Christ of the Creation Days
How the Creation Days Typologically Picture the Covenants
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The Creation; performed with structure
The creation days, found in Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 may be divided into nine sections. The first is the introduction in the first two verses. This forms the foundation for the days of creation. The next are the seven days of creation. These may be divided several ways, but the most obvious is to recognize that there are six working days and one day of rest. The ninth section is the summary in 2:4 which, incidentally, forms with the first verse a bracket around the whole creation section. This tells us what happens after the day of rest. We read, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens…” Here we are introduced, immediately after the day of rest, to the divine name; YHWH.
To further observe the structure we see that the “working days” (days 1-6) themselves have a structure within the overall structure. Days 1, 2, 3 create the “space” for the next three corresponding days to fill. This is part of what is called the Framework Hypothesis. While this book accepts and uses this concept in its basic premise (that there is a framework to the creation days), it rejects the theological conclusions some writers come to from it. Some believe that the theory suggested the creation days are simply a poetical device and are not intended to convey what actually happened (that God created the world instantaneously in six days). It is best to reject the conclusion, but not the observations concerning structure. There clearly is a framework structure to the six working days (and as we will show later this provides significant assistance when correlating and understanding the creation day/covenant structure). Just because there is a poetical structure begs the question: why could not God in his immensity have incorporated a poetic structure into his creative acts? Why can’t God’s actions in creating be a symphony of creative artwork? In fact, from the wisdom of God we can expect the Almighty capable of doing his work of creating and at the same time employ all the forms of art, including poetry. We are getting into a different subject, but let us at least see that the creation days have a framework structure, the recognition of which does not necessarily push us to all the conclusions some of the theory’s adherents espouse.
This is the basic framework of the creation days:
Day 1 The creation of light. Outer space is created.
Day 4 The sun, moon and stars are put into this space.
Day 2 The creation of the space above the earth, and the waters.
Day 5 The birds for the air, the fish for the waters are made.
Day 3 The creation of the dry ground in the midst of the water, and plants.
Day 6 Mankind and the land animals that eat the plants are made.
Day 7 Creation is finished, and the rest has come.
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Christ of the Creation Days
by Greg Girard
I have long been fascinated by the great ‘types’ of Scripture: not clever connections invented by over ingenious preachers, but the patterns that underlie the way God repeatedly works both in the people and the events of the Bible. Some of them are quite explicit. Others you don’t see till they are pointed out to you, and then you wonder how you could have missed them. The more we see one part of Scripture underlining another, in what I think of as the ‘repeat of patterns’, the greater its integrity is seen to be, and the clearer its message.
Greg Girard opens our eyes to a set of correspondences that could not be more basic to the biblical revelation of God. Should it surprise us that the sequence of his creative action in the making of the world should be the same ‘shape’ as the sequence of his redemptive action in revealing himself to his people? Yet I for one had never made the connection. The creation of light, the separation of land and sea, the stars of heaven, the man appointed to rule all that lives-of course these images reappear elsewhere; but had you noticed where, and at what crucial points in the Bible story? The author deserves our thanks for this illuminating and inspiring study.
Michael Wilcock
[author of five titles in the Bible Speaks Today series (InterVarsity Press), and other books of Bible exposition]
About the Author
Gregory Girard has been a pastor for almost 30 years, and presently works as a Chaplain for the Canadian Forces. A passionate preacher of the Gospel, he is well known for using Old Testament typologies that point to Christ, especially from the opening chapters of Genesis. Here he shares perhaps the crowning typology in all the Bible; the c reation days. In this book you will share his passion for the gospel and the glory of God in Christ. In this book he is devotional, inspirational and most of all, clearly in awe of the wonders of the work of God in Christ.