Several reasons from scripture we know that to be true. Also the The Hebrew context does not allow for anything other than 24 hour days in Genesis 1. James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University, former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford said,
"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; .. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.".
Perhaps you think your 'interpretation' blows it apart, but scripture says "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
That is almost a laughable stretch of 'logic' trying to add billions of years into scripture. There are many things wrong with your suggestion that the 7th day continues.
a) You seem to believe that God blessed and sanctified and cursed the exact same day? Either that, or when did the 8th day begin?
b) Genesis is not saying that God wants us to share a literal 7th day rest from the 6 days of creation. He said He rested to typify for us a literal day of rest.
c) The narrative of the Hebrew text provides no basisfo believing the 7th day was any different length of time than the preceeding six days.
d) EVEN IF... the 7th day was a longer period than 24 hours it says nothing about the length of the other 6 days (Each with morning and evening)
e) The Hebrews text tells that God's creative activity ended with the beginning of day 7; it in no way suggests the 7th day has continued into the present.
f) God rested...past tense.
g) Hebrews is warning not to be disobedient like the Israelites in the wilderness. Because of their hard hearts they could not enter into a "rest" - Canaan. The Hebrew word used by David was 'menuwchah'... a word referring to a place, or abode of resting. Hebrews verses uses the same concept using the Greek word ' katapausis'.* Verse 9 of Hebrews 4 (You stopped too soon at v.6) promises a future day of rest. He uses a special word for Sabbath 'Sabbatismos' , which seems to suggest that when the believers work is complete, we will live with Christ in eternity...our rest. In Hebrews God uses the picture of the creations 7th day of rest to provide a picture Heaven...our future rest.
WOW!..... Now you have it!!! The word 'day' in English, and 'YOM' in Hebrew has a similar variety of meaning. It is always understood by the context! Genesis 1 days 24 hour days...determined by context. Yes, 'YOM' can be longer than, or shorter than 24 hour...understood by CONTEXT.
It is us who refers to it as 24 hours. God defined a day in Genesis 1: 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
We agree that there is no conflict between science and God's Word. But we do disagree about the secular opinions and billions of years you add to scripture.*
Mark 10:6 "However, from the beginning of creation, ‘He made them male and female".
The Greek word for beginning is 'arche' ...a word denoting an absolute. It was not a subsequent beginning...It was not the beginning of humanity, but the beginning of creation. The Greek wording for 'since the creation of the world' in that verse is "apo ktiseos kosmou". The Greek word 'apo' as a preposition means 'The beginning point'. Greek 'kosmou' (kosmos) refers to the universe.
Author Wayne Jackson explains..."Unquestionably this language puts humankind at the very dawn of creation. To reject this clear truth one must contend that:
(a) Christ knew the universe was in existence billions of years prior to man, but accommodated himself to the ignorance of his generation deliberately misrepresenting the situation; or,
(b) The Lord living in pre-scientific times was uninformed about the matter (despite the fact that he was there as Creator). Either one of these allegations is a reflection upon the Son of God and his blasphemous"
ALSO...
Millions of years of suffering, death and extinctions contradict God's Word.
The Bible attributes physical death to sin...specifically referring to Adam. And here is the Gospel....
1Cor. 15: 21 "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive"Also see Rom. 5:12-19
3. The Bible refers to death as evil... it is the enemy.
1 Cor. 15:26 "The last enemy to be destroyed is death."
So... if physical death is evil... its hard to rationalize that with Genesis 1:31 where God calls His creation " very good". Obviously physical death did not exist until sin entered the world. And, we KNOW when sin entered the world.
ALSO...
If physical death already existed before sin... then why did Christ need to physically die and be resurrected? If the curse in Genesis 2 was only a spiritual death to Adam, then Christ only need to rise, or defeat, spiritual death. Clearly, in 1 Cor. 15:26, physical death was part of the curse which Christ conquers.
What are you talking about....that God "cursed" the 7th day? His "day of rest" is the 7th day and
it is still going on, as can be seen by the fact that a New Testament writer states that believers, who obey God, can even NOW enter that rest. Whatever you mean by the 8th day, I don't know.
I believe I covered the explanation of the 6 days of creation and their length in post #233. If not, I will do so again. As already mentioned, a "day" often refers to time periods of
varying length, which is obvious, even in the Scripture at Genesis 2:4 which you cited. The "day" that God made earth and heaven could not be 24-hours in length, because the Scripture already said that it took at least 6 "days" to create things on Earth. Therefore, seeing that "day" can mean
indeterminate lengths of time, God need not have created the earth and things on it in 6 24-hour days!
I also mentioned that "days" weren't measured in 24-hour increments until
after the Babylonian captivity. Is there some reason you are ignoring these facts?
The term "day(s)" is also used with reference to
a time period contemporaneous with a particular person, as, for example, "the
days of Noah" and "the
days of Lot." (Luke 17:26-30; Isaiah 1:1)
Other cases where the word "day" is used in a flexible/figurative sense are: "the
DAY of Jehovah" (Zephaniah 1:7), "the
DAYof fury" (Zephaniah 1:15); "the
DAY of judgment" (2 Peter 3:7), "the great
DAY of God the Almighty" (Revelation 16:14), and others.
If there is further interest in scrutinizing this issue of the length of the "days" in Scripture, please read on:
"This
flexible use of the word 'day' to express units of time of varying length is clearly evident even in the Genesis account of creation. A week of six
creative days is set forth, followed by a 7th day of rest. In the Scriptural record the account of each of the 6 creative days finishes with the statement: '
And there came to be evening and there came to be morning,' a first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day. (Gen.1:5,8,13,19,23,31)
The 7th day, however, does not have this ending, indicating that this period, during which God has been resting from his creative works toward the earth, CONTINUED ON.
"At Hebrews 4:1-10, [it is there indicated that] God's rest day was still continuing in [the writer's] generation, and that was more than
4,000 years after the that 7th-day rest period began. This makes it evident that
each creative day was at least thousands of years in length. As
A Religious Encyclopaedia(Volume I, page 613) observes:
'The days of creation were creative days, stages in the process, but NOT DAYS OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EACH.' (Edited by P. Schaff, 1894)
"The entire period of the 6 time units or creative 'days' dedicated to the preparation of planet Earth is summed up in one all-embracing 'day' at Genesis 2:4: 'This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the
DAY that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.'" (
Insight on the Scriptures, Vol.I, pp.592-594)
