or by arbitrary force; moral beings were created, whether Satan, spirits or man, and the

possibility of fall and judgment was foreseen and provided for, so that the glorious end

shall be attained in Christ, by grace, with due recognition of the values of righteousness,

holiness and love.

It is impossible to speak of the present creation without referring to time. It is often

spoken of as "The six days' creation" to distinguish it from the primal creation of

Gen. 1: 1 and the new creation of Rev. 21:

In this connection of time we must first consider the word "day". It is conceded at the

outset that yom, "day", may mean an indefinite period of time, and that it is so used in

Gen. 2: 4, "In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens", where "day"

covers the whole of the six days' creation. Gen. 1: 3 to 2: 3 however is a unit in which

the "day" occurs fourteen times, and an examination of its usage will leave little room for

doubt but that a literal day of twenty-four hours is intended.

At the creation of light the Lord divided the light from the darkness, calling the light

"day" and the darkness "night". This division of time has remained ever since and, just

as we find Noah receiving parallel commands to "replenish the earth" and with reference

also to the subduing of the animal creation and the honouring of the image of God in man

(Gen. 9: 1, 2, 6), so, as in Gen. 1:, this is preceded by a covenant which promised that

"while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and

winter, the day and night shall not cease" (8: 22). Again, Gen. 1: 5 adds, "And the

evening and the morning were the first day".

If, as some have said, these are geological days, involving an "evening", that might

have lasted millions of years, can anyone explain what kept alive the grass, the herb, and

the fruit tree during its icy and inky darkness, or how the fowl of the air or creeping

things managed to exist? for every day's work is summed up with the formula: "The

evening and the morning were the . . . . . day." Yet if we interpret Gen. 1: 1, 2 as the

creation of the heaven and the earth which was created during the six days of the

subsequent revelation, we shall be compelled to teach that these "days" are geological

ages. The rocks evidence their age-long growth, the very fuel we burn witnesses that

long ages must have passed in the process of turning forests into coal. But if we interpret

1: 1, 2 as we have done, that is, seeing a primal creation in the beginning followed by an

overthrow, we can place our geological ages in between verses 1 and 2 and look upon the

present creation as occupying literally just six days, for it was largely a reconstruction,

the word "create" only occurring in the record for two acts, (1) the creation of the

inhabitants of the sea (verse 21), for in the primal creation, as in the new earth, there was,

and there will, "no sea", and (2) the creation of man (verse 27).