Chapter XII: Section 1: The Work of the First Day

1. The account, given in Genesis, of creation is in the form of an Epic Poem. As a treatise on any subject, it would be incomplete. Its design seems to be to give, in the form of poetic suggestions, the connecting links to unite creation with creation’s God. For such a purpose, it is the grandest and most complete of all productions of the pen. Six of these days are marked by contrasts, “called evening and morning” but the seventh is peculiar, having neither. The sixth is said to close God’s labor with matter. Unmeasured duration is, doubtless, the seventh.

2. The “deep,” when used in reference to the heavens, means immensity of space; as: “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Darkness is the normal state of space. Not dependent on matter, it is eternal. Moses saw all matter created at once. God’s work, as revealed here for matter, is in harmony with correlation of matter in science.

3. By a beautiful figure of metonymy, poets speak of a part implying the whole. Such is the word “Earth,” as first introduced in this production. “And the earth (all matter) was without form.” Inertia holds all in rest. An act, fiat, or work of God, above matter, is requisite, to set it in motion. “And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the deep.” A system formed with a center of light is noted. All systems are members of this choir.

4. Science would suggest, that, if a ponderous globe, as our sun, should gather in a field of gases, though trillions of miles in diameter, all gases, within its drawing sphere, must either go toward the sun, or be thrown around it in a circle. Such was the ring of waters, or fluids, first called a firmament. A most minute directing of Providence is here suggested. It extended to each molecule of gas, and its appropriate place was determined. Before that grand movement of the Spirit of God, there was nothing with which to measure duration, and time had not commenced. No centers—no gravitation. No motion—no light or force. All this is suggested in matter “without form.” Suns only had form at the close of the first day. As systems revolved, measured duration might have commenced at the revolutions of suns about a grand center. One day at the sun would be twenty-seven of ours; one year, eighteen thousand of ours. This first day of creation may have been one hundred million of years. It included the length of these contrasts to a climax, darkness—light. The one reigning over all matter, the other forming from matter, under the direction of God.

5. If the first is a literal day, so are the seven. If the first is poetic, so are the seven. That the first was not literal, is evident in that the “Earth was without form” as yet. Hence there was no twenty-four hour measurement. Day is also used to signify a nation’s history. It is not that. It is also used to signify the life of an individual. It could not be that. “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” It is evident that Peter was merely hinting at the indefiniteness, as to time, of the Mosaic days. It remains, then, that it is a cosmological day, without exact measurement of time. It certainly includes all that period of chaotic darkness before time commenced. Should these gases move across the radii of our system with the speed of light, it would take thirty-five days; but should the gases move like an atmosphere in space, it would take more than ninety million of years to gather the sun. The greater probability is that these contrasted conditions of the first day, poetically described without any exact measurement, if measured, would extend through more than one hundred million of our years.