Questions about Genesis

The question is raised as to whether the days of Genesis 1 are to be understood in a literal sense or figuratively as indicating immense periods of time, and it has provoked much discussion, as neither interpretation of the word is free from difficulties. For ourselves, we believe it is to be understood literally. The figurative sense occurs in Scripture — "man's day," "the day of salvation," etc. But this sense is most evidently a secondary one and the literal sense is the primary. In our judgment this fact alone is pretty decisive. We must have the primary meaning established before we can arrive at any secondary meaning at all, and Genesis 1 deals with primary things. When we reach Isaiah's prophecy we get "the day of the Lord," but even that, though not a day of 24 hours is not a long period of time. The repetition of "the evening and the morning" fits in with the primary meaning, and would have very little meaning in the secondary sense. Further, in verse 16, where the sun is made to rule the day and the moon to rule the night, we do not see how the primary sense can be avoided.

I believe myself that they were six days of twenty-four hours each, having no scripture reason against it.

When that moment comes, Scripture speaks of days, — "and the evening and the morning were the first day." I believe these days were days of twenty-four hours. How simple and perfect is God's tale of creation! He first of all created, in the beginning, the heavens and the earth; and secondly, at a date which we can measure, reformed and fashioned the earth, and then put man on it. He did not create the world in six days, nor does Scripture say so. Careless readers have done that. A joiner might fashion a table, but he could not create the material. The creation of the wood and the making of the table are totally different things.

If we now glance at the six days, we see that first of all God brings in Light. That is what you all want. You must get light. Every man needs it, and it is a wonderful moment in a man's history when God says to him, "Let there be light." Has it ever come in your history? Has God said about your darkened soul, "Let there be light"? Well, light came. The second day He discloses heaven. That, I think, is very nice, — He did that before He touched the earth. Earth was not designed to be man's eternal resting-place, but heaven may be yours and mine through the precious blood of Jesus. The seas are next divided from each other; and the vegetable kingdom comes into existence on the third day. The sun, moon, and stars — the powers that were to rule on earth — were next seen, on the fourth day; and on the fifth day you get a part of the animal kingdom — fish and fowl — created by the simple fiat of God. On the sixth day, another side of the animal kingdom — the beasts of the field — come into notice, as we hear God say, in the 24th verse, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing." On the sixth day we get God's statement about man's genesis. And now, if you have any doubts about your origin, will you listen to God for a moment? — "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea," etc. It is man as a race that is meant here, as we read, "in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." God (Elohim) goes into solemn counsel over man's creation. Elohim is the plural of Eloah, "The Supreme." It is Deity — God in the absolute! God, as God, goes into solemn counsel, and says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." These terms are quite different. An image gives the idea of representation; likeness gives the idea of moral quality. "Let us make man in our image." He was to represent God on the earth, and rule over the earth. That was the point in the words, "let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth" (ver. 26).

Some have supposed that "the sons of God" were fallen angels, connecting this with Job 1:6 where angels are clearly spoken of as "sons of God." But men are more often in scripture called "sons of God" than angels are. Besides, angels are sexless (Mt.22:30), and they do not have bodies: they are spirits (Heb.1:14) It is unthinkable that God would create special bodies for fallen angels in order that they might take ungodly advantage of women.

As we open Genesis 6 we are carried on to the later centuries of the antediluvian age, when the population had considerably increased and human wickedness began to rise to a climax. Many have understood the term, "sons of God," to refer to men of Seth's line — the line of faith — who fell away and married daughters of Cain's line, but we agree with those who accept the term as meaning beings of an angelic order, as it clearly does in such scriptures as Job 1:6 and Job 2:1 and Job 38:7. How such connection can have been established, resulting in progeny superhuman in size and strength, we do not know, but we believe that Jude 6 and 7 confirm what we are saying. Sodom and Gomorrha went after "strange flesh," committing such enormous evil as is forbidden in Exodus 22:19, and these sons of God did the same thing in principle, by going after the daughters of men. Thereby they apostatized, leaving their first estate, and lest they should repeat the offence they are held in everlasting chains under darkness until eternal perdition falls upon them. They will be finally judged at the great day of the great white throne.

I believe the flood was all over the earth, wherever man was. There is no mistake. People have called the universality in question, using general terms, as if it only covered the inhabited earth. But scripture says, "the mountains were covered," "and the tops of the mountains were seen," and so on; this looks like universality. You must let in a miracle in any case: and so it is all one after all. Suppose Mount Ararat, fifteen or sixteen thousand feet high, in northern Armenia, was covered; well, if the waters were not all round, and away too, they would have run off, and covered somewhere else; there must have been a miracle anyhow. The universality of the flood, absolute universality, seems to me to be positively meant and intended, because of destroying the world that then was. God puts an end to the whole system of the world. It was as complete a judgment of the earth and all that was on it, on the part of God, as it will be presently by fire. Everything in the whole order and system of the world that had life perished, "the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished": so Peter tells us, and anything that enfeebled it I should not admit: all mere physical things are consequent upon it. Either reject the word of God, or else Mount Ararat was covered. As to universal destruction, everything in the world was put an end to. The world that then was is distinct from the world that now is; and this is of immense moral import to us. God says He will never do it again, but the next time it will be by fire.

Gen. 3:15. — The woman's "Seed" to have the heel bruised but to bruise the serpent's head, is all but universally called a "promise." But this is a mistake. It was a revelation of grace, and not even said to Adam, but declared in judging the evil one. If at all a promise, it was to the Second man; for the first was not then an object of promise but of judicial dealing because of his fall into transgression.

The evident immediateness of the first day's work applies throughout the other days. Whatever grounds there may be for scientific men to infer processes occupying vast tracts of time before the "days," there is no real reason to doubt, but plain and positive scripture to believe, that the work done on the several six days was not of long ages, but really within the compass of the literal evening and morning. How unnatural to suppose an age for light to act on the first day! And why suppose otherwise on the second day or any other? A long succession of ages may be true after "the beginning" and before "the days," which taken in their natural import have a striking moral harmony with man, the last work of God's creation-week.

This surely points to the diurnal movement of the earth revolving round the sun. This clearly means a day of twenty-four hours. To try to make out that “the evening and the morning” were vast stretches of time involves too many difficulties. One cannot fit into the narrative the idea of millions of years of night, followed by millions of years of day. The reason why the period theory is pressed, is we believe that scientists are unwilling to admit the power of God. They will not allow that He is the Sustainer and Controller, as well as the Creator of nature.

The only possible question as to the Mosaic authorship is necessarily confined to the book of Genesis and the closing chapter of Deuteronomy. If the book is authentic at all, it declares again and again that it was the production of Moses, a contention borne out by the rest of the Old Testament, and substantiated by the infallible authority of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Just here, therefore, we confine ourselves to a thought or two about the book of Genesis.

In claiming the Mosaic authorship of this book, it is not meant that no records were kept before the time of the great lawgiver. There is nothing contradictory to the truth of inspiration or the thought of Moses' authorship in the possibility, we may say probability, of genealogies having been kept, and possibly also narratives more or less full, of persons and events which took place prior to the time of the Exodus. But what historian can write a narrative of former times without making large and liberal use of the material at his disposal? Thus there is no contradiction in the thought that Moses made use of whatever lists and narratives there may have been in existence before him. There is, however, something to be said even upon this side of the subject.

When we see the place of Genesis as introductory to the entire Pentateuch, and indeed to the whole of the word of God, as it has often been called, "the seed-plot of the Bible," we see a divine plan and purpose running through the book, leading up to and connecting closely with that which follows. Genesis is in this way a necessary introduction to Exodus. It has evidently passed under the eye of the person who writes that book. The whole narrative of the patriarchs, from Abraham down, is with reference to the Pentateuch, and in confirmation of the promises of God made to him and fulfilled to his descendants in the land of Egypt. This points most unmistakably to the unity of authorship. It shows us that the entire five books are really one, and that while they are essentially distinct the one from the other, each is a consistent part of this division of Scripture. No thoughtful, careful student who looks beneath the surface can fail to see this. The purpose in Genesis is absolute, and from its earliest chapters to its close, it most evidently is preparatory to the narrative of the book of Exodus.