Why Genesis must be a literal 7 day creation week

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Question from a reader:

“Can a Christian believe in theistic evolution and is it possible that God used evolution and that the 7 day creation week is really symbolic of a evolutionary period? Look forward to your answer.”

Many Christians now days are accepting or at least acknowledging the possibility that God used evolution in the Creation of the world. My basis in this article is not to disprove evolution, instead I wish to show why from a completely Biblical perspective evolution cannot be the vehicle God used to create the world. In other articles I may get into more arguments more focused on the scientific reasoning of atheistic evolutionists but this article is targeted at theistic evolutionists who sincerely believe the two views are compatible… that is God used evolution.

I have heard a number of people claim that not only is Genesis to be taken figuratively but that it MUST be taken thus because Science has “proven” evolution. This is a serious statement because the Bible pronounces dreadful curses on people who twist the Bible for their own interpretation.  I personally have no problem with accepting evolution as the method God used, but ONLY if there is Biblical evidence for it. The biggest problem with science’s self proclaimed proof of evolution being ample evidence that the Biblical account is figurative is in the fact that the Bible says “by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God”. A couple of problems… first of all if something is proven it no longer needs faith to believe in and secondly the verse says “by the word of God” not by science but by the word of God and that by faith. So in that we know that Science will never be able to prove how creation happened.

Also we need to realize that God’s word creates action instantly.  So in this article we will examine Biblical evidence for theistic evolution or lack thereof. Please feel free to comment, but PLEASE provide Biblical texts to support your views or your comments may be moderated, again this is not an atheistic-theistic debate. It is a article intended to prove a Biblical basis for a 7 day creation week.

If a person had never read the Bible before and knew nothing of Christianity the book of Genesis or the Bible in general, I am confident that person would deduce that #1, The book is a historical account of actual history (or atleast intended to be taken as such) but that the Creation account was intended to be taken as an actual literal account of an actual 7 day creation week. This view is supported by thousands of years of Christians who did just that, accepted what the inspired writer said as a literal account. After all why in the world would we be using a 7 day week today other than God instituted it? We can account for our month being based on the lunar cycle and we know where our year came from but there is no basis or reason for a 7 day week besides the Creation account

Think about it for a minute, Satan has a deception for every truth of the Bible. If Satan’s deception for the Creation story is that it was a literal 7 day Creation week (as the Bible reads), what glory does Satan get out of that? It makes no sense, on the other hand atheism and the teaching of evolution has resulted in countless suicides because of a lack of purpose in life.

I will repeat, absolutely no place in the Bible is the Creation account translated as figurative or a period of anything more than 7 days, countless times however we read “…for in six days God created…” (Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:17)

Contrary to evolution, the Bible teaches of a intimate connection between the Creator and the created… l0ok at some of these texts, verses in the Bible that are completely incompatible with evolutionary teaching.

Psalm 94:9

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?”

Psalm 95:5

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land“

1 Timothy 2:13

For Adam was first formed, then Eve”

Colossians 1:16

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:”

Isaiah 45:12

I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded“

Psalm 148:5

Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created“

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”

How can God “form” man out of the “dust of the ground” “in his own image” if He used evolution? They are two completely incompatible views, either evolution is right and the Bible is wrong or else evolution is wrong and the literal creation view is right. There is no middle ground… honest atheists see this and thats why they won’t be Christians cause they don’t believe the views are compatible.

Psalm 33:9

For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast“

There is no room for speculation of time transpiration in this verse, He spake and it happened, end of story.

Here are a few things that totally eradicate any possibility of theistic evolution and the Creation account being reconcilable.  In fact in light of these, theistic evolution is an oxymoron.

#1.) Death came into the world by sin…

The Bible is quite clear that death came into the world by sin – “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1st Corinthians 15:21,22; The result of disobedience to God’s direct command and eating of the forbidden tree God said would be death, He said “in the day that thou eatest therof thou shalt surely die” – this would not have been significant if men had heretofore already been dieing. Corinthians states that BY MAN came death… so we couldn’t have evolved from a low life form which died or sin would NOT be the result of Adam and Eve but would be an institution of God. Can you see how cleverly Satan has weaved this giant web of lies… so well has he done so that many Christians have been duped into believing it.

– Before we continue on that thought I want to point out one other thing about the first sin. Satan took the persona of a serpent and tempted Eve with the insinuation “did God really say…” – could it be that theistic evolution is the echo of that first lie in Eden? God inspired the account of Genesis, are we doing what Eve did by ignoring a “thus saith the Lord” and accepting “Science so-called” over what God actually said?

The Bible has numerous texts clearly showing that death is a result of man’s sin:

Romans 5:12

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”

Verse #16:

“For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation”

Verse #17

“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”

These verses alone are perfectly clear that death was a result of Adam’s sin; one man.  What is my point? I hope it will become crystal clear to you as we quote more verses… again our point is not to disprove evolution but to say that a true Bible-believing Christian must believe in a literal 7-day creation week.

Romans 5:14

“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses”

Romans 6:23

“For the wages of sin are death”

Romans 5:12 says death reigned from “Adam to Moses”.  Yes, you can manipulate that verse but if you read it in context and as intended it is very very clear.

Lets Summarize!
The Bible very clearly teaches that death is a result of Adam and Eve’s sin. This cannot be reconciled with evolutionary thinking for (according to the Bible) sin and consequently death did not enter the world until Adam and Eve disobeyed by eating of the forbidden tree. Evolution however requires death, to arrive at Adam… that is to say that Adam was a result of death, in other words death before sin or even more tragically sin instituted by God but blamed on humans. This idea is revolting to me, God’s government is perfect, He would not use a process of death and mutating organisms to create a “perfect” world, would He? This fact alone, and yes it is fact if you believe in the Bible, requires us to either give up evolutionary hypothesis (for it is not a Scientific theory) for the Biblical teaching or accept evolution and give up the Bible. There is no middle ground, yet again the Bible says clearly that sin AND death were the result of Adam’s sin, so they CANNOT be a vehicle God would have used to create the world. I believe the correct word for this is an oxymoron, the two ideas are irreconcilable. Can you understand now how I can sympathize with honest atheists? They can see that the two ideas do not work and I feel that many honest-hearted atheists today are atheists because Christianity has failed to clearly reveal Jesus… instead it has deformed, twisted and distorted portions of the Bible to make the hearers more comfortable. I believe that if we preach the Bible as it reads and through each doctrine reveal Jesus Christ we will see many atheists become Christians.

(If I must disclaim the above I should note that just because they are honest does not mean that they are “okay”. Atheists, like any other people, have a responsibility to search for truth and act upon it… my point was to show our responsibility as Bible believing Christians to show Christ to atheists)

Evolution teaches that for millions of years there was death building up to what man is today… the problem is that God said in the beginning that everything was “good” however death is a result of sin and is not good… so you can’t have a “perfect” world if it evolved from a mutating process of death… otherwise you have a perfect God creating what He refers to as a perfect world through an imperfect process of evolution where significant death would have to result before the finished product. Sounds like perfection to me!

This is neither aligned with Biblical teaching nor does it correspond with a loving and perfect God… how could a supremely loving God use such a method and then condemn us for so-called sin which He actually used to create us… what is wrong with that picture? Furthermore the Bible explains so clearly that this is not the case so again we find ourselves at a crossroads. Either the Biblical account is wrong or evolution is wrong… this fact alone prevents evolution and creation from being reconcilable. God is either a liar and death is not the result of sin or else He is telling the truth and evolution is a lie. Since God has never lied I am going to take His word over what science claims.

Let me explain to you why evolution is so dangerous for a Christian to believe. It undermines the core of the Bible, the foundation of who Christ is and what kind of a God we serve and leads us to doubt whether other parts of the Bible are fact or fiction. The Genesis account gives no reason to take it symbolically, so what stops us from using the same philosophy to say that maybe Christ never came and died, perhaps that is symbolism as well. The ONLY reason to compromise on the inspired word of God on the Creation account is because of “Science so-called”. There is no doubt in my mind who I am believing… If your God had to use evolution, the process of death and mutating processes then He is a pretty handicap God… and then if He had to lie to His servant and tell a far-fetched story of how Creation happened then that is not the kind of God I want to serve… it just don’t add up.I remember once stating that to someone who believed in theistic evolution and his answer was “No, He didn’t have to use it… but He used evolution because it is Science”. Wow a God handicap by Science, an institution of His own.

God has worked mightily in my life and I have no doubt that He exists or that He did everything He claims He did. The Bible has numerous prophecies that have been fulfilled and prove the validity of the Bible. There are also numerous promises regarding tithing and Sabbath keeping that I have seen come true to those who claim them. So you will never be able to convince me God does not exist or that He is the God of theistic evolution because I have seen too much to believe it. It is as true to me as the law of gravity… whether you believe it or not it will not change the law. There are serious, irreconcilable issues with sticking a Christian label on evolution.  Much like creating the oxymoron Christian pornography… the two views are irreconcilable.

Also as I will show in point 4, this view of theistic evolution REQUIRES that in the earth made new when God “restores” the world He must use the same processes He did originally. I will explain that in a minute… but my point here is that if the same process is used in the world restored then God yet again must lie for when Christ comes back and the dead are raised the Bible says “death is swallowed up in victory” – yet if theistic evolution is correct then there must be death again for God to “recreate” the world. I can find no way to rationalize this and therefore am forced to reject evolution as compatible with Biblical thinking.

#2.) But animals eat each other… therefore death before sin…
Lest someone say that animals ate other animals in the beginning (before sin), therefore concluding that there was death before sin, I shall quote Genesis 1:29-30

Genesis 1:29-30 “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.”

Not only were humans given a vegetarian diet in Eden but also “every” animal was also given that same diet. They didn’t eat each other… animals only ate each other after the fall and humans began eating meats after Noah’s ark landed on the Mountains of Ararat.

#3. “But evolution is Scientifically proven”
One of the greatest myths in Science is that evolution is proven. This is so far from the truth, it is actually impossible to prove it and any honest Scientist will tell you that. Evolution is not technically a theory because there is not enough evidence for it. I will not belabor this point because as I said earlier my initial purpose was not to disprove evolution but to show that Bible-believing Christians must believe in a literal 7-day Creation week as written in Genesis.

Scientists are continually learning the utter complexity of the universe… every single cell, every organ, every organism, every biological function points to a detailed designer. What was called the “simple cell” has been found to be really more complex than we can fathom. Many scientists are turning from evolutionary thinking to a literal belief in Creation. Why? Because they are concluding it makes absolutely no sense otherwise. It makes no sense that there is so much detail in the universe if it just happened via evolution, because evolution requires a natural process where a God is not intimately involved in that Creation process. Charles Darwin was on numerous occasions confronted with this realization, that his “theory” actually had many many holes. For instance when he looked at a peacock’s feathers he said

“The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!”
Charles Darwin

Evolution cannot explain for the complexity of life much less the utter astounding beauty in it. The fact that life exists amid so many obstacles that evolution would have had to go through is spectacular but the realization of all the beauty makes no sense. Because evolution is all about “survival”. The fact is that evolution has no answer to this… and frankly never will. But God does… He formed everything with His hands.

Many Scientists are concluding that natural process could not have created our universe and that a supreme being must have created the world… many are therefore accepting the literal Creation account as given in the Bible. It seems to me that as more and more Scientists are making these conclusions that more and more Christians are going in the opposite direction.

Lest I be misquoted I should note that even considering the above statement the majority of Scientists still hold to the evolutionary view but they also have no Biblical foundation so they are using Science as a foundation… which has been found to contradict itself. While true Science will not contradict itself all we can do is make observations and many times, although as accurate as possible our observations are off.

#3. But don’t the word “generations” in Genesis denote or suggest long periods of time?
I have a theistic-evolutionist point this out to me and so I looked at the original Hebrew word and here is what it means:

descent, that is, family; (figuratively) history: – birth, generations

So the word essentially means history and does not denote any period of time at all.

Very few use this claim but those who do claim that the word means millions of years. But you have to ignore the Hebrew language and the rest of the Bible to come to that conclusion. For instance Genesis 6:9

“These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”

If generations denotes large periods of time of millions of years then Noah actually lived millions of years. The fact is the word just means history, family or even a single birth. Whether Noah lived 10 years or 100s the word generations describes that life.

I will not belabor this point because it is very clear and as I said very few attempt to use this argument.

#4 “I have given you a day for a year” – each Creation day actually equals millions of years…
I have heard theistic-evolutionists make this claim but there are a few issues we must deal with. First of all what does the scripture actually say about “a day for a year” and can it apply to any scripture or only certain scripture?

Ezekiel 4:6 says

“And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.”

Who was Exekiel? He was a prophet of God and every instance in the Bible of this is always in relation to prophecy. For instance Number 14:34

“After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.”

The day for a year principle only applies to prophecy and cannot be used (if your belief is sola scriptura) with just any verse in the Bible. But I am going to take a liberty here and say lets apply the “day for a year” principle to Genesis. How far does that get us?  It gets us to 7 years for Creation to take place… how much closer are we to the billions of years that evolutionists claim took for evolution to take place?

You not only have to take liberties and make an application of the “day for a year” principle to a non-prophetic but a  historical account but you also must modify the “day for a year” principle and insert some other figure. Otherwise it still won’t work with evolution.  For someone who claims to believe in the Bible as the word of God I don’t see how you can use this argument to support evolution.

1 Timothy 6:20-21 I believe has some very good advice for us:

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”

Just leaving it as that this verse is a powerful Scripture warning us to be careful about putting Science over the Bible. However interestingly most scholars agree that this text was written by Paul while in Laodicea. What bearing does that have on anything? Well in Revelation there are 7 churches which represent 7 consecutive periods of Church history (email me and ask for an article on this and I will write one) and the last Church mentioned is the Laodicean Church which is the last Church before Jesus comes. Now I don’t have time in this article to explain all the reasons why we are living during the Laodicean church period but it is something that many scholars agree in. Even futurists are forced to realize this is true.

However if you understand that we are living during the Laodicean church period then this message is very pertinent to our times because it has only been in the last 100-150 years that Darwinism has really been accepted as Scientific.  Is it possible that Timothy is warning us today to beware of “science so called”? I believe that is exactly what God was trying to do through Timothy.

Remember the Bible says that “by faith” we understand that the worlds were formed. Science will never be able to prove how we got here and the process by which it happened… when they claim they can that is when we need to be very careful. Science claims evolution as “fact” but the Bible says we must have faith to believe the Creation account. If it is ever proven we will no longer need faith. Does that make sense?  So the very fact that Science will not accept any other theories should be enough evidence that it is “science so called” but is not in harmony with Scripture.

There are other arguments I could deal with and if you send them in I will consider writing a second post on this issue but my point was not to do all the work for you. My point in this article was to show that evolution and the Creation account are incompatible. I feel I have at least dissolved some of the popular arguments used to support theistic-evolution.

If you are a atheist reading this article I encourage you to send me an email. I have met a number of atheists who wanted to believe in God but their honesty kept them back from believing in the God depicted by most of Christianity. A God who changes based on culture, popular opinion and molds into Science even where compatible. Many atheists are looking for a God and want to believe… they just have not seen Him in Christianity yet.  If this applies even remotely to you I hope that you will email me and share.

Other arguments…
If you have other arguments you want me to deal with just shoot me an email and i’ll do my best to write one. This article was published in result to an overwhelming request for a theistic-evolution article from a Biblical standpoint. Many people have emailed me asking if the two were compatible and how to be sure.

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Send me an email at randy{at}ebibleanswers{dot}com with any questions, comments or requests for a specific article. I do read every single email and do my best to reply to every single one. Your emails are very important to us and we love to hear from you.

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May God richly bless you as you search His word and desire to draw closer to Him.

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Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 at 5:22 pm and is filed under General Bible Questions, Creation Vs. Evolution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.