Creation: Days and Kinds

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AStudying God’s Word

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Studying God’s Word

Introduction

In last week’s lesson, we took a big overview of the creation of the entire universe. We saw God’s unlimited power demonstrated in his acts during the creation week.

• What did God make the universe from? The universe was created ex nihilo—out of nothing.

  Before God created the universe, there was nothing apart from himself. God is eternal and brought time, space, and matter into existence as he spoke creation into being out of nothing—a truly supernatural act!

  The other main idea we discussed was the compatibility of the evolutionary explanation of the universe’s origin and the biblical description of the creation week.

• How compatible are these two views? They disagree on virtually every point apart from the idea that the universe had a beginning.
  • Don’t forget! Review the Optional Supplements and determine where you can use them.
  Today we are going to refine some of the details of what was created in the first four days of the creation week and discuss how we can know that the days of the creation week were normal days and not long ages of time.

The Meaning of “Day”

In any language, words have multiple meanings. If you look up run in the dictionary, you will find about forty different meanings, just in its verb form—not to mention its use as a noun and an adjective. If a woman said, “I got a run in my stockings while I was running to the store where I had to run my eyes across the shelves to find my favorite brand,” you would know exactly what she meant.

I am going to read a few passages of Scripture to you. In each of these you will hear the word “day” used in different ways. I want you to tell me how you determined the meaning of the word.

I hope you see that the context of the sentence determines the meaning of a word when it has multiple possible meanings. That is exactly the way we need to understand the use of day in Genesis 1—in its context.

• Genesis 35:28—Now the days of Isaac were 180 years. This is referring to a past period of time, the lifetime of Isaac, with a specific length.
• Leviticus 9:1—On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel. This is referring to a specific 24-hour day as the ordinal number (eighth) indicates it follows the previous seven days.
• Numbers 11:32—And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail. Each of these instances refers to the daylight portion of a 24-hour period.
• Jeremiah 5:18—But even in those days, declares the Lord, I will not make a full end of you. This refers to a future age or time period with no specific timeframe.

What Is a Day? Activity

Show the “What Is a Day?” video, and then discuss its implications for understanding Genesis 1. If you don’t have the ability to play the video, just skip to the Connect to the Truth discussion.

We are going to watch a video that helps explain some of these issues, and we will discuss the ideas when it is over. There is space in your Student Guides for you to take notes as you watch. Play the video.

Having heard these men talk about the word yom and its different uses, we can use context to determine the meaning.

Connect to the Truth

• Open your Bibles and look at the text of Genesis 1. Look specifically at verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31. What elements help give us the context for the meaning of day in this chapter? Each includes an ordinal number (first, second, etc.) and the connection to an evening and a morning.
• Is there anything in this text that would suggest that the author intended the reader to understand these days as anything other than normal days? No.

  With a couple of possible exceptions, no one disputes the meaning of the word day/yom in any other part of Genesis. No one suggests that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three long ages or that the Israelites marched around Jericho for 7,000 years. It is only in Genesis 1 that the meaning is questioned.

• Why do you think this is the case? Some try to fit millions and billions of years into the history of the universe, so they must reinterpret the days as long periods, whether real or allegorical periods. This is not necessary in other portions of the Bible. Discuss other ideas as suggested by the students.
• What theological danger is presented if we reinterpret these days as long ages? It allows for death in the world before man is present to bring sin and death into the world. It also allows us to question other parts of the text—why stop reinterpreting after Genesis 1?
• Look down the page to Genesis 2:4. Some people claim that we can’t say that the days in Genesis 1 are 24-hour days because of this verse. Is that a legitimate position? No, this passage is summarizing the creation week, using the word day in the sense of a past period of time. The continuing context shows that this is looking back over the entire creation week. It is the same word, but the context determines it has a different meaning.

  Another important verse is found in Exodus 20:8–11. Turn there in your Bibles. And would someone please read that for us? Assign someone to read.

• How does this verse lend support to the view that the days of Genesis 1 are normal days? If God created the earth in six long periods, then the Sabbath would be a long period of time. This passage sets the length of a week based on the creative acts of God during the very first week. This passage only makes sense if the days are 24 hours long.

  This discussion is not just an issue on the perimeter of Christian convictions, but it touches on the very heart of the gospel message. We will continue to look at specific details over the next several lessons. Understanding this issue regarding origins is truly important for every Christian.

  We can trust that the days of Genesis 1 were very similar to what we experience today—24 hours long with light and dark, and evening and morning.

Days 1–4 of Creation Activity

Next, we are going to look over the first four days of creation and describe each one.

Turn in your Bibles back to Genesis 1. I will read the description of each day and then pause for you to fill in the parts of the creation described in the passage.

Read Genesis 1:1–5 and then pause for the students to fill in the following: earth, light, day, night

Read Genesis 1:6–8 and then pause for the students to fill in the following: an expanse, separating the waters, heaven

Read Genesis 1:9–13 and then pause for the students to fill in the following: dry land, earth, seas, vegetation, plants, fruit trees

Read Genesis 1:14–19 and then pause for the students to fill in the following: lights in the expanse of the heavens, greater light (sun), lesser light (moon), and stars

From the text, the earth begins as a large mass covered with water, and then things continue to be shaped by the powerful hand of the Creator.

• What is the “expanse” described in verses 6–8? What word is used in other translations? The expanse is an expanse of sky that separates two waters. This has been understood in different ways, but it seems that at least one aspect of what it means is the atmosphere around earth. Other translations use the word firmament.
• When does light appear? On day one.
• What is the source of this light? It is not described in the text, but it cannot be the sun because that was not created until day four.
• If the sun is not yet present, how can there be day and night? Since we know there is a light source, we can infer that it was coming from one direction and that the earth was rotating. Those are the only elements necessary for a day/night cycle. If you would like to illustrate this, use a flashlight pointed at a ball while rotating the ball.
• What are the greater and lesser lights described on day four? The greater light is the sun as it rules the day, and the lesser light is the moon as it rules the night. This is an example of poetic language used within this historical narrative.
• What is the purpose of all of the lights in the heavens? To separate day from night, for signs, seasons, days, and years, and to give light upon the earth.
• Looking at the description of day three, was the dry land/earth created? No, the dry land appears, so it must have been present under the water prior to this.
• How many land masses were formed on day three? While the text doesn’t say explicitly, we can infer that there was originally one land mass since the seas were gathered together in one place (1:9). This is not a necessary inference, but it is consistent with the text. This idea is consistent with our scientific understanding of how the current continents seem to fit together like a puzzle.
• What is significant about the seeds described in verses 11 and 12? They produce more of the same kind. This sets an expectation that each plant will produce more plants like itself through its seeds—peach trees produce peach seeds, wheat plants produce wheat seeds, etc.

Discover the Truth

There are a couple of different understandings of the firmament separating the waters below from the waters above. Some have proposed that this describes a canopy of water that once surrounded the earth and fell as the rain of Noah’s flood. This is problematic since the sun, moon, and stars, are placed in the expanse in verse 17. The sun wouldn’t quite fit between the earth and the top of the atmosphere, and there are other problems with this view as well. If there are those who object and insist on the canopy theory, encourage them to visit the resource page to read more about the current status of this model, which was quite influential in the past.

This has led some to suggest that there may be a wall of water at the edge of the universe. But the one thing that is clear is that this is the point when the earth’s atmosphere begins to exist. Make sure that you write “ atmosphere” under the day two description.

Another interesting phrase is in verse 16 where we read God made the stars. The billions of stars just in our galaxy and the uncountable number of galaxies should boggle your mind. And that word translated stars would also include the planets and other objects in space, as well. Yet, the creation of all of those billions upon billions of stars and planets is noted in a passing phrase, “. . . and the stars.” That is the understatement of the year, but it data-highlights God’s power.

Look at the description of the dry land appearing in verses 9 and 10. Looking carefully, you can see that there was one land, called earth, and multiple seas. The Hebrew words used are singular and plural, respectively. From this, we can infer that there was originally only one continent surrounded by multiple seas. Now, that might sound contradictory, but all the oceans and seas are connected today, and we still call them by different names. Adam and his descendants may have referred to them as the North, South, East, and West Seas surrounding the single continent.

Creation of Plants

The last topic we are going to address from the text today is the creation of the plants on day three.

• If you were to plant a pumpkin seed in your garden, what would you expect to find growing in that spot within a few weeks? A pumpkin seed should produce a pumpkin plant.
• What would you conclude if that plant that grew from the seed later grew cantaloupe fruit? It must not have been a pumpkin seed, but a cantaloupe seed.
• Is that conclusion a biblical conclusion or a scientific conclusion? It is scientific in the sense that we know from experience that pumpkin seeds don’t grow cantaloupe plants. But it is also biblical.
  Slide #14
  Let’s go back and read verse 12. Read the verse.

  A pumpkin or cantaloupe would likely fit into the category of plant, since it’s not a tree. These plants yield seed “according to its kind.”

• Slide #15
  What does the phrase “according to its kind” tell us about the seeds? They will grow plants of the same kind—pumpkin seeds will always produce pumpkins—since God designed the plants to produce seeds according to their kind. We can breed varieties of cantaloupe and even hybrids of various melons, but a melon will not hybridize with a coconut—they are different kinds.
  Created Kind: the original organisms (and their descendants) created supernaturally by God as described in Genesis 1
  The description here indicates that there are distinct kinds of plants that were created—kinds of grasses, kinds of herbs, and kinds of trees. This is very consistent with what we observe in the world around us. We classify different kinds of plants into groups based on their similarities, and one of the important characteristics is the fertility of plants with one another.

  The early scientists John Ray and Carolus Linnaeus were Christians who were looking to understand these groupings, and their thinking is still used as the fundamental structure of classifying organisms today.

  Today, creationists use fertility as one of the main ways to identify groups of biblical kinds. This study is called baraminology, which is derived from the two Hebrew words “create” (bara) and “kind” (min).

• What types of plants do you think might belong to the same created kind as wheat? Barley, oats, rye, and other grains, including grasses commonly used for lawns, might all be part of the original created kind, though many varieties could have been originally created within the grass kind.

  For you gardeners, you might know that plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, almonds, and nectarines are all related (genus Prunus). If you think about basic groups of plants such as varieties of peppers; onions/garlic/shallots; varieties of tomatoes; etc., these are probably pretty close to the biblical kinds.

• How does this biblical idea of specific types of created kinds of plants fit with the evolutionary view of plants? The evolutionary view says that one kind of plant evolved into other kinds of plants, so they are quite contradictory views of the origins of plants. If the seeds produce the same kind of plant, we would not expect to see one kind changing into another.

  From the evolutionary perspective, people talk of a “tree of life” to describe how all living things have come from one original life form, just as the branches of a tree come from one trunk. From a biblical perspective, we can speak of an orchard rather than a single tree since we know God created multiple kinds of grasses, herbs, and trees in the beginning.

  • Remind students that the Days of Creation worksheet will be finished next week as we talk about the last two days of creation.
  Within each of those kinds, we see lots of variety—just think of all the different types of peas, beans, lentils, and the like that are all part of the same legume family. We will continue to think through that issue in the next lesson when we look at the creatures of days five and six.

Application

To briefly recap, we have looked at the first chapter of Genesis today and provided an argument from the text that the days were normal days, not long ages of time. This is a source of much controversy not only with the world’s view of origins, but also within the professing church—and one we will be discussing for the next several lessons.

We have also taken a closer look at what was created on the first four days of the creation week. We saw that God created the earth, the seas, the land, and all of the plants—which were created in distinct kinds—as well as the sun, moon, and stars to mark the passage of time. As you might imagine, we have really only scratched the surface on this topic, and you might have lots of questions.

• Slide #16
  Slide #17
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  Slide #20
  What objections might you hear from others (or that you may have yourself) regarding the days in Genesis 1 being normal 24-hour days? Some might object that it is not a scientific explanation, that God could have just created everything instantly, or that the text is just an allegory that we shouldn’t try to understand as a literal description. As you discuss these ideas with those who may disagree, do so humbly and patiently, but not setting aside the truths of Scripture (2 Timothy 2:24–26).
• How can we answer those objections, explaining that Genesis 1 is talking about a normal week? The most important thing to remember when answering any of these objections is that we must look to the Bible for the answers, not to outside sources like “science” or biblical scholars, which are fallible. No scientific evidence can prove God created in six days; we trust that is what he did because that is what he revealed in Scripture.
• 1 Peter 3:15 calls Christians to give an answer for the hope within them, but it also tells us that we should do it with meekness and fear, not with arrogance. Why is this important when considering an issue like the origin of the creation? Many people get quite emotional when discussing such issues. We can never step down from speaking the truth, but we can do it in a way that is not offensive, even though many may take offense. We must also be using these topics to move to a discussion of “the hope that it is in us” in Christ. We should not be seeking to win arguments, but to point people to the Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ.
• Some people suggest that the first three days of Genesis 1 could not be actual days since there wasn’t even a sun to provide light for the earth—that there can’t be day and night or evening and morning without a sun. How could you use the text of Genesis 1 to explain this apparent problem? There was light on day one, and the text clearly says there was day and night. So there is no reason to question that there was a normal day. It is only when ideas from outside the text (eisegesis) are added to the discussion that there is an apparent conflict.
• What is the danger of suggesting that the days in Genesis 1 should be interpreted as long ages or as a myth that contains truth? The authority of Scripture is lost when we pick and choose which parts of the Bible are to be taken plainly. If the foundational book of Scripture—Genesis—can be questioned, then why can’t passages that speak directly of the gospel be set aside as well?

Group Prayer

Be sure to pray with your class and take requests if time allows.

• Praise God for his sovereign control over the creation.
• Ask God for wisdom in understanding and sharing these truths with others.
• Thank God for minds that can think through complex issues.