of creation. God took care that even in the material universe there should be a grand foundation for his noble edifice. We have the story of the fitting up of the world, during the seven days, for the habitation of man; but we have not the history of the creation of the earth before that time. To prepare for the seven days’ rapid furnishing of the earth for man, millions of years may have elapsed. The foundation was laid with great care. No limit can be set to the period preceding the making of man, if you only follow the Word of God in Genesis. “In the beginning”—that was a long, long while ago—“God created the heaven and the earth”; and during that process of creation it went through a great many stages. - Spurgeon (FOUNDATION WORK, Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, July 7th, 1889) There is one other thing I must mention. It is not quite so clear, and is more speculative; but I refer to it because it may have a very great significance, and it certainly does help one’s understanding of certain problems connected with different aspects of the Christian faith. There are those who believe that this great cataclysmic event which took place in that pre-cosmic fall when the devil and the angels fell, involved also an original material creation. This, they argue, is the key to the understanding of the second verse in the Bible. The first two verses of Genesis read thus: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’ The word ‘deep’ there really means ‘the chaos’. It is a description of a state of chaos. The idea, the speculation, is that before this cosmos that you and I are aware of, there was an original creation. That first verse in Genesis, it claims, is really a reference to the great original creation. It is a general statement that God has made everything. But it may also include the idea that God made a world, a cosmos, in which these angelic principalities and powers lived and functioned and dwelt. But when some of them fell in their rebellion and pride and disobedience, God punished their universe also, and it was reduced to a state of chaos. So that what is described in Genesis 1, verse 2 onwards, is the restoration, the re-creation of this original creation which had got into a state of chaos and of darkness. This is a matter about which we cannot be certain; it is more or less a speculation; but there is something to be said for it. I cannot imagine God’s act of creation passing through a chaotic stage at any point at all. I cannot believe that creation as a work carried out by God was at any stage an abyss, a void, a chaos. That does not fit in with God’s work. Everything in creation, in nature, everywhere, at every step and stage, is characterized by that same perfection of form. Inchoate, perhaps, under-developed, not yet perfect; but right at its particular stage. It is never chaotic. The most rudimentary form, the most embryonic form is never chaotic, there is never this sense of void. But we are told that the Spirit ‘brooded’ upon this chaos, this deep. - Lloyd-Jones