Time, as distinguished from eternity, may be defined as that part of
duration which is measured by the Bible. From the earliest date in the
book of Genesis to the resurrection of the unjust at the end of the
millennium, the period of about 7000 years is measured off.[1] Before the
commencement of this great week of time, duration without beginning fills
the past; and at the expiration of this period, unending duration opens
before the people of God. Eternity is that word which embraces duration
without beginning and without end. And that Being whose existence
comprehends eternity, is he who only hath immortality, the King eternal,
immortal, invisible, the only wise God.[2]
When it pleased this infinite Being, he gave existence to our earth. Out
of nothing God created all things;[3] “so that things which are seen
were not made of things which do appear.” This act of creation is that
event which marks the commencement of the first week of time. He who
could accomplish the whole work with one word chose rather to employ six
days, and to accomplish the result by successive steps. Let us trace the
footsteps of the Creator from the time when he laid the foundation of the
earth until the close of the sixth day, when the heavens and the earth
were finished, “and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it
was very good.”[4]
On the first day of time God created the heaven and the earth. The earth
thus called into existence was without form, and void; and total darkness
covered the Creator’s work. Then “God said, Let there be light; and there
was light.” “And God divided the light from the darkness,” and called the
one day, and the other night.[5]
On the second day of time “God said, Let there be a firmament [margin,
Heb., expansion] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters.” The dry land had not yet appeared; consequently the
earth was covered with water. As no atmosphere existed, thick vapors
rested upon the face of the water; but the atmosphere being now called
into existence by the word of the Creator, causing those elements
to unite which compose the air we breathe, the fogs and vapors that
had rested upon the bosom of the water were borne aloft by it. This
atmosphere or expansion is called heaven.[6]
On the third day of time God gathered the waters together and caused the
dry land to appear. The gathering together of the waters God called seas;
the dry land, thus rescued from the waters, he called earth. “And God
said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the
fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon
the earth: and it was so.” “And God saw that it was good.”[7]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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