A.The creation account of Genesis 1 very carefully describes six days in which God made the physical world.Within that description, the Scripture reveals that God made all life in kinds that reproduce themselves.
B.In this lesson, let us consider the Bible’s unequivocal record concerning the days of creation and the kinds of life God created.
II.SIX DAYS OF CREATION
A.The word "day” (Heb. yowm) has different meanings in the various contexts of the Scriptures.
1.The term "day” is used in the Bible to describe a twenty-four hour period, the daytime (as opposed to nighttime), an era, a period of time for a particular event, and other familiar uses.This is not unlike the way we use the word "day” today.
2.For instance, notice Genesis 1:5 – "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
a.Day has two meanings in this one verse.The first use indicates the opposite of night, and the second use indicates a period of time defined by evening and morning.
b.There is no conflict in the two uses of this one term, for the context clearly reveals the two distinct meanings.
B.The context of Genesis 1 carefully explains the days of creation as periods of time defined by evening and morning.By this definition, we must understand that these days were ordinary, twenty-four hour days.
1.Each of the six days of creation is distinctly defined in terms of evening and morning, for six times the Scripture says, "There was evening and there was morning, a…day” (vv. 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31).
a.In these verses, the Hebrew word ereb means evening or night, and the Hebrew word boqer means morning or break of day.
b.Every other passage of Scripture that describes a day in these terms of morning and evening refers to events that happened within an ordinary, twenty-four hour day (Ex. 18:13; Lev. 6:20; Num. 9:15; Deut. 16:4).Genesis 1 is no exception.
2.The six days of creation and the seventh day of God’s rest became the basis for the days of Israel’s Sabbath laws and Passover Feasts (Ex. 16:26; 20:9-11; 23:12; 24:16; 31:15-17; 34:21; 35:2; Lev. 23:3; Deut. 5:13-15; 16:8).This is further evidence that the days of Genesis 1 were ordinary, twenty-four hour days.
C.The six days of creation present no problems for the faith of Bible-believing Christians (Heb. 11:3).The only controversy comes from those who want to reinterpret the Scriptures to conform to man’s wisdom.
1.Man’s wisdom requires billions of years to explain the slow evolution of life, the earth, the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars.This places man’s wisdom in conflict with the wisdom of God according to the creation account of Genesis 1.
2.Rather than choosing between God’s wisdom and man’s wisdom, many have attempted to blend them together by reinterpreting the six days of Genesis 1.Their attempts have failed.
a.One common compromise teaches that the days of Genesis refer to undetermined lengths of time amounting to billions of years (the "Day-Age Theory”).This notion is nonsense.
i.As we saw before, the days of creation are defined by evening and morning.These are not undetermined lengths of time but twenty-four hour periods.
ii.To support this redefinition of days, 2Peter 3:8 is often quoted.However, this verse is not a key to interpreting Genesis 1 or to redefining a day as one-thousand years, but rather it is simply a statement to show that God is not subject to time (see also Ps. 90:4).Even if this passage did define a day as one-thousand years, it still wouldn’t provide enough time for evolution to have taken place, for it would only explain 6,000 years and not billions of years.
iii.If a day in the creation account represented billions of years, then this would mean that plants, which were created on day three, existed for billions of years without the sun, which was created on day four.Obviously, this could not be.
iv.There is a great theological problem with the Day-Age Theory pertaining to the Bible doctrine of sin and death (Rom. 6:23a).We will look into this problem in the next lesson.
b.Another attempt at compromise is the "gap” theory, which teaches that the events of Genesis 1:1 were followed by a vast span of time in which a great catastrophe took place and then a period in which God reshaped the world.Nothing in Scripture even remotely supports this belief.
c.A very common belief is that all of Genesis 1 is allegorical and doesn’t correspond to anything specific at all.Some even believe this of the first eleven chapters of Genesis.However, the Scriptures do not allow for such a compromise.
i.There is nothing in Genesis 1 to suggest that the context is figurative or allegorical in any way.It is not the prerogative of the reader to reinterpret Scripture as allegories just to please himself (2Pet. 1:20-21).
ii.The events of Genesis 1-11 are upheld throughout the Scriptures, and Jesus even testified of the historicity of these events (Matt. 19:4; 24:37-38).Therefore, reality of these events affects not only these chapters but also the entire Bible.
3.For those who seek such compromises, it would be wise to heed the words of Elijah in 1King 18:21 – "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”The only difference is that we are not dealing with Baal but with Charles Darwin and the conventional wisdom of modern man.
III.KINDS AND MORE KINDS
A.The Bible says that God made plants and animals in kinds.
1.The word "kind” (Heb. miyn) is used in the Bible to describe categories of living things.
a.This word is used ten times in Genesis 1 to describe plants and animals, twice in connection with the flood to describe animals (Gen. 6:20; 7:14), and nine times in Leviticus 11 and four times in Deuteronomy 14 in connection with Israel’s dietary laws.
b.In Ezekiel 47:10, the word "kind” is used to describe varieties of fishes.
2.This means that in the beginning God did not make all of the varieties of plants and animals that we see today, but rather He made the kinds whose descendants have varied over time.
a.Adam did not name every variety of animal that we see today, but rather he named the kinds of animals that God made at creation (Gen. 2:19-20).
b.Noah did not collect every variety of animal that we see today, but rather he collected animals according to the kinds that existed at the time of the flood (Gen. 6:20; 7:14).
B.Understanding kinds is important when refuting the teachings of Darwinian evolution.
1.The theory of evolution teaches that all life has evolved from a common ancestor.
2.However, the Bible’s account of creation says that God made all life according to kinds from the beginning.The kinds have always been distinct, and one kind did not evolve from another.
3.Despite the common perception, scientific evidence supports the Bible’s explanation of life and disproves Darwinian evolution.
a.The Bible says that plants and animals were to reproduce after their kinds (Gen. 1:11-12, 20-25).Observation shows that variations occur within kinds from generation to generation, but living things reproduce only their own kind without exception (i.e., dogs make dogs, cats make cats, etc.).
b.Evolution says that over time plants and animals change into new kinds (such as a reptile producing a bird).This has never been observed and no evidence of this has been found.
c.The study of DNA, which is the acid containing genetic information in every living thing, supports the Bible’s creation account of life.
i.It finds that when living things reproduce new generations with new characteristics, those new generations have actually lost genetic information from their DNA.
ii.Evolution predicts that new generations with new characteristics should produce new information in their DNA, but this is not the case.
iii.Essentially, this means that God created each plant and animal kind with the genetic information and potential already built in to produce great variations in descending generations.In this way, the various kinds of life can adapt to various environments, but they never reproduce new or different kinds.
IV.CONCLUSION
A.The Genesis record is definitive about the days of creation and the kinds of life God created.
B.In all things, may our faith be founded on the Bible, for faith comes by hearing God’s word (Rom. 10:17).
