The Seventh Day—God Rests and God’s Plan for Man

The last two mornings my family and I considered what Finis Jennings Dake says his God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time, about God’s day of rest after the six days of creation described in Genesis 1 and about His purpose in restoring the Earth and His plan for it.

VIII. The Seventh Day of Rest (Gen. 2:1-3)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
The seventh day was a day of rest for God, not that He needed rest, but because His work of restoring the Earth and its inhabitants was finished.
The order of all the Creative Ages is as follows:

1. The original creation and perfection of the heavens and the Earth all things therein as when Lucifer ruled before the six days (Gen. 1:1).
2. The Earth part of the creation made chaos and imperfect and all life destroyed in the Earth because of Lucifer’s rebellion (Gen. 1:2).
3. The restoration of the Earth to perfection and the creation of new life to take the place of that which was destroyed (Gen. 1:3-2:25).
   [The above is based on Dake’s version of the gap theory of creation. For summaries of it and two other popular theories of creation, see https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/gods-plan-for-man-supplement-three-creation-theories/.%5D

IX. Why the Earth Was Restored to a Habitable State
The Earth was restored to a habitable state because God had originally intended that ut should be inhabited. “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18).
God had started with a purpose that the Earth be established by free moral agents to whom He could reveal Himself and show the riches of His grace, and who would serve Him of free choice, and He continued the original purpose by making a new creation when the old one had to be destroyed.

X. God’s Plan for the New Social System on Earth
God’s plan for the new social system was the same as it was for the first social system—that all free wills consecrate themselves to the highest good of being and of the universe.
God planned to make the new creation an example to all angelic powers (Eph, 3:10-11; 1 Cor. 4:9). He planned to manifest His grace and goodness to man and make him ruler of all the Earth (Ps. 8:3-7). He planned that man should be faithful to his responsibility if he so desired and that he should be greatly rewarded and continue to rule over all or, if he failed, he should be punished according to the law. He also planned redemption for man should he fall.
[Dake expands on God’s plan for Adam, quoting Genesis 1:26-29; 2:15-17 and from Psalms 8:3-9, and on His plan for man under the title “Adam the New Ruler of the Earth.” Although my family and I read and discussed the entire exposition, I’m including here only its concluding paragraph. It follows.]
“If man would only realize the future that can be his, if he would simply submit to God and lay down his arms of rebellion, there would be few, if any, but what would wholeheartedly surrender to God and conform to His eternal will. But because the devil keeps man occupied with trifling and temporary things and makes him think that there may not be a future, he causes man to neglect God and the essentials of life and by so doing causes man to be cut off from his rightful inheritance in Christ. If one chooses to have nothing to do with God and His plan for man, the God has planned to separate him from society and carry on His eternal purpose with those who will choose a part in the plan.” (Dake, page 141)

The Work of the Six Days

The last two mornings my family and I considered the work that God did in the six days of creation in Genesis 1:3-31 guided by what Finis Jennings Dake says about them in his God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. Dake’s describing things as being restored instead of as being created follows from his view that Genesis 1:2 refers to God’s flooding the Earth after its ruler, Lucifer, rebelled against Him. Other Bible scholars view Genesis 1:3-31 as describing the original creation referred to in Genesis 1:1.

II. The Work of the First Day—Light Restored (Gen. 1:3-5)
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (KJV; all Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless otherwise specified)
The work of the first day was the restoration of light and the division of light and darkness on Earth as it had been when Lucifer ruled and before the curse of total darkness on the Earth in Genesis 1:2. “Let” denotes permission, not creation, and indicates that God is permitting judgment to cease and the sun, moon, and stars to shine on the Earth again as they had when God created them in the beginning.

III. The Work of the Second Day—Firmament Restored (Genesis 1:6-8)
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
The work of the second day is the restoration of the firmament or clouds to hold the waters again that had fallen on the Earth to cause the flood of Genesis 1:2. The firmament had been created in the beginning to hold moisture to water the Earth (Job 38:25-28) and in Day 2 was restored to its original purpose. This was done by making, not creating, the clouds.

IV. The Work of the Third Day—Earth and Vegetation Restored (Genesis 1:9-13)
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
The work of the third day was the restoration of the Earth from being covered by water and the restoration of the vegetation that had grown on the Earth when Lucifer ruled before the chaos of Genesis 1:2. At the rebuke of God, the waters that had not been put in clouds on Day 2 fled and hasted away to go into the low places of the Earth. God then set bounds around the waters that they should be confined from covering the Earth (Psalm 104:5-9).
When the dry land appeared vegetation could be planted and grown for the sun was already shining. The purpose of the vegetation was to sustain life on the restored Earth. In all likelihood, the life germ in seeds was destroyed in the chaotic period of Genesis 2. Thus all vegetation on the restored Earth would be absolutely new, as is stated in Genesis 2:5, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.”

V. The Work of the Fourth Day—Solar Regulation Restored (Genesis 1:14-19)
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
The work of the fourth day was the restoration of the solar system in connection with the restored Earth. The sun, moon, and stars had given light on the Earth and regulated times and seasons through the rule of Lucifer, but in the curse of Genesis 2 they had been withdrawn from shining on the Earth. Here God commanded them to renew their original creative purpose. Some translations read, “God had made two great luminaries…and God had fixed them,” indicating that God had created them before the fourth day. [The passage raises the question of whether the sun, moon, and stars were created on the first day or on the fourth day. Dake’s explanation is a common one. Another explanation is that they were created on the first day but not given a purpose until the fourth day.]

VI. The Work of the Fifth Day—Fish and Fowls Restored (Genesis 1:20-23)
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
The work of the fifth day was the creation and formation of new sea animals and fowls. In this passage we have the second creative act [bara, “created” being used as in 1:1 instead of asah, “made” between 1:1 and 1:21]. Between the two creations God merely restores the day and night, firmament, the Earth and vegetation, and solar regulation. Now, having fixed the realms where fish and fowls were to live, He creates them and makes them to reproduce their own kind and live according to certain laws. [Another explanation of the use of bara here is that it indicates the beginning of a new stage in Creation, the creation of living beings.]

VII. The Work of the Sixth Day—Land Animals and Man Restored (Genesis 1:24-31)
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
The work of the sixth day was the creation and formation of new land animals and man to take the place of the animals and inhabitants of the Earth when it was ruled over by Lucifer, the naming of all things by Adam, and the giving of commands by God to the new creation. The bodies of man and all animals were formed out of the dust and the life was created (Genesis 2:7,19).
Genesis 1 states what God is and some things as to how He created and made all new things, and Genesis 2 goes into more detail telling how He did the work of forming and creating man and animals and the planting of a garden; that is, it explains more fully the work of Days 3, 5, and 6.
[Just as verses 11 and 12 attributed the production of vegetation to the land, verse 24 attributes the production of animals to it. However verse 25 observes that God made the animals. John H. Sailhamer comments, “Vegetation was produced from the land, but the living creatures were made by God himself. Life stems from God and is to be distinguished from the rest of the physical world” (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1990, volume 2, page 37).

(This article was originally posted on July 11, 2019.)

Are the Six Days of Gen. 1 Literal Days?

The last two mornings my family and I considered the length of the six days of creation in Genesis 1:3-2:25. We began with “I. Are the Six Days of Gen. 1 Literal Days?” in Lesson 8: The Story of Re-creation (Gen. 1:3-2:25) of Finis Jennings Dake’s God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. In it Dake presents reasons why he thinks that the six days of Genesis 1 were literal 24-hour days. Next we read the reasons given in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1994) why some people think that the six days were long periods of time.

Literal Days
Dake gives these reasons why he thinks that the six days of Genesis 1 were literal 24-hour days:

1. Each of the days in Genesis 1 ends with the expression “And the evening and the morning were the XXX day” (KJV; all Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless specified otherwise). The word “evening” is from the Hebrew ehred, meaning “dusk,” “evening,” or “night”; it is translated “evening” 49 times, but not once is it used in a figurative sense. The word “morning” is from the Hebrew boker, meaning “dawn,” “break of day,” “morning,” or “early light”; it is translated “morning 187 times, but not once is it used in a figurative sense.
2. Although “day,” which is used 2,182 times as a literal day, may refer to a prolonged period when it is qualified as “the day of the Lord” or “the day of God,” when it is used with qualifying words like “evening” and “morning” it can only be understood in the literal sense.
3. In Exodus 20:8-11 and 31:14-17 God told man to work the same length of time that it took God to do the work of Genesis 1:3-2:25, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
   …. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.”
4. Our fundamental rule of Bible interpretation is to take the Bible literally wherein it is at all possible. When the language cannot be literal or when language states to the contrary, then the passage is figurative. Could not God do this work in six literal days as well as in 6,000 years?
5. If the idea is advanced that the days of Genesis could not be literal because the sun, moon, and stars had not yet been created to regulate days and nights, we reply that they had been created originally in the beginning when God created the heavens and the Earth (Genesis 1:1).
6. The 1,000-year-day theory is ridiculous in the light of facts. If it were true, then the waters remained on the Earth at least 1,000 years before they were divided, the Earth was desolate another 1,000 years before vegetation was planted, and vegetation was on Earth 1,000 years before the sun, moon, and stars were created. Here the question arises, “How could vegetation live so long without the sun?” [Dake gives more such “ridiculous” facts.]
7. Although some translations read “age” for “day,” that is incorrect.

Long Periods of Time
Grudem gives these reasons why some think that the six days were long periods of time:

1. The Hebrew word yom, “day,” is sometimes used to refer to a longer period of time than a 24-hour literal day. Examples are its use in Genesis 2:4; Job 20:28; Psalm 20:1; Proverbs 11:4, 21:31, 24:10, 15:13; Ecclesiastes 7:14; many passages referring to “the day of the Lord”; many passages predicting times of judgment and blessing.
2. The sixth day includes so many events that it must have been longer than twenty-four hours. It includes the creation of animals, the creation of man and woman, and the blessing of them.
3. The seventh day doesn’t conclude with “and the evening and the morning were the seventh day.” The text just says, “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:2-3). This suggests that it never ended and thus is really a long period of time (cf. Hebrews 4:4, 9-10).

Dake’s belief that the six days of Genesis 1 were literal 24-hour days provides support for his belief in the gap theory of creation. The six days of Genesis 1 being long periods of time is essential to day age theory of creation. See https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/gods-plan-for-man-supplement-three-creation-theories/ for explanations of those theories of creation and the flood geology theory of creation.