This post is directed more towards Bible believers who struggle with the Creation account and what they are confronted with in the secular world.
I believe the Bible is truth. I take it literally. I do not believe there are fairy tales inside the cover, but actual accounts of what happened over time. Because I believe in an all-powerful God, I believe He can do anything. Therefore, the stories in the Bible are proof of His power.
I’m taking the time to write this, because I know there are Christians who don’t completely support the Biblical account of Creation. There is so much in the world about the “proof” and “facts” of evolution that they don’t know what to believe. Again, I believe the Bible to be truth, so, just because others may not believe in the Bible does not make it less true. You may not want to believe in gravity….. but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still out there pulling you down! (Making those scales say you weigh a little more! Curse you gravity! But I digress…)
These good-meaning folks who believe in God, but struggle with the Creation account have developed a few theories. All of these theories have been made because of the Bible’s use of the word “day” in Genesis. When you listen to evolutionary accounts we live in a world that is billions of years old….so maybe that word “day” isn’t an actual 24-hour day?? Let’s break it down to see if the word “day” could mean something else:
There are several places in the Bible where the word “day” is used….
Six days of Creation
40 days and nights of the flood
40 days Jesus spent in the desert
On the third “day” Jesus was raised from the dead
YET, only one of these examples do people question how long the “day” is!
The Genesis creation story is the only place the word “day” causes us to scratch our head and ask God, “did you really mean just 24 hours?”
What is the definition of the word day?
DAY: (as per Merriam-Webster dictionary)
• The time of light between one night and the next
• The period of rotation of a planet (as earth) or a moon on its axis
• A mean solar day of 24 hours beginning at mean midnight
DAY: (as per the Bible definition)
• Gen 1:5 “God called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day”
• Gen 1:8 “God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening and there was morning, the second day”
• Gen 1:13 “And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day”
• Gen 1:19 “And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day”
• Gen 1:31 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day”
• And here’s another passage just in case you think the Bible might not mean a literal 24- hour day…. Exodus 20:8
• “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
To me, this is proof that when Genesis talks about “days” it is referring to the 24-hour day we know and love today. Also, let’s remember that an all-powerful God doesn’t need thousands of years to create – He can just speak and it is so.
As stated earlier, there are three main compromised theories of Creation. In all of them, they are attempting to put the theory of evolution into the Bible. Let’s break down why they still don’t work despite their attempts:
COMPROMISED THEORIES (3)
1) Long-Day Theory
o This theory takes 2 Peter 3:8 “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” and tries to say that each day in the creation story is 1000 years.
PROBLEMS:
o “Evening and morning” = a literal day as stated in the Bible
o If plants were created on DAY 3…they wouldn’t have received birds or insects until DAY 5 to be pollinated so….plants would have to wait 1000 years or more before pollination. No plant has that kind of time.
2) Gap Theory
o Supporters of the Gap theory claim that God created a complete “first creation” in Genesis 1:1 and a re-creation by Genesis 2:25
o This “first creation” may have lasted many - even billions of years
o During the fall of Satan, the “first creation” was destroyed and “the earth became without form”
PROBLEMS:
o This theory raises the question – “Why should God destroy a previous creation that He also states was GOOD?”
o The destruction of a previous creation would include death, but scripturally death cannot enter until SIN and ADAM
3) Theistic Evolution
o This theory mixes the Bible and biological evolution
o Theistic evolution claims to accept the accuracy of Scripture but takes the stand that God used evolution as a method of creating
PROBLEMS:
o Ignores literal reading Genesis 1
o Treats man as merely another product of biology evolution not a specific creation of God (and Psalms 139 is very clear how each of us is specifically knitted together by God in our mother’s womb).
o Violates Romans 5:12 which states death came as a result of Adam’s sin
o Limits the all-powerful God into using the forces of evolution to create different species
Now why are there Christians who do not believe the Bible literally? I think it is due to the inundation of media/pop culture concerning evolution. When I teach this series in Sunday school I often ask the students to just count how many times in TV, social media and news you hear about evolution. We are all affected by the power of suggestion (what do you think advertisers use on us every day?) Evolution is still a THEORY – which means it has YET to be proven as fact (and if you recall, according to true operational science, it never will be proven as fact). And yet, how many times is EVOLUTION talked about as if it is a FACT in other genres of our life?
I’d like to give you some more food for thought if you’ll hang with me….have you ever heard of the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? The story line is that there was a group of outlaws lead by a guy named Liberty Valance. He’s a really bad guy who causes a lot of trouble for a small western town. There are two men who oppose him. One man is well-liked and well-educated and the other man is a little harder-to-love and a bit more abrasive in his manner. A moment in the movie comes where the well-liked man is up against Liberty Valance in a shoot-out. When it is over, it appears that Liberty Valence is shot by this well-liked man and he ends up getting all the credit for his death. However, what you find out later was that the hard-to-love man is the one who actually shot Liberty Valence. He is the one who saved the day and the town, but he never got the credit. By the end of the movie more people know that the well-liked and well-educated man DID NOT shoot Liberty Valence but telling the story with him as the hero it makes for a better ending to this long told story. There is a scene in the movie where the editor of the local paper even states “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” There you have what is called the LIBERTY VALANCE EFFECT. I would submit to you that the Liberty Valence effect has taken place in regards to evolution.
Don’t kid yourself, the Devil would love nothing more than to get believers to question the Bible and non-believers to never open the Bible up. Being a believer of the Bible, I also think this passage of scripture holds true here: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12
Any time the Devil can cause a problem he’s going to capitalize on that moment. That’s what these alternate theories of Creation are – a way for the Devil to stir up problems.
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