Friday, October 2, 2015

Genesis and the Big Bang (Part 7)



(Gen 1:5, 1:8, 1:13, 1:19, 1:23, 1:31) “…And there was evening and morning...”  Moving from evening to morning gives insight into the direction of creation.  The Hebrew word for evening is “erev” and its root means “mixed-up, stirred together, disorder”.  Morning, is “boqer”, and its root means “discernable, able to be distinguished.”  More than establishing the sequence of the Hebrew day, the text is telling us something crucial about the flow of matter in the universe.  Contrary to the laws of thermodynamics, the universe moved from “disorder” to “order” during each day of creation.  

“Each ‘day’ marked an epoch, a flow from disorder toward increasing order in the material of the universe.  This transition from disorder to order is hinted at in the evening to morning phrasing of the biblical test.  The root mean of the Hebrew word for evening is ‘disorder’ and for morning is ‘order’.  ‘And there was evening and there was morning’ is telling us that in each ‘daily’ episode, at a specific location within the universe, order was imposed by God on the disorder that existed.” [1]

The total entropy (disorder) of an isolated system, such as the universe, never decreases because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium.  Stated another way, the universe will always move from order to disorder when left to its own forces.  Yet, the sequence of events following the Big Bang show the universe moving from disorder to order, from a planet hostile toward life to a planet capable of sustaining life, from the formation of simple life forms to the creation of man.  Following the pattern of creation, the believer is called to walk after God (Duet 5:33), “making the most of your time, because the days are evil,” (Eph 5:16).  The believer has an obligation to bring order to the world as God performed during creation.

The seventh day of creation is the only day that is not followed by the phrase, “there was evening and morning.”  Since all is “very good” (Gen 1:31), at the end of the sixth day, there may be no disorder to overcome at the beginning of day seven.   “The Onkelos (an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew text) translates Genesis 1:31 as, ‘And God saw everything that He had made and behold it was a unified order.’…From the parallel use of ‘good’ in Exodus 33:19 and Genesis 1:31, it appears that ‘all My goodness’ refers not to a quality of God but rather to the very nature of the creation, the exquisitely balanced, or orderly, interrelationships therein.” [2]

Since the seventh day is seen as a picture of the Millennial Kingdom, the absence of the phrase “evening and morning” on day seven could be construed as a picture of exceedingly great revelation of the Creator in the days of the Millennial Kingdom and the never ending days in the world to come.


[1] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 156
[2] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 165

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