Were the Sun and Moon created on day 1 or day 4? (A Matter of ACTUAL Days: The Voices of a Recent Creation, pp. 35-39)

The language attached to the creation of the sun and moon is significant. Against the erroneous idea that they were either created on day one and only became visible on day 4 or that the days prior to their creation cannot be interpreted as ordinary days in the sun’s absence is the language used in both their creation and stated function. In other words, the text does not say that their creation determined the days, years, and seasons, but rather, that their purpose was to “rule” the domains into which they were placed.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also (Genesis 1:14-16).

As we deal with this text, there are a few things that stand out. The first, of course, is that God created the “two great lights” on the fourth day. The consensus among many old-earthers, then, is that Moses used a different word for “create” in regard to the two luminaries which, according to them, means that they were already created in the technical sense and merely “revealed” on day four. Says Genesis 1:16, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”

Of course, this view misses the interpretive mark, particularly since, as Andy Woods, president of Chafer Theological Seminary, noted early in his series on Genesis that both words for create, “asah” and “bara,” are used interchangeably. Both are used, for example in Genesis 1:26-27 and again in Genesis 2:3 without any special distinction.[1]

1:26 And God said, Let us make (asah) man in our image, after our likeness…27 So God created (bara) man in his own image, in the image of God created (bara) he him; male and female created he them.

2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created (bara) and made (asah).

Notably, then, any claim that the sun and moon were created on day one and only became visible on day-4 due to some difference in the two words is baseless.

Second, with the creation of the sun and moon God announced their purposes, but said purposes had nothing to do with determining the length of a day any more than a clock determines the hours, minutes, or seconds of a day. The clock may help divide and mark the various increments of the daily cycle already in motion but it is not causal. Likewise, neither the sun nor moon determined the daily cycle of evening and morning but became the clocks by which the flow of time might be distinguished. They are instruments by which humanity might mark the days, seasons, etc. As such, the text tells us that the two luminaries were additions to the day that God previously “invented” per Genesis 1:5. Essentially, the clocks were plugged into the formerly created status quo.

Cornelis Van Dam concurs in noting that the luminaries were not “the origin of light.” Then he turns to Calvin. 

With the creation of light-bearers, God instituted, as Calvin noted, “a new order in nature, that the sun should be the dispenser of diurnal (daily) light, and the moon and stars should shine by night…. God ordained certain instruments to diffuse through the earth…that light which had been previously created….”[2]

Again, the cyclical night and day did not originate with the sun and moon. They were luminaries plugged into the previously established night/day cycle.

This view was also held in Rabbinic tradition as was noted by Abraham Cohen (1887-1957). “Since the Bible tells us that the day and night existed before the sun and moon were made,” noted Cohen, “the conclusion is that time was created separately. God fixed the duration of the day and night and then arranged for the appearance of the sun and moon to conform therewith.”[3]

Then there’s Abraham Ibn Ezra. Born around 1093 A. D., his impact is undeniable. In fact, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that “All histories of Jewish philosophy include an entry on Abraham Ibn Ezra, and judging from his impact on the field, he certainly deserves the recognition that he has received.”[4] And even though considered a theological “liberal,” Ezra’s view on Genesis and the length of days is significant. “One day,” he said, “refers to the movement of the sphere,” and for those who might misinterpret Ezra’s point, the Medieval scholar clarified in his footnote. “The heavenly sphere made one revolution,” he noted, because “the sun was not yet.”[5] Ezra’s view, says Paul James, defines a day as an ordinary one in which the earth makes a complete rotation on its axis “relative to the light created on day 1.”[6]

The idea that the sun and moon were created before day-4 and only appeared on that “day” as Ross and other old-earthers have asserted, then, is hermeneutically baseless. It has neither exegetical nor historic interpretive warrant. Hence, while populating the air, water, and land with vegetation, animals, and man are as miraculous as the creation of the “heavens and the earth” ex nihilo, they were corresponding additions to the preexistent reality into which they were placed.

This view fits perfectly with the post-creation miracles of Jesus. In his control over the nature he created, he gave insight into  his creative workings. The miracles of Jesus, noted Norman Geisler, involved nothing anti-natural at all but were, rather, supernatural insertions into the preexisting natural world. In other words, the miracles that Jesus performed were just that, miracles which when preformed were immediately absorbed into nature as it already existed.[7] When Jesus gave sight to the man born blind, for example, the man did not see without eyes but saw with eyes created anew. The crippled people he healed did not move through the city in some freakish way but moved via their actual strengthened legs. Each supernatural act was simply absorbed into the preexistent natural world.

Comparably, then, since time, space, and matter were first created ex nihilo and since the light by which God chose to separate the night from the day were created first, the sun, moon, and stars were mere additions to the preexistent night and day cycle already in motion. In other words, the luminaries were supernaturally inserted on the fourth day and then absorbed into the daily night/day cycle previously established.    

[1] Andy Woods,. “How Long is a Day: Genesis 1:3-13” (Genesis 004, Transcript). Sugar Land Bible Church, August 16, 2020, https://slbc.org/sermon/genesis-004-how-long-is-a-day/.

[2] Cornelis Van Dam, In the Beginning: Listening to Genesis 1 and 2, Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2021, p. 201.

[3] Abraham Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages, Schocken Books, NY, 1995, p. 37.

[4] “Abraham Ibn Ezra,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy May 22, 2018, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-ezra/#LifWor

[5] Ibid.

[6] Paul James, “Creation Days and Orthodox Jewish Tradition, March 1, 2004, https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/creation-days-and-orthodox-jewish-tradition/

[7] Norman L. Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992, pp. 104-105.