2/18/12- Six Days of Creation

Q. 9. What is creation?
A. Creation is God’s making everything out of nothing by His powerful word in six days – and all very good. 


⁶ “The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. (1 Samuel 2:6)

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. ² Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.  ³ You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.” ⁴ A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. ⁵ Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning: ⁶ In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered. (Psalm 90:1-6)

 (Nasa shot of night and day- Apollo 11)


Thoughts: God did not create the world all at once, but in periods.  That is what the words "in six days" refers to.  He could have, perhaps made everything at once, but it did not fit into His plan.  Augustine, perhaps the greatest theologian outside of the scriptures, brought out the idea that the days in Genesis were not 24 hour periods because the sun was not created then. 
    Gordon Clark ("What Do Presbyterians Believe?") gives a good summary of the argument: "In English the word 'day' most frequently means about twelve hours.  We also say that there were no telephones in George Washington's 'day.' Further, Genesis 2:4 seems to refer to all six days as one day." J. Oliver Buswell and others have made a good case that the seventh day (at least in light of Hebrews 4) appears to be still going on in time.  Psalm 90:4 says "a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by. " 2 Peter 3:8 says, "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."
    Here are some of Augustine's words (City of God Book XI.6,7): "What kind of days these were is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible to conceive...the first three days ofall were passed without sun since it is reported to have been made on the third day."  
    For many years, scientists believed in "the steady state" theory of the world. That is that the world always was and never was created- making the world eternal and implying that God was created.  Yet today a convergence around the "Big Bang Theory" that the elements were created in an instant from a point smaller than the head of a pin, exploding at a rapid pace, may point to a creation that seems to jive with the beautiful poetic language of scripture- He spoke and it came to be.


Prayer: Help me to trust in your timing in life, in your sovereignty over creation.