Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Hebrews 4:6 Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Hebrews 4:6 Therefore, since the promise remains for some to enter His rest, and those who formerly had the good news preached to them failed to [grasp it and did not] enter because of [their unbelief evidenced by] disobedience, |
Subject: Is the 7th "day" still going on? |
Bible Note: In the 1980's, an organized crusade attempted to downgrade the teaching of evolution in the public schools through laws requiring that creation be given equal time. In a legal skirmish, a federal judge decided that “creation science” as defined in an Arkansas law did not qualify on an equal basis with evolution. This setback was disappointing to many who hold that evolution does not satisfactorily explain life’s origin. What went wrong? From the testimony given in the trial, it is manifest that the scientific evidence for creation was not really presented in clear confrontation with evolution. Instead, it was lost to sight in clashes over side issues, particularly two tenets of creationism that had been written into the law: 1. That creation took place only a few thousand years ago. 2. That all geologic strata were formed by the Biblical Deluge. Neither of these dogmas is really crucial to the central question of whether living things were created or not. They are merely doctrines held by the members of a few churches, notably the Seventh-Day Adventists, who form the core of the group that sponsored the law. When these sectarian beliefs were written into the law as something that must be taught in public schools, that law was foredoomed to be declared unconstitutional. But does the legal defeat of scientific creationism, as this movement is known, reflect unfavorably on the Bible? Are the doctrines of recent creation and a diluvial origin of geologic strata found in God’s Word? An informed Bible student would answer, No. While the Bible clearly states that the heavens and the earth and everything in them were created by God, it does not say when those things were created. Most of the defense witnesses were shackled by the religious dogma that the six creative days in Genesis were all encompassed in a period of 144 hours. This harks back to an erroneous fundamentalist teaching that was not challenged by the science of the 17th century, but that is no longer tenable in the light of present knowledge. The Bible itself does not set any such time limit on the days of creation. The first verse of Genesis simply says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If we take this to mean the creation of the starry heavens, the galaxies, and the solar system of which the earth is a part, we are talking about events that preceded the first creative day. The description of the earth’s condition in verse 2 also precedes the first day. Not until verses 3 to 5 do we enter upon the activity of the first day of creation. So no matter how long the days might prove to be, verses 1 and 2 describe things already accomplished, and they fall outside any time frame encompassing the creative days. If geologists want to say that the earth is 4 billion years old, or astronomers want to make the universe 20 billion years old, the Bible student has no quarrel with them. The Bible simply does not indicate the time of those events. The next point to note is that the word “day” is used in many different senses in the Bible. It does not always mean a 24-hour period. Sometimes it means only the hours of sunlight, that is, 12, more or less. Sometimes it stands for a year. Sometimes it means the years during a certain generation. In several references a day is 1,000 years, and in some even longer. No doubt the days in Genesis chapter 1 were very much longer. But the Bible does not there say how long they were. So all the argument in the Little Rock trial about the recency of creation and the attention it received in the news media were entirely extraneous to the question of whether man was created or evolved. The time of creation is not the same as the fact of creation. The two should not have been confused. With the basic point established that the Bible text does not conflict with scientific theories about the age of the universe, we may also leave open the question of the age and origin of geologic strata. The Bible says nothing at all about the formation of sedimentary layers, whether at the time of the Flood or earlier. All the voluminous writings of creationists on this subject, which came under critical examination in the trial, have been motivated by the desire to reconcile the existence of the geologic column and its fossils, dinosaurs and all, with their claim for a 6- to 10-thousand-year age of the earth. If this claim is invalid, all the rest of the argument is beside the point. Even the true version of creation as supported by the Bible may not have convinced the courts to permit its teaching along side evolution in the public schools, but at least it would have had a better chance. |