Clarifying Creation, Part I

Jake grew up in a typical church-going family. His family went to church every Sunday and he was one of the really good kids in Sunday school. He believed in God. He was a good boy. Jake was also pretty good in school too – especially science. But, sometimes it was hard for Jake to figure out how the Bible stories about creation that he learned in Sunday school fit with evolution and all the other things he was learning in science class. Jake wondered if maybe God used evolution to create everything, or something like that. Jake’s problem is a very common issue for young people today so it is a very important topic to address.

In short, the answer to Jake’s question, “did God use evolution to create?” is no. Could God use evolution – yes, God can do anything, but it isn’t consistent with His character. Let’s explore just the basic reasons in the text of Genesis why we know God didn’t use evolution to create today, and next week we will explore some deeper reasons.

The first thing you will notice as you read through Genesis 1 is that creation is organized into six separate days. The order of events found in Genesis 1 is very different from the order of events according to evolution or the “Big Bang”. For example, according to God’s Word, the earth came before the stars (stars are not until Day 4) but according to man’s model, the earth came billions of years after stars formed. Also, evolution says that birds came from reptiles, but the Bible says that the birds (Day 5) were created before reptiles (Day 6 with other land animals).

Some people try to take the first chapters of Genesis metaphorically, and say that they are only poetry. However, the entire book of Genesis is written in historic form like other books of the Bible recounting actual events that happened, not poetic form like the Psalms. People have also pointed out that the Hebrew word used for day in the days of creation, yom, is interpreted as a span of time rather than a particular 24-hour day. However, every time the word yom had a number with it (i.e., the first day) or the words “morning” or “evening” with it, yom always means a literal 24-hour day. It actually looks like God went out of His way to clarify that He meant to tell us that He created everything in six literal 24-hour days.