Hi ,
Last week we looked briefly at the points in a letter I received (anonymously, of course) in which the writer was attempting to point out my "error" - that being that I believe the age of the earth can be accurately gauged as being thousands of years old, not billions.
We looked briefly at his first point. Here is another...
"...With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years; and a thousand years is as a day..." (2 Peter 3:8). He claims that since God's days are not the same as man's days, God's days must therefore be billions of years of time.
This point is an old one. Many people over the years have attempted to use this verse to prove that the earth is billions of years old. The key to interpreting this verse is the context, though. Peter is not referring at all to the age of the earth or even to creation. He's talking about the fullfilment of a promise, in this case Jesus' promise to return. Peter contends that He is not slow or inconsistent in the fullfilment of
this promise, as some people think He's being.
People have like to point to the "day is as a thousand years", but seem to forget the next phrase, "a thousand years is as a day". So that cancels the "proof" right out. Interesting, too, is the fact that no mention is made in this verse of billions of years. So, even if this could be used as proof that a creation day was 1,000 years, that would still make the earth's age measurable only in thousands of years, perhaps
14,000 at the most (7,000 years for the "days" of creation, and another 6,000-7,000 years since then).
Lastly, he possibly doesn't realize that every time the word "yom" (day) is used with a number in the Old Testament, it always means one rotation of the earth. Why would it be any different in Genesis 1?
More thoughts about this next week...
