Answering Common Questions About Creation

“How could there be light before the sun?”

Before God created the sun to give light to the earth (Genesis 1:14–18), He provided a light source for the first three days. Where would the original light have come from (1:3–5)? The Bible tells us that God is light (1 John 1:5; Revelation 22:5), and that in the new heavens and earth there will be no need for the sun or moon, “for the glory of God illuminated it” (Revelation 21:23). Some pagan religions worship the sun, and even evolutionary theory credits the sun for the creation of life. Knowing that man is prone to worship anything but the Creator, perhaps God did it this way specifically to show that He, not the sun, is responsible for the origin of life (see Deuteronomy 4:19; Ezekiel 8:16).

“…the universe’s lights, contrary to astronomers’ hunches, turned on in one great burst. It was as if every chandelier in a mansion were flicked on simultaneously on a moonless night.” John Bahcall, astrophysicist (Newsweek, Nov. 3, 1997)

“Can’t the days of creation be long periods, since a day to the Lord is a thousand years to us?”

Read the verse referenced in this question (2 Peter 3:8) in its entirety, and you will see that it says something quite different: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (emphasis added). It doesn’t say “one day is a thousand years,” but that one day is “as” (like) a thousand years. Then it also says the reverse: a thousand years is “as” (like) one day. So that alone negates the idea of a different timescale. The verse is saying that both times are equivalent.

“Adam did die the very day he chose to disobey God—he died spiritually that instant.”

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In addition, it is not comparing God’s timeframe to man’s. Rather, both times are from God’s perspective: “with the Lord” these times are the same. Scripture is telling us that with God time has no meaning. Because He is eternal, outside of the dimension of time that He created, a million years, a day, and a millisecond all are the same to Him. He sees all of history simultaneously.

Some also misapply this verse to Adam, saying that he died “the day” he sinned because he lived less than a thousand years (see Genesis 5:5). But even if Adam had lived to 1,001 years, Genesis 2:17 would still be true: Adam did die the very day he chose to disobey God—he died spiritually that instant.

“Why are there two different creation accounts in the Bible?”

Some skeptics claim that chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis are contradictory, because Genesis 1:25–27 states that God made animals and then made man, whereas 2:18,19 mentions man then says, “Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.”

However, a close reading shows there is no contradiction. Genesis 1 gives the day-by-day account of the entire creation week, whereas Genesis 2 gives the details of man’s creation on the sixth day. Since the creation work was finished in chapter 1 (which closes with the end of day six), Genesis 2 begins by recapping: “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done” (vv. 1,2). To make it even clearer, God then tells us, “This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created” (v. 4, emphasis added).

Obviously, the creation activity has been completed at this point, with the animals created first as Genesis 1 states. The original Hebrew used in Genesis 2 indicates that God had already (yâtsar) formed the animals from the earth, and then He brought them to Adam. He did not create them again. The order is this: on day six God made animals first, He made man second, He showed the animals He had already made to Adam, so Adam could see that he had no suitable mate, and then He created woman.

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