Chapter 9—The Literal Week
Like the Sabbath, the week originated at creation, and it has been
preserved and brought down to us through Bible history. God Himself
measured off the first week as a sample for successive weeks to the
close of time. Like every other, it consisted of seven literal days. Six
days were employed in the work of creation; upon the seventh, God
rested, and He then blessed this day and set it apart as a day of rest for
man.
In the law given from Sinai, God recognized the week, and the
facts upon which it is based. After giving the command, “Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” and specifying what shall be done
on the six days, and what shall not be done on the seventh, He states
the reason for thus observing the week, by pointing back to His own
example: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the
Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Exodus 20:8-11
. This
reason appears beautiful and forcible when we understand the days of
creation to be literal. The first six days of each week are given to man
for labor, because God employed the same period of the first week in
the work of creation. On the seventh day man is to refrain from labor,
in commemoration of the Creator’s rest.
But the assumption that the events of the first week required thou-
sands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the
fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to
observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite
periods. This is unlike His method of dealing with His creatures. It
makes indefinite and obscure that which He has made very plain. It
is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form; its
real character is so disguised that it is held and taught by many who
profess to believe the Bible.
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“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the
host of them by the breath of His mouth.” “For He spake, and it was
done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
Psalm 33:6, 9
. The Bible
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