Is a day really a day?

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.-Exodus 20:11a

There are many theories about how the earth was created, when it was created and how long it took. The Biblical view of Creation states that God made the world in 6 literal 24-hour days. Evolution theory says there isn’t and Intelligent Designer and the earth came to be by a huge explosion (that’s a topic for a different post.) Other people believe that God did indeed create the earth, but there are varied opinions on how He did it. These theories include Theistic Evolution, Day-Age theory, Gap theory and others. I’ll only be discussing the Day-Age theory this time.

The Secular view of Creation

The Biblical view of Creation

The Day-Age theorists believe that the earth was created by God, instead of 6 literal 24-hour days, each day stretched on for millions of years. Genesis 1 is the entire story of Creation. Each day for 6 days, God created things and then rested on the 7^th (that’s where we get our week). The Hebrew word used in this chapter is ‘Yom’, which is always in conjunction with a number. Whenever the word ‘Yom’ is placed with a number, it always means a literal 24-hour day; ‘and there was evening and morning—the first day (Yom)’—Genesis 1:5a. If each day had been millions of years long, there would have been death before sin. How then, after each Creation day, could ‘He saw all the he had made and it was very good’. (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25 and 31)

Genesis 3 deals with the curses God places on man and woman after sin. It also records the first death (Genesis 3:21). Instead of the fig leave coverings that Adam and Eve attempted to make for themselves after they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He used animal skin to make garments. ‘‘By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread, till you return to the ground. Because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’—Genesis 3:19. If there had been death before sin, this curse wouldn’t have been placed upon man. There already would have been death in the world.  To quote Answers in Genesis:   “In a secular worldview, there has always been death. So, the Christians try to incorporate secular history of millions of years into their theology, two main questions arise. Was there really a change when Adam and Eve sinned? And what will heaven really be like. . . ?”

It’s interesting that Genesis 1 is the only place the days are attacked. For example, nobody questions the fact that Jonah was a big fish for three days, it rained for 40 days during the great flood or the Jesus rose from the dead after three days. Why is it that Genesis 1 is such a big issue?

Think about it logically. How can you believe the rest of the Bible if you don’t believe the beginning of it? Genesis is the foundation for everything in the rest of the Old Testament, New Testament and our world today. In Answers in Genesis’ video Millions of Years, the speaker puts it this way, “The church in America is just worried about the cross. Sure the enemy may be hitting the foundation, but as long as it doesn’t hit the cross, they don’t care what the attacks are on Genesis.”   

The issue here is really an authority issue. It’s a problem that has gone on since the Garden of Eden and a problem that will continue until Jesus returns. In the Garden, the serpent tempted Eve and twisted what God had said. In the same way, the devil is attacking a literal interpretation of Genesis by twisting what God has said.

 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”—Genesis 2:16-17

Pretty straightforward. However, look at the exchange between the serpent and the woman in Chapter 3:

[The serpent] said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

“Why does it matter?” you may ask. “Isn’t it enough that I simply believe God created the earth? Does it matter what I believe about how He create it?” If you think about it, taking Genesis literally really is a big issue. If the foundation of the Bible—God’s inspired word—isn’t believe, what’s to say the rest of it should be? Jesus Himself quoted the Old Testament many times and clearly showed that He took Genesis literally (see Mark 10:6, which is referring back to Genesis 1:27). So, if the Son of God took Genesis at face-value and believed what His Father said, why shouldn’t we?

(Graphics belong to Answers in Genesis. www.answersingenesis.org)