"IN THE SPACE OF SIX
DAYS"
(To be read thoughtfully)
By Professor Robert L. Reymond
Knox
Theological Seminary
With the words, "in the space of six days," the
Westminster Confession of Faith, IV.i, and the
Westminster Catechisms,
Larger, Question 15, and
Shorter, Question 9, describe the length of time (for
that is what the word "space" means in these contexts) that God took to create
the original uninhabitable earth out of nothing (ex
nihilo), to bring the uninhabitable earth to a well-ordered,
habitable state for plant, animal, and human life, and to create the first man
and woman and place them in the Garden of Eden.
Much has been written about the length of these days of
creation, whether they were ordinary days of around twenty-four hours duration
("the prevailing view," writes Berkhof), long ages, some combination of days
and ages, ordinary days in which God simply revealed over a time span of six
days what he had done at creation over a much longer period of time (Bernard
Ramm), or simply a non-historical literary framework intended to serve as the
device whereby information about the divine activity in creation might be
presented in an aesthetically pleasing and helpful fashion and at the same time
highlight the Sabbath rest as man's eternal destiny (Arie Noordtzij). So much
has been written about this matter, in fact, that I hesitated to write even
this short article about it. But since the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)
is studying this matter at the present time I became emboldened to voice my
opinion on this topic in the hope that it will generate more light than heat.
The main exegetical argument behind these non-literal-day views
is that the Hebrew word for "day" (yom) is employed
in the Genesis account of creation itself (Genesis 1 and 2) with a variety of
nuances. For example, (1) in Genesis 1:5 God designates the light he had
created as yom in distinction from the darkness which
he designates as layelah; (2) in Genesis 1:14-18
yom occurs three times to denote "daylight" (that is,
the twelve-hour "morning" half of the ordinary day) over against nighttime
1; (3) in Genesis
2:4 the entire account of creation, that is, the activity of all six days, is
described as "the day [yom] that the Lord God made
the earth and the heavens"; and finally, of course, (4) throughout the Genesis
1 account each successively numbered yom (six in all
-- 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31) is said to be comprised of an "evening" and a
"morning." 2
Accordingly, long-day advocates urge, because it would have, for example,
required a great amount of time for the plants of the field created on day
three to grow after they had been watered by a mist from the earth (Gen 2:5),
for light from distant stars created on day four to reach the earth, and for
Adam on day six to study the nature of and, in the light of his research, to
give names to all the cattle, fowl, and other beasts of the earth (Gen
2:19-20), that the days of Genesis 1 were much more likely long ages than
ordinary days.
Now given the fact that it does not follow that just because
yom may have a variety of meanings that its most
likely meaning in a given context should be set aside for another meaning
without sufficient warrant, is the fact itself that
yom admittedly may be employed in different ways
really all that significant? Does not this fact simply alert the biblical
exegete that he must be careful to assess the meaning of each separate
occurrence of yom in its distinct context?
Is not the length of the days of Genesis 1, then, finally to be
determined by the exegetical/theological question of what is most likely Moses'
intended meaning of yom in Genesis 1 derived from a
broad consideration of the entirety of scripture teaching (analogia Scripturae)
on the matter?
I do not believe that another (or a lengthy) discussion on my
part will settle the issue, but for my part I can discern no reason, either
from Scripture or from the human sciences, for departing from the commonly held
view that the days of Genesis were ordinary days of around twenty-four hours in
length. 3 For it
may be observed with reference to the first example above that God describes
the entire first day of creation in the very terms ("light" and "darkness,"
"morning and evening") that we use today to describe an ordinary twenty-four
hour day; with reference to the second example it may be noted that
yom clearly intends primarily the "daylight" of an
ordinary twenty-four day; and with reference to the third example (the
occurrence of yom in Genesis 2:4), it may be
cautiously asserted that, while the singular yom
appears to denote the entire six-day period of
Genesis 1, it might be referring, in Moses' more
detailed and topically arranged Genesis 2 account of God's creative activity
pertaining specifically to man, only to the original
divine act of bringing the earth and heaven into existence out of nothing
(which occurred on day one) inasmuch as the word "generations"
(tholedoth) implies that a "history" will follow it
and then several other creative acts of God are actually topically noted in
Genesis 2 (see 2:5, 7, 9, 22). 4 Accordingly, I believe the following reasons
warrant the Reformed Christian to continue to espouse what Berkhof has labeled
the "prevailing view" of the days as literal days:
- With regard to the framework hypothesis (two parallel triads
of "days" which are not intended to be periods of time at all which culminate
in the Sabbath), I am reminded of J. Oliver Buswell, Jr.'s comment that the
alleged parallels between days one and four, two and five, and three and six
are like seeing faces in clouds: they are there only in the eyes of the
beholder and not plainly there at that; whether Moses intended these parallels
is entirely another matter. Moreover, the clear consecution of the six days, by
their very consecutive numbering, flies in the face of the proposed parallels.
While this hypothesis offers some interesting insights, I think the character
of the Hebrew of Genesis 1 disallows it, employing as the Hebrew does the waw
consecutive verb to describe narrational sequential events, the frequent use of
the sign of the accusative and the relative pronoun, as well as the stylistic
and syntactical rules of Hebrew narrative rather than Hebrew poetry. In sum,
the Hebrew gives every indication that Moses intended Genesis 1 and 2 to be
taken as straightforward historical narration of early earth history. (If one
wants a sample in this early part of Scripture of what Moses' poetry -- with
its parallelism of thought and fixed pairs -- would look like, he can consider
Genesis 4:23-24.)
- The word "day" (yom), in the
singular, dual, and plural, occurs some two thousand, two hundred, and
twenty-five times in the Old Testament with the overwhelming preponderance of
these occurrences designating the ordinary daily cycle. Normally, the
preponderate meaning of a term should be maintained unless contextual
considerations force one to another view. As Robert Lewis Dabney states with
respect to the meaning of yom in Genesis 1: "The
narrative [of Genesis 1] seems historical, and not symbolical; and hence the
strong initial presumption is, that all its parts are to be taken in their
obvious sense... The natural day is its [yom's]
literal and primary meaning. Now, it is apprehended that in construing any
document, while we are ready to adopt, at the demand of the context, the
derived or tropical meaning, we revert to the ordinary one, when no such demand
exists in the context." 5 I concur with Dabney; no such contextual demand
exists in Genesis 1.
- The recurring phrase, "and the evening and the morning [taken
together] constituted day one, etc." (1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), suggests as
much. The qualifying words, "evening" and "morning," attached here to each of
these recurring statements occur together outside of Genesis, by my reckoning,
in thirty-seven verses (e.g., Ex 18:13; 27:21). In each instance these words
are employed as descriptions of parts of an ordinary day.
- In the hundreds of other cases in the Old Testament where
yom stands in conjunction with the ordinals (first,
second, third, etc.), e.g., Exodus 12:15-16; 24:16; Leviticus 12:3, it never
means anything other than a normal, literal day.
- With the creation of the sun "to rule the day" and the moon
"to rule the night" occurring on the fourth day (Gen 1:16-18), days four
through six would almost certainly have been ordinary days. This would suggest
that the seventh would also have been an ordinary day.
6 All this would
suggest in turn, if we may assume that the earth was rotating on its axis at
that time, that days one through three would have been ordinary days as well
for there is no exegetical reason to assert that with the creation of the sun
and moon God sped up the rotation of the earth on its axis, thereby shortening
the days to twenty-four hour periods.
- In the six hundred and eight occurrences of the plural "days"
(yamim) in the Old Testament (see Ex 20: 11), their
referents are always ordinary days. "Ages" are never expressed by the plural
word yamim.
- Had Moses intended to express the idea of seven "ages" in
Genesis 1, there was a term ready at hand which he could have employed -- the
term 'olam which means "age" or "period of
indeterminate duration."
- The over-all impression left by such expressions as "God
said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" (1:3); "God said, 'Let there
be an expanse....' So God made the expanse.... And it was so" (1:6-7); "God
said, 'Let the water... be gathered to one place, and let dry land appear.' And
it was so" (1:9); "God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation....' And it was
so" (1:11); "God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse....' And it was so"
(1:14-15); "God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures....' And it was
so" (1.:24); and "God said, 'Let us make man....' So God created man" (1:26-27)
is that these results of God's creative fiats were immediate and direct. As
Psalm 33:6, 9 declares: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their
starry host by the breath of his mouth...For he spoke, and it came to be; he
commanded, and it stood firm."
- If we follow the analogia
Scripturae principle of hermeneutics enunciated in the
Westminster Confession of Faith, I.ix, to the effect
that "the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture
itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense
of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and
known by other places that speak more clearly," I would submit that the
"ordinary day" view has most to commend it since Moses grounds the commandment
regarding seventh-day Sabbath observance in the divine Exemplar's creative
activity and rest: "In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the
sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the
Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" (Ex 20:11; see also Ex 31:15-17
which asserts the same thing).
- In Matthew 19:4-5 Jesus connects both the creation and
marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 respectively back to the "in
the beginning" declaration of Genesis 1:1: "...at the beginning [ap
arches] the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For
this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
and the two will become one flesh.' " But could Jesus have made these
statements if he knew and believed that the
"beginning" to which he referred -- surely an allusion to Genesis l:l -- both
preceded and was separated in time from the creation of Adam in Genesis 1:27 by
long intervening ages covering millions, if not billions, of years" If he
believed that millions of years transpired between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis
1:27, is not the meaning of his simple statement "at the beginning" reduced
virtually to zero? In my opinion it is transparent that Jesus did not think the
"beginning" of Genesis 1:1 and the creation of Adam in Genesis 1:27 were
separated by such a long period of time. But he could have said these things
quite meaningfully if only a matter of six ordinary days separated the
"beginning" from the creation of man and if Adam and Eve were creatures only a
matter of hours old.
- In light of Westminster Confession of
Faith, XXI.vii, where it declares: "He hath particularly
appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which from
the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of
the week," WCF, IV.i, when it speaks of God creating
all things "in the space of six days," seems rather clearly to intend by its
phrase, "the space of six days," six ordinary days of approximately twenty-four
hours each.
- The "long age" advocate has no real explanation or reason to
offer for the necessity or desirability of his long ages. Moreover, one cannot
help but wonder whether one impulse behind the postulation of the days of
Genesis as long ages by some biblical scholars is the insistence of Lyellian
geologists and Darwinian evolutionists that the earth's fossil evidence clearly
shows that the earth had experienced long ages of animal dead BEFORE man ever
appeared on the planet. If so, then a clash immediately occurs over the issue
as to whether death was present in the world prior to Adam's sin. For according
to Scripture it was Adam's sin that introduced death not only into the human
race but also -- as a result of God's curse on the world for that sin -- the
existing "red in tooth and claw" condition into the animal world. According to
the Bible, then, the deaths of all the fossils would have occurred AFTER Adam's
fall. The scholar who says on the one hand that he is a Bible believer but on
the other that the fossil evidence indicates that death was in the world before
Adam's fall and that therefore the days of Genesis have to be long ages is
walking a precarious path indeed and should think long and hard about the
implications of his endorsement of the evolutionary interpretation of the
fossil evidence before he subscribes to it, for the two positions, quite
frankly, are irreconcilably contradictory.
- According to Rev. David W. Hall (PCA), based on his research
into their sermons and extra-confessional writings, the men of the Westminster
Assembly held, and intended to teach by their confessional expression, "in the
space [time span] of six days," that the days of Genesis 1 were six ordinary
days of approximately twenty-four hours each. If Hall's conclusion is correct
(and he has publicly asked on the floor of the PCA General Assembly for any
evidence that would prove his conclusion to be wrong; to date none has been
forthcoming), then any other interpretation of the creation days, on a strict
interpretation of the Westminster Confession of
Faith, would clearly be an exception to the teaching of the
Confession.
What about the examples given above of alleged activities of the
creation week which would have required a good deal more time than twenty-four
hours to accomplish, namely, the need for sufficient time (1) for the plants of
the field created on day three to grow after their watering by the mist that
went up from the earth (Gen 2:5-6), (2) for light travelling one hundred and
eighty-six thousand miles per second to reach the earth from the distant stars
created on day four, and (3) for Adam's study of the nature of and his giving
of names to all the cattle, fowl, and other beasts of the earth (Gen 2:19-20)?
I could say more, but since space is prohibitive it is enough to say about the
first example that Genesis 2:5-6 appears to describe the situation pertaining
to the region of the Garden of Eden and not to the earth at large; the
vegetation created on day three was already present and flourishing; about the
second example, that God not only created the distant stars of the heavens but
doubtless he also crated the rays of light between the earth and any star he
would have deemed it necessary for Adam to see; and about the third example,
that Adam did not have to go on a safari to hunt down and trap the creatures he
was to name (quite likely to be restricted also to the creatures in the Eden
area), for we are expressly informed that God brought them to Adam (2:19). And
Adam could have named them not individually but according to physical
categories, as God himself did. That is to say, with very little research or
expenditure of time he could have said, if the language he then spoke was
Hebrew (which, of course, it was not): "I will name the large dumb four-footed
creature [behemah; lit., "a large dumb four-footed
creature"], the creature that flies in the air [oph;
lit., "a flying thing"], the creature that swarms in the water
[sheretz; lit., "a swarming thing"], the creature
that crawls in the field [remes; lit., "a crawling
thing"], etc." And, I say again, he could have done all this with little
expenditure of time. After all, the divine purpose behind this exercise was not
to make Adam the "world's leading scientist" in these matters; it was to bring
home to him forcefully that the "helper corresponding to him" was not to be
found among any of these categories of "lesser" creatures since he and he alone
was 'adham, a "man" created in the image of God.
Moreover, it needs to be asserted, if we take the very idea of divine creation
seriously, that God originally created many, if not all, living things in a
state of maturity, that is, with the appearance of
age beyond their actual age, which things certainly
included Adam and Eve. In conclusion, I would urge that no action taken and no
creature created during the creation week would have
necessarily required long ages to bring about; they
could all have been created in six ordinary days -- just as Genesis 1 strongly
implies. Apart from such a necessity, Christian prudence would dictate that we
uphold and espouse the "prevailing view."
With regard to the question of what should a presbytery of the
PCA do when an ordinand appears before it who espouses another view of the days
of Genesis 1, I would urge that it should regard such a view as an exception to
the Westminster Confession of Faith but an exception
that does not overthrow the "system of doctrine" taught by the
Confession as long as the ordinand is willing to
affirm that Genesis 1 teaches both an original creation out of nothing and the
creation of man specifically by a direct act of God, and simply require the
ordinand neither to teach his opposing view to the churches he might pastor nor
-- as an application of his restriction to presbytery itself -- to vote against
such an approach by presbytery when the next ordinand comes along who espouses
another non-confessional view.
END NOTES
1
This meaning of yom is very likely the same meaning
as #1. Moreover, it should be noted that in the phrase in 1:14, "for days and
years," the plural yamim clearly intends to refer to
normal twenty-four hour days which make up the mentioned years. Here is one
indisputable occurrence of yom as a designation of an
ordinary twenty-four hour day in Genesis 1, and there may well be more such
occurrences in the account.
2
The meaning of these occurrences of yom are the very
occurrences which are under dispute. Therefore, their meaning may not
legitimately be used to support the long-day hypothesis.
3
One tires of hearing it said, as does Hugh Ross in The Fingerprint
of God, 2nd edition (Orange, Calif.: Promise, 1991), that "many
of the early church fathers and other biblical scholars interpreted the
creation days of Genesis 1 as long periods of time. The list includes...
Augustine, and later Aquinas to name a few" (141). Andrew Dickson White is much
closer to the truth when he states in his older work, A History of
the Warfare of Science with Theology (New York: D. Appleton,
1896), that "down to a period almost within living memory [1896], it was held,
virtually 'always, everywhere, and by all,' that the universe, as we now see
it, was created literally and directly by the voice or hands of the Almighty,
or by both -- out of nothing -- in an instant or in six days" (60). In fact,
Augustine did not hesitate to say repeatedly that God created the universe
ex nihilo and that the "days" of Genesis, as Ernan
McMullin summarizes Augustine's view in his Evolution and
Creation (Notre Dame: University Press, 1985), were "stages in
the angelic knowledge of creation," the "days" themselves occurring in "an
indivisible instant, so that all the kinds of things mentioned in Genesis were
really made simultaneously" (11-12). Augustine was even willing to say that
"from Adam to the flood there were 2,262 years according to the calculation
data in our versions of the Scripture" (The City of
God, Book 15, Chapter 20) -- hardly a chronology in keeping with
an evolutionary view of the origin of the universe. As for Aquinas, suffice it
to say that nowhere does he explicitly declare for the days as being ages. To
the contrary, he states: "The words one day are used
when day is first instituted, to denote that one day is made up of twenty-four
hours" (Summa Theologica, Question 74, Article 3).
While the great Protestant Reformers, Martin Luther and John
Calvin, espoused a literal creation ex nihilo, with
the days of Genesis to be construed as ordinary days, it is true, regrettably,
that later stalwarts of the faith such as Charles Hodge and Benjamin B.
Warfield were willing to allow for an interpretation of the days of Genesis 1
as periods of indefinite duration in the light of scientific evidence and even
to adjust the teaching of Scripture to conform to the "geological ages."
I would refer the reader to Jack P. Lewis, "The Days of
Creation: An Historical Survey of Interpretation,"
JETS 32/4 (December 1989) 433-55, for a brief but
thorough survey of what the church fathers said through the ages about the days
of Genesis 1.
4
Literally translated, Genesis 2:4 reads: "These are [the] generations of the
heavens and the earth in their being created [that is, when they were created],
in the day of the making of Yahweh God [that is, when Yahweh God made] earth
and heavens." It is entirely possible that this verse is intended as a grand
summary statement of all that follows it in chapter 2. My suggestion is simply
that, given the two facts that "generations"
(tholedhoth) implies that a "history" will follow it
and that some creative activity on God's part is later actually alluded to, it
may be that yom in 2:4b should be viewed as
referring only to God's original creation of heaven and earth out of nothing on
day one of Genesis 1.
5
Robert Lewis Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972 reprint), 254-55.
6
An oft-repeated argument for the days of Genesis 1 to be construed as long
periods of time is that, since the Biblical account does not employ for the
seventh day (the Sabbath) the concluding phrase, "and the evening and the
morning were the seventh day," the seventh day Sabbath must still be continuing
and as God's Sabbath rest will continue forever. This observation is then used
to suggest that the first six days may also have been long periods of time as
well.
I would suggest in response that because the divine activity on
the Sabbath day differed in character from that on the first six days (rest
over against work), a different concluding formula was appended to indicate not
only the end of the seventh day but also the conclusion of the creation week,
namely, "and by the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he
rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made" (my
translation). These words suggest an end of the seventh day as surely as the
words, "and the evening and the morning were the first day," do.
Moreover, since Adam's fall had to occur after day six since at
the end of day six God declared that everything that he had made was "very good
[tob me odh]," (Gen 1:31), it is difficult to see,
first, how God's activity could have been described as one of "rest" on the
seventh day, that is, the "rest" or "peace" expressed in the "joy and
satisfaction attendant upon" the consummation of his work (Geerhardus Vos,
Biblical Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988
reprint of 1948 edition], 139-40), (1) if on that seventh "long day" Adam fell
sometime before he became 130 years old (Gen 5:3), bringing the entire race
under divine condemnation, (2) if God had to search for Adam and then judged
him (Gen 3), and (3) if God is "always at his work to this very day" (John
5:17), and second, how God could have declared day seven in any sense a
"blessed" and "holy" day if all of man's history of sinning has occurred on it.
But if day seven came to an end just like the six days before it, with the fall
of Adam following day seven, and if the work to which Jesus refers in John 5:17
commenced after the Sabbath day of Genesis 2:1-3 then everything falls into
place.
The argument which urges that the seventh day of Genesis 2:1-3
is represented in Psalm 95:7-11 and Hebrews 4:3-6 as an open-ended (but finite)
day of rest has, to say the least, a tenuous base inasmuch as these passages
may just as easily have a different interpretation placed upon them, namely,
that the "rest" spoken of in them refers to the believer's
eschatological rest of which the Sabbath day rest is
the type (which latter fact, incidentally, is the reason why Christians should
observe the fourth commandment today: the Sabbath is the type of the rest yet
awaiting the people of God).
Editor's note: Dr. Robert L. Reymond is Professor of
Systematic Theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He
was formerly on the faculty at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author
of numerous books and articles, including the recently published A NEW
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. |
