While denying the animate creation evolved from amoeba to man, some "non-institutional" brethren now teach that the inanimate creation evolved from a God-guided "Big Bang" over billions of years. They affirm that the earth came into being a few billion years later after a cooling and condensing process following the "Big Bang." They say the newly formed earth took a few billion more years to cool off, clear its atmosphere and reach "stability" (their choice of words, not mine).
They affirm that all of these natural changes over billions of years were necessary before the earth was ready for the next action by God. According to their view, God acted, then the earth took long periods to "stabilize" through changes explained more by naturalism than by miraculous power, and the process repeated for billions of years. These brethren also maintain that life was set in place intermittently over vast stretches of time rather than between days 3 and 6 as taught in Scripture (Gen. 1:9-31). Finally, after billions of years and much closer to our end of time than the beginning of creation, these brethren affirm that God created man.
The purpose of this article is to seek the divine commentary of God's word as it declares how God intended the creation account to be understood. Was it to be taken literally (as factual history) or non-literally (as a fictional, literary device)?
In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived a 130 years.
The fact that Adam and Eve were created on the same day is here affirmed. Two measures of time, "day" and "year," are used in the same context. Consistency demands the same rule apply to interpreting both. Was the day actually a long epoch or a literal day? Were the years a period of approximately 365 literal days or a collection of many epochs? Obviously, the literal sense of both "day" and "year" best fits the context.
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God... for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
This passage is also unambiguous. The inspired writer affirms it was not merely the living things of the earth that were created in six days, but also the heavens, the earth and the sea. How should "day" be defined in this passage? As millions or billions of years? The seven days of the beginning week are presented as parallel to the seven days of a normal week for the Israelites. The kind of "day" in which God acted in creation is the same kind of "day" He hallowed. Did God hallow a period of millions or billions of years as a figurative sabbath? No, He hallowed a regular, literal day -- the last in a series of seven consecutive, literal days. Without the creation narrative there is no explanation for the week as a measurement of time or the sabbath as a day of rest. Redefining the days of creation to mean millions of years undermines both of these teachings.
The only way Israel could have understood the creation account was as a sequential series of events occurring on literal, consecutive days. Any other view would have denied the inspired commentary of the creation account as given by Moses. If one "interprets" the days as non-sequential, non-consecutive and non-literal days, he does violence to the text and denies the plain statements of God. There simply is no room for the "Big Bang" theory in God's commentary of the creation account.
Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Jehovah: whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death... for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
Again, the beginning week is parallel as being the same in type and length as that experienced by Israel. Did it matter if they "interpreted" it as non-literal? Absolutely! An Israelite who interpreted the days as non-literal and failed to rest on the literal seventh day was put to death. The life of the original recipients depended upon a literal interpretation of the days under consideration.
By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap: He layeth up the deeps in store-houses. Let all the earth fear Jehovah: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.
God's power as manifested in creation is the focus of this passage. When God spoke, it was done and stood fast. How could this passage be harmonized with an interpretation of the creation account which holds that God spoke to begin a process that took millions or billions or years to "stabilize" into the form ultimately reached? It cannot! God commanded the creation of the world by speaking it into existence (Psa. 148:1-5). In affirming the creative power of the Son, He is called "the Word" -- not the Bang, but "the Word" (Jn. 1:1-3). Why? Because the world was created by means of Him speaking it into instantaneous existence in fully matured form. The passage gives a false confidence in the power of God's word if it took billions of years for the heavens and the earth to stabilize after God spoke.
Yet, some of our brethren now tell us that when God spoke into existence the heavens and the earth, He actually caused the "Big Bang" to take place 15 to 20 billion years ago which finally resulted in the formation of the earth some 4.5 billion years ago. The Psalmist said, "For He spake, and it was done: He commanded and it stood fast." Yet some brethren would have it read, "For He spake, and it was begun: He commanded and it started to stabilize." Can you see the difference between: He spoke "and it was DONE" and He spoke "and it was BEGUN"? If so, then you understand the difference between the Word of God and the word of men!
If we speak as the oracles of God, where do we find the passage that affirms the "Big Bang" (1 Pet. 4:11)? When one adds the "Big Bang" to the creation account, has he not gone onward beyond the doctrine of Christ and failed to bring the true doctrine (2 Jn. 9-11)?
For we who have believed do enter into that rest; even as he hath said, "As I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest:" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Clearly, the inspired writer of Hebrews agreed with the inspired psalmist in noting that the creative works of God were "finished from the foundation of the world." Such could not have been said if God began the work of creating the physical earth at the foundation of the world, but finally finished that work billions of years thereafter. There is a vast difference between "finished from the foundation of the world" and "finished after billions of years of uniformitarian evolution."
If our non-literal advocates are correct, man and woman were brought on the scene much closer to our end of time than the beginning. Again, the interpretation forced on the Bible by these brethren does not harmonize with other biblical references back to creation. Bert Thompson made the following point in commenting on the same passage:
In this context, there is additional information that should be considered as well. For example, concerning Adam and Eve, Jesus declared: "But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them" (Mark 10:6; cf. Matthew 19:4). Christ thus dates the first humans from the creation week. The Greek word for "beginning" is arche, and is used of "absolute, denoting the beginning of the world and of its history, the beginning of creation." The word in the Greek for "creation" is ktiseos, and denotes "the sum-total of what God has created" (Cremer [Biblico-Theological Dictionary of New Testament Greek], 1962, pp. 113, 114, 381, emp. in orig.). Unquestionably, then, Jesus placed the first humans at the dawn of creation. To reject this truth, one must contend that: (a) Christ knew the Universe was in existence billions of years before man, but, accommodating Himself to the ignorance of His age, deliberately misrepresented the situation; or (b) The Lord, living in pre-scientific times, was uninformed about the matter (despite the fact that He was there as Creator - Colossians 1:16). Either of these allegations is blasphemous (Thompson, Creation Compromises, 1995, p. 179).
Other passages could be noted, but these clearly show that biblical writers looking back on the creation account took it as a literal statement that God created heaven, earth and all therein in six literal, consecutive days at the very beginning of creation.