Where Are the Stars?

Stars and Planets

This message challenges the modern scientific models that many people accept without question, and it does so by returning to a strictly literal reading of the biblical creation account in Genesis. It rejects the Big Bang theory and the idea of a multi-billion-year-old, ever-expanding universe. Instead, it presents the earth as the ground God created first, approximately 6,000 years ago, with the sun, moon, and stars placed in the firmament to serve the earth. Central to this argument is the firmament, a real structure in the biblical account, where the lights are placed. In this view, the stars are not distant, massive balls of gas, but local lights set by God for signs, seasons, days, and years.

As we move through the Genesis narrative, we must ask a simple question: what did God place inside the firmament? Genesis does not say that God made a great light and then a reflective rock. Genesis 1:16 says, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” The text says two great lights. It does not describe the moon as merely a reflective stone. It says God made the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.

The next question is this: where are the planets in the creation account? The word planet does not appear in Genesis 1. Read the chapter and look for any mention of God creating planets on the fourth day. It is not there. What we see is the earth created first, and the sun, moon, and stars created afterward to serve it. Heliocentricity is foreign to the biblical narrative of the cosmos.

In the world today, we are told that the universe began with an event called the Big Bang. According to that theory, everything that has ever existed was once condensed into a small point. Then that concentrated point exploded, sending matter in every direction and giving birth to what is now called the universe. The Bible tells a completely different story. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” According to this verse, the earth is the result of God creating it, not the result of a giant explosion.

Some may ask whether the Big Bang theory and the biblical account of creation can be harmonized. Perhaps, they say, God used the Big Bang to create the earth. But that idea becomes impossible when we examine the sequence of the days of creation. God created the earth on the first day. He did not create the sun, moon, and stars until the fourth day. Therefore, there could not have been an explosion propelling the stars in every direction, because the stars did not yet exist.

There are other details in the Big Bang model that do not line up with the Bible. First, the Big Bang is said to have taken place about 13.8 billion years ago. The Bible, however, presents creation as much younger, with everything made by God in the beginning and completed in six days. Second, the Big Bang model says the universe is constantly expanding. The Bible says God finished His work of creation. Genesis 2:1 says, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” If the universe is still being created through expansion, then it is not finished in the sense described by Scripture.

The Big Bang is an attempt to explain the world without beginning with God. It says there was a small point of matter, and then that matter exploded into everything we see. Hebrews 11:3 says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The visible creation did not come from visible matter already existing. It was framed by the word of God.

If the world is wrong about how the earth was created, perhaps it is also wrong about what the earth is. We are told that the nearest star outside our solar system is about 4.4 light-years away. That would be roughly 24.94 trillion miles. One of the fastest jets ever built, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, had a top recorded speed of 2,071 miles per hour. If the stars were truly that far away, it would take that aircraft around 1.4 billion years to reach the nearest star. According to the Bible, however, the stars are much closer than that.

Genesis 1:14-15 says, “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.” Genesis 1:17 also says, “And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.” Notice the wording. God placed the lights in the firmament, not outside of it.

This tells us that the stars are in the sky directly above us. We see the same familiar stars, such as the North Star, and the same constellations, such as the Little Dipper, night after night. That fits the idea of a fixed and ordered creation. It does not fit the idea that we are racing through a chaotic, ever-expanding universe. If that were the case, we might expect to see different stars from night to night. Instead, God has placed a set order above us, and people have used the stars to mark time, direction, seasons, and signs throughout history.

The world also says that stars are enormous balls of gas, millions of times larger than the earth. But the Bible gives passages where stars fall from heaven to the earth. Matthew 24:29 says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” Revelation 6:13 says, “And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.” These passages do not fit the modern picture of stars as enormous gas bodies far beyond reach. They fit the biblical picture of stars as lights placed within the firmament.

This also helps explain the star that guided the wise men to the young child Jesus. Matthew 2:9 says, “When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” If stars were trillions of miles away, it would be difficult to understand how a star could stand over a particular location. But if stars are small lights placed within the firmament, the passage is much easier to understand.

What we call planets, the Scripture describes differently. Jude speaks of wandering stars. Jude 1:13 says, “Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” The question then becomes: why would God reserve judgment for a rock, a gas ball, or a fireball? Judgment is moral. Judgment is personal. If something is reserved for judgment, we should not treat it as a lifeless object in the same way modern astronomy does.

Planets, as they are commonly described today, do not appear in the Genesis creation account. Even 2 Kings 23:5 must be handled carefully. The King James Bible uses the word planets in that verse, but the underlying term is often understood in connection with the constellations or the signs of the heavens, not with planets in the modern scientific sense. The point is not merely to argue over vocabulary. The point is that we should not force modern cosmology back into the Bible and then claim the Bible teaches it.

When we get to the New Testament, the language becomes even more interesting. In Matthew 24:4, Jesus says, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” The word translated deceive is connected with the idea of leading astray or causing someone to wander. The Greek word planao carries the sense of going astray, wandering from the right path, or being misled. That is where the English word planet is commonly connected, through the idea of a wanderer.

Related words carry the same general idea. Plane can refer to error or wandering. Planos can refer to a deceiver or one who leads others astray. Planetes is connected with the phrase wandering star. These terms show a consistent idea: wandering, error, deception, and departure from the right path. That does not prove everything by itself, but it is worth noticing when Scripture speaks of wandering stars and warns repeatedly against deception.

So when people speak of planet earth, they may not realize the history and meaning behind the word. The term carries the idea of wandering, and it fits a larger system that moves the earth away from the central position it has in the Genesis account. Again, the issue is not merely a word. The issue is the paradigm. The paradigm drives the conclusion. If we start with modern cosmology, we will try to make the Bible fit that system. If we start with Scripture, we must let Scripture define the system.

Genesis gives purposes for the heavenly lights. They are for signs, for seasons, for days, and for years. They mark time. They help order life on earth. Their patterns repeat with regularity. People have used the stars for navigation, calendars, seasons, and festivals. The consistent order in the heavens testifies to design, not chaos.

When people ask whether the Big Bang model is holding up, the answer is that it has faced many challenges. Even among scientists, the model has been questioned. There have been well-known voices in physics and astronomy who have raised problems with it. The claim that the Big Bang is universally accepted without difficulty is not true. But for me, the larger issue is not whether scientists argue with one another. The larger issue is whether the Big Bang can be reconciled with the Bible. I do not see how it can be.

The temptation is to interpret Scripture through the lens of current cosmological thinking. That temptation is not new. Throughout history, people have tried to make the Bible fit the ruling ideas of the age. Later, those ideas are discarded, but the damage to the interpretation remains. We should be careful before wedding Genesis to any ruling paradigm that may be replaced tomorrow.

Dr. Danny Faulkner has rightly warned about interpreting Scripture in terms of current cosmology. I respect him for saying that. But this is where I believe many creationists fall into the very same problem. They reject evolution, but they still keep much of the standard cosmological paradigm. They then try to fit that paradigm into Genesis. In doing so, they force a narrative into the text that the text itself does not support.

Let us return to the firmament. Genesis says the sun, moon, and stars were placed in the firmament. The Hebrew word often discussed here is raqia, meaning firmament or expanse. When the text says the lights were set in the firmament, the word in matters. It does not say outside the firmament. It does not say beyond the firmament. It says in the firmament.

I used to teach a different model. I once followed teachers such as Kent Hovind and Carl Baugh in the canopy model. I appreciated the way they challenged evolution and helped many young people take a stand. I was one of those students. I had to take tests in school and answer the questions the textbook expected, even when I did not believe the assumptions behind them. If the textbook said the earth was 4.6 billion years old, I would answer in a way that showed I understood the textbook without accepting its conclusion.

Later, I repeated much of what I had learned. I taught the canopy model, which said that the firmament was a canopy of ice or water surrounding the earth before the flood. According to that idea, something such as a comet may have struck the canopy, causing it to collapse and rain down for forty days and forty nights. I used to teach that myself.

But there are serious problems with that model. First, David still speaks of waters above the heavens. Psalm 148:4 says, “Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.” If those waters were entirely gone after the flood, that verse becomes difficult to explain.

Second, and more importantly, the canopy model requires the sun, moon, and stars to be outside the firmament. But Scripture says they are in the firmament. If the earth is enclosed by a canopy called the firmament, and the sun, moon, and stars are outside it, then the model contradicts the plain wording of Genesis. The Bible says the lights were placed in the firmament. Therefore, any model that places them outside the firmament does not work.

The conclusion is simple: we must let Scripture speak for itself. We should not begin with the Big Bang, heliocentricity, deep time, or any other modern framework and then force those ideas into Genesis. The Bible presents a finished, ordered creation, with the earth made by God and the lights placed in the firmament for the benefit of the earth. If we believe Scripture, then Scripture must be our starting point, our standard, and our final authority.