Parallel texts supporting literal creation days

by Glen on 2001-03-24 00:04:17

Robert McCabe wrote an excellent reply to an article titled Six literal days of Creation here at welovegod.org. If you have ever wondered if God’s creation was six days or 6 thousand years, etc, you really should read on…

Robert writes:

Support of literal creation days in Genesis 1 may also be drawn from the hermeneutical rule known as the the hermeneutical principle of the analogy of faith, analogia fidei. This hermeneutical axiom sets forth that Scripture interprets Scripture. As such, we may look for parallel biblical texts to interpret the days of Genesis 1. While it is my estimation that Genesis 1 explicitly sets forth the God created in six, consecutive literal days, we have two parallel texts that leave no wiggle room for opposing interpretations. These passages are Exodus 20:8-11 and 31:14-17.

The fourth commandment of the Decalogue in Exodus 20:8-11 is for Israel to set the sabbath day apart as a holy day to the LORD. This command is given in vv. 8-10: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.” The motivation for this command is stated in v. 11: “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; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” While some have attempted to reduce the relationship between the fourth commandment and the creation week to one of “analogy,” in that man?s sabbath rest cannot be identical to God?s rest, but only analogous to God?s day of rest, this understanding oversimplifies and misrepresents the correlation between these two texts. Exodus 20:11 has a number of connections with the creation week: a “six-plus-one” pattern, “the heavens and the earth,” “the seventh day,” “rested,” “blessed,” and “made it holy.” All of this suggests that, at the least, one of God?s purposes in creating the world and all things therein in six, successive literal days followed by a literal day of rest was to set up a pattern for his people to follow. According to this text, Israel?s workweek is patterned after God?s creative activity.

If, for argument sake, we assume that each day was a geological age, we could interpret Exodus 20:11 in this fashion: “For in six geological ages of a million years or so, the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh geological age of a million years or so; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath geological age of a million years or so and made it holy.” Any interpretation other than literal days is problematic for Israel?s proper observance of the sabbath, and seriously undermines a literal interpretation of the days of Genesis 1.

This literal understanding of the creation week is reiterated again in Exodus 31:14-17: “Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.”

In this context, Israel?s observance of the sabbath is a sign of the Mosaic Covenant. God?s commanding Israel to keep the sabbath is grounded in the creation week. As in Exodus 20:11, 31:17 has a number of links with the creation week: a “six-plus-one” pattern, “heaven and earth,” and “ceased” is the same Hebrew verb, sbt, translated as “rested” in Genesis 2:2. Obviously, Moses had six literal days in mind with the seventh day also being a 24-hour period.

In the final analysis, Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 confirm that the days of the creation week are literal days. According to these two texts, the references to the creation week are not analogous-man?s rest is not simply like God?s rest on the seventh day-instead, man is to imitate the divine Exemplar. Since God worked for six days and rested on the seventh, the nation of Israel must follow his example. To interpret the days of creation as non-literal days certainly undermines the Mosaic Covenants required observance of the sabbath command.

Robert’s material is drawn from pages 109-112 in an article he recently
wrote for his seminary journal (“A Defense of Literal Days in the Creation
Week,” Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 5 [Fall 2000]: 97­123).