Compromise between Creation and evolution is not possible. The Bible clearly states that Creation occurred in one week, in a sequence that does not match up with natural selection or other evolutionary processes. There are plenty of scriptural reasons to believe that Creation was in fact seven literal 24-hour days and that all 7 days have been completed, including God’s day of rest.
God’s rest on the seventh day is always spoken of in the past tense. An important point here is that the Hebrew word shabat (rest, or cease—God never tires, of course) in Genesis 2:3 is in the perfect form meaning action finished in the past. Certainly God is still “resting” from the work of creation, because this has finished. But Scripture never says that God is “resting on the seventh day.” Rather, Scripture teaches that God’s seventh-day rest is completed. This is contrary to what we would expect if the seventh day were still continuing. Therefore, the seventh day can only be understood as a normal earth-rotation day in history on which God ceased His creative work.
If the 7th day is still going on it makes no sense of Exodus 20:9–11.
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall not do any work. . . .
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” The six days of creation and day of rest are exactly the same as those of the command to work six ordinary days and rest on the seventh. The p***age is certainly not teaching an eternal weekend. John 5:16 tells us the following, “For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
This tells us that both the Father and the Son have so much to do that they work every day, even on the Sabbath. So they haven’t been just sitting around waiting. They’ve both been working every day from that day to this.
If the 7th day is still going on, it contradicts the plain meaning of Scripture. An interpretation of Scripture which contradicts other statements of Scripture must be wrong. The rest of Scripture points clearly to a six-day creation, for example: The Hebrew word yom (day) always refers to an ordinary day when ***ociated with a number or the words “evening” or “morning.” There were plenty of words that God could have used if He had wanted to teach long periods of time, yet He did not use them.
The biggest problem for long ages is their millions of years of death, disease and pain before man’s Fall. Death is called “the last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26), so it could not have been a part of God’s “very good” (Genesis 1:31) creation. The death brought in by Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12) is clearly physical as well as spiritual—see Genesis 3:19, as well as 1 Corinthians 15:21–22.
