"God isn't Bound by Time!"
| by | Eric Lyons, M.Min. |
Although for millennia Genesis chapter one had been understood as the original creation of the Universe that took place in six literal, majestic days, within the last two centuries many have been duped into believing that the billions of years required for evolution must fit somewhere within the first chapter of the English Bible. For numerous “Bible believers,” evolutionary dating methods have become the father of biblical interpretation. Therefore, we are told that God spent, not six literal days, but billions of years creating the Universe and everything in it. We frequently hear such statements as: (1) “God is not bound by time”; (2) “God could have taken as much time as he wanted while creating the Universe and everything in it”; and (3) “Billions of years could have elapsed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:3.” To say that Creation did not last millions or billions of years, supposedly, is to limit Almighty God.
There is no question that God is not bound by time. He is the infinite, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing Creator. The point, however, is not whether God is outside of time (cf. Psalm 90:2), but what God has revealed to us—both in Genesis 1 and in the rest of the Bible. God could have created the Universe in any way He so desired; in whatever order He wanted, and in whatever time frame He so chose. He could have created the world and everything in it in six hours, six minutes, six seconds, or in one millisecond—He is, after all, God Almighty (Genesis 17:1). But the question is not what God could have done; it is what He said He did. And He said that He created everything in six literal days. When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, He stated:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (Exodus 20:8-11, emp. added).
This Sabbath command can be understood properly only when the days of the week are considered regular 24-hour days.
Based upon God’s use of words throughout Scripture which represent time periods that are much longer than a regular day (cf. Genesis 1:14; 2 Peter 3:8), we can rightly conclude that God could have revealed to man that this world was created over a vast period of time. [He could have used the Hebrew word dôr, which means long periods of time.] The fact is, however, God said He created this world and everything in it in six days (Genesis 1; Exodus 20:11; 31:17; cf. Psalm 33:9; 148:5; Mark 10:6).
Question: What’s wrong with the way God said He did it?