Creation

Wilhelmus a Brakel (1635-1711)

In calculating retroactively from our time, the beginning can be dated approximately 5750 years ago. I say “approximately,” for this date cannot be determined exactly, since this chronological calculation is not based on the course of the stars, but must be solely deduced from the genealogies of the patriarchs which are recorded in Holy Scripture, all of which only record the years, without reference to months and days. It is therefore uncertain during what season of the year the world was created.

(From: “The Christian’s Reasonable Service”)

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Therein time was first marked so that by a continuing succession of years believers might arrive at the primal source of the human race and all things. This knowledge is especially useful not only to resist the monstrous fables that formerly were in vogue in Egypt and in other regions of the earth, but also that, once the beginning of the universe is known, God’s eternity may shine forth more clearly, and we may be more rapt in wonder at it. And indeed, that impious scoff ought not to move us: that it is a wonder how it did not enter God’s mind sooner to found heaven and earth, but that he idly permitted an immeasurable time to pass away, since he could have made it very many millenniums earlier, albeit the duration of the world, now declining to its ultimate end, has not yet attained six thousand years. For it is neither lawful nor expedient for us to inquire why God delayed so long, because if the human mind strives to penetrate thus far, it will fail a hundred times on the way. And it would not even be useful for us to know what God himself, to test our moderation of faith, on purpose willed to be hidden. When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious....

...Indeed, however widely the circuit of the heavens extends, it still has some limit. Now if anyone should expostulate with God that the void exceeds the heavens a hundredfold, would not this impudence be detestable to all the godly? Into such madness leap those who carp at God’s idleness because he did not in accord with their judgment establish the universe innumerable ages before. To gratify their curiosity, they strive to go forth outside the world. As if in the vast circle of heaven and earth enough things do not present themselves to engross all our senses with their incomprehensible brightness! As if within six thousand years God has not shown evidences enough on which to exercise our minds in earnest meditation! Therefore let us willingly remain enclosed within these bounds to which God has willed to confine us, and as it were, to pen up our minds that they may not, through their very freedom to wander, go astray.

(From: “Institutes of the Christian Religion” )

John Kennedy (1819-1884)

True, we stand on the further side of about six thousand years from that act of creation by which the first man was produced. The lines of Scripture history, and the steps of Scripture genealogy, determine this to be the distance between us and the parent pair in Eden.

(From: “Man’s Relations to God” )

The specimen given, of things in the Confession, about which a difference of opinion is allowed, is, “the interpretation of the ‘six days’ in the Mosaic account of the creation.” What a strange sample this to choose! What objection can be taken to what is said of the six days in the Confession, that may not equally be adduced against the terms of the fourth commandment? If the objection was taken to the explanation of the word “create” given in the Confession, the statement would have been differently phrased. But if the fourth commandment and Hebrews xi. 3 are placed together we rather think that the Westminster divines had good scripture ground for all they have said while those who are inclined to differ from them, can find no basis for their faith except in the ever shifting deductions of geology.

(From: “Signs of the Times” )

Thomas Manton (1620-1677)

[On Psa. 119:68]
What hath God been acting upon the great theatre of the world but goodness for these six thousand years?

(From: “Commentary on Psalm 119”)

John Owen (1616-1683)

For instance: God decreed from eternity that he would make the world, yet we know the world was not made until about five thousand five hundred years ago.

(From: “Works”)

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)

Had He so pleased, God could have brought this world into existence millions of ages earlier than He did. Had He so pleased, He could have made it and all things in it in a moment of time, instead of in six days and nights.

(From: “The Doctrines of Election and Justification”)

George Swinnock (1627-1673)

God hath no succession in his duration; he dwelleth in one indivisible point of eternity; he is what he is in one infinite moment of being; his duration knoweth nothing of former or latter, past or to come; his essence is not bounded by those hedges, but he enjoyeth his whole eternity every moment; hence he is said to ‘inhabit eternity,’ to be fixed always in eternity, Isa. lvii. 15. Time is nunc fluens, but eternity is nunc stans: ‘One day with him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,’ 2 Pet. iii. 8. He inhabits a million of years in a moment, and each moment to him is as a million of years. He hath not the least added to his duration since the world was, though it hath been near six thousand years: it is not proper to say of him, he was, for none of his duration is ever to come; but he is, his full eternity is always present, hence his name is I Am, Exod. iii. 14.

(From: “Works”)