Within the last year or two discussion in both continental Reformed and Presbyterian circles has occurred in church papers and in church assemblies over the nature of the days of the creation week, particularly their length. This is not a new discussion, to be sure, but it appears that the subject has gen­erated new interest. Some of the discussion has shed more light, while some of it has generated more heat. This article will simply set forth a brief case for why this writer under­stands the days of Genesis one to be depicted in the Bible as real and ordinary days in terms of their length, though they be extraordinary because of what happened on them. It will then briefly note some of the dynamics of the context of the discus­sion.

At the beginning, let me issue a caveat, or warning, to the reader. In address­ing the question of what the nature of the days of Genesis one was, we do not yet answer at all the question of the age of the earth. That is, strictly speaking, another topic. Nor does this brief article take up the ques­tion of evolution (theistic or other­wise). This writer rejects as unscriptural any theory of macro-evolution. Some (not all) who hold to a framework hypothesis understanding of Genesis one also repudiate the theory of evolution. But that too, strictly speaking, is another topic.

What is the nature of the days of the creation week? Does the word day represent a long period of time (an age of, say, millions or billions of years)? Does it mean a period of 24-hours, nothing more and nothing less, as we experience that today? Or, is the creation week of six days of work and the seventh day of rest merely a liter­ary, quasi-poetic account of the beginning and therefore not at all revelatory of how the world began?

An exhaustive discussion of every question involved in this topic goes beyond the primary concerns of this article. However, this writer takes the position that the days of Genesis one are to be understood not as long periods of time ("ages") since the original language has devices for express­ing long periods of time, and those vocabulary devices are not used in Genesis one. This writer under­stands that the days of Genesis one are ordinary days of alternat­ing evenings and mornings, real periods of time that succeeded each other in the very beginning when God created His kingdom. Even many scholars who do not believe that the days of Genesis are real and ordinary days will admit that the text, on any surface reading, conveys the impression to the reader that these are real and ordinary days. In other words, the "plain sense reading" clearly pushes the reader to the conclu­sion: the days of Genesis one are normal days.

Six Supports⤒🔗

But there are more reasons that may be adduced in support of this reading. Read Exodus 20:11 and 31:17, for example. Scripture reminds us that God created the world and all that is in it in the space-time period of six days, with the seventh day being set aside as the day of rest. Of course, the primary analogy being set forth here is the six plus one pat­tern that defines the human week not primarily the length of the Genesis one days. However, if the days of Genesis one have no anal­ogy to the days of the week as we experience the week, then God is drawing an analogy to something that, in effect, never happened. This would be a strange reading of the fourth commandment indeed!

Secondly, an argument occasion­ally heard is that to God a day is a thousand years. But that is not an accurate reading of the text of 2 Peter 3:8 (cf. Psalm 90:4). It says that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Notice the comparative word as. It reveals to us again (as if we need to be reminded of this fact) that our sovereign King is above all limita­tions and restrictions that time may impose upon us as creatures. God created time, He controls all time, He is involved with us in time, but He is not restricted by time. God does not wear a wrist­watch, nor is He constrained by human calendars! "His purpose will ripen fast, unfolding every hour." He can do whatever He wills in a split second, or He can work out His plan over many mil­lennia. But it was His good pleas­ure to create all things in the space of six days, ordinary space-time days of successive evenings and mornings, 2 Peter 3:8 is not giv­ing us a definition nor an explana­tion of what the word day means in Genesis one.

Thirdly, it must be admitted that the word "day" (yom in the origi­nal language) can have other meanings, even within Genesis one. Elsewhere in the Old Testament the "day of the LORD" phrase, so common in the prophets, takes us beyond a strict­ly 24-hour period. Genesis 1:5 (cf. verses 14, 16, 18) even draws our attention to two usages of the word. The light by itself is called "day", while the evening and the morning constitute the period we know as a "day." Of course, even the English language uses the same distinction. So, the reader must be sensitive to context and to the usage of a word within that context. Our concern at this point is the usage of the word day that concludes the description of each successive period of creational activity.

Fourthly, each of the six creation days has a numerical adjective before it ("second," "third," etc.). By analogy with other portions of scripture (for example, Numbers 7:12-87; Zech. 14:7), when such a construction is used, the days are understood to be ordinary days. More than that, the plain reading of the text is that the days of the creation week are immediately consecutive, i.e., they followed each other in the order revealed in Genesis one.

Fifthly, the text of Genesis one defines these days as "evening ... and ... morning." This restricts the understanding of what a day is. Obviously, Genesis was not written at the North or South poles, where an evening or morn­ing can be quite long at certain times of the year! Genesis was written by Moses, whose feet stood on the ground of the ancient Near East. A day is composed of an evening period (darkness), followed by the period of the morning (daylight). In Daniel 8:26 there is the reference to evenings and mornings (in connection with sacrifice), and these are clearly understood as normal days. In the strict sense of the word, the first three days are not solar (i.e., of the sun) since the sun and other heav­enly bodies are not created and placed in the sky until the fourth day. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the text of Scripture to suggest that the first three days of creation are of any fundamentally different character than the last three days of the creation week.

Finally, the references to "sea­sons", "days," and "years" in Genesis 1:14 point to units of time measurement that were under­stood and were well known by the reader. As mentioned above, the plural form here for "day" points to the meaning of "day" as that of a normal, ordinary day. Certainly, those "days" in verse 14 are not the same things as the seasons and years referred to in the same verse. When the plural "days" is used elsewhere in the Old Testament, the understanding is that they are normal, ordinary periods of time we recognize as days. One cannot, on the basis of the inspired text, read the under­standing of "day-age" into the word day as that is used in Genesis one.

The points noted above, when put together, have an accumula­tive effect. They point us in the direction of understanding the cre­ation week as being six, ordinary days, in immediate succession to each other, days in which God separated the parts of the earth into their respective portions and then populated those separate por­tions with the creatures that make up His royal realm.

A Reformed, Christian reader of the Bible does not ignore scientif­ic discoveries and the discussions thereof. But the arguments offered above have set forth a case that is based upon the Scriptural text as it is compared with Scriptural text. This is the heritage of Reformed Christianity, championed not only in the time of the Reformation, but a heritage that goes back to the early period of the Christian church. Beyond that, we can trace that manner of reading to the way in which our Lord and the apostles used the revealed Word of God to establish the points they were making (i.e., "it is written").

Support in Church History←⤒🔗

As far as the Reformers were concerned, Martin Luther in his comments upon the text of Genesis says that, "I hold that Moses spoke literally and not fig­uratively or allegorically, telling us that the world with all its crea­tures was made within six days, just as the words read." Luther, although he still could allegorize at points in explaining Scripture, is striving to read the text in the plain sense, "just as the words read." Calvin also in his remarks upon the creation week says the following: "Let us rather conclude that God Himself took the space of six days, for the purpose of accommodating His works to the capacity of men." Such under­standing — even phraseology — entered into the Westminster Confession of Faith when it says (IV.I):  "It pleased God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, for the mani­festation of the glory of His eter­nal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good."

There are those who see Genesis 1:1ff merely as a literary panel. They come to this conclusion from at least one of two directions (not always mutually exclusive, but certainly distinguishable), one from science and another from Scriptural text. Some say that "the assured results" of science tell us that the world, the stars, and all living creatures could not have come into being at the instant God gave His word. Others would argue that the account of creation as given in Genesis 2:4ff is histor­ical, while Genesis one has only a theological, perhaps polemical, point to make. In other words, they say, there may be exegetical (textual) reasons for seeing Genesis one as not literal, although it is still very important for what it reveals about God's sovereignty in creation. Others might hold that Genesis one is poetic, a lyrical account of God's creative activity.

But does a plain reading lead one to think of Genesis one as poetry? There are certainly literary patterns in evidence in Genesis one, and these repetitions are clearly noticed. Not every creation day has every one of these elements, but many of the days do contain them in the text's account:

1. God's speech: "And God said."
2. The results of that speech: "God made ... and it was so."
3. God names what He has made: "And He called..."
4. God evaluates what He made: "God saw that it was good."
5. The "evening and morning" formula, marking the transitions from one day to the next day.

Theological points are still being made in this, to be sure. Genesis one is not written in classic poetic style, but neither is it a flat, two-dimensional reporting of "just the facts." Reality, which is always God-defined and God-revealing (cf. Romans 1:18ff), is its own best apologetic, and that reality is seen correctly and more fully in the light of Scriptures, the Word of the only One who was there "in the beginning" and who, in His accommodation to our spiritual ignorance, has told us in His Word what He did in the space of six, creative days.

E.J. Young makes an interesting comment in his book, In the Beginning: Genesis 1-3 and the Authority of Scripture (p. 43): "One matter that Christians like to talk about is the length of these days. It is not too profitable to do so, for the simple reason that God has not revealed sufficient for us to say very much about it." But this statement must not be taken out of context. Young goes on to say the following as well: "I cer­tainly believe that the framework given here is that of six days fol­lowed by a seventh. I cannot accept the so-called framework hypothesis, which maintains that there are six pictures of creation, and that they sustain no chrono­logical relationship to one another. That is a very easy way out of the difficulty, but I think it is unsup­portable." Young sees these days as historically real days (not long ages), and they are chronological­ly sequential to each other.

In all of our discussions of the nature of the days, we must never forget the extraordinary things that happened in that first week of the world. God speaks, He forms, He shapes, and He sets everything in its proper place. There has never been anything like this before that week (how could there be?), and nothing like it has ever happened since then. Our thinking about the days of creation must say nothing less than what Scripture says, and at the same time, we must be very careful about saying more than what Scripture says. Genesis one is about the creation of the Kingdom of God and of all things in the space of six days, all of it good, and all life made "according to its kind." God's creative week is pre­cisely the model for human time of six days labor and a day of rest and refreshment. These are extraordinary things that must take us beyond simply discussing and thinking. Genesis one shapes our life and defines our purpose in life, especially now as that life is made coherent in Jesus Christ (cf. Colossians 1:15ff). Genesis one reveals God's extraordinary events in the ordinary days of the creation week. And to this God we must submit our thinking, our interpreting, and our living.