CREATION-LITERAL SIX DAYS
Everything
Scripture teaches about sin and redemption assumes the literal truth of the first
three chapters of Genesis. If we wobble to any degree on the truth of this
passage, we undermine the very foundations of our faith.
The Battle for the Beginning, 2001, p. 29.
The amazing
excellence revealed in the creative work of God is forfeited to a very large
degree if we abandon the days of creation in favor of an ages-long evolutionary
process.
John MacArthur
The Battle for the Beginning, 2001, p. 183.
If the
biblical creation account is in any degree unreliable, the rest of Scripture
stands on a shaky foundation.
John MacArthur
The Battle for the Beginning, 2001, p. 27.
According to
Revelation 21:1-5, God will immediately create a new heaven and a new earth
(cf. Isa. 65:17). Do we really believe He can do that, or will it take another
umpteen billion years of evolutionary process to get the new heaven and new
earth in working order? If we really believe He can destroy this universe in a
split second and immediately create a whole new one, what's the problem with
believing the Genesis account of a six-day creation in the first place? If He
can do it at the end of the age, why is it so hard to believe the biblical
account of what happened in the beginning?
John MacArthur
The Battle for the Beginning, 2001, p. 45.
If the Lord
wanted to teach us that creation took place in six literal days, how could He
have stated it more plainly than Genesis does? The length of the days is
defined by periods of day and night that are governed after day four by the sun
and moon. The week itself defines the
pattern of human labor and rest. The
days are marked by the passage of morning and evening. How could these not signify the chronological
progression of God's creative work?
John MacArthur
The Battle for the Beginning, 2001, p. 21.
The
individual days of creation are denoted by the phrase, “So the evening and the
morning were the first day” (Gen. 1:5), “…second day” (Gen. 1:8), “…third day
(Gen. 1:13), etc. All of this seems to call to mind a “day” as we know it. And
when we study the other uses of the word in the Old Testament, we find that
where the word yom is preceded by a numerical
adjective (i.e. “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., as in Genesis 1), it always
refers to a twenty-four hour day.
Daryl Wingerd
Understanding Creation - "Basic Truth" series,
#3, Christian Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
The terms
"evening" (Hebrew ereb) and
"morning" (Hebrew boger) each occur
more than one hundred times in the Old Testament and always have the literal
meaning – that is, the termination of the daily period of light and the daily
period of darkness, respectively. Similarly, the occurrence of "day"
modified by a numeral (e.g., "third day") is a construction occurring
more than one hundred times in the Pentateuch alone, always with a literal
meaning. Even though it may challenge our minds to visualize the lands and the
seas, and all plants, being formed in one literal day, that
is exactly what the Bible says! We are not justified at all in questioning
either God's power to do this or His veracity in telling us that He did.
Henry Morris
The Genesis Record, Baker, 1976, p. 64.