Did God Make the Earth in 7 Days? What Happens After Death?

Show Notes

Episode 793: 
In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into a thought-provoking discussion as part of their ongoing series, "Stump the Pastor." They answer two questions from different listeners. One question asks about the seven days of creation, while the other questions asks about the separation of body, soul, and spirit after death.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, what I thought you were going to sing it again? Oh? No, I I just just okay, I was just sort of snapping. Okay, so I could have done this. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, he's gonna say welcome because we are in the middle of a really great series called Stump the Pastor, and people have written in and it's my job to say that every day. If you listen to this episode and you think, man, I have a question, yeah, we would love to hear it. So email us at info at the Bible Guys dot com. And who are you? Who am I? Yeah, I'm one of the Bible Guys. Yeah, you didn't introduce yourself, Oh because I interrupted you. I'm Chris and I'm Jeff and we're the Bible Guys. That's right there, you go, just in case, in case we have a listener going what is happening right now? By the way, have we these people have we ever introduced our last names? What about what about people who don't go to heritage. I don't want a bunch of stalkers looking me up. Because they're all obsessed. Yeah yeah, I actually I call you zar Ball all the time. Oh on the episode, especially when you're not here, I talk bad about you. Oh yeah yeah yeah I've been told that. Yeah. So anyways, Yeah, we're the Bible guys. Yeah, we're glad the people are here and we're in a stumped pastor episode. Yes, and so today we are looking at two questions, and the first one is can I just go ahead and just read it? Go ahead? Okay, this is written. By Mitchell t Hey Mitchell. And here's what he says, if God took seven literal days to make all of creation. I think it's written. I think it's written wrong, because if I were, he. Wrote it the way he wanted to read it. But no, maybe it's a copy copy piste. Yeah, here's the way. Here's the way it reads. If God took seven literal days to make all of creation, or the seven days is being used to describe figuratively how God created the heavens and the earth period. Oh, it's probably start. There's a there's a thing that wasn't included. Yes, correct, My question is right. And so then so then it says it goes on. I lean more towards the seven figurative days because of things like carbon dating and looking at science in a cool way. God gave us to discover how he did all of these amazing things. So that's a good question. I think a lot of people ask questions like that. Yeah, So basically he's saying, my question is is it is was creation in a literal seven days, twenty four hours or was it figurative? Like he's talking about eons of time. I've heard this too before because even g wears what movie was it where it was one of the great founders of the faith, was like a defense attorney? Was it Amistad? The movie Amistad? Where it was like Thomas Jefferson. I don't know who it was found founders of the nation. Yeah, I don't know what it was, but basically it was one of the great founders of our faith, of our nation, of our nation. I'm sorry I said faith. Goodness gracious, that's so funny. You're like, you're like, I know what you're trying to say, and that's not what you're saying. Yeah, the founders of our nation, fathers, founding fathers, but he was answering it. And anyway, it was a very supposed sort of you know, a movie wasn't real obviously, but they were. They were. They were piecing us together. And one of the things that they were trying to stump them on was to break apart in the Bible. And he says, he goes, well, how do you know that it was seven days? And then they basically took the next like thirty minutes to try to say that what if the day wasn't an actual literal day. And it was interesting because he says, that would mean that nothing could be trusted in the Bible. They tried to use the argument on the first couple chaps, you know, first couple of verses and saying like that means that nothing in the Bible was reliable and it all hinged on creation. Was was that a dramatization of the Scopes monkey trial? It was a really it was a really famous It was not it was a it was because that was a famous trial back here. It was freeing slaves. It was about freeing slaves. It was about God. What the Bible says about God's value of the person. Ok. And they were trying to break apart in the Bible. That's okay. Yeah, So anyway, all that to say this, I've seen this argument played out in many times til many times, right, And of course I went to a movie. But what were you talking about? Monkey trials? What are you talking about? That was a thing that happened back in the I think it was the end of the nineteenth century or maybe early twenties. It is, early twentieth century, and it was an argument about faith in society and particularly with regard to evolution. And so there was this big argument and one of the and it was between two of the great lawyers of the day, a world famous atheists and then a world famous Christian, and so it was a very very interesting thing, and they debated in court over the veracity of the Bible and creation and all those kind of things. So that's what I thought maybe you were talking about, because that sounds very familiar. That's been just been traumatized a couple of times. So okay, okay, Well, I mean so literally, the Bible says in Genesis that he called you know, the sun and the moon, he created those day and night, and he said it was night and then day, and he called it a day, right, do you have that script in front of you? Well, in Genesis chapter one, I know, but. I'm just saying, can you actually read from the Bible? Let me pull it up. I thought you had it with you, so I didn't, Okay, but he said, but he city called that being the day. So in other words, what I'm trying to say is he literally defines a day, right, right, So he creates the greater light which is the sun, and the lesser light, which is the moon. So you have, like in the New International version, it just says, and there was evening and there was morning the first day, oh right, and then the next one and there was evening, there was morning in the second day, and then there was evening and morning, and it was a third day. So that's how God describes each of the days of creation is just evening and then morning. And that's a day, not. A millennia of evenings and a millennia of mornings. Right, yeah, So we believe. It was literal single yeah, singular Yeah, I lean that way. But let's let's be you know, honest. There are theologians that debate this topic often, so let's give a couple of different perspectives. One would be seven literal twenty four hour days as we experience them now evening morning, sunset, sunrise, daytime, nighttime, twenty four hours. One spinning of the planet around right right facing the sun, not facing the sun, facing the sun again, twenty four hours. So that's one. That's the literal reading on the page, that's the only way you'd really read it literally on the page is evening and morning is one. Day, because the versus before he created the earth. That's right. So then there's another one, another view that these days are figurative and that they represent seasons of time or eons of time where God, first of all, there was nothing and then there was light, and light was spreading throughout the universe over eons of time, and then you know, over another billion years or whatever, then God creates the heavens and the earth, and so this's the stars and the planet, and then the planet cools, and then finally there needs to be and an atmosphere, and so then that would be the next day, and that's you know, thousands or millions of years, billions of years, whatever, and so each of these days would represent a phase of creation over billions of years, and that idea was not an idea until after Darwin's theory of evolution. People weren't trying to figure out how to squeeze you know, seven days or six days into now billions of years. They weren't doing that until the theory of evolution came out, and then Christians began trying to adapt the literal seven day thing to billions of years over eons of time. And then there's there's another gap or another idea called the gap theory that falls in between those two, also trying to accommodate evolution. It's called the gap theory, and that would be that there'd be you know, billions of years or eons of time between Genesis chapter one, verse one and Genesis chapter one, verse two, and then that's how all the things got created. And then and then God came on this planet and specifically made those things himself. So there's it. I would fall in the idea of seven literal days for a couple different reasons. One the he and I'm not a Hebrew expert, so I'm not gonna argue this too much, but I do believe that the word yam just literally means. The simplest translation is just a twenty four hour day, and that's the word that's used, and another one would be then well, then how do you get all this? You know, my son and I we went into the lou Ray Caverns in Virginia, which are, according to National Geographic the most decorated caverns with salagtites and slagmites in the world. And they're stunning, just stunning. And so we're going through and the guide is explaining and it takes you know, because it deposits, you know, minuscule amount of limestone every time I drop drips of water. And so then because of that, you can work out time. And it took you know, so many million year for this cave to come alive and to have all these things. So on the way out, my son was asking me, so, how do you feel about that? Do you really think it took millions of years? And I said, well, obviously, the science says it only deposits this much. If the water runs faster, it's not going to deposit. If it runs slower, it's not going to deposit. If it goes at this speed, deposits a little bit of limestone every time. That's how long it takes He goes, well, how you justify that with seven six days of creation? And I said, well, God made. God made plants ready for food. God made birds that could fly and fish that could swim. God made a man and a woman and told them to reproduce so they were old. Right. It didn't say he made a baby boy and a baby girl and said he made the man and then he made the woman. And he didn't make seeds. He made plants right. He made He made the plants with the seeds in them, right, which means a pomegranate had all those seeds inside. A tomato had all those seeds. It was a fully fleshed out tomato. I said, here's how I think of it, because my son was having a hard time with it. He was a teenager. I said, you ever grab the button on YouTube, scroll it and you and then stop it, rate exactly where you need it in the show, and then pick up from that point on. So yeah, I said, what if God just did that? Because God's outside of time. The Bible says that a thousand days day is a thousand years. A thousand years as a day to God basically is saying God isn't really affected by time. He's outside of time. He's the one with the YouTube video in front of him. We're in the YouTube video. He's the one with YouTube video in front of him, and he just scrolls it to exactly where it needs to be for things to be able to get started at the right point. And so I think he could make something with age that didn't take that much time, and because God's not affected by time, and so I don't have a problem with it being a six day creation. But what I do know is this, and I've had conversations with scientists, evolutionary scientists about this, and I said, here's what I can tell you. Go look at every four thousand year old document in the world and tell me any other document that gives this order. There was nothing, then bang, there was everything. Light first, nothing, then bang, everything light first. Then from there, as you go through the list, let me pull it up. The very next thing is the next thing that needed to be an order, even according to evolutionists. So he says, first there's light. Then he says, hey, we're going to need a cooling planet that's going to need to create water, but we have to have an atmosphere in order to keep the water on our planet four thousand years ago. How did they know that right? And what other document on the planet had that idea right? Then he says, let the water under the sky so oceans. Let the water above be an atmosphere. And then he says, hey, now we're going to need some plants. So before he puts animals on, he puts food on. Then he puts fish in the sea, he puts birds in the sky. He puts sun, moon and stars for navigation. So now all of a sudden, we can see the universe. So I'm not saying the universe wasn't there on the first day or whatever, but now we can see it through our atmosphere. So it's thin enough to see through, but thick enough to be able to keep the air on the planet. Now we've got living creatures. We've got food for all the creatures at this point. Then after that he makes people. So people have sun, moon and stars, they have an atmosphere, they have a perfect rotation of the planet, perfect distance from the star. We've got the right heat, we've got the right oxygen. We've got the right water, we've got dry land, we've got animals, we've got food. It's in the perfect order that even an evolutionary evolutionist would say, we'd need it in this way. He says, fish and birds, then dry land animals, and then people. It's exactly the right order. So here's what I do know. God did it the way you said. Just I think he did it in six days inte that is six trillion years or whatever. That's all but the way you say. And so science is us discovering what God already made. And I don't think that the issue is how did he do it? The issue is whether he did it or whether you've decided to just happen by random Yeah, you know processes. Yeah, And so the simple part of the answer to that question is, you know, he says, well, carbon dating suggests it takes this many years, but not if God creates it with age. Yeah. If it was created with age, then of course it shows that kind of carbon right now. Yeah, because it would take that long for the planet the cool. But if God just fast forward to the point where it was cool, because he's not bound by time, it's not a problem. And I don't think that's too fanciful. I don't think that's too out there. I mean, man, read some of the crazy articles and popular mechanics and then come back and tell me that that idea is nuts. Unlimited universes and time and space and blah blah all this stuff. Right, So it's a plausible response to a big question. And then the difficulty is you're talking millions of years anyways. None of us can fathom two hundred years, right, right, so to talk about billions of years it is it's a hypothetical situation. The question is not how did he do it? The question is do you believe God did it? That's really the biggest issue. Okay, we're going to do the next question. You're ready, which, by the way, read Lee Strobel's book The Case for Creator Creator. Yeah, I think it's really solid. Or Norm Geisler's book in Systematic Theology, and he just has an entire section on God in creation that's phenomenal. Okay, so here we go on. The next question was written by Stephen W. K. Stephen and he says, after death, is the separation of our being simply a division between body and soul? Or does it involve a more complex process of where body, soul, and spirit each take on distinctive roles or destinations. Yeah, Wow. Yeah, that's okay, pretty great question. So frame that just a little bit. What do you think he's asking here? Well, I think that he is wondering about, at least the way that I read it is, he is wondering about, is it just like our physical body, right, and then we have a soul? He's like, or is there is there like a is there a distinct function between the fact that we are made up of three things? So Paul clearly names three distinct parts of our being. He lists body, soul, and spirit, each meant to be made holy and to be made whole before God. And so I think he's just wondering more about that. Yeah, right, this is part of what you know. The Bible says that we were created in the image of God, and God is a trinity, the Father's son and the Holy Spirit, the physical body, the Holy Spirit, you know, God being the Father. So God has a way of creating in threes. Yes, and so we are made in His image, and we are also a trinity. We are a body, a soul in our bodies. I mean, that was the easiest one for us to figure out because we can you know, feel them, see here, smell, taste, we experience all of our existence in and through our bodies. And the Greek word is soma, soa the physical part of us that interacts with the material world. Our soul is that part of us that is alive. God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The Bible talks about sometimes refers to animals with the soul, right, So soul, it just seems to be our life force, which is really interesting. Did you see that article this last week about there seems to be a radiation from all living things and when they die, the radiation goes away the globe. No, it just was just recent. There's a spectrum and this is science. It's a scientist that wrote it. I could probably find it if you give me a second here. I just read this article. Is amazing that there's a spectrum where they realize all living things have a radiation glow and when that living thing ceases to live, the glow goes away. Right, And so this non Christian scientist was saying, so is this the soul? Is this the life force of the human or of the living thing. It's pretty interesting. So I could probably find it pretty quickly for you. I should have looked it up before we got into this. It was unmb I forgot what magazine. So then your body is easy to figure out. That's how you're existing, or that's how you're experiencing your existence. Your soul is that life force that we know goes away when a body dies. Did you know when our human dies they weigh less after the death than before the death. Did you know that? I certainly did not know that. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost immediate. Yeah, so it's really weird. That's your life force is your soul, and then your spirit. That's the thing I think it's confusing for us. Your spirit is the thing that makes it possible for you to engage with God. That's really who you are, right, that's really who you were made to be. And the Bible matter that talks about we must worship God in spirit because God is a spirit. So that's the part that allows us to connect to our creator. And that's the part. Remember in the Book of Genesis when God said to Adam and Eve, if you eat this fruit, you will surely die, and Satan goes, You're not going to die, you know he did. He was playing He was playing semantics with them. Was it true their bodies didn't die immediately, Their bodies began dying, but didn't die immediately, but their spirit, their ability to connect on the spiritual realm, immediately ended. And so then when you read in First and Second Corinthians, Paul talks about we are dead in our sins, right, so God sees us as spiritually dead. And then he says in First Corinthians, but you were raised with Christ to walk in a brand new life, right. And so the power of Jesus resurrection then makes it possible for my spirit to come alive. And that's what makes it possible for me to have a relationship with God throughout eternity. Bod he goes to the grave. Some day, you're going to get a new body. The Bible says, a body of flesh and bone is what it says. Doesn't mention blood, which is interesting. But Paul says, you're going to receive a body of flesh and bone, and this new body at the resurrection, we will be caught up to meet him physical resurrection, and then we will get a new body, and we will be with him and we will be like him, for we should see him as he is is what Paul says. Yeah. So it says our soul is our mind, our will, our emotions, and it's actually the Greek word psyche, where we get our word psychology, and it's the seat of our thoughts, our feelings, our personality what makes us us right. And then the scriptures that came up here when I was looking this up Matthew sixteen twenty six. What good is it if someone were to gain the whole world and yet forfeit our soul, that is who we are as a person right Hebrews four to twelve. The Word of God is alive and act of dividing the soul and the spirit and the body, which is the joints and marrow right, and then's on one O three, Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that he lives within me. Bless his holy name. So it says, in summary, the soul is your inner life, your thoughts, desires, emotions. It's what loves, is what hurts, it's what makes choices. It's eternal and will live beyond your body's death. But the spirit, that's again, those are the distinctive things, right, It's the God conscious part of that's in us. She whiz. How would you pronounce that? It's a numah? Yeah, numah numah. That's the wind or the or the breath. Yeah, the wind or the breath of God. Which is interesting, isn't it? Because God breathes life into atom, right, and then Adam becomes alive. And that's literally the Greek word used to describe your spirit. It's almost every time spirit comes up, it's numa. And that's also interesting because it says that when they receive the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, it says Jesus. Breathed on them, right, Yeah. So it's the same, it's it's it's got that in common, which is interesting. So the scriptures that go along with the spirit is the human spirit is a lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one's in most being Proverbs twenty John four. God is spirit, and the worshippers must worship him in spirit and in truth. And then Romans eight sixteen. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. So your spirit is what becomes alive when you were born again John three six. Before salvation, the spirit is dead to God Ephesians two to one. But through Christ is awakened, empowered, and then sealed by the Holy Spirit and in Ephesians four thirty. Yeah. Interesting, So I'm pretty sure I know, Stephen, So this would be super super useful to you, Steve by Norm Geisler's Systematic Theology in one volume. Matter of fact, stop talk to me after church. Someday, I'll just give you one. But they're like sixteen hundred pages. We give these away all the time to all of our residents. We give them away to almost all of our new teaching pastors and anybody who comes on staff that's coming on as a pastor. It's one of the things that just kind of helps put language, clear language, common language among our staff on our theology. And Norm has an entire section in there a man and sin and salvation and then what happens to our spirit in eternity? Right, so those things so God made us as a trinity, body, soul and spirit. When we send our spirit immediately died, our body begins to die. When we die, our soul leaves our body. And that's when the Book of eccles Era was it Genesis ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Right, we go back to the ground, our body goes back to the ground and we just go back to dirt. But our soul will live for eternity somewhere if our spirit is reawakened through Christ and what He did on the cross, where reawakened to live a new life with Christ, with the Father Son and Holy Spirit in eternity. That's what you're envisioning is heaven someday. If your spirit is not reawakened through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you have not received Him as your Holy Spirit, then your soul spends eternity in hell, eternally, separated from God. Bible describes torment destruction. So you're going to live forever who you are, your soul, your personality, who you are, is going to live forever. The question is is your soul is your spirit reawakened by God's spirit or not? Do you have the breath of God in you again or no? And then in eternity you will be reunited with your body. Only it'll be perfect. Right, That's what's going to happen. So that kind of summarizes it all. But if you want some good reading on it, get that Systematic Theology and one volume by Norm Geisler and plow through some of those things pretty great. Well, hey, that wraps up our time right now, so hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible Gash