Some years ago whilst in the USA speaking on the importance of Creation to believers, after a meeting, one earnest young man came up to talk to me, since he was concerned that by asserting a 6 literal day understanding of Genesis, other sincere believers who would regard themselves as evangelical, would be regarded as not true to Scripture. Thus, by stating that it was important to believe in the straightforward historical understanding of Genesis (a 6 24 hour day creation of the world and the Universe), I was (in his view) encouraging unnecessary division of believer against believer, particularly since well known commentators allow for differences of view. This of course is not an isolated case. Indeed it is a widespread belief in Europe and the USA, that really one can afford some difference of belief here, and that the matter of origins is a side issue to the main Gospel itself. We have to recognize that this commonly held view is from people who have a noble and sincere desire to keep true to the Gospel. Many are leaders in churches that have seen great blessing, so should we therefore make Creation such a vital issue?
As the conversation unfolded, I became aware that he was refusing to submit to Scripture, and that to him death, dust and days are not to be taken in a straightforward manner. Death, Dust and Days – 3-D creation…
Death really means death
Gen. 2:17 states that ‘in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die’ Death came in AFTER, not BEFORE the fall of man. Rom 6:23 “The wages of sin is death”. Death came as a result of sin. The argument which is much used in return is that this was spiritual death – separation from God - not physical death, which was already part of our experience in hominid stock beforehand. But however attractive this teaching may appear, it is not Biblically tenable for the following reasons :
(i) The death of Gen 2:17 is a double blow. It states literally “dying, thou shalt die”. When Adam and Eve fell in sin, there was immediate effect – separation from God, as witnessed by the hiding from God’s face, in the immediate aftermath of their taking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 900 or so years later, physical death would take Adam.
(ii) That physical death has to be included in the penalty of the Fall, is very clear from the teaching in 1Corinthians 15 which we considered earlier concerning Adam made from dust. This chapter is very significant when we also consider scripturally what happened at the Fall. 1Cor. 21,22 states “…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.” Because the major point of 1Cor. 15 is physical resurrection, the argument is forceful that the contrast is that Adam brought physical death just as Christ brings physical life – we shall be changed just as Christ rose in a new body.
(iii) The teaching of death as a result of sin lies at the basis of our understanding of the Cross of Christ. Christ died both spiritually and physically. If physical death is not part of the punishment of sin, then why did Christ physically die. In Mt 27:50 it states that Christ “yielded up the ghost”. Lk 23:46 states Christ’s final words on the Cross “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit, and having said thus he gave up the ghost”. Literally this reads “…he bowed His head and dismissed His spirit…”. He separated His spirit from His body. He died physically – all perfectly under His control. This was the final act of Christ on the Cross. Earlier He had endured spiritual death for the redeemed. For earlier in that remarkable series of seven sayings of our Saviour, He was separated spiritually from His Father, when He cried out in agony (Mt 27:46) “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Such agony is only matched by the rich man condemned in Luke 16, and the description of the lost in Rev 14:11 “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night”. So the precious truth (1 Cor. 15:3) “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” needs to be understood in the light of the teaching in that very chapter on what death really is. Physical death is separation of soul and body. Spiritual death is separation of the soul from the mercy of God. Christ died for our sins both spiritually and physically. Consequently to suggest that only spiritual death was involved in Adam’s fall (because it is suggested man came from ape like creatures already experiencing physical death) undermines the extent of the atonement. Why did Christ not get off the Cross, when He said ‘It is finished’? He stayed on the Cross because physical death was part of the penalty of sin, and meant that our right to our new bodies to come was purchased as He physically died and took the full weight of our sin.
Dust really means dust
Some have problems with Genesis 2, saying that it seems to be another version of the origin of the first pair, but in reality we have in Genesis 2 simply a more detailed account which complements the summary of Genesis 1 on the 6th day.
In Genesis 1 and 2 there is no room for so-called human evolution. God did not take an ape or some such creature, and make him into a man. God took dust. There was no pre-Adamic race as some would have us believe[1]. Adam was created ‘at the beginning’ (Mt 19:4), and in that same verse, it is important to realize that Christ is teaching also the origin of sexual differences – brought about deliberately by God Himself, not by chance blundering through a maze of mistakes from pre-human brutes!. “He that made them in the beginning, made them male and female”. The words of our Lord should be enough, but Paul also builds a whole argument on not an ‘Eve out of Africa’ theory, but ADAM first before Eve, out of the dust. In 1 Tim. 2:13 Paul states that “Adam was first formed, then Eve”, and on this stands another issue so hotly contested by some in our churches – the importance of male leadership. This is nothing to do with men being better than women, or vice versa. It is simply because God has a different role for each, and we are truly fulfilled when we believe, obey and trust what He has said, in this case through the Apostle. That is the issue, believing in and submitting to God’s Word. Here Paul shows us the basis of such teaching about the sexes – that God made Adam first. If we deny this we weaken the New Testament as well as the Old. Paul appeals to Genesis, and thereby reinforces the straightforward understanding of it. If there had been some pre-Adamic hominids, then Adam would have been born in some way from a pre-existing female, and the whole argument of Matt 19:4 and 1 Tim 2:13 would be without meaning. We tamper with these scriptures at our spiritual peril. Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones said many years ago, that such thinking would lead to the undoing of many. In a lecture in 1971 on the theme ‘What is an Evangelical?’ he stated[2] :
“We must believe the whole Bible. We must believe the history of the Bible as well as its didactic teaching. Failure here is always an indication of a departure from the true evangelical position. Today there are men who say, Oh yes, we believe in the Bible and its authority in all matters of religion, but of course, we don’t go to the Bible for science...They are saying there are, as it were, two great authorities and two means of revelation: one of them is Scripture and the other is nature. These they say are complementary...so you go to the Scriptures for matters concerning the soul, but you do not go to them to seek God’s other revelation of Himself in nature. For that you go to science.....
“We have got to contest [this] very strongly...We must assert that we believe in the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis and all other Biblical history...”
Some may say the word dust doesn’t mean dust as we understand it. Rather it was generally saying that we are all made from material back into which we will decay. That way then evolution could be allowed a foothold in the interpretation of Genesis, and those well respected commentators could all be kept on board and be regarded as evangelical still. But this will not work since Gen. 3:19 states ‘dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return…’ We all go to dust at death as Eccles 3:20 so poignantly describes. So ‘unto dust you shall return’ must be literal. So therefore the phrase ‘Dust thou art’ is speaking of the literal creation of Adam from dust. Note also that 1Cor 15:47 states “The first man is of the earth, earthy”. Here in this chapter on physical resurrection there can be no doubt that Paul is comparing the real first Adam made from the earth with our Lord’s glorious resurrection body. And here it states Adam is made from the earth, earthy. So dust really does mean dust in Gen. 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground”
Days really mean days
Many believers are of the view that we cannot be definite about the meaning of the word ‘day’ (Hebrew ‘yom’) in Genesis 1, which of course then opens up the possibility of long ages when supposedly evolution could take place. However a sound exegesis of this word shows that :
(i) The word ‘yom’ means 24 hour day, or daylight part of 24 hour day. It can be used for an indefinite period (e.g. Gen. 2:4 ‘…in the day that the Lord made the heavens and the earth’ where it means the whole week of Creation), but the context makes it plain.
(ii) The context of Genesis 1 involves evening and morning. In Hebrew writing this always indicates normal 24 hour day.
(iii) The repetition of the phrase “evening and morning”, along with the counting : 1st day....2nd day....etc. always means that the word ‘yom’ is a normal solar day.
(iv) Furthermore Gen. 1:3 indicates there was separation of light from darkness, and a rotating earth, implying the regular day that we all experience.
(v) The reference not only to day, but the repeated darkness of night again indicates the normal 24 hour day. There has to be a contorted logic to explain the regular experience in the creation week of an equal period of darkness, if one argues for a day meaning millions of years. What then is the night within such a convoluted argument?
(vi) Perhaps one of the clearest verses in relation to the word ‘yom’ is its use in Ex. 20:11 concerning the Sabbath : “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.....For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day...”. The sabbath command itself must be concerned with seven 24 hour days to make sense, for it clearly is about rest after 6 normal working days. Yet in the same sentence exactly the same word is used to refer back to the original Creation. To say that either God used a week to tell Moses, or to suggest that we are now in God’s Sabbath[3] is to remove the impact of Exodus 20:11 which is that God instituted personally a Day of rest and gave us His example to follow.
These arguments are developed thoroughly elsewhere[4], but really the main issue underneath the arguments against a 6 day creation from those professing to be believers is disbelief in Scripture. Indeed corporately as a church it has been the case that we are not prepared to take a Bible-first mentality which is crucial, if the church on both sides of the Atlantic is to recover its vision. This applies in more areas than evolution. It is the fundamental error in the professing evangelical church of our day. We prefer to take man’s wisdom as our guide, instead of staying faithful to Scripture at all costs.
The Lord in Heb. 3:12 warns us in no uncertain words “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God”.
Death .… Dust.… Days…. - three vital parts to our understanding of Creation as taught in Genesis. We should take God’s word as it is, and let the Scripture be its own interpreter.
Professor Andy McIntosh
Leeds January 2014
A version of this article appeared in Banner of Truth Magazine Oct 2002, pp. 16-21
[1] Hugh Ross “Creation and Time”, NavPress, Navpress, Colorado Springs, U.S.A., 1994 (the main proponent of the Progressive Creation view which tries to join evolution and Genesis. The book under the same title by Van Bebber and Taylor (1995) clearly answers this). Also see also the writings of John Stott, e.g. “Understanding the Bible”, Scripture Union, 1984, where he argues for a for a so-called “Homo Divinus” after a long line of hominids. A similar view is held by Denis Alexander in his book “Creation of Evolution - do we have to choose?” Monarch, 2008. This book is well answered by Nevin (ed.) “Should Christians Embrace Evolution” IVP, 2009.
[2] Lloyd-Jones, D.M., “What is an evangelical?”, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1992.
[3] Viktor Pearce “Evidence for Truth – Science”, Eagle, Guildford 1998, chapter 3.
[4] See the author’s own summary of the arguments in Genesis for Today, Day One, 2nd Edition 2001 – in particular Chapter 3 “Genesis and History”, and the extremely thorough treatment by Douglas Kelly “Creation and Change”, Christian Focus, 1997, Chapter 6.
