Question: Gen. 1. Which do you believe to be the true interpretation of this chapter? And why is no other view so satisfactory as the one you favor?
M. A.
Answer: In a general way it may be said that three different modes of understanding have prevailed.
1. What may be called the oldest known exegesis among Jewish and Christian commentators was the very vague notion that “In the beginning” (vers. 1, 2) was practically very near if not actually at the same time, as that which is detailed in “the six days” beginning with ver. 3 and following to the end of the chapter. There may be some slight difference among the early fathers as among Rabbis. But the general impression which they convey was the conviction that the creation of heaven and earth almost immediately was followed by that of our first parents. The second verse presented no small difficulty. Heathen ideas would have inclined many to have reversed the order of vers. 1 and 2. Others could not admit such a change possible, and would have seen that as this was disloyalty to scripture, so it would have involved a difficulty as great as it removed. Hence the disposition to leave the two verses altogether a general summary, and details of creation to begin with ver. 3. To some Israelites “the six days” had to be explained away, and long geologic ages since the beginning and preceding man did not occur to those who thought of it as a vast single result of God’s will. But waiving this, no tradition more widely ruled men, and Christendom in particular, and the Puritans as much as the Fathers.
The popular idea, since evangelical geologists looked for a scriptural support of the long ages of change after the “beginning,” and before Adam or the race, was to look for them in “the six days,” so extended as to cover the immense periods required. An Irish barrister, Dr. D. McCausland, eminently fitted by his ability and his scientific attainments to examine the question, urged this solution in his “Sermons in Stones”; as it was also taken up warmly by many scientists in Great Britain, America, etc.
There remains the third, and as I believe, the really sound meaning of the chapter: in that it leaves room for all that God wrought, however protracted the time that elapsed between the “beginning” and the “six days” in successive acts of God in construction and catastrophe: cognizable by men of science, and left for their discovery in due time, but entirely outside the scope of revelation. The first two verses give the principle of creation and of chaos for the earth, the one as necessary as the other for man when created, not only to learn the facts from the earth’s crust but to use the results according to God’s beneficent provision. Thus scripture departs not from its supreme design and character, nor encumbers itself with teaching science which is man’s pride. But it is untrue that it commits itself to “false science” or unreliable history, or any other insinuation of infidels. Hence, as in a scripture not poetic in any way but the simplest prose attributed to God by as true a saint as ever lived, there is no ground to doubt that the “six days” are literal, as “the evening and the morning” seems expressly meant to convey.
Indeed there is great moral beauty in “days” having no place in the part which commences with “In the beginning” and ends with “the Spirit of God was brooding over the face of the waters.” It was well that we should know that the great divine agent, who in Israel deigned to give His all-powerful energy for making the vessels of the Sanctuary, and later, came down to make Christians individually and the church collectively God’s temple by His indwelling, took so suited a relation to the last work which God was preparing for man to inhabit long after. It was no mighty tempest, but His suited brooding over the waters. But when the “six days” begin which man crowns before they closed, how in keeping a measurement of time so important for the race, and in relation to God above all! Then we first bear of them, Moral dealings then begin, with the wondrous proof of God’s deep interest in man, and the corresponding responsibility of man to God, to the race, and to the lower creation. Then too we first read “And God said,” and the deep privilege of reading and the solemn call to believe. This too confirms that the six days had nothing to do with the many acts of creating creatures, inanimate and animated, who could not understand Him; but His speaking definitely of all that formed the environment of the race was as precious as instructive for His vicegerent here below. Still more blessed when we look on by faith to the Second man and last Adam, the antitype and contrast of him that brought in sin and death, as Rom. 5:1414Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:14) lets us know, the Conqueror of Satan, the holy Sufferer for our sins, that the believer should reign with Him, and the world itself be blessed under His reign to God’s glory. His word as to both Adams is not science but revelation, as indeed all the Bible is.