REASONS for a REAL Day

One of my earliest theological questions after becoming a Christian was, “how long were the days in Genesis One?” I suppose that many of you continue to wonder about this question. There are really only two arguments:

  • A Literal 24-hour day
  • Each day could be figurative and include eons of time between the days.

Over the years I’ve come to believe that the days of Genesis one (and all the events of Genesis 1-11) are literal. Here is a list of reasons why I believe in a literal 6-day creation.

MOSES; the Holy Spirit inspired author of Genesis, was told by God at Mt. Sinai; “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,” [Ex 20:11] The context is the giving of the weekly Sabbath keeping. Therefore, God is the creation days with the 6 literal days of work in a week.

YOWM; which is the Hebrew word for day, when preceded by a number, is always used as a literal, single revolution of the Earth, day. This word is used in Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 14, 16,18, 19, 23, 31; Exodus 20:11 as well as the passages related to the keeping of the many feast days.

EVENING & MORNING: Whenever ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ are used in the Old Testament, it always has the meaning of one 24-hour day. If God wanted to tell us that He created everything in 6 24-hour days, what words would He use? The answer – THE SAME words used in Genesis 1.

A WEB OF LIFE PROBLEM: If each ‘day’ represents eons of time, how did plant life survive for millions of years between day 3 & day 5 when insects were created?

JESUS’ TEACHING: He taught that men and women were here from “the beginning of the creation” [Mark 10:6]. If the days are eons, then Jesus was wrong about when man was made, for Genesis has them showing up on day 6, millions or billions of years after the beginning.

DEATH PRECEDED SIN: If the day / age theory is right, then death preceded the fall of man. It was the sin of Adam that brought death into the world. If evolution is true, then death was already a well-established concept. “For since by man came death,” [1Cor 15:21].

GENEALOGIES: Rejecting a literal 24-hour day causes another problem for the Christian. The genealogies in Gen 5 & Luke 11 have a literal man named Adam. If the eon theory is right, which includes the theory of evolution, then you don’t have a literal man named Adam. The Adam of Genesis 1-3 is the same man named in Genesis 5 & Luke 11, an ancestor to our Lord Jesus the Christ.

APPEARANCE OF AGE: Regardless of the theory, both camps believe in an Almighty God. The question then becomes, why does God even need a 24-hour day? Couldn’t all of it have been done in an instant? Another question is, how old did Adam appear when he was formed? Even the atheist Stephen Hawking suggested that if an Almighty God were real, then He could just as easily have created the light between distant stars and the Earth. This would give the appearance of age. We even have a modern-day example of rock & canyon formation within days & months, Lake Shasta near Mt. St. Helens.

These are just a few reasons why I believe in a literal 24-hour 6-day creation. There is even more evidence beyond these. Since none of us were there, we are completely dependent upon the evidence, and for the believer in God, we are totally dependent upon His revealed word as the only eyewitness to these events.

This leaves us with FAITH. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” [Hebrews 11:1]. Nobody can ‘PROVE’ what happened. Even the atheist must have faith in his theory, for he wasn’t there.

Acceptance of an evolutionary viewpoint is contrary to scripture and is the beginning of a host of other errors when this viewpoint is accepted.

Has God Really Said…?

There is such a thing as a bad question…

In Genesis 3:1, Satan asked Eve, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” This first question in the Bible, and such like it, have been on people’s lips ever since. Has God really said…you must be baptized…you must worship and so many more.

Normally the only bad question is the one not asked, and this wouldn’t be so bad if it was asked by a seeker. Unfortunately, it’s not asked by the seekers, rather, the deniers. Let’s examine this question considering God’s revealed word regarding the creation.

HAS GOD REALLY SAID, ‘HE MADE EVERYTHING IN 6 DAYS?

The short answer is, yes. “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:” [Exodus 20:11]. If “in six days’ doesn’t mean six literal 24-hour days, then we have a problem. Just as Eve believed the serpent about eating the fruit and lost paradise, if we fail here, we will lose the scriptures, literally! The theory of evolution is at odds with the biblical record. I recently learned that the Catholic church has accepted the possibility of evolution and since 1950, sees no conflict with evolution and the Bible. I see a conflict, and I hope you do as well. If evolution is true, then God has lied, but that’s not possible. God cannot lie [Titus 1:2] and the Bible contains His word [2Timothy 3:16] therefore the Bible is true. I realize this looks like circular reasoning, but God has no reason to lie or He is no God at all.

IF IT’S NOT 6 LITERAL DAYS

THEN…God lied about the thorns. “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree…Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;” [Gen 3:17,18] Evolutionists tells us that the fossil record reveals both death and thorns for 350-400 million years. Who would know, them or God? Historical science is based entirely on theories, and evolutionists interpret the data through the lens of millions of years. Before they even examine the evidence, they already ‘know’ that whatever they find will be really old. That’s not even good science, for it rejects any evidence that suggest a young earth. God said that thorns came AFTER Adam’s sin, not before as evolutionists suggest.

IF IT’S NOT 6 LITERAL DAYS

THEN…God lied about the reason everyone dies. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” [Genesis 2:17] God created everything and at the end of His creative work He said, “…it was very good.” [Gen 2:17] Are you saying that millions of years evolution, which requires death, as being ‘very good?” God never intended for us to die. We see evidence of this in the incredibly long pre-flood lifespans. There is also evidence of arthritis, cancer & disease in dinosaur bones in the fossil record. If dinosaurs truly lived millions of years before humans, then God called death & disease ‘very good.’

THEN…it also makes the Holy Spirit a liar, for He revealed to Paul, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;” [Romans 5:12]. If evolution is true, then the Word of the Spirit is false, for He revealed that death came AFTER sin. He also wrote, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [Romans 6:23] If evolution is true, and I hope you realize that it is not, then the wages of LIVING is DEATH, a direct contradiction to the Scriptures. Who are you going to believe, God or men?

Scripture teaches that in the beginning there was no death and there will be no more death when Jesus returns. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” [1Corinthians 15:26]

The Almighty God was there, and like any history, those today only know of historical events through the eyewitness accounts. None of us was there, and therefore must rely on the evidence. For Christians, we have God’s own eyewitness account that tells us death and thorns were brought into the world as the result of Adam’s sin. If we cannot trust His word on a simple thing like thorns, how could we trust Him about what He says about salvation?

IF IT’S NOT 6 LITERAL DAYS

THEN…the redemptive work of Jesus and the defeat of Satan is called into question. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;” [Hebrews 2:14] If the Genesis story is not real, then Satan had nothing to do with death. This line of reasoning also brings the New Testament into question. “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” [1John 3:8].  It was through Satan’s lie to Eve that brought death into the world. God really did say, “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

We need to trust in God’s word and not compromise with the misinterpretation of historical evidence. Early Christians never worried about how to stretch the 6-day creation into millions of years. No, they wondered something completely different.  They asked, “why did God take six days?!”