Jeremiah 33 - Proof of Evolution
Thus far, I have been spending this year in a study on righteousness. My reason for doing so on an Evolutionary Creationist website is that a lot of answers to my Ultimate Questions for God seemed wrapped up in the concept of righteousness, and so I wanted to make sure that truly understood it, the best that I could. And so I’m going through the verses on righteousness. Well, in studying the “righteousness” verse of Jeremiah 33, I came upon the following passage, which to me speaks directly to creation, and indirectly to the age of our earth [emphasis added]:
 19 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 20 “This is what the LORD says: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, 21 then my covenant with David my servant—and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me—can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne. 22 I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.’ “
Referring back to my post on the word ”Let” in Genesis 1, it would seem that God is referring here to either Day 1 or Day 4.
Day 1: Genesis 1:1-3
 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Day 4: Genesis 1:14-19
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. Â
 So, does Jeremiah 33:20 refer to Day 1 or Day 4? Well, the word covenant does not appear in either, but there is a specific action God took on Day 1 that has not been undone, and I have highlighted it above. “He separated the light from the darkness.“ This is still true today, and can clearly be seen using modern satellite technology.
Next, God put the sun and moon in the expanse of the heavens (from an earth-bound perspective, no sun or moon could have been visible before Day 4, though they were clearly visible after Day 4) “to govern the day and night, and to separate light from darkness.” So, on which Day was God’s covenant made?
Well, according to Jer. 33:20, the covenant referred to is with the Day and the Night. According to Genesis, the covenant God made on Day 4 was with the sun and the moon. He “let” the sun and moon be lights. He “made two great lights” with the purpose “to govern” the day and the night. He “set them in the expanse” with a purpose “to give light.” In other words, every agreement God made in Day 4 was with the sun and moon and what they would do. Only on Day 1 does God make a covenant with day and night, and that covenant is that they be separated… and they still are.
But, does this really mean that the Earth is old? Not specifically. Even with a Young Earth interpretation of scripture, demonstrating that the covenant was made on Day 1 is no problem, and is not stumbling block in and of itself. However, God didn’t stop there. He went on to say the following to Jeremiah as well:
 23 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 24 “Have you not noticed that these people are saying, ‘The LORD has rejected the two kingdoms he chose’? So they despise my people and no longer regard them as a nation. 25 This is what the LORD says: ‘If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, 26 then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them.’ “Â
Notice the elaboration? “If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth…” Now, if the earth is young, then the laws of heaven and earth were established on Day 4. However, a straightforward reading of this scripture suggests they be grouped together, that God’s covenant with day and night was a singular covenant with both day and night, and with the fixed laws of heaven and earth. Well, to a YEC, one could say that God established the covenant over 2 days’ time, but the scripture doesn’t say that. One could say that this is a reference to two separate covenants, one with day and night, and one with the fixed laws of heaven and earth, but this verse clearly says “covenant”, singular. One could also say that the laws of heaven and earth were fixed on Day 1, even though there was no sun and moon, and this is probably the most intellectually honest approach toward reconciliation if the Earth is young. However, there is still a problem. Without a sun or moon on Day 1, God could not have established His covenant with the fixed laws of heaven and earth because He would have been compensating for the absence of both a sun and moon, which weren’t going to “govern” the day and night until Day 4. One could say that this spells out the need for the covenant, but would render the covenant unnecessary after Day 3. One other possibility is that that God made a covenant with the laws themselves, that He would govern day and night from Days 1 to 3, and then the laws would govern from Day 4 onward. However, there are several problems with this:
- There would still be no need for such a covenant after Day 4.
- If the covenant in fact didn’t end, which Jeremiah is saying it didn’t, then God violated the covenant when the sun stood still later on in scripture.
- God could only have made a covenant with the laws of heaven and earth — which are physical laws, woven in the universe –Â on Day 1 if such laws were already in existence, which means the universe was already in existence before God made His covenant with Day and Night, and from a YEC perspective, the laws were not yet in place.
- Finally, the YEC perspective has had to adopt a rather unfortunate perspective… that various physical laws, such as those governing radio-active decay and the flipping of the earth’s magnetic pole, actually changed around the time of the flood. There is no known physical law allowing these other laws to have changed without divine intervention… meaning the laws of heaven and earth are not fixed, and thus there is no covenant.
Now, one could respond to this last argument saying that there are fixed laws, and not-so-fixed laws, and that this covenant was only with the fixed laws… the fixed laws for governing the day and night, but such laws would not have been in place until Day 4.
Now, if the earth is old, then all of these problems go away, because the universe and all of its laws were established in Genesis 1:1, because instead of being a summary of creation, it was in fact God’s first action. God’s covenant with and day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth were therefore established 3.9 billion years ago, when Jesus stopped meteors from striking the earth (as recorded by the moon’s craters). It is true that the sun and moon were not visible to the earth yet, but they were already obeying physical laws, and their obscurity was actually due this obedience. Therefore, we see the full force of God’s covenant in play on Day 1… the same laws as today.
What else does this mean? It also means that God was working with nature from that day forward to do His creative work, which Genesis actually captures quite accurately, though recorded from a markedly unscientific perspective.
One potential objection to this line of reasoning is that it prohibits God from performing miracles, but in fact it does not. As in the YEC arguments above (or at least they are arguments I would use if I were a YEC), I actually have no problem with God making a covenant with loopholes for Himself, where it serves His perfect will. My only objection to any loopholes argument is that it not obliterate our attempt at understanding the world and how it works, and therefore how God has generally done things, because I believe God wants us to understand and not be so baffled. So, instead of a perspective that forces the following of physical laws to be the exception vs. the rule, the Old Earth perspective results in the just the opposite, where God can violate physical laws, but it is the violation that is the exception… standing out like a sore thumb.
In conclusion, it is only an Old Earth perspective that allows the proper interpretation of Jeremiah 33:19-26. In other words, God will choose a single person to rule His Chosen People (I believe that ruler to be Jesus) from David’s throne, and God will restore their good fortunes and have compassion on them. Though I have no doubt that a typical YEC believes this scripture (by their God-given faith!) and awaits the same rulership that I do, their scientific position cannot logically support such belief.