Creation
Genesis 2:2 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth in 7 days. And it is so. Some would ask why does science tell us that the universe is 14 billion years old if Adam lived less than ten thousand years ago and the heavens and the earth were created in only 7 days?
The answer to that question lies in the definition of the word day. God himself defined “day” as meaning “Light” in Genesis 1:5. And he defined “night” as darkness in the same verse. We need to adhere to His definitions if we are to understand scripture.
He further states that evening and morning were the first day. Evening is the beginning of a period of darkness and morning the beginning of a period of light so there was only one evening and one morning in the first day. There was darkness over the face of the deep and God said let there be light and there was light. How long did, and for that matter does, the cycle of light and darkness that is day and night last? That is a complicated question to answer because it depends entirely upon from where you are observing the day. If you are standing on the equator on March 21st (the equinox) watching the sun set you will have approximately 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light. If you are standing on the South Pole that same day for example, watching the sun set, your period of darkness would last six months and your light 6 months, so one cycle of darkness and light would be one year long.
There were no men to witness the creation so clearly the biblical creation account is from God’s point of view as told to Moses and not a human’s point of view. Since the earth was not created until the third day and the sun on the fourth day, we must assume the rotation of the earth around the sun and its own axis did not necessarily define the length of the periods of darkness and light at least until later in creation. So from where did God view creation as He created it? In the Psalms 123:1 we read he is enthroned in the Heavens.
It is interesting that science tells us that our sun was created 8 billion years after the beginning of time. Science also tells us that the universe is about 14 billion years old. We read from scripture that the sun was created on the fourth day and that creation was done in 7 days. If we do the math we see that 8 divided by 14 is equal to 4 divided by 7. Because the billions and the days cancel mathematically we see that the bible and science are congruous but not equal. The difference is clearly that the Bible is written from God’s perspective and science from a human perspective. People define a day as 24 hours but God defines a day as Light. Moses understood this very well and wrote in his prayer in Psalm 90:4 that a thousand years in your sight (the Lord’s) are like yesterday, like a watch that passes in the night.
The prophet Isaiah said in chapter 44:24 that the LORD is stretching out the heavens. It was not until 1929 when Hubble recognized the universe was expanding, that science understood this truth. His original calculation of the Hubble constant was off by a factor of 7 resulting a 2 billion year estimate of the age of the universe. Scientists were able make a more accurate estimate once the Hubble telescope was put in orbit and now believe the rate of expansion is 73 km/sec/megaparsec. That is one way scientists currently estimate the universe is 13.7 billion years old. God’s point of view however does not change like science and remains 7 days, as He defines days.