It's always a good thing to understand how something works. When I first started driving tractors, it certainly didn't feel right to grind the gears. But I didn't understand why it was bad. Once I learned more about mechanics, my negative feeling was reinforced by my understand­ing that little bits of metal are get­ting shaved off the gears.

I want to do something similar with this article. I have always felt that an explanation that makes the days of creation indeterminate periods misunderstands the straight-forward account of Genesis 1. Now that I have learned more about Scripture and exegesis, I believe my previous feeling about the days of creation has been reinforced. This article is an attempt to explain from Genesis itself how long each day of creation was. Since discussion about what would be appropriate in the church's confession is ongo­ing, I have also made some remarks about that.

Two Defining Elements for "Day"⤒🔗

Most readers of this magazine will agree that God could have created the world in a split second or could have created it in mil­lions of years, if he so chose. How long did he take?

There are two basic ways in which the days of creation are defined in Gen. 1. The first defin­ing element is the phrase, "there was evening and morning," for each day. The second defining element is the adjective that accompanies each word "day," namely, "first, second, third," and so on. I will explain the second element before the first.

However, before we examine each of these defining elements, we need to realize that the first time the word "day" is used, it actually does not refer to a full calendar day.

12-hour "Daylight"←⤒🔗

The word "day" first occurs in  Gen. 1:5 and it is used twice in that verse, with two different meanings. Words get their mean­ing from their use and their con­text, and it is of great importance to note that with each use of "day" in Gen. 1:5 the immediate context is different.

The first use of "day" in Gen. 1:5 is for an approximately 12-hour period. "And God called the light 'day.'" (Note that God is creating language for man). I would call this the "daylight" (cf. John 11:9). That period of time when it is light is called "day" because "day" is the time for man to be active and work (cf. Ps. 104:23). When God has created the alter­nating darkness and light on the first day, he declares his work "good" because it is good with reference to the man he will create on the sixth day, enabling sleep and work. All of the creation account of Gen. 1:1-2:3 is written with a view to making the earth a suitable place for man to live and work and worship his God.

24-hour "Calendar Day"←⤒🔗

The second use of the word "day" in Gen. 1:5 is, "And there was evening and there was morn­ing, the first day." A similar state­ment concludes each of the six days of God's work. Each use of "day" in these statements is num­bered. I would call this a "calen­dar day." The accompanying num­ber helps define and limit the meaning of "day" in these con­cluding statements.

In Gen. 1:5 the second use of the word "day" has a different context than the first The first is a name for the "daylight" (see above), but the second is a name that includes the two changes in light condi­tions, both the evening and morn­ing (see below). Furthermore, this second use of "day" has a number in its immediate context. This number (e.g. first day), makes the word "day" the same as naming a day of the month. Compare Gen. 8:5, "The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible." ¹The "first day of the tenth month" was a 24-hour calendar day.

This example helps to show that when the word "day" is attached to a number, it indicates a differ­ently defined period of time than when it is used as a term for "light." The difference in meaning of the two occurrences of the word "day" in Gen. 1:5 is deter­mined by their respective immedi­ate contexts. The immediate con­text in verse 5a is "light" and the immediate context in verse 5b is "first" and "evening and morn­ing."

Today we measure time in hours, and for us there are 24 hours in each "calendar day" and approxi­mately 12 hours of "daylight." ²

Another Meaning of "Day" in Scripture←⤒🔗

Still a third use of "day" can be found elsewhere in Scripture. "Day" in Hebrew can indicate a more indefinite period of time.

For example, in Gen. 6:4 the word "days" is used to mean "time" and the specific time is loosely defined for the reader. The phrase is equivalent to "at that time." However — and this is important ­"day" is never used in this way in Gen. 1. The immediate context of each occurrence in Gen. 1 rules out this third meaning.

Evening and Morning:←⤒🔗

Besides the numbering, the other bask definition of the length of each creation day in Gen. 1 is: "there was evening and there was morning." Even before the sun and moon and stars were created, each day had two basic parts, for darkness and then light were each created on the first day (Gen. 1:1­5; cf. Job 38:9; Isaiah 45:7). ³  Some people try to imag­ine 'nothingness' as darkness. But nothingness is merely a philo­sophical attempt at turning noth­ing into something. Nothing is not imaginable; it simply is not. Furthermore, darkness is more than the absence of light (a purely negative definition). It is a sepa­rate thing that God created. Just as the light from day 1 up to 4 has no named source such as a sun, so too the darkness. People today still do not know of a "source" of darkness, but this does not make darkness eternal. The light-bearers of the fourth day only added more light and made the night less dark. Once God had created darkness and light, the change from one to the other, called evening and morning, could also take place. In Gen. 1:8, 13, 19, 23, 31, 'evening' refers to the change from light to darkness and 'morning' refers to the change from darkness to light. In Gen. 1:5b 'evening' refers to the absolute beginning of darkness, which God created before the light. God's order of creating dark­ness before light also explains why the word 'evening' is consis­tently put before 'morning' in Genesis 1:5b, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31.

We also read that God separated the light from the darkness. This wording underlines the fact that the darkness was created first, then light shone, and then God set a boundary for each one. He sepa­rated the second of these two cre­ated things (light) from the first (darkness).⁴  The con­tinued cycle of their alternation is highlighted on each of the follow­ing 5 days with the phrase, "and there was evening and there was morning," to assure us that what God put in place on the first day continues to function.

In the summary statement about each day of creation, God chose to use the words "evening" and "morning" rather than "night" and "day." Evening and morning are more dynamic words, in my view. They indicate the change from one state to another, that is, the change from light to darkness and from darkness to light. Night and day, however, are statics words, defin­ing periods of time, more than indicating a cycle. "Evening and morning," indicates that the cycle that was begun continues. Time has been put in place, so that one thing follows another. God him­self is upholding this structure, while he continues creating. The continuing cycle depends on the existence of time itself and requires the periods of "day" and "night."

When each day is viewed in the context of having another day after it, with that new day possess­ing its own evening and morning, it is clear that the terms evening and morning are meant to describe the two major changes that occur in a complete calendar day.

Also noteworthy is the fact that evening and morning in Genesis 1:5 are viewed as past events. There was evening and morning. The point is that one followed the other and hence a whole calendar day elapsed and was completed.

Two Additional Reasons for a 24-hour Day←⤒🔗

The fourth commandment bases our seven-day week upon God's seven-day week of creation (Ex. 20:11). God commands us to rest from our work every seventh day, precisely because he did so. God does not reason by analogy that as he worked for 6 periods of time and rested for one, so Israel must do. Rather, his basis is that because he rested on the seventh day and blessed that day, Israel must regard it as holy. The Sabbath in Israel was a 24-hour period, but if the days of creation were not 24 hours long, then the length of time Israel should rest is undetermined. Clearly, the week of creation establishes a norm for the way in which people and even animals (they are not to be put to work either) will spend their time. God created time; God can stipu­late the right use of time.

For a second reason, consider this: Methuselah came to be 969 years old. Or did he? If a day of creation was not a 24-hour day, then a week of creation (including Sabbath) was not a 168 hour week, and a week of Methuselah's life maybe wasn't 168 hours either. Maybe by the way we mark time he was actually only 120 years old or actually several thou­sands of years old. The point here made is that any explanation which regards the "day" which is mentioned in the concluding words of Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31 as an undefined period, also has to explain when the time of a calen­dar day came to be exactly what we experience now. Did it change on the fourth day, the seventh day, at the flood, when Joshua made the 'sun stand still,' or elsewhere? And the only basis for postulating this change must be exegetical.

The Church's Confession About the Length of Day:←⤒🔗

Each generation of Christians has to grapple with the issues of their 'day' in the light of Scripture. However, confessions of faith do not need to repeat every single teaching and fact of Scripture, or they would become a repeat of every word in the Bible. A confes­sion is meant to be summary that has at least three purposes, in my view. First, it is a summary which is helpful for understanding and teaching the doctrines of faith. Second, it is a testimony of faith which expresses the unity of faith among the members of Christ's church. Third, it is an expression of the doctrines of Scripture which, by its wording, excludes heretical explanations of Scripture (e.g. Nicene Creed "of one substance with the Father.").

In our time, a fuller confession about creation in general might be useful. Post-modern thinking is attacking language, universal truth, and agreed upon meaning, all of which derive from God's work of creation. Naturalistic sci­ence, which excludes God, is one of the main weapons of the devil's arsenal against our faith today. In other words, a confession about creation may be needed to exclude heretical explanations of Scripture.

A confession about creation is nothing new. The Westminster Standards, from A. D. 1647, make a statement of confession about the length of time God took to cre­ate. The Westminster Shorter Catechism confesses in QA 9,

What is the work of creation? The work of creation is God's making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.

Similarly, the Westminster Confession also confesses (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."

It seems pretty clear to me: When the Westminster "divines" drew up their confession and wrote "in the space of six days," they had in mind the way that they themselves experienced six calendar days, as a total of 144 hours. I once point­ed out this wording of the confes­sion to a Presbyterian who did not want to be tied to six 24-hour days of creation. His response was that just as he interpreted Gen. 1 dif­ferently, so he interpreted his con­fession differently. The writers of the confession did not put in the exact words "24-hours" and there­fore he felt free to interpret it in his own way.

 

Is this the way that we must also approach the Scriptures? Are we to say that if the exact terms we are looking for aren't there, we can't confess them? Surely no one would say that, for we do not find the words "substance" or "person" or "Trinity" in Scripture! Yet we are most certainly bound to acknowledge these terms when we explain the doctrine of God. Confessions are not parrots of Scripture, but summaries and explanations of Scripture. Thus the fact that the particular words "24-hours" are not in Gen. 1 is not in itself reason to reject confessing them.

I would have no problem binding myself to a wording such as, "approximately 24 hours" ⁵ or "of the same general duration of days in a convention­ally understood week," ⁶ or "the whole creation was accomplished in six days," ⁷ or "in the space of six days." Presbyterian churches already confess the latter.

Though the discussion point is different, the principle was the same when the Nicene Creed in A. D. 325 explained "only-begotten" as "not made" and as "of one sub­stance with the Father." Arius would repeat "only-begotten" over and over till he was tired, saying that he agreed with Scripture, but he would never explain the phrase like the Nicene Creed explained it, because he did not believe the Son was equal with the Father in deity. In the same way, people now can repeat the word "day" forever, but if they want to inject that word with a vague meaning or a mean­ing not found in Gen. 1, then the church may explain and, if neces­sary, confess what "day" means in the summary phrases in Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31 to guard against error.

I would have no problem with such a confession unless someone can show from the text of Scripture itself that the day in view in Gen. 1:5b, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31 is not approximately 24 hours long and that the week of creation was not approximately 168 hours long. I am not arguing that we must make such a confession, but if such a confession is desired, we could simply add a sentence to the Belgic Confession, article 12. (endnote 8).⁸The particular word­ing is, of course, a matter of dis­cussion. Our duty is to remain subservient to God's Word about his work.