Sermon Tone Analysis

*Why Six Days? ~~ Genesis 1:31-2:3*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on August 12, 2007/

 

My father has shared his testimony about how he was an evolution teacher around the time I was born, and was surprised to be confronted by a young student named Theresa Brunk one day: “Mr.

Layton, you don’t have to believe in evolution.”

I’ve heard him often  talk about how he responded with mocking: “Don’t tell me, you’re one of the narrow-minded Christians who /actually/ believe God created the world in seven days?!”

 

Her respectful reply: “Oh no, Mr. Layton, the Bible says it only took God /six/ days.

You really should read the Bible and learn more about this.

My pastor believes in biblical creation and there’s a lot of wonderful and intelligent people who believe this, too.”

She had gently pointed that his sarcasm was mistaken; the Bible says it only took God /six /days to create the world, and he realized he needed to learn more about scripture before he rejected it.

Taking the challenge to examine the scientific evidence more closely, and trying unsuccessfully to reconcile Darwinism and scientific origins theories with Scripture, my dad by God’s grace as you know was saved by God and is being used by God to reach the Filipino Catholic and secular community with creation evangelism.

Ironically, here in America, in much of the /Christian/ community, people like Theresa and myself are the ones being mocked and  criticized by other Christians who see Young Earth Creationists[1] ( Y.E.C.) as a /hindrance/ to evangelism and ignorant of scientific “fact.”

My dad’s attitude as an agnostic scoffing at Theresa’s view of creation is a similar attitude many Christians hold towards six day creationists.

In efforts to find new interpretations to keep in step with changing evolutionary theories and dating schemes, modern evangelicals (including very conservative theologians and Bible teachers) have been largely attracted away from the historic recent creation[2] view towards various novel proposals of Old Earth Creationist[3] views (hereafter O.E.C.).

While the gap theory[4] and theistic evolution[5] no longer hold wide acceptance among 21st Century evangelicals, the framework hypothesis[6] has growing interest.

Most persuasive and popular of O.E.C. views is progressive creationism, or the day-age theory, which sees the creation “days” as sequential but long geological ages of creation.

Why Six Days?

Perhaps a more fundamental question is “was it six days?”

Does the Bible actually teach that God created the heavens and earth and everything in them during six actual days?

Where does it say that?

We all know what the /world /says, but what does the /Word /say?

Let’s let God weigh in.

Exodus 20:1-11 (NASB95)

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God …

… 8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

\\ 9 *“Six days you shall labor and do all your work*, \\ 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

\\ 11 “*For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day*; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

God says very plainly in verse 11 that the Lord made everything in six days, and whatever God says I believe.

The same author who wrote Genesis 1 also wrote this chapter, in fact these commandments were written by the finger of God Himself, so I don’t think we can say this is an unimportant discussion, as many Christians say.

I recognize many good born-again believers will disagree with what I’m going to teach today but … what else is new.

Truth is not a matter of majority vote or what’s popular – what we believe cannot be based on changing theories, it must be based on unchanging theology from an unchanging truth source – the unchanging Word of our unchanging God.

Our authority is never what the latest scholars say, it’s what does the Scripture say.

I hope you don’t believe things simply because famous or smart people hold the view, and I certainly don’t expect you to believe something just because I say it.

The word of Phil is irrelevant, but the Word of God is always relevant.

The Reformation had it right - /sola scriptura /– scripture alone is our authority.

If you hold to a different view, we can still be friends, but I hope you are willing to give a fair hearing to the biblical arguments for why I believe in a literal six day creation and why it’s important:

 

*G         God's statement in The Ten Commandments*

*E         Evening and morning language indicates normal days*

*N         Night and day are defined and contrasted in the 1st day*

*E         Every time numerals are used with /yom /in Hebrew, it means a normal day*

*S          Seasons and years (longer literal timeframes) are contrasted with “days”*

*I           Interpretation of Scripture as a whole supports a literal Genesis 1*

*S          Scientific theories have not disproven biblical creation*

 

“Why six days” is the title of this sermon, and it is a valid question.

Why didn’t God create the universe in a fraction of a second, as some of the church fathers wondered?

He certainly could have.

And certainly God /could have /created the universe slowly over 18 billion years, which is how old many teach the universe is.

Christians agree that God is omnipotent - the question though, is not what God /could have/ done, but what did God /say/ He did.

It seems to be that the reason God chose to take six days to create  was precisely because He wanted to establish a pattern for a work week of six days followed by a seventh day off.

God could have created instantly, but the language makes a clear connection and parallel with the six days plus Sabbath and the creation week.

Someone might ask: Is it important whether or not you believe God created everything in six actual days?

Let me ask another question: are the Ten Commandments important?

Is it important that we believe God speaks accurately, and is able to communicate clearly?

Look at verse 9 and compare to verse 11.

In Hebrew and in English and in context, God says that the reason you are to work six real days is that I really did my work on six days.

The reason you are to cease working each literal 7th day of the week is because I ceased work on the seventh day literally.

These verses teach this clearly.

The six days of man in verse 9 and of God in verse 11 is the same phrase in the Hebrew language and it equates the two and makes an inescapable connection with the normal week the Israelites experience.

The same verse that mentions “six days” also mentions the literal “Sabbath day.”

Certainly the original audience would have understood it this way, and God does not mislead or make mistakes or mis-communicate when He speaks.

Exodus 31:17 says the same thing again “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth” and it also commands us to work six days and then rest on the Sabbath day.

It is indisputable that the Sabbath day was understood by and observed by the Jews as a normal 24-hour period – the command is to observe an actual literal day, the seventh day, and /when the very same command/ says God made the heaven and earth in “six days” - how can we consistently say those days were not actual literal days as well?

Where is the textual or grammatical evidence in the language that “day” means day when there’s a seven before it, but not when there’s a six before it?

Honest O.E.C. sympathizers admit this is a compelling argument for recent creationism.[7]

If we were instead to assume creation actually took place over 18 billion years (as one famous Christian astronomer argues) then the fourth of the Ten Commandments could be rewritten to say something like “You shall work six days and rest on the seventh day … because I also did my work in 6,570,000,000,000 days[8] where I created everything very slowly, then rested on the seventh day, therefore you are to do the same every seventh day and week, but don’t wait so long to take a day off.”

Of course that’s not it; the literal parallel is exact and inescapable; the six days of a normal work-week followed by a 24-hour Sabbath rest is exegetically based on and dependent on God’s own pattern during the creation week.

The grammar is clear, /because/ God did all His work in six days and rested a full day, so should man.

No hermeneutical gymnastics can escape the plain meaning that would have been conveyed to Moses and the original audience, who would seek to literally apply this truth each week in full confidence that God had communicated historical reality to them rather than metaphors or poetry.

*E         Evening and morning language indicates normal days*

 

While Exodus 20:8-11 by itself would be decisive in my view because God explicitly said creation took place “in six days,” we can go back to Genesis 1 to see more reasons.

The immediate context provides further support for viewing the creation days normally.

All six day are divided, in the usual Hebrew style, qualified by “evening” and “morning,” constituting undoubtedly a Jewish nucqhmernon, or /night-and-day, /basically equivalent to the modern phrase “twenty-four hours.”[9]

This seems to follow the normal Jewish order of reckoning time where the day begins at nightfall.[10]

The grammar and syntax according to Hebrew scholars indicates normal “passage of time,” “initiation of normal ordinal series,” “literal, chronological days.”[11]

The Hebrew verb for sequential chronological action is consistently used and each day in Genesis 1 is marked with both evening and morning, which further indicates a normal day.

Some have argued that the seventh day never ended because the Genesis 2 narrative does not say it had an “evening” (and therefore “day” in Genesis 1 can equal thousands of years or more).

Using the same reasoning consistently, we could point out that its “morning” is not mentioned either, and therefore do we conclude the seventh day never /began/?

Actually, there’s a reason the seventh day has a little different wording, it was a special day, different than the others, and we’ll talk more about the seventh day and the Sabbath next time.

/ /

But some have used Hebrews 4 to teach that the seventh “day” from Genesis continues throughout human history.[12]

We will look at Hebrews 4 also in a future message, but the theological analogy of a “Sabbath-rest” that continues is different than an individual O.T. Sabbath /day,/[13]/ /which all Jews knew was 24 hours including evening and morning (Friday evening till daylight ends Saturday)  

 

The Bible says that God ceased from creative work (past tense completed action)[14] on that day in contrast to the other regular days, as the Ten Commandments makes clear (He /rested/, not “/is /resting).

God literally completed His creation on a literal seventh day, but of course we believe God continues to work in His Providence (John 5:16-17).

Hugh Ross inadvertently damages his own argumentation when he argues that the lack of “evening and morning” mentioned for the seventh day in Genesis 2 suggests it was longer than 24 hours[15] - consistency would then require him to view the days in Genesis 1 as only 24 hours since they /do /mention morning ~/ evening for each.[16]

/ /

Wayne Grudem is a more careful biblical scholar who leans toward O.E.C. views but he admits the evening and morning references are “a strong argument from context.”[17]

* *

*N         Night and day are defined and contrasted in the first day*

Genesis 1:5 is the first and defining passage as to what God means by “day” in this narrative, and it clearly calls the period of daylight “day” in contrast to the nighttime.

The second primary meaning of /yom /as including both evening and morning as a whole is also supported in the latter half of the verse.

Virtually every Hebrew dictionary or lexicon in print cites Genesis 1:5 as the best or first example of this primary meaning of 24 hours or less.

§  /The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew /cites verse 5a as containing an example of “daylight” as well as the end of the verse for “day, of 24 hours.”[18]

§  Another dictionary gives this as the only reference example for the meanings “day … about 24 hours (Ge 1:5) … 2. day, i.e., the period of time which has light (Ge 1:5).”[19]

§  This passage is cited in another lexicon under the basic meaning “day (of 24 hours) in the sense of astronomical or calendrical unit … Hebr.

has no terminological distinction between the day as daytime and the day as a calendrical unit.”[20]”

§  Another standard work cites Genesis 1:5 as example of meaning “daylight” as opposed to darkness and also “day in the sense of a complete cycle that includes both daytime and nighttime.”[21]

§  Another cites verse 5 as the first and foremost example of the primary definition “day.”[22]

§  The most authoritative lexicon also mentions this verse as the primary example of the meaning “day of twenty-four hours.”

[23]  

 

But more important than what man says it what God says – verse 5 makes very clear what God calls a day.

“Day” can be spoken of as daylight or the entire evening and morning cycle equals a full day.

But let’s just assume for a moment the day-age theory where the word “day” in Genesis 1 really means “a geological age of millions of years.”

Looking at Genesis 1:5, this view would give us the following preposterous translation: “And God called the light /a geological age of millions of years, /and the darkness he called night.

And there was evening and morning, one /geological age of millions of years/!”[24] 

 

O.E.C. cannot adequately answer this, but some change the subject and say days 1-3 can’t be “solar days” since the sun was created day 4