Could God Make Me Young Again

Why Is It Important?

If the days of creation are really geologic ages of millions of years, and so the gospel message is undermined at its foundation because information technology puts expiry, affliction, thorns, and suffering before the Autumn. The effort to define "days" every bit "geologic ages" results from an erroneous approach to Scripture—reinterpreting the Word of God on the basis of the fallible theories of sinful people.

It is a expert practice to read Genesis 1 and endeavor to put aside exterior influences that may cause you lot to have a predetermined thought of what the discussion "day" may mean. Just permit the words of the passage speak to y'all.

Taking Genesis ane in this way, at face value, without dubiousness it says that God created the universe, the earth, the sun, moon and stars, plants and animals, and the kickoff ii people within 6 ordinary (approximately 24-hour) days. Being really honest, you would have to acknowledge that y'all could never go the idea of millions of years from reading this passage.

The majority of Christians (including many Christian leaders) in the Western globe, however, practice not insist that these days of creation were ordinary-length days, and many of them accept and teach, based on outside influences, that they must have been long periods of time—fifty-fifty millions or billions of years.

How Does God Communicate to The states?

God communicates through language. When He made the first homo, Adam, He had already "programmed" him with a language, so there could be communication. Man language consists of words used in a specific context that relates to the entire reality around united states of america.

Thus, God can reveal things to man, and human being tin communicate with God, because words have meaning and convey an understandable bulletin. If this were not so, how could any of us communicate with each other or with God?

Why "Long Days"?

Romans 3:4 declares: "Let God be truthful, and every man a liar."

In every instance where someone has not accepted the "days" of creation to be ordinary days, they have not allowed the words of Scripture to speak to them in context, as the language requires for advice. They have been influenced past ideas from outside of Scripture. Thus, they take set a precedent that could permit any word to be reinterpreted past the preconceived ideas of the person reading the words. Ultimately, this volition atomic number 82 to a communication breakdown, equally the same words in the same context could hateful unlike things to different people.

The Church Fathers

Most church fathers accustomed the days of creation as ordinary days.ane It is true that some of the early on church fathers did not teach the days of creation as ordinary days—but many of them had been influenced by Greek philosophy, which caused them to translate the days as allegorical. They reasoned that the creation days were related to God's activities, and God being timeless meant that the days could not be related to human fourth dimension.2 In contrast to today's allegorizers, they could not take that God took equally long as six days.

Thus, the non-literal days resulted from extrabiblical influences (i.e., influences from exterior the Bible), not from the words of the Bible.

This approach has affected the mode people interpret Scripture to this day. Every bit the man who started the Reformation said,

The days of creation were ordinary days in length. We must empathize that these days were actual days (veros dies), opposite to the opinion of the Holy Fathers. Whenever we observe that the opinions of the Fathers disagree with Scripture, we reverently bear with them and acknowledge them to exist our elders. Nevertheless, nosotros practice not depart from the authority of Scripture for their sake.3

Again and once more, such leaders admit that Genesis 1, taken in a straightforward style, seems to teach six ordinary days. But they then say that this cannot be considering of the historic period of the universe or some other extrabiblical reason.

Consider the following representative quotes from Bible scholars who are considered to exist conservative yet who do not take the days of cosmos equally ordinary-length days:

From a superficial reading of Genesis 1, the impression would seem to be that the entire creative process took place in six twenty-four-hour days. ... This seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicates that the planet Earth was created several billion years agone.4

We have shown the possibility of God's having formed the Earth and its life in a series of artistic days representing long periods. In view of the credible historic period of the World, this is not only possible—it is probable.v

Information technology is as if these theologians view "nature" equally a "67th book of the Bible," albeit with more authorisation than the 66 written books. Rather, we should consider the words of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the renowned "prince of preachers," in 1877:

We are invited, brethren, virtually earnestly to go abroad from the former-fashioned belief of our forefathers because of the supposed discoveries of scientific discipline. What is scientific discipline? The method past which human being tries to muffle his ignorance. It should not exist so, merely then information technology is. You are not to be dogmatical in theology, my brethren, information technology is wicked; just for scientific men information technology is the correct affair. You are never to assert anything very strongly; but scientists may boldly assert what they cannot prove, and may demand a organized religion far more than credulous than any nosotros possess. Forsooth, you and I are to accept our Bibles and shape and mould our belief according to the evershifting teachings of then-called scientific men. What folly is this! Why, the march of science, falsely so chosen, through the earth may be traced by exploded fallacies and abandoned theories. Onetime explorers in one case adored are now ridiculed; the continual wreckings of false hypotheses is a matter of universal notoriety. You may tell where the learned have encamped past the debris left behind of suppositions and theories as plentiful as broken bottles.half-dozen

Those who would employ historical science (every bit propounded by people who, mostly, ignore God's written revelation) to interpret the Bible, to teach us things well-nigh God, have matters front to back. Considering we are fallen, fallible creatures, nosotros need God's written Word, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, to properly sympathise natural history. The respected systematic theologian Berkhof said:

Since the entrance of sin into the world, man can gather truthful cognition about God from His general revelation merely if he studies it in the low-cal of Scripture, in which the elements of God's original self-revelation, which were obscured and perverted by the blight of sin, are republished, corrected, and interpreted. ... Some are inclined to speak of God'southward general revelation equally a 2d source; simply this is inappreciably correct in view of the fact that nature can come into consideration hither only as interpreted in the light of Scripture.seven

In other words, Christians should build their thinking on the Bible, not on scientific discipline.

The "Days" of Genesis ane

What does the Bible tell usa about the meaning of "day" in Genesis 1? A give-and-take can accept more than one meaning, depending on the context. For instance, the English discussion "day" tin can have perhaps 14 dissimilar meanings. For case, consider the following sentence: "Dorsum in my grandfather's 24-hour interval, information technology took 12 days to bulldoze across the country during the day."

Here the offset occurrence of "solar day" ways "time" in a general sense. The 2d "day," where a number is used, refers to an ordinary day, and the tertiary refers to the daylight portion of the 24-hour period. The betoken is that words can accept more than one pregnant, depending on the context.

To understand the meaning of "day" in Genesis ane, nosotros need to determine how the Hebrew word for "day," yom, is used in the context of Scripture. Consider the following:

• A typical concordance will illustrate that yom can take a range of meanings: a period of light as contrasted to nighttime, a 24-hour period, time, a specific point of time, or a year.
• A classic, well-respected Hebrew-English language lexicon8 (a dictionary) has seven headings and many subheadings for the meaning of yom—simply it defines the creation days of Genesis 1 every bit ordinary days under the heading "twenty-four hour period as defined past evening and morning."
• A number and the phrase "evening and morning" are used with each of the vi days of creation (Gen. 1:five, 8, 13, xix, 23, 31).
• Exterior Genesis 1, yom is used with a number 359 times, and each time it means an ordinary day.9 Why would Genesis 1 exist the exception?10
• Outside Genesis 1, yom is used with the word "evening" or "morning"xi 23 times. "Evening" and "morning" appear in association, just without yom, 38 times. All 61 times the text refers to an ordinary day. Why would Genesis 1 be the exception?12
• In Genesis i:five, yom occurs in context with the word "night." Outside of Genesis i, "night" is used with yom 53 times, and each time it means an ordinary twenty-four hour period. Why would Genesis 1 be the exception? Fifty-fifty the usage of the word "light" with yom in this passage determines the significant every bit ordinary mean solar day.thirteen
• The plural of yom, which does non announced in Genesis 1, tin can be used to communicate a longer time menstruation, such as "in those days."xiv Adding a number here would be nonsensical. Clearly, in Exodus 20:11, where a number is used with "days," information technology unambiguously refers to vi earth-rotation days.
• At that place are words in biblical Hebrew (such every bit olam or qedem) that are very suitable for communicating long periods of fourth dimension, or indefinite time, just none of these words are used in Genesis ane.15 Alternatively, the days or years could have been compared with grains of sand if long periods were meant.

Dr. James Barr (Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University), who himself does not believe Genesis is true history, nonetheless admitted every bit far equally the language of Genesis 1 is concerned that

So far equally I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or One-time Attestation at any earth-course university who does not believe that the writer(south) of Gen. 1–xi intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the aforementioned as the days of 24 hours we at present experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple add-on a chronology from the showtime of the earth upwards to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah's Flood was understood to exist worldwide and extinguish all man and beast life except for those in the ark.16

In like style, nineteenth century liberal Professor Marcus Dods, New College, Edinburgh, said,

If, for example, the word "24-hour interval" in these chapters does non hateful a period of 20-four hours, the interpretation of Scripture is hopeless.17

Determination Virtually "Day" in Genesis 1

If we are prepared to permit the words of the language speak to united states in accord with the context and normal definitions, without existence influenced by outside ideas, and so the word for "day" found in Genesis one—which is qualified past a number, the phrase "evening and morning" and for 24-hour interval 1 the words "calorie-free and darkness"—obviously means an ordinary twenty-four hour period (about 24 hours).

In Martin Luther'south day, some of the church fathers were proverb that God created everything in only i day or in an instant. Martin Luther wrote,

When Moses writes that God created Heaven and Earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this menstruation continue to accept been 6 days, and exercise not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were ane day. Simply, if you cannot sympathise how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than yous are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. Merely since God is speaking, information technology is not plumbing fixtures for yous wantonly to turn His Discussion in the direction y'all wish to go.18

Similarly, John Calvin stated, "Albeit the duration of the world, now failing to its ultimate stop, has not yet attained half dozen k years. ... God's work was completed not in a moment but in vi days."19

Luther and Calvin were the backbone of the Protestant Reformation that chosen the church back to Scripture—Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone). Both of these men were adamant that Genesis i taught vi ordinary days of creation—just thousands of years ago.

Why Six Days?

Exodus 31:12 says that God commanded Moses to say to the children of Israel:

Six days may work be washed, merely on the seventh is the sabbath of remainder, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work in the Sabbath mean solar day, he shall surely be put to decease. Therefore the sons of State of israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant. It is a sign between me and the sons of Israel forever. For in half dozen days the Lord made the heavens and the world, and on the 7th day He rested, and was refreshed (Exodus 31:15–17).

Then God gave Moses two tablets of stone upon which were written the commandments of God, written by the finger of God (Exodus 31:18).

Considering God is infinite in power and wisdom, there's no doubt He could take created the universe and its contents in no time at all, or vi seconds, or 6 minutes, or six hours—after all, with God nothing shall be impossible (Luke 1:37).

All the same, the question to ask is, "Why did God have so long? Why equally long as six days?" The respond is also given in Exodus 20:11, and that reply is the basis of the Fourth Commandment:

For in six days the LORD fabricated the heavens and the world, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blest the Sabbath twenty-four hour period and hallowed it.

The seven-day week has no basis exterior of Scripture. In this Old Testament passage, God commands His people, Israel, to work for six days and balance for i—thus giving us a reason why He deliberately took every bit long as six days to create everything. He prepare the instance for homo. Our week is patterned after this principle. Now if He created everything in half-dozen thousand (or six million) years, followed by a residue of i thousand or one million years, then we would have a very interesting week indeed.

Some say that Exodus 20:xi is simply an analogy in the sense that man is to work and rest—not that it was to mean vi literal ordinary days followed past i literal ordinary 24-hour interval. However, Bible scholars have shown that this commandment "does not utilise analogy or archetypal thinking but that its emphasis is 'stated in terms of the fake of God or a divine precedent that is to be followed.'"twenty In other words, it was to be vi literal days of work, followed past ane literal day of rest, but as God worked for six literal days and rested for one.

Some have argued that "the heavens and the globe" is just earth and possibly the solar system, not the whole universe. Notwithstanding, this verse clearly says that God made everything in 6 days—six consecutive ordinary days, just like the commandment in the previous verse to work for six consecutive ordinary days.

The phrase "heaven(s) and earth" in Scripture is an example of a figure of oral communication called a merism, where two opposites are combined into an all-encompassing single concept, in this instance the totality of creation. A linguistic analysis of the words "heaven(s) and globe" in Scripture shows that they refer to the totality of all creation (the Hebrews did non have a word for "universe"). For example, in Genesis 14:xix God is called "Creator of sky and earth." In Jeremiah 23:24 God speaks of Himself equally filling "heaven and earth." See too Genesis 14:22; 2 Kings 19:xv; 2 Chronicles 2:12; Psalms 115:15, 121:2, 124:8, 134:three, 146:half-dozen; and Isaiah 37:16.

Thus, at that place is no scriptural warrant for restricting Exodus 20:11 to globe and its temper or the solar arrangement lonely. So Exodus xx:11 does prove that the whole universe was created in six ordinary days.

Implication

As the days of creation are ordinary days in length, then past calculation upward the years in Scripture (bold no gaps in the genealogies21), the historic period of the universe is only virtually 6 thousand years.22

Refuting Mutual Objections to Six Literal Days

Objection 1

"Science" has shown the earth and universe are billions of years onetime; therefore the "days" of cosmos must exist long periods (or indefinite periods) of time.

Answer

1. The age of the earth, as determined by man's fallible methods, is based on unproven assumptions, so it is not proven that the world is billions of years old.23
2. This unproven age is beingness used to force an interpretation on the language of the Bible. Thus, human's fallible theories are immune to translate the Bible. This ultimately undermines the utilise of linguistic communication to communicate.
3. Evolutionary scientists merits the fossil layers over the earth's surface date back hundreds of millions of years. As before long as one allows millions of years for the fossil layers, and then one has accepted death, mortality, illness, thorns, and suffering before Adam's sin.

Human beings and higher animals are described in Genesis one as having a nephesh, or life principle.

The Bible makes it clear24 that decease, mortality, disease, thorns, and suffering are a consequence of sin.25 In Genesis 1:29–thirty, God gave Adam and Eve and the animals plants to eat (this is reading Genesis at confront value, equally literal history, equally Jesus did in Matthew 19:3–half-dozen). In fact, there is a theological distinction made between animals and plants. Human beings and higher animals are described in Genesis 1 as having a nephesh, or life principle. (This is true of at least the vertebrate country animals also equally the birds and fish: Genesis 1:20, 24.) Plants do not have this nephesh—they are not "alive" in the same sense animals are. They were given for food.

Man was permitted to swallow meat only after the Overflowing (Genesis nine:three). This makes it obvious that the statements in Genesis 1:29–30 were meant to inform us that human being and the animals were vegetarian to starting time with. Too, in Genesis ix:2, nosotros are told of a change God apparently made in the way animals react to man.

God warned Adam in Genesis 2:17 that if he ate of the "tree of the noesis of good and evil" he would "dice." The Hebrew grammar actually ways, "dying, you volition die." In other words, it would exist the commencement of a procedure of physical dying (run across Genesis 3:nineteen). It also clearly involved spiritual death (separation from God).

Later Adam disobeyed God, the Lord clothed Adam and Eve with "coats of skins" (Genesis 3:21).26 To do this He must have killed and shed the blood of at to the lowest degree one animal. The reason for this can be summed upwards past Hebrews 9:22:

And according to the constabulary nigh all things are purified with claret, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

God requires the shedding of blood for the remission of sins. What happened in the garden was a picture of what was to come in Jesus, who shed His claret on the Cantankerous as the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the globe (John 1:29).

Now if the Garden of Eden were sitting on a fossil record of dead things millions of years old, and so blood was shed before sin. This would destroy the foundation of the Atonement. The Bible is clear: the sin of Adam brought decease and suffering into the world. Every bit Romans eight:19–22 tells us, the whole of creation "groans" considering of the effects of the fall of Adam, and the creation will be liberated "from the bondage of abuse into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21). Also, deport in listen that thorns came into existence after the Curse. Because in that location are thorns in the fossil tape, it had to be formed after Adam and Eve sinned.

The pronouncement of the death penalty on Adam was both a curse and a approving. A curse because death is horrible and continually reminds us of the ugliness of sin; a approval because it meant the consequences of sin—separation from fellowship with God—need non exist eternal. Death stopped Adam and his descendants from living in a state of sin, with all its consequences, forever. And considering death was the just punishment for sin, Jesus Christ suffered physical death, shedding His claret, to release Adam'southward descendants from the consequences of sin. The Apostle Paul discusses this in depth in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.

Revelation 21–22 makes it clear that in that location will be a "new heavens and a new earth" 1 solar day, where there will be "no more death" and "no more than curse"—simply like it was before sin changed everything. If there are to exist animals as part of the new earth, apparently they will non be dying or eating each other, nor eating the redeemed people!

Thus, adding the supposed millions of years to Scripture destroys the foundations of the message of the Cross.

Objection two

According to Genesis 1, the sun was not created until Day four. How could in that location be twenty-four hours and night (ordinary days) without the sun for the first three days?

Reply

1. Once more, information technology is of import for us to permit the language of God'due south Word speak to the states. If nosotros come up to Genesis ane without whatever outside influences, as has been shown, each of the six days of creation appears with the Hebrew word yom qualified past a number and the phrase "evening and morning." The showtime 3 days are written the aforementioned way as the side by side iii. And so if nosotros let the linguistic communication speak to us, all six days were ordinary earth days.
2. The sun is not needed for day and night. What is needed is light and a rotating world. On the first day of creation, God made light (Genesis one:three). The phrase "evening and morning" certainly implies a rotating world. Thus, if we have light from one direction, and a spinning world, there tin exist 24-hour interval and night.

Where did the lite come up from? We are not told,27 but Genesis one:3 certainly indicates it was a created light to provide day and night until God made the sun on Day 4 to rule the solar day. Revelation 21:23 tells us that one day the sunday will not be needed because the glory of God will calorie-free the heavenly city.

Perhaps ane reason God did it this fashion was to illustrate that the sun did not accept the priority in the creation that people have tended to give it. The sun did not requite birth to the earth equally evolutionary theories postulate; the sun was God'south created tool to rule the 24-hour interval that God had made (Genesis 1:16).

Down through the ages, people such as the Egyptians have worshiped the sun. God warned the Israelites, in Deuteronomy 4:19, not to worship the sunday as the infidel cultures around them did. They were commanded to worship the God who made the sun—not the sun that was made by God.

Evolutionary theories (the "big bang" hypothesis for instance) land that the sunday came before the earth and that the sun'southward free energy on the globe somewhen gave rise to life. Just as in pagan beliefs, the sun is, in a sense, given credit for the wonder of creation.

It is interesting to dissimilarity the speculations of mod cosmology with the writings of the early church building male parent Theophilus:

On the fourth 24-hour interval the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on Earth came from the stars, and so that they might fix God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into being earlier stars. For what comes into existence subsequently cannot cause what is prior to it.28

Objection iii

2 Peter 3:eight states that "one twenty-four hour period is with the Lord as a thousand years," therefore the days of cosmos could exist long periods of time.

Answer

1. This passage has no creation context—it is not referring to Genesis or the six days of creation.
2. This verse has what is called a "comparative article"—"equally" or "like"— which is not constitute in Genesis 1. In other words, it is not saying a day is a thousand years; it is comparing a real, literal day to a existent, literal thousand years. The context of this passage is the 2nd Coming of Christ. It is saying that, to God, a 24-hour interval is like a thousand years, because God is outside of time. God is non limited by natural processes and time as humans are. What may seem like a long time to u.s. (e.g., waiting for the Second Coming), or a brusk time, is zip to God, either way.
3. The 2d part of the verse reads "and a g years as one twenty-four hour period," which, in essence, cancels out the first part of the verse for those who want to equate a day with a thousand years. Thus, it cannot exist proverb a day is a thousand years or vice versa.
4. Psalm 90:4 states, "For a g years in your sight are as yesterday when it is past, and every bit a watch in the night." Here a thousand years is beingness compared with a "lookout man in the night" (4 hours29). Because the phrase "picket in the night" is joined in a particular way to "yesterday," it is saying that a thousand years is being compared with a short catamenia of time—not merely to a mean solar day.
5. If one used this passage to claim that "day" in the Bible ways a chiliad years, then, to exist consistent, one would accept to say that Jonah was in the belly of the fish three chiliad years, or that Jesus has non yet risen from the dead after 2 thousand years in the grave.

Objection four

Insisting on six solar days for creation limits God, whereas assuasive God billions of years does not limit Him.

Answer

Actually, insisting on six ordinary earth-rotation days of creation is not limiting God, merely limiting united states of america to believing that God actually did what He tells usa in His Give-and-take. Also, if God created everything in six days, equally the Bible says, and then surely this reveals the ability and wisdom of God in a profound way— Almighty God did not need eons of time. However, the billions-of-years scenarios diminish God by suggesting that mere take a chance could create things or that God needed huge amounts of fourth dimension to create things—this would be limiting God'due south ability by reducing information technology to naturalistic explanations.

Objection 5

Adam could not have accomplished all that the Bible states in i day (Day half dozen). He could not have named all the animals, for instance; there was not enough time.

Respond

Adam did not accept to name all the animals—just those God brought to him. For instance, Adam was commanded to name "every beast of the field" (Genesis 2:xx), not "beast of the earth" (Genesis i:25). The phrase "animate being of the field" is most likely a subset of the larger grouping "beast of the world." He did not have to name "everything that creeps upon the globe" (Genesis 1:25) or any of the sea creatures. Also, the number of "kinds" would be much less than the number of species in today's classification.

When critics say that Adam could not name the animals in less than ane day, what they really hateful is they exercise not sympathize how they could do it, and then Adam could not. However, our brain has suffered from 6,000 years of the Curse—it has been profoundly affected by the Autumn. Before sin, Adam's brain was perfect.

When God fabricated Adam, He must have programmed him with a perfect linguistic communication. Today we programme computers to "speak" and "remember." How much more could our Creator God accept created Adam as a mature human (he was not born as a babe needing to larn to speak), having in his memory a perfect language with a perfect understanding of each word. (That is why Adam understood what God meant when he said he would "die" if he disobeyed, even though he had not seen any expiry.) Adam may also have had a "perfect" memory (something like a photographic retentiveness, perhaps).

It would have been no problem for this first perfect man to make upward words and name the animals God brought to him and recollect the names—in far less than one day.30

Objection 6

Genesis ii is a different account of creation, with a dissimilar order, then how tin the offset chapter be accustomed as teaching vi literal days?

Answer

Actually, Genesis 2 is not a different account of creation. It is a more detailed account of Mean solar day 6 of creation. Chapter i is an overview of the whole of creation; chapter two gives details surrounding the creation of the garden, the kickoff man, and his activities on Day 6.31

Betwixt the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve, the King James Version says, "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every creature of the field and every fowl of the air" (Genesis 2:19). This seems to say that the state beasts and birds were created between the creation of Adam and Eve. Yet, Jewish scholars did not recognize any such disharmonize with the business relationship in chapter 1, where Adam and Eve were both created subsequently the beasts and birds (Genesis one:23–25). There is no contradiction, because in Hebrew the precise tense of a verb is adamant by the context. It is clear from chapter one that the beasts and birds were created before Adam, so Jewish scholars would have understood the verb "formed" to hateful "had formed" or "having formed" in Genesis ii:xix If we translate verse 19, "At present the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field," the apparent disagreement with Genesis one disappears completely.

Regarding the plants and herbs in Genesis two:5 and the trees in Genesis 2:9 (compare with Genesis 1:12), the plants and herbs are described equally "of the field" and they needed a human to tend them. These are clearly cultivated plants, not just plants in general (Genesis 1). As well, the trees (Genesis ii:9) are only the copse planted in the garden, not trees in general.

In Matthew xix:3–6 Jesus Christ quotes from both Genesis one:27 and Genesis 2:24 when referring to the same human and woman in instruction the doctrine of marriage. Clearly, Jesus saw them equally complementary accounts, not contradictory ones.

Objection 7

There is no "evening and morning" for the 7th day of the Cosmos Week (Genesis 2:2). Thus, we must yet be in the "7th twenty-four hours," so none of the days can be ordinary days.

Answer

Look again at the section entitled "Why Six Days?" higher up. Exodus twenty:11 is conspicuously referring to seven literal days—vi for work and 1 for rest.

Besides, God stated that He "rested" from His work of creation (not that He is resting!). The fact that He rested from His piece of work of creation does not preclude Him from continuing to remainder from this activity. God's work now is different—it is a work of sustaining His creation and of reconciliation and redemption because of man's sin.

The discussion yom is qualified by a number (Genesis ii:ii–3), and so the context still determines that information technology is an ordinary solar twenty-four hours. Also, God blessed this seventh day and fabricated information technology holy. In Genesis three:17–xix nosotros read of the Expletive on the earth because of sin. Paul refers to this in Romans 8:22. Information technology does not make sense that God would call this twenty-four hour period holy and blest if He cursed the ground on this "twenty-four hour period." We live in a sin-cursed earth—we are not in the seventh blessed holy day!

Note that in arguing that the seventh mean solar day is not an ordinary twenty-four hour period because it is not associated with "evening and morning," proponents are tacitly agreeing that the other six days are ordinary days because they are defined by an evening and a morning time.

Some have argued that Hebrews 4:three–four implies that the 7th 24-hour interval is standing today:

For nosotros who accept believed do enter that residuum, every bit He has said: "And then I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My remainder,'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a sure place of the seventh 24-hour interval in this way: "And God rested on the 7th twenty-four hour period from all His works. . . ."

However, verse 4 reiterates that God rested (past tense) on the 7th twenty-four hours. If someone says on Monday that he rested on Fri and is still resting, this would not suggest that Friday connected through to Monday! Also, only those who have believed in Christ volition enter that rest, showing that information technology is a spiritual rest, which is compared with God'southward rest since the Creation Week. Information technology is non some sort of continuation of the 7th solar day (otherwise everyone would exist "in" this rest).32

Hebrews does not say that the 7th twenty-four hour period of Cosmos Week is standing today, just that the rest He instituted is continuing.

Objection viii

Genesis ii:4 states, "In the twenty-four hours that the Lord God fabricated the earth and the heavens." As this refers to all 6 days of cosmos, information technology shows that the word "mean solar day" does not mean an ordinary mean solar day.

Answer

The Hebrew word yom as used here is non qualified by a number, the phrase "evening and morning," or light or darkness. In this context, the verse really ways "in the time God created" (referring to the Creation Week) or "when God created."

Other Problems with Long Days and Like Interpretations

• If the plants fabricated on Day 3 were separated by millions of years from the birds and nectar bats (created Day 5) and insects (created Day 6) necessary for their pollination, then such plants could non have survived. This problem would exist peculiarly astute for species with complex symbiotic relationships (each depending on the other; e.g., the yucca plant and the associated moth33).
• Adam was created on Day vi, lived through Mean solar day 7, and then died when he was 930 years old (Genesis 5:5). If each day were a thousand years or millions of years, this would brand no sense of Adam'south historic period at death.
• Some have claimed that the word for "fabricated" (asah) in Exodus xx:11 actually ways "prove." They propose that God showed or revealed the information about creation to Moses during a six-solar day period. This allows for the creation itself to accept occurred over millions of years. Even so, "showed" is non a valid translation for asah. Its meaning covers "to brand, manufacture, produce, exercise," etc., only not "to show" in the sense of reveal.34 Where asah is translated as "show"—for example, "show kindness" (Genesis 24:12)—information technology is in the sense of "to practise" or "make" kindness.
• Some have claimed that because the word asah is used for the creation of the sunday, moon, and stars on 24-hour interval four, and not the word bara, which is used in Genesis 1:1 for "create," this ways God merely revealed the sun, moon, and stars at this stage. They insist the word asah has the meaning of "revealed." In other words, the luminaries were supposedly already in existence and were only revealed at this phase. Withal, bara and asah are used in Scripture to depict the aforementioned event. For example, asah is used in Exodus 20:11 to refer to the creation of the heavens and the earth, but bara is used to refer to the cosmos of the heavens and the earth in Genesis one:1. The word asah is used concerning the creation of the start people in Genesis i:26—they did not previously exist. And then they are said to have been created (bara) in Genesis 1:27. There are many other similar examples. asah has a wide range of meanings involving "to do" or "to brand," which includes bara creation.
• Some accept that the days of creation are ordinary days every bit far equally the language of Genesis is concerned but not every bit literal days of history equally far as man is concerned. This is basically the view called the "framework hypothesis."35 This is a very complex and contrived view which has been thoroughly refuted by scholars.36

The existent purpose of the framework hypothesis can be seen in the following quote from an article by i of its proponents:

To rebut the literalist interpretation of the Genesis cosmos "week" propounded past the young-earth theorists is a key concern of this commodity.37

• Some people desire the days of cosmos to be long periods in an try to harmonize evolution or billions of years with the Bible'south account of origins. However, the order of events according to long-historic period beliefs does not agree with that of Genesis. Consider the following table:

Contradictions betwixt the club of creation in the Bible and development/long-ages

Biblical account of cosmos	Evolutionary/long-age speculation
Earth before the sun and stars	Stars and sun before earth
Earth covered in h2o initially	Earth a molten hulk initially
Oceans outset, then dry land	Dry out state, and then the oceans
Life first created on the state	Life started in the oceans
Plants created before the sun	Plants came long afterwards the sun
Land animals created afterward birds	Land animals existed before birds
Whales before land animals	Country animals before whales

Clearly, those who do not accept the half dozen literal days are the ones reading their own preconceived ideas into the passage.

Long-Age Compromises

Other than the "gap theory" (the belief that there is a gap of indeterminate time between the first ii verses of Genesis one), the major compromise positions that endeavor to harmonize long ages and/or development with Genesis fall into two categories:

1. "theistic development" wherein God supposedly directed the evolutionary process of millions of years, or fifty-fifty just set it upward and allow it run, and
2. "progressive creation" where God supposedly intervened in the processes of expiry and struggle to create millions of species at diverse times over millions of years.

All long-age compromises reject Noah's Overflowing as global—information technology could only exist a local event because the fossil layers are accepted every bit testify for millions of years. A global Flood would have destroyed this tape and produced another. Therefore, these positions cannot let a catastrophic global Overflowing that would form layers of fossil-bearing rocks over the earth. This, of class, goes against Scripture, which evidently teaches a global Overflowing (Genesis 6–9).38 Sadly, nearly theologians years ago simply tried to add together this belief to the Bible instead of realizing that these layers were laid downward by Noah's Inundation.

Does It Actually Thing?

Yes, it does matter what a Christian believes concerning the days of creation in Genesis i. Most importantly, all schemes which insert eons of fourth dimension into, or before, creation undermine the gospel by putting expiry, bloodshed, illness, thorns, and suffering before sin and the Fall, as explained in a higher place (come across respond to Objection i). Here are two more than reasons:

1. It is really a matter of how one approaches the Bible, in principle. If we do non permit the language to speak to us in context, merely try to make the text fit ideas exterior of Scripture, then ultimately the meaning of any word in any part of the Bible depends on human's estimation, which can change according to whatever exterior ideas are in faddy.
2. If one allows scientific discipline (which has wrongly become synonymous with evolution and materialism) to determine our understanding of Scripture, and so this can pb to a slippery slope of unbelief through the rest of Scripture. For instance, science would proclaim that a person cannot be raised from the expressionless. Does this hateful we should interpret the Resurrection of Christ to reflect this? Sadly, some exercise merely this, maxim that the Resurrection just means that Jesus' teachings live on in His followers.

When people accept at face value what Genesis is teaching and accept the days as ordinary days, they will have no problem accepting and making sense of the remainder of the Bible.

Martin Luther one time said:

I have often said that whoever would report Holy Scripture should exist sure to see to it that he stays with the uncomplicated words as long every bit he can and by no means departs from them unless an article of faith compels him to understand them differently. For of this we must be certain: no clearer oral communication has been heard on World than what God has spoken.39

Pure Words

God's people need to realize that the Word of God is something very special. It is non just the words of men. Equally Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "You received it non as the give-and-take of men, only equally it is, truly the discussion of God."

Proverbs xxx:v–6 states that "every word of God is pure . . . . Do not add together to His words, lest He reprove you and y'all exist plant a liar." The Bible cannot be treated as just some keen literary work. We need to "tremble at his discussion" (Isaiah 6:5) and not forget:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is assisting for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good piece of work (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

In the original autographs, every word and letter in the Bible is there because God put information technology there. Let us listen to God speaking to us through His Word and not arrogantly think we can tell God what He actually means!

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Source: https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/could-god-really-have-created-everything-in-six-days/

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