On Getting Out Of A Cozy Bed On A Crisp Autumn Morning

(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

(2) The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

(3) Then God said, "Let there be light" and there was light.

(4) God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

(5) God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

(14) Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and them be for seasons and for days and years; 

(15) and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth:, and it was so. 

(16) God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 


On Getting Out Of A Cozy Bed Early On A Crisp Autumn Morning

Did the heavens and the earth
moan and say
it's too early to rise
on that very first day
oh no - they said - rejoice
and praise the one
who rolls back the chaos
revealing the sun


There are some who may have a theological disagreement with this little poem of mine (they say the sun was created out of nothing on day 4, I say the sun was created out of nothing in verse one and that what we read in verse 16 may refer to a different type of action). Admittedly I hold to a minority position in a camp which is more and more a minority camp. That is, we believe that the scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit and that they are to be seen literal except when the context suggests otherwise.

I veer somewhat from traditional literal understandings of the creation account in Genesis by favoring what has been called the gap theory, first suggested in the Schofield Reference Bible. Since there is a straw man argument set up against the gap theory (i.e. it is only necessary for people like scientist Hugh Ross who don't want 7 literal 24 hours days of creation out of nothing 6000 years ago and instead promote 7 ages of millions of years each) let me tell you what I believe makes sense.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth - out of nothing. We do not know when that was or how long that took. Maybe it happened only thousands of years ago, maybe it happened billions of years ago. The bible doesn't say and we are making certain assumptions which may or may not be true to date back to Adam, then minus 7 days and then to verse one.

There are certain other things that the bible doesn't tell us. We are not told when angels were created, when the evil one rebelled, and when or how evil spirits came to be. And yet the evil one was there in the garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. If the 28th chapter of Ezekiel is referring to him when it talks about the king of Tyre, who was in the garden of Eden, covered in precious stones, who had far flung trade and was called "the anointed cherub who covers", who became corrupted and sinned because of pride for his beauty and wisdom, who was cast off of the mountain of God before men, then there must be more to the story and a time frame to put it in.

I believe the phrasing in Genesis when it says and evening came and morning came, one day is there to indicate a 24 hour period. Therefore I do not believe that Genesis describes seven stages of millions of years each. However I do not see any solid scriptural or linguistic necessity (after reading many commentaries) for Genesis verse 1 to have to be a continuous part of what happens in the description of day one.

It seems logical that verse one can include not only the creation out of nothing of the universe but also a broad framework for a per Adamic world (the Hebrew words in scripture do not allow for Adam to have evolved from something else). If this is true then it is also logical to speculate that there was a world of angels and other creatures that perished when or sometime after the evil one rebelled and that that world was judged and cast into chaos. The six days of creation (and the seventh when God rested) would then be process of God restoring what had been judged and creating man in day six to rule over and take care of that new creation.