Hi 4760,
Well, imagine my meeting you here on this very subject. On the other board that you posted about 'replenishing' the earth I was going to throw in that what most people who read the Scriptures stumble over is the account that God has given of the 'time' of the creation. Lo and behold, here you are and you seem to believe God's word. You'll get a big encouragement from me.
Just to give you a bit of the other side of the discussion. It's not only possible, but according to God's word it is the truth. Many who claim the name of Christ agree that the creation was a miracle. However, then they try to accept the understanding of science to 'explain' that miracle. Not seeing the total futility of such a position. If it could be explained it wouldn't be a miracle. So what they do is cling to the miracle part, but push it further and further back in time.
For me, and yes I speak only for the understanding of God's word that I have, but feel confident that I have the Holy Spirit providing me the truth of all things that Jesus said he would give to those in whom he indwells, I find a perfectly logical reason that God had His Spirit to cause to be written: ...there was evening and morning the first day, and not ...there was the first day.
God knows the beginning from the end. He knew 6,000 years ago that somewhere about 5,000 years out men would be having real struggles with this miraculous 6 literal day creation account. So, He wasn't satisfied just to say, '...there was the first day.' He further defined each day as having an evening and a morning.
So, let's look at all the possibilities that others who read the Scriptures claim about these days.
There is a camp that says, "Well, the word 'yom', which is the Hebrew word translated as day, can also be used to define an age or eon." Yes, yes it can. There is plenty of proof that the word, just as many english words, has various intention of meaning based on context.
Someone might say, "There's a pipe." Now, we would have to find further context to know whether they are intending, "there's a piece of round hollow metal or plastic through which material might flow" or they were intending, "there's the instrument in which we pack tobacco and light and puff on." Similarly, I believe that
God has added a piece of context to the account of the creation so that we are not misled by the various intended meanings of the word 'yom'.
He described each day as consisting of an evening and a morning. That's not how we think of or define ages or eons. They certainly have beginnings and endings and one might say that there was the 'dawn' of an age. But no one has ever said there was an evening and a morning of the first age. Further, in speaking of beginnings and endings of ages or eons we would never put the evening, the end of the age or eon, before the morning.
Then there is the camp that says, "Well, God doesn't measure time as we do and he even says in His word that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day." Yes, yes he does. But let's consider even when God sees a day as like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, each one of those days has an evening and morning. So, I don't think it careful study to tie this passage of how God is outside of our understanding of time with our thinking that this word 'yom' might mean a period of a thousand years or any other great number of years, when the day is further defined as having an evening and a morning.
Then there are those who ridicule that there couldn't possibly be a day before the sun and moon were created. These are the most laughable because they obviously understand nothing about what the definition of a day is. A day is merely one rotation of a planet. If you look through the encyclopdia or wikipedia and pull up one of the other planets in our solar system you'll find: length of day. Guess how that's determined? They don't figure out when the sun crosses the horizon and in the case of many planets there are multiple moons and yet none of this has any effect on the determination of the length of that planet's day. A day is merely one complete rotation of the planet. Whether it's the earth, saturn, mars or jupiter, etc. Therefore, if God when He spoke the earth into existence caused it to be a spinning body suspended in the blackness of space, there would be the passage of a day, according to how a day is techically detemined, in approximately 24 hours.
"Well," they say, "there couldn't possibly be a morning and an evening without the sun and moon." Try this test. Go into Walmart tomorrow at 3 am and see if the door greeter doesn't call out, "Good morning." Yet, there won't be any sun out. As a matter of fact the moon will still be out. How can it be morning? Evening and morning is merely the way God has divided a day into two halves. We even still keep time by that understanding. AM starts after midnight even though there is not a glimmer of the sun in the sky. PM starts after noon and there's no sign of the moon. It's actually the brightest time of the day with the sun in the sky. But if you take all the hours accounted in the AM (morning) and add them to all the hours accounted in the PM (evening), guess what?
No, evening and morning are merely half divisions of a day. And because that's what they are, God, in His marvelous wisdom caused the Holy Spirit to include in the account of the days of creation, ...and there was evening and there was morning the first day. Just so, those who might question the word 'yom' and it's intended meaning would be able to understand it in context.
Then we come to the sixth day in which Adam was created and God then follows that up with a list of the geneologies with number of years of life and years till the birth of a child and then follows up with same data for that child. It's an easy mathematical calculation that tells us that the age of the creation when the flood came upon the earth, also a miracle of God that many of these same naysayers deny as to it's explanation of covering the whole earth, as about 1600 years. We find the years of the descendents from Adam to Noah as 1056 years and the Scriptures tell us that Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters came upon the earth. Calculation 1,656 years. It's really quite simple.
From there God gives us another geneology that carries us to Abram and then from Abram it gets just a bit tougher, but now we begin to find extrabiblical accounts that verify certain dates. Friend, God is very, very wise. He is wise enough to answer our questions before we even think to ask them. God desires that we know the truth. He wants us to understand how powerful and awesome and creative and loving He is because His purpose in all of this is to reach the fulfillment found in the last chapters of the Revelation. The last chapters of the Revelation reveal to us that in both the heavenly realm of angels and the earthly realm of men a day is coming when God will stand from His throne and declare "Enough! Son, go get your children." And He will rid the heavens and the earth of all rebellion and sin and create the new city of God where we will forever and ever and ever and ever more be His children and He will be our God.
The Scriptures, to me, seem to clearly detail that the creation is only about 6,000 years old, which curiously also matches up with the Jewish count of years even in their present day calandar. And the Scriptures seem to clearly describe that the earth was the first body of matter in the expanse of space and three days later God littered the sky with the stars and other heavenly bodies. However, all of this must depend on the faith that the creation is a special creation of a God with such might and power who created all of this realm with a purpose, not just some god who happened to have some idle time on his hands some trillions of years ago and tinkered and figured and allowed nature to be the guiding force of whatever creation would ultimately turn out to be.
No!! Not at all. God created this realm of existence with a clarity of purpose that was perfect in completeness on the sixth rotation of the planet 'earth' and then God rested. He began the work with the forethought intention that He was making a place where a special creation of living creature, lower than the angels, could live. He was building a home with an atmosphere of oxygen and plant and animal life and a universe that would allow for this special creature to live forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
Yes, it's absolutely possible and not only possible, but I firmly believe the truth regarding the age of this creation and how it came about.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
