Days of Creation 2

The Days of Creation (2)
Tim Haile, for the Parkway church of Christ

As we began to discuss in last week’s article, some have attempted to harmonize the Genesis creation account with evolutionary uniformitarianism. This has led some to claim that the “days” of Genesis chapter one are not literal, 24-hour days, or to claim that the days are literal, but that they have long ages between them. There are irrefutable reasons for concluding that the Genesis creation days are literal, consecutive, 24-hour days. Let us consider some of these reasons:

1. A basic rule of interpretation says that text should be interpreted and understood literally unless there are good reasons for it to be interpreted figuratively. A natural reading of Genesis 1:1-31 leads one to think that God created all things in 6, literal, consecutive 24-hour days.

2. The “days” of Genesis one are mentioned in connection with the phrase “evening and morning” (1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). As a rule, whenever the Bible describes the “evening” or “morning” of a particular day, those “days” are literal, 24-hour days.

3. The Jewish workweek was fashioned upon the creation week. Moses wrote, “It [the Sabbath] is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed” (Ex. 31:17). Moses was clearly describing a normal 7-day week, and he drew a parallel between that week and God’s creation week. Six days were to be devoted to work, and the seventh day was to be devoted to God. The point and parallel are lost if the creation week was not a normal calendar week.

4. Jesus placed the creation of mankind at “the beginning of the creation of God” (Mark 10:6). If the creation days were literal, 24-hour days, then the Lord’s description works. Very little time would have passed from the first day to the sixth. However, how could Jesus’ description be accurate if each day of creation spanned 700 million years? With such an interpretation there is no sense in which it would be accurate to identify human creation with “the beginning of creation!” We shall examine this further in our next article.

View past articles at http://parkwayarticles.blogspot.com. Please join us for worship and Bible study at our building located at 125 Hilltopper Ave, Bowling Green, KY 42101. We meet each Sunday at 10:00AM and 6:00PM for worship, and Sundays at 9:00AM and Wednesdays at 7:00PM for Bible study. Our radio program is aired each Sunday morning at 8:00AM on the WKCT 930AM band. Phone: (270) 842-2049 – Email: timhaile@mac.com.