The fifth verse of the Bible declares, "And the evening and the morning were the first day." For each of the other five days of creation the first chapter of Genesis also records a "And the evening and the morning were the _____ day" statement (Genesis 1:8,13,19,23,31).
How does the Bible explain the existence of our universe? "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Acts 17:24). God created (made out of nothing) "the world and all things therein." That’s the way it happened. God says so.
How much time did God use to create all things? Hear Jehovah’s own answer: "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" (Exodus 20:11). Six days – that’s how long God took to create all things. But just how long was one "day" of creation? The answer, of course, is that a "day" was a "day." Yes, but how long did one of the days noted in Genesis 1 actually last? Was it a long period of time, maybe a thousand years or even a few million years? Or, was it a day like one of our days?
There are a number of ways to approach this question, and many convincing, logical arguments have been put forth to establish the fact that one "day" during God’s creative activity was actually a "day" as we now know it, and not some long, extensive period of time. For our purposes in this article, though, I want to set forth only two basic proofs that you and I can find right in the text of the Bible.
Proof number one is the life span of Adam. The earth’s first human inhabitant is proof positive that the "days" of Genesis one were not extremely long periods of time. Consider Fact #1: God created the first man, later identified as Adam (Genesis 3:19), on day six of creation (Genesis 1:27-31). Fact #2: Adam lived through the end of the sixth day, lived through the seventh day, and on into the days that came after those first seven. Now, if each day of Genesis one was really an enormously long period (such as a thousand years or millions of years), then after the end of the seventh day (on which God rested) how old would Adam have been? Answer: an old, old man that was either thousands or millions of years old!
This is where Fact #3 comes into play. The Bible affirms that "all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died" (Genesis 5:5). What was the total number of years that Adam lived on the earth? Nine hundred and thirty. Who said so? God did! Since "all the days" that Adam lived totaled only 930 years, then it is not possible that the sixth day and seventh day of creation were thousands or millions of years long. And, there is no reason to think that the length of each of the first five days of Jehovah’s creation was any different than the length of days six and seven. For sure, Adam’s life span crushes the theory that one day of God’s creative activity lasted a long, long period of time.
Proof number two that the days of Genesis one were not thousands or millions of years in length comes from the ten commandments. The ten commandments? Yes, the ten commandments. The fourth of the ten was the charge for Israel to "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy . . . but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work . . ." (Exodus 20:8,10). God further said, "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day . . ." (20:11).
How many days out of each week were the Israelites to keep as a day of rest? One. God stated the parallel: just as He had rested one day, the seventh, so Israel was to rest one day, the seventh. Are we to believe that God expected the Israelites to rest for thousands or millions of years every time the seventh day of the week came around? How silly. Yet, why should we assume that God’s seventh day of rest lasted thousands or millions of years, but He "cut it down" to a twenty-four hour period of rest for Israel? Every indication from the text of Exodus 20 is that how ever long Jehovah "rested on the seventh day" (Genesis 2:2), then that is the same definition of a "day" of rest that He prescribed for the Israelites.
Even though the two Bible-based proofs that we have pointed out cannot be successfully refuted, still, in the minds of some there linger a few questions. For instance, "But if God is all-powerful, could He not have chosen to make one ‘day’ of creation a long period of time if He wanted to? Why couldn’t the Almighty stretch out a ‘day’ to be thousands or even millions of years, if He wanted to? Who are we to limit God to using a ‘day’ as we now know it?" The Creator truly is "the Almighty God" (Genesis 17:1). However, it is essential that we recognize the distinction between what God could have done, and what He actually did.
Yes, if He had been so inclined, God could have made a "day" to be a great period of time. But, the point that must be stressed is this: there is n-o-t-h-i-n-g in the text of the Bible that in any way gives even a pee-wee hint that the six "days" of creation were anything different than a "normal day" that we now know. Yea, the two biblical evidences that we already noted from the life span of Adam and the one "day" of weekly rest for Israel plainly rule out any misguided idea that one "day" of creation was oodles of time.
Furthermore, if "day" in Genesis one and two does not mean a "normal day," then just when in the text of the Bible do we begin to cut down "day" from eons of time to twenty-four hours? And, just who gets to decide from which verse in the Bible we begin to call a "day" a "day?" God’s word says that in the days of Noah "the flood was forty days upon the earth" (Genesis 7:17). Wonder if that means forty long periods of time that lasted thousands or millions of years each?! No, that cannot be the case, because Noah was in the ark during those forty days, yet the total time that he lived on the earth was 950 years (Genesis 9:29).
Here’s another thought. Back to the case of Adam’s life span. What if we suggest that, yes, Adam lived only 930 years, but that has nothing to do with the length of a "day" in Genesis one since Adam was created on the eighth day (or later), and back on day six of creation, instead of making one man and woman, God actually made many men and women? Some people really do accept this idea. Please look at three brief refutations of the false concepts involved in this theory.
First, there were no human beings created before Adam. There is no such thing as a former race of people that lived before Adam came on the scene. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [the Christ, rdc] was made a quickening spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45). "The first man Adam" – that is what God called him, so let’s leave it at that!
Second, if God created things for six days and rested on day seven, but then went back and created Adam on day eight as per the above-noted theory, then that makes seven days of creation (6+1). Yet, the Bible says that "in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" (Exodus 20:11). That being the case, then it is not possible that God created Adam or anyone else anytime after those first six days of creation.
Third, Jesus said, "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female" (Mark 10:6). Clearly, the creation of the first male and female, identified in Genesis two as Adam and Eve, took place in "the beginning of the creation." But if the "days" of creation were thousands or millions of years long, then day six, when Adam and Eve were created, would not have been close to "the beginning of creation." This again shows that the days of creation that are noted in Genesis one were not extremely long periods of time.
Perhaps you might wonder, "Who cares how long the days of Genesis one were? What does it really matter? What does that have to do with our salvation?" Consider this. In Genesis one the word "God" is used about thirty times, and "God said" about ten times. Those facts demonstrate that from the very outset of His book Jehovah wants us to know Who is in control of the universe, and Whose word must be accepted. Number two, any effort to make a "day" of creation out to be thousands or millions of years is tampering with the text of the Bible, whether done intentionally or unintentionally. Such tampering and twisting of the divine record is condemned throughout the Bible (2 Peter 3:16; Revelation 22:18,19). Number three, if we can "brush off" the message of Genesis one and the "days" of creation, then why not jump over to chapter three and deny that Adam and Eve sinned? If they did not sin, then there was no need for the "seed" of woman to come (Genesis 3:15; Galatians 4:4). If there is no need for the saving Messiah, then the Bible has no meaning!
So, yes, the message of Genesis one and the length of the days of creation do have significance. Let us all strive to study the word of God with greater diligence, being ever ready to accept what it says and leave out our own opinions or suppositions.This item originally appeared in http://www.conyerschurchofchrist.com
