Page 35 - Advanced Genesis - Creationism - Student Textbook

The Days of Creation

3
4
Day 1 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.
5
And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (ESV)

Verse 3 is the first record of God speaking in the Bible. The Word of God brings light.

1. The Father is the source of all things Verse 1
2. The Spirit is the energizer of all things Verse 2
3. The Word (Jesus Christ) is the revealer of all things Verse 3
II Corinthians 4:6
John 1:1, 14
John 8:12
1 John 1:5

When the light appeared, God divided the light from the darkness. He did not completely remove the
darkness; He just separated it from the light. Further, he called the light “day” and the darkness he
called “night”. As if anticipating a problem God carefully defined His terms. The very first time He used
the word “day” (Hebrew yom), He defined it as the light to distinguish it from the “darkness” called
“night”.

After separating the light from darkness God completed His first day’s work. “The evening and morning
were the first day.” This is how he concluded each of the successive days of creation. There was a light
period when God worked and a dark period when He did not work. Nothing took place between evening
and morning of each day. It is clear that from the beginning that God establishes a cyclical succession of
days and nights – periods of light and periods of darkness. From this we can infer that the earth is
spinning now. We have the earth rotating on its axis and there is light on one side giving the day and
night pattern. There is no indication that this rotation is any different than the current normal solar day.

It should be noted that in the Hebrew Old Testament yom without except NEVER means “period”. It
normally means either a day (a 24 hour period) or the daylight portion of a 24 hour period. It may be
used to express and indefinite time (such as, “in the time of the judges”) but never as a definite period
of time with a specific beginning and ending. Furthermore, it is not used even in this indefinite sense
except when the context clearly indicates that the literal meaning is not intended.

The Hebrew word for evening (ereb) and morning (boqer) each occurs more than 100 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.
20

Also the occurrence of “day” modified by a number is a construct occurring more than 100 times in the
Pentateuch alone always with a literal meaning.

In the first chapter of Genesis, the ending of each day’s work is noted by the formula, “and the evening
and the morning were the -- day.” God was establishing that each day had distinct boundaries and was
one of a series of days, both of which criteria are never present in the Old Testament writing unless

20 https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/ereb#:~:text=%3A%20eve%3A,housewife%20on%20ereb%20Yom%20Kippur
34