According to Jude 1:3, "the faith" (i.e. the complete set of correct doctrines God intends mankind to believe) was delivered "once for all" to the saints, effectively meaning nothing major was expected to come later. Beliefs that were invented in the 20th century, 15th century, 10th century, even as early as the 2nd century, are all man made doctrines. This poses a serious threat to any false views that call themselves Christian. Whether we're talking newly evolving doctrines, such as Theistic Evolution, or whole denominations, such as the Watchtower Society, if a view evolved any time after the completion of the Bible (widely accepted to be in 95 A.D. when John finished Revelation), that view is false.
Of course, this doesn't stop Christians, real or heretical, from believing those false doctrines or denominations. They more often than not try to push the origins of their views back further and further. But aside from that, they actually attempt to flip this concept around by claiming sound doctrines are new. Case in point, take "Young" Earth Creationism. Old Earthers of every variety attempt to claim that the belief that the Earth is around 6,000 years old is very new, whereas Old Earth beliefs are more original to the faith. This article was originally inspired by a meme that claimed that "Young" Earth Creationism was invented by the 7th Day Adventist denomination, specifically in the 20th century.
Now, the 7th Day Adventist denomination was founded in 1863. Thus, any attempt to claim the denomination invented "Young" Earth Creationism in any century, much less the 20th, can be easily refuted by finding a single reference to "Young" Earth Creationism in 1862. Is this possible? As it turns out, this is not only possible, it is extremely easy. Let's look at a few examples:
"For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
- God, Exodus 20:11, 1,400 B.C.
As always, I thought it necessary to include the Bible's opinion on this matter. The Bible, as the word of God, is the sole and sufficient authority in the Christian faith. If the Bible describes the "Young" Earth Creation view in any depth, no other source is necessary, and any other source you do bring forward is secondary. All of the other quotes I am about to present are less authoritative than the Bible, and are merely agreeing with it. The rest of this is effectively just showing off after a one-punch knockout.
"Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was made."
- Flavius Josephus, 94 A.D. (1)
I thought it would be useful to show that Josephus, a widely respected Jewish historian living in the first century, was clearly a "Young" Earth Creationist. Not only was Josephus not a 7th Day Adventist, not even living close to the 20th century, he wasn't even a Christian. It is significant to note that both Jews and Christians were pretty much universally agreed on Creationism. Note that Josephus here practically quotes Moses word for word. In fact, in my attempts to verify that Josephus really did say this, Exodus 20:11 came up more often than he did.
"After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that..."
- Origen Adamantius, ~ 248 A.D. (2)
Origen's response to Celsus shows that he, too, was battling old earth beliefs. Not from his fellow Christians. The Celsus to whom Origen was responding was notoriously anti-Christian. But the pagans of this time did preach a significantly exaggerated history of the Earth, particularly of their own nation in some vain attempt to claim superiority over the others. This is significant, because it shows that A. this is not a new struggle, the Church has always had to fight false claims about the age of the Earth, and B. they did a very good job of it in the past. The real new view is for the Church to embrace Old Earth claims.
"They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed."
- Augustine of Hippo, early 5th century (3)
Augustine is yet another example of a "Young" Earth Creationist who defended the "Young" Earth view against Old Earthers, but he is more significant than Origen. This is not because he wielded more authority, boasted greater knowledge, or was necessarily in a more hostile climate. Rather, he is generally more respected among Christians. One reason for this is that Origen held some very strange views, and for all his wisdom and skill, he was nevertheless quite bonkers.
But here's especially relevant to this discussion because modern compromisers, ironically, often use another of his quotes to try to bolster their own claims. In truth, even the false views Augustine did have about Creationism were the exact opposite of what OECs and Theistic Evolutionists would need him to have believed. Augustine didn't believe the 6 days were actually 6 eras, but that they were actually one day, and for this, he later repented!
"When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honour of being more learned than you are."
- Martin Luther, 16th century. (4)
Martin Luther actually fought against Augustine's view that the 6 days were one day. Just like Josephus, Luther appealed to Scripture, specifically the writings of Moses. He followed up his argument with this: "But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honour of being more learned than you are." This is advice that all Christians need to take. No matter your view, whether we're talking Creationism or any other view, God knows more than you ever will. Therefore, we ought to accept our roles as students and let God resume His role as teacher.
"Let us rather conclude that God Himself took the space of six days, for the purpose of accommodating His works to the capacity of men."
- John Calvin, 16th century. (5)
"They will not refrain from guffaws when they are informed but that little more than 5,000 years have passed since the creation of the universe."
- John Calvin, 16th century. (6)
Not only did Calvin believe the Bible plainly teaches that God created in 6 days, a little over 5,000 years before his time, but even gave an answer as to why God might have taken so long. Calvin's explanation is 100% Biblical, as Jesus tells us the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27), and Exodus 20:11 tells us the Sabbath was based on how long God took to create. If the Sabbath was made for man, and it is based on God's creative acts, Calvin must have been correct: God took so long so that the Sabbath could accommodate man. This works in the reverse. Because of the way Scripture is woven together, pulling a single thread undoes a bunch of others. Thus, if you compromise on Creationism, you will inevitably compromise on the Sabbath.
"It pleased God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good."
- Westminster Confession of Faith 4:1, 1646.
The Westminster Confession of Faith was designed to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. The Church of England has become especially Liberal over the years, and of course the acceptance of Evolution plays a large part in that, but historically, they took a very strong stand on the issue of Creation. The Anglican denomination is both significantly larger, and older, than the 7th Day Adventist denomination. Thus, it would have been smarter to claim, on the basis of this Confession, that the Anglicans made up Creationism. Of course, it would still be a false claim in light of all the information given in this article alone, but it would still make more sense than to attribute the doctrine to 7th Day Adventists.
And so we see that Biblical Creationism has historical precedent extending back literally thousands of years, with the earliest official record being 3,400 years old, in the Bible. We cannot do a similar thing with beliefs about the age of the Earth greater than, or even approaching, 10,000 years old. Historically speaking, such absurdly large periods of time were believed only by the pagans. If such beliefs were ever entertained by any prominent writer, be they Jewish, Christian, or even pseudo-Christian, they have either perished from the Earth, or are lying in some cave somewhere waiting to be discovered. Until such a discovery is made, we may say, with reasonable confidence, that "Young" Earth Creationism was the unanimous teaching of both Jews and Christians alike. All who held the writings of Moses as the inspired word of the Living God believed it to be an accurate representation of the history of the heavens and the Earth, from the day God created them, until the day they wrote their own commentaries.
But then came a man named Charles Lyell, and he hated Christianity. In 1830, he wrote a letter to George Poulett Scrope, which began with the words "I am sure you may get into Q.R. [Quarterly Review] what will free the science from Moses..." (7) What Augustine called deceptive and mendacious, Lyell sought to make a commonly accepted religion, breaking the science of geology "free" from the interpretive lens of the works of Moses.
Unfortunately, he succeeded. Through a series of skilful deceptions, including intentionally lying about the rate of erosion at Niagara falls, Lyell managed to sell his principle of Uniformitarianism, the belief that present processes are the key to understanding the past. "This extreme gradualism", as Warren Allmon says, "has led to numerous unfortunate consequences, including the rejection of sudden or catastrophic events in the face of positive evidence for them, for no reason other than that they were not gradual." (Emphasis mine) (8). Evidence for catastrophic events (like Noah's flood) is rejected in favor of what Lyell admitted to Roderick Murchison were "anti-Mosaical conclusions".
This should disturb every Old Earth Creationist. When you say "young" Earth Creationism is not true, you aren't rejecting some brand new view that was made up in the 20th century by some relatively new denomination. You are rejecting a Biblical fact in favor of an anti-intellectual, pseudo-scientific religion that has been specifically designed, and refined, with the intention of destroying and replacing the Christian faith. You are not only being lied to, but you are also helping to spread that lie. The result is that people on both sides of faith ask "if Christians don't believe their own Bible, why should we believe it?" The tragic result of this is that many Christians lose faith and apostatise, and many non-Christians refuse to even consider Christ. On top of this, we need to remember the saying "what you win them with is what you win them to". If you win converts with a compromised version of Christianity, you win them to a compromised version of Christianity. But is that really a convert? If, in order to accept a religion, that religion must first be made acceptable, the person wasn't converted to Christianity, Christianity was converted to them.
Christians who accept old Earth dogmas, to any degree, are opposed to one of the clearest Biblical doctrines in the Christian faith. This doctrine is so clear that for all our disputes throughout history, this one doctrine seems to be our common ground. In the second century, the third century, the fourth century, all the way up to the 16th century, no Christian would have entertained Old Earth views for even a moment. That clarity has not changed. Our acceptance of Old Earth dogmas is entirely a product of our desire to find common ground with atheists. But since when have they been the standard for interpretation? Creation may not be essential for salvation, nor is the denial thereof a damnable heresy, but for the sin of compromise, Christians whose views of origins deviate from the clear teaching of Scripture are in dire need of repentance.
References
1. Josephus, Flavius - Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Containing The Interval Of Three Thousand Eight Hundred And Thirty-Three Years. — From The Creation To The Death Of Isaac, 94 A.D.
2. Adamantius, Origen - Against Celsus, Book 1, Chapter 19, circa 248 A.D.
3. Augustine of Hippo - City of God and Christian Doctrine, Chapter 10.—Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past
4. What Luther Says. A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, compiled by Ewald M. Plass, Concordia, 1959
5. Calvin, John - Commentary on Genesis.
6. Calvin, John - Institutes of the Christian Religion
7. Lyell, Charles, cited by Mortenson, Terry - The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology—Before Darwin, Master Books, September 2004
8. Allmon, W.D. Post Gradualism, Science262:122–123, October 1, 1993