In the notes on the current International Sunday-school Lesson, we find the following comment on the expression, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, etc.:" (Exodus 20:11)
"Not in six periods of twenty-four hours; for during the first three, when the sun was not made, there were no such twenty-four-hour days. But divine days (doubtless long periods), beginning from the darkness, and going on with the dawn, or beginning, and to their full maturity."
The writer thinks that the only reason why the days of creation were not twenty-four-hour days was because (as he says) the sun was not created till after the third was passed. That would imply that after the sun was created the days might be literal days. But if the remaining days were literal days, the first then must have been literal also.
Now it is a matter of fact that the sun was made to rule the day; and it would be doing gross violence to the language to say that the word day in Genesis 1:16 means anything different from what it does in every other place where it occurs in the same chapter. But the sun does not rule an indefinite period of time, but simply a twenty-four-hour day. Hence, the days of creation were literal days such as we are familiar with, of which it takes seven to make a week.
Moreover, the first three days were days of twenty-four hours, just the same as the last four, and every day since. The day is not made by the sun, but by the revolution of the earth on its axis, and the earth could revolve even if the sun and moon did not shine. The language indicates that this was the case. There was "the first day," "the second day," and "the third day." Each of these days was composed of a period of darkness succeeded by a period of light, but the sun did not shine. And the sun and moon were made to be light-bearers, to rule the day and night. The sun was made to rule the day. What day? The day which was already formed by the revolution of the earth on its axis, and which could henceforth be more distinctly marked than before.
It is a mistaken idea that the sun was not created till the fourth day. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The sun and moon were created "in the beginning," on the first day, but were not made to be light-bearers until the fourth day. And probably they were not made to assume their present shape until that time.
There is not a single argument that can be deduced to show that the days of creation were not literal days. The obvious meaning of the text requires that they should be so considered. It is a forced an awkward assumption which makes them long periods,--an assumption which was devised by certain devotees of "science falsely so-called," (1 Timothy 6:20) in order to avoid excepting the simple truth of the Bible, and which is followed by certain professors of religion, and in order to avoid keeping the Sabbath of the Lord.--Signs of the Times, May 26, 1887--Exodus 20:11
E.J. Waggoner