Defending The Six Days Of Creation
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, July 11, 2025 (Donate)
The six days of creation are a hot-button of debate ever
since the secular humanistic idea of long ages (i.e., millions of years) began
to develop in the late
1700s and early 1800s. When many Christians were presented with this false
idea, far too many just bought into it!
Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of Christians that
opposed long ages (e.g., Scriptural geologists). But church leaders in
hosts of denominations and church splits entertained the mixing of Christianity
with this origins story from the secular side.
They just “synchronized” or “merged” Genesis with long ages
and millions of years—which is technically called geological evolution.
So why is it “geological” evolution, unlike biological evolution
(alleged animal and human evolution as discussed by Darwin for instance).
Geological Evolution
“Geology” and “Geological” derive from the Greek word “geo”
which means earth. Hence, geophyte means soil or ground and geography
is the study of the land and political boundaries on earth.
Geology is the study of the rock and rock layers on
the earth. So, it has to do with an alleged history of the rocks and rock
layers.
Growing up, I was drilled with the idea of long ages and
millions of years in the rock layers. It was presumed that it took millions of
years to lay down and form all that rock in the rock record. Slow gradual accumulations supposedly caused
the rock and rock layers to form over vast ages. This is what geological
evolution is.
As a Bible believing Christian, I recognize that most of the
rock layers were formed during the global, world-covering Flood of Noah—with
some subsequently since then (e.g., volcanoes, local catastrophes, etc.), but
most were laid down during the days of the Ark. So, you need to understand that
there are distinctly different understandings of the rock layers between those
who believe the Bible’s account of the global Flood versus those who hold to
geological evolution and its long ages of slow accumulation (technically called
“uniformitarianism”).
These are not compatible in any way. If one tries to suggest
millions of years and a global Flood, then the Flood would tear up and
destroy those previous rock layers and lay down new layers. So, the evidence of
alleged long ages would be washed away—literally. Don’t get me wrong, there is
the possibility of residuals of creation and early post-Fall (pre-Flood) rock
(and possible early rocks layers) that survived and were buried in the Flood,
but most would have been utterly destroyed and soil, mud, sediment, and rock
would be reformed into new layers.
So What Does This Have To Do With 6 Day Creation?
In the 1800s, when the idea of long ages and millions of
years were presented to leading Christians, a number of them simply added it to
the Bible. But where do you add millions of years?
You can’t fit it in the genealogies—we have a continuous
lineage from Adam to Christ. So, Christians began looking prior to
Adam’s creation—hence Creation Week became one of the most controversial
chapters in the entire Bible!
One of the first to mix these religions was Thomas Chalmers.
He was a Scottish theologian in the early 1800s, and he inserted these alleged
millions of years of rock layers in between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. And so
the idea of “gap theory” was invented.
The problem was that Chalmers just didn’t want to address
the issue to he crammed all that alleged time and rock layers between the first
two verses in the Bible in hopes of not having to deal with it. Of course, this
meant that all those rock layers weren’t formed in the Flood of Noah day by
this viewpoint—if gap theorists try to follow through with this idea!
Thus, Chalmers just “deleted” all the evidence of the Flood
by adopting the secular view of long ages in early Genesis 1! See the total
inconsistency of this position? Since Chalmers, variations on gap theory have
abounded. With each of these variations, there are plenty of problems
with gap theory models—namely death
before sin.
After Chalmers, others began inserting long ages into creation week in other ways besides gaps—such as stretching out the days in Genesis 1 (day-age or progressive creation models) or reinterpreting the days in Genesis 1 (framework hypothesis, cosmic temple, etc.).
Some have gone so far as to reinterpret Genesis 1-11 and
just replace it with the secular humanistic religious view of big bang,
millions of years, and evolution, while retaining that God somehow did it—and
then just pick up with Abraham (theistic evolution, evolutionary creation,
etc.). All these suffer the problem of death
before sin though—which undermines the Gospel.
But for anyone to propose long ages, they usually have to
deal with the days of Creation Week. They must argue that they don’t
mean what they clearly mean. Even in gap theory, the first day is extremely
long!
The Six Days Of Creation
The six days of creation described in Genesis 1 were
ordinary, consecutive, 24-hour days. This understanding is foundational to a
biblical worldview and is based on a plain reading of Scripture (e.g., Proverbs
8:8-9, 2 Corinthians 4:2), in accordance with Hebrew grammar, biblical context,
and theological considerations—unlike the old earth models of Creation Week.
The Hebrew Word “Yom” (Day)
In Genesis 1, the Hebrew word yom is used for “day.”
While yom can have various meanings depending on context (like “time” or
“age”). The context reveals yom means and ordinary day and popular lexicons
like BDB and HALOT assert this:
- Yom: “day as defined by evening and morning: Genesis 1:5” [Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, 9th Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, 1906, page 398.]
- Yom: “Day of twenty-four hours: Genesis 1:5” [Koehler & Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Volume 1, Koninklijke Brill N.V., 2001, page 399.]
Whenever yom is used with a number (e.g., one day, second day) and/or with the phrase “evening and morning,” it always refers to a normal-length day elsewhere in the Old Testament.
Genesis 1 uses both ordinal and numerical qualifiers ("one
day," "second day," etc.) and “evening and morning” for each of
the six creation days. In once instance night is also used (Genesis 1:5). This
double clarification makes the intention unmistakable: God is communicating
that these were normal days as understood by the original audience. Extensive
research has been done on this—particularly by James Stambaugh.
Summary of James Stambaugh’s Research on the Days of
Creation
James Stambaugh did an exhaustive study on the Hebrew word yom in context in the Old Testament. He originally published a preliminary journal article on
the subject to stimulate debate. Then he finalized it with an ETS paper(Evangelical Theological Society). Most numbers that you see published are from
the ETS paper and the finalized results—however, the preliminary journal
article is at your fingertips and many can access it freely. But the numbers a don’t
quite match from the initial paper and that is why.
Nevertheless, Stambaugh argues that the “days” of Genesis 1
should be understood as literal, consecutive, 24-hour days, based on
linguistic, grammatical, and contextual evidence derived via the Hebrew text.
The Meaning of “Yom” (Day)
Stambaugh conducts a detailed lexical study of the Hebrew
word yom (“day”) and demonstrated that when yom is used with
ordinal or cardinal numbers (one, second, etc.) and the phrase “evening and
morning,” it always refers to a normal-length day in Old Testament usage.
“Evening and Morning” as
Literal Time Indicators
The phrase “evening and morning” is used for each day of
creation in Genesis 1. Stambaugh points out that this expression, when used in
Scripture, always refers to literal days, reinforcing the plain-sense reading
of the text.
Each day of creation is described with the phrase “and there
was evening and there was morning.” argues that this phrase reinforces the idea
of a normal 24-hour cycle. “Evening” and “morning” are time markers that define
a literal day-night period and were never used metaphorically in this way elsewhere
in Scripture.
When we look at Creation Week in Genesis 1:1-2:3, it uses these qualifies extensively—as if God was trying to make the point exceptionally clear!
The Pattern Of Six Days of Work, One Day Of Rest
In Exodus 20:11, part of the Ten Commandments, God says:
“For in six days the LORD made the
heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the
seventh day.”
Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 state that God created the heavens
and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. These passages connect the
creation week with the human work week, confirming that the days in Genesis
were literal and not symbolic.
These passages establish the basis for the human work week—six
days of work followed by one day of rest—explicitly modeled after God's
activity during creation. This command has no meaning if the days were long
ages or symbolic. A literal interpretation is the only reading that makes the
commandment coherent.
Genesis as Historical Narrative
Stambaugh also argues that the literary structure and verb
forms in Genesis 1 align with Hebrew historical narrative, not poetry or
allegory, indicating the author intended to describe actual historical events. Furthermore,
Steven Boyd also affirmed the genre of literature was an historical narrative in
early Genesis in his work on the RATE project.
The literary style of Genesis 1–11 is historical narrative, not poetry or allegory—of course there are obvious allegories in places in the text intentionally so (e.g., “bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh”, etc.). These spots are blatantly easy to spot.
But the historical narrative style is what guides Genesis. This is indicated by the consistent use of Hebrew narrative grammar, including waw-consecutive verb forms (a grammatical feature of narrative). Therefore, the text is meant to be read as a straightforward historical account, not metaphor or myth.
Jesus Affirmed A Young Creation
In passages like Mark 10:6, Jesus says, “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’” This indicates that humans were created at the beginning of creation, not billions of years after it began, as evolutionary or old-earth views claim.
This is consistent
with a literal six-day creation and a young earth. I wrote and extensive
article on this called Jesus
Devastates An Old Earth.
Theological Implications Of A Non-Literal View
If one abandons the literal six-day creation, then it
undermines key doctrines, including the origin of sin and death—which is the
foundation of the Gospel. If the earth and life evolved over millions of years,
then death existed before Adam's sin, which contradicts Genesis 1:29-31, 3; Romans
5:12; Romans 8; (“through one man sin entered the world, and death through
sin”); and Revelation 21-22—where our new creation mimics the original creation
without death or suffering.
Moreover, accepting long ages implies that God a world full
of death, disease, and suffering (as seen in the fossil record) as very good (Genesis
1:31) and perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4), which contradicts God's nature and the
goodness of His creation.
Testimony Of Later Bible Writers And Church History
Supports Literal Day
Throughout Scripture after Genesis 1-11, Bible authors consistently maintained that Genesis was real, historical narrative. For instance, Peter affirmed the universality of the global Flood (1 Peter 3:20), etc. Paul affirmed that there was a literal Adam and Eve (1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 11:3), and as discussed, Moses further affirmed the six days of Creation Week in Exodus 20 and 31.
What about 2 Peter 3:8 where God says a day is like a thousand years? I hear this far too often! First, even if one were to attempt to add 1,000 years to each of the creation days, you still don't arrive 13+ billion years. So, it doesn't help the case for alleged billions of years.
Secondarily, this is in the context of the Lord's patience, not Creation Week. So it is a contextual fallacy to use this for Genesis days. Also, did you realize that the next verse shows the irrelevance of applying it to creation days?
Many of the early Church Fathers, reformers like Martin
Luther and John Calvin, and most Christian theologians throughout history
believed in six literal creation days. The idea of long ages only arose when
18th- and 19th-century secular-thinking geologists and evolutionists began to
reinterpret nature without reference to Scripture.
Re-interpreting Scripture to fit secular models is an easy
way to get errant theology and a misunderstanding of history. Instead, we
should recognize that God is the authority and thus, Scripture must be the lens
through which we interpret the world.
God Could Create Instantly—But Chose Six Days
I’ve had people ask, if God is all-powerful why couldn’t He
created everything instantly? It is not that God doesn’t have that power—of course
He does—but the issue why did God take six days and rest on the seventh? And
God answers that openly—He did it for us—as a basis for our work week.
There’s no theological or scientific reason to stretch these
days into millions of years, and doing so compromises the purpose of the
creation account. Let the six days, remain ordinary six days.
Conclusion
The six days of creation are literal, normal-length consecutive
24-hour days based on a straightforward reading of the Bible, particularly the
language and grammar of Genesis 1, the structure of the Ten Commandments, and
the teachings of Jesus. Reinterpreting the Genesis days leads to theological
inconsistencies and undermines the authority of Scripture—and even the Gospel
itself.
The Bible—not secular interpretations of history and
science—is the final authority. And the Bible clearly teaches that the heavens
and the earth were created, formed and filled in six normal days, followed by an
instituted literal day of rest.
