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Polyps:
Strongs:

Seven Days And Not Seven Ages

It is not apparent from the genesis account of creation that every day in the text is truly a 24 hour period. This page does not dispute that they could be. Rather this page states that on the basis of the common interpretation of the account referring to each day as an epoch of creation is false. In comparing it to the text we assume that both camps of the six days being six epochs, or six 24-hour periods are "wrong" - but only as wrong as each other.

Consider this simple table of the order science ascribes to creation and the order the more common interpretation of the biblical account supplies.

Order of Evolution

Order of Creation

spacetime

spacetime

sun / stars

solar system

solar system / moon

plants

plants

sun/moon/stars

fish

fish / whales

dinosaurs

birds

birds

mammals/insects etc

mammals

man

monkey men

 

men

 

Clearly if these were six epochs we could not have plants existing before sunlight. Neither could the vast majority of birds exist without insects or small mammals. If the biblical account does not hold we would have to throw it out (our interpretation of it.), but not for the theory of evolution. We do not worship science, we worship God.

So if we rely on six 24 hour periods we must clearly state that the order does not account for the presence of dinosaurs in the fossil record unless we imagine the earth created with them already in situ. Likewise in favour of the interpreation plants and birds could survive for 24 hours without sunlight and insects respectively. The reason why I reject this more traditionally fundamental interpretation of the account is that it neither accounts for the fossil record, placing a conundrum for creationists as if God were the "author of confusion". (Which from the account's interpretation in the previous section, He has clearly indicated that He created fossils deliberately as well!)

So, my interpretation of six "evenings and mornings" rather than six 24 hour periods is in view again. The text does not say that this evening and morning were 24 hour periods,.. but rather God created the universe and all in it in these six "days", and that this "evening and morning" were the definition for what are the first days, and the time we have in creation is a separate concept. (As God created the universe "from outside" and also "in the beginning") These are clearly the first six days of the creation as from the very beginning, so arguments of "What did God do before creation?" is mute. The answer is "In the beginning God created,..."

The six days of creation relate to the creation of the universe, and we simply do not understand that if God is "from everlasting to everlasting", He does so at His own will, whether in time or outside of time - if He is outside of time but creation is not; "everlasting" still has no need for "before creation" If God Himself existed at such a time. God could move creation back to His beginning if He so wished, without violating the concept of "everlasting".

The six days of creation as outside of our spacetime are simply defined as "days" rather than fulfilling the definition of 24 hours: The earth itself may have been created in only six moments, but the analogy for us is that the seventh day God rested, and we likewise have a similar rest. God's creation is complete and stands upon its apparent past, He has no more need to create in it: We, have a finished work in the ministry of Jesus Christ that will never be undone. We may rest upon that, and Jesus Christ for whom the creation was made is our sabbath.

The seven day week is an honouring of Christ for whom the world was created. It is a physical shadow of the spiritual rock found in Christ. There is no direct biblical link that the six days of creation are 24 hour periods either. At the end of each physical (chronological) day we rest and sleep and the world appears to us again in the morning, In similar fashion each day of creation results in a "test" of what is made, whether (or not, but then that would not be the case) it continues on without motivation from God. God periodically rested and then took a step back to look at His work: When we awake we have to take up our work again, of course we are not ideally to do so on the sabbath! (Then, we shouldn't add the invention of our own gospel to the true gospel either?)


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