There are a number of issues at stake if we accept anything but a straightforward view of the days of Genesis 1. Though Miller was not of an evolutionary view for the origin of natural life, his day-age theory for the superposition of different ages of each type of creature, paved the way for the advance of the idea that evolution could be harmonised with the Bible by saying that each day represented the development of different creatures (Macleod rightly shows that at the time Miller was opposed to this).

However any Day-Age theories can be shown not only to be no answer theologically, but to be no answer scientifically. Douglas Kelly’s excellent book “Creation and Change” is an example of a number of works which have shown that exegetically the day-age theory is untenable.

Exegesis of Genesis 1⤒🔗

Firstly such a position with long periods of time for each ‘day’ negates the text itself which has ‘evening and morning’ repeated 6 times in Genesis 1. All other uses of the word ‘yom’ in Scripture with ‘evening and morning’ always, without fail, mean a 24 hour day in Genesis as against the alternative meaning ‘day of the Lord’ (indefinite period of time) which is never associated with a numerical list or ‘evening and morning’.

Genesis 1 reads as historical Hebrew literature (not poetry). The characteristics of Hebrew poetry are parallelism and repetition. In his book “The Great Brain Robbery”, David C.C. Watson points this out by comparing Psalm 33 and Genesis 1. Psalm 33:6 reads, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” This is an example of parallelism and repetition which is quite absent from Genesis 1. That account is no poem. Rather, in a very matter-of-fact way, it is simply recorded, stage by stage, what God did.

The context of Genesis 1 demands that the word ‘day’ be a literal 24-hour period. The original word ‘yom’ in the Hebrew can mean a period of time but it is always obvious from the context. In Genesis 1:5 the word ‘day’ initially signifies the daylight hours and then, in the same verse, goes on to refer to the completion of the first day of creation, thus implying literal 24-hour periods. Many have argued that 2 Peter 3:8 (“...with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day...”) is justification for regarding the days as non-literal. But 2 Peter 3:8 does not say one day equals 1,000 years. Rather that with God time is of no consequence. The verses are in the context of teaching on the second coming of Christ. He is coming, but it may be in some thousands of years and not in days. The word ‘day’ here is still meaning a 24-hour period. As David C.C. Watson has aptly commented,

To toss 2 Peter 3:8 into the middle of Genesis 1 is about as sensible as to affirm that Matthew 27:63 means ‘After three thousand years I shall rise again’! 2 Peter 3:8 is best understood in the light of Psalm 90:4 “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night".

The most conclusive of all arguments concerning the days of Genesis 1 being literal 24-hour periods is to be found in Exodus 20:8-11. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy... For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day...” Although opponents of a six literal day creation assail many of the other arguments listed here, it is very rare that Exodus 20 is brought into their reasoning. Of course this is hardly surprising since it is impossible to force the word ‘day’ to mean a ‘period of time’ in the context of the fourth commandment. The creation ordinance, repeated by Moses in this passage, is that man is to keep every seventh 24-hour period — not every seventh week or century! It clearly states the reason — “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth” (where the word ‘made’ is ‘asah’ and is the same as that used in Genesis 1:31 — ‘God saw everything that He had made’ — and is widely used in the Genesis accounts for God’s creative acts. The other word ‘bara’ is reserved for God’s creation out of nothing as in Genesis 1:1.)

Theology←⤒🔗

Theologically the day-age theory does not fit the Old and New Testament teaching on the fall and subsequent redemption. As Donald Macleod rightly states “The Creator made the first man perfect”. However this means that he was perfect in a perfect world with no disease and suffering and not a hint of anything being out of place. One accepts that Miller was not arguing for evolutionary descent from primitive creatures in the rocks beneath (Miller’s work predated the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1856), but he was nevertheless arguing for long periods of death and destruction in the rock beneath Adam’s feet — albeit in Miller’s thinking extinct creatures from bygone ages. There lies the error. The scripture in Genesis 1:31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” is stated AFTER the 6 days of Creation. This clearly shows that any fossils, which are full of death and suffering (many creatures show evidence of disease apart from the examples of violent death), could not have existed at that point. Furthermore Romans 8:22 shows that the whole of creation groans waiting for the completion of man’s redemption — that comes when the saved in Christ receive their new resurrection bodies. Adam’s sin brought death on the human race and consequently on the whole of Creation. As Genesis 3 teaches, the curse came on the earth as a result of man’s sin. Theologically the day-age theory cannot fit with the Scriptural teaching of sin and redemption. Christ died to take the price of sin which is not only spiritual but physical death. Thus 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” shows that the physical resurrection of Christ and in the future all believers which follows the spiritual death (separation from God the Father) and physical death (separation of soul and body) taken by Christ on the Cross, reverses the equally momentous death that came by Adam’s sin. The death that Adam brought on the human race was spiritual (immediate loss of fellowship with God) and physical (when he died 930 years or so later) and followed his sin of taking a real fruit in a real garden of Eden which was a perfect fossil-free paradise. If 1 Corinthians 15 teaches the real physical resurrection to come, then one cannot escape the force of Paul’s argument that death and a marred creation came after Adam’s fall.

Science←⤒🔗

Lastly there are scientific problems with such a position. On Day 3 the plants were made. If this day were a long period of time, then light and heat for half a million years followed by cold and darkness for another half million years is a sure recipe for disaster. The inescapable conclusion from the 6 statements of evening and morning is that there was certainly a series of nights. Scripture also states that the sun, moon and stars were made on the 4th day which does not fit Miller’s argument of a slowly progressive creation. The position of the Creation of the celestial bodies in Genesis 1 is no accident, for it instructs us to realise that the whole creation is not to be interpreted naturally. Rather the whole week is supernatural with God providing the light on an encircling earth for the first 3 days, and undermining any idea that our world and universe is fundamentally governed by the first appearance of the sun and other stars. Scripture teaches that God made the world first — the implications for astronomy are discussed in John Byl’s recent book ‘God and Cosmos’ (Banner of Truth). He and other scientists who take a 6 literal day Creation view are no obscurantist’s and maintain that the Creation is a singular event which cannot be interpreted in terms of natural processes today. And even today it is still true (Hebrew 1:3) that were it not for the fact that God ‘upholds all things by the Word of His power’ all would collapse, as indeed Hebrew 1:11 and 2 Peter 3:7 teaches it will do.

Furthermore the science of a worldwide Flood is completely consistent with the fossil record. Right through the fossil record are fossils of both extinct creatures and those like today, sometimes in the same strata. The fish found in the old red sandstone of Scotland were not so different to fish today. Some were exactly the same as those today. The sedimentary geology of Scotland and around the world bears testimony to the geological power not ‘of the vestiges of an antique past’ but of recent events 4,500 years ago. Indeed some strata can only be explained by catastrophic deposition. For instance the coal seams all over the world, in places miles thick, are formed from vegetation, but the high rank coal that is often found in these seams can only be explained by catastrophic deposition, since high rank coal needs oxygen exclusion of the vegetation which would otherwise only form a low grade peat. Other evidence of polystrate fossil trees running right across strata again indicate rapid deposition and burial — all consistent with a worldwide Flood and which we have no excuse not to believe in. The rocks all around us testify to this, and we do well to heed, for God states (2 Peter 3) that the same Word that brought in the ferocity of worldwide judgement at the flood, will usher in the last days when every knee shall bow before the Creator and Judge — none other than our Saviour in all His glory.

As a Bible believing Christian working in the scientific community I find no problem in simply sticking to what the Scripture actually says. In the end it is the authority of Scripture which is at stake if we try to say that Genesis 1 means anything other than the straightforward. As the little girl said “Mommy, if God did not mean what He said, then why didn’t He say what He meant?” If Scripture needs a fleet of theologians to be understood on the first few pages, then where does one stop and begin to just read and believe it? Scripture was written primarily to be simply accepted and believed (Luke 16:31). Scripture needs no extra interpreter — it is its own interpreter.