Genesis 1:24
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
At God's spoken command the earth brought forth land animals, each made to reproduce after its own kind — cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth. This took place on one of seven literal days in the first week, about six thousand years ago, with each day a plain day like every other day. Those six days of work, finished when everything was pronounced very good and followed by rest on the seventh day, are the reason six days are given for human labor and the seventh was blessed and set apart as a day of rest in commemoration of creation. The week commanded in the fourth commandment stands directly on that first week as its foundation, originating the weekly cycle as the pattern for all time. The same creative energy that called the world into existence is in God's Word still, so that every divine command accepted by the will brings life, transforms the nature, and recreates the soul in the image of God.
Making of Land Animals
The Father and the Son planned the creation together and then performed that mighty wondrous work together. At the spoken command, Let the earth bring forth, the earth brought forth the living creature after his kind — cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind — and every species of animal was created after its kind. What was spoken came into existence, for His spoken words created the living creatures of the natural world. The earth came forth from the Creator's hand exceedingly beautiful, like a noble palace with pure and healthful air. Its surface was diversified with hills, mountains and plains, adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees of every description many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are, while rivers and other bodies of water were regularly dispersed. The hills and mountains were regular and beautiful in shape, not high and ragged as now, and bare high rocks were never seen upon them but lay beneath the surface answering as bones to the earth, and angels beheld the wonderful and beautiful works and rejoiced.
He could have spoken the whole world into existence in one day, yet He chose to spread the making over six days. Each day He generated or produced some new portion of His work, so that each day is accounted a generation. This bringing forth of land animals was one act of that six-day making of heaven and earth. When the heavens and the earth were finished on the sixth day, with everything else He had made He saw it as very good, and then He ended His work and rested on the seventh day.
The earth came from His hand holy and beautiful, and every living creature brought forth, with every flower and shrub and tree, answered the purpose of its Creator. Everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of the love of God, and every sound was music in harmony with the voice of God. Men and land animals and trees before the flood were much larger in size, many times larger than men and animals now living or that have lived for many generations past. What God created remains a reservoir of means ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure, and nothing He made is useless. Tares did not belong to that creation but were sown by the enemy after the curse.
Only the species God created were preserved in the ark, while the confused species God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals and in certain races of men. Sin marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are all the result of disobedience to God. Yet the earth, though marred with the curse, still reveals His goodness and forbearance and love.
Defending the Literal Record
This bringing forth of cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind belongs to the literal Mosaic record of creation and took place on one of seven literal days of the first week about six thousand years ago, with that first week just like every other week. That first week was measured off as the sample and origin of the weekly cycle for all successive weeks to the close of time, with work performed in six days and rest on the seventh. Each day is accounted a generation because on each day some new portion of creation was generated or produced.
Its day was a literal day like every other day of that week, not a vast indefinite period covering thousands or even millions of years, and not seven vast indefinite periods. The six working days were not six vast indefinite periods, and the rest day was not another indefinite period. God made this very plain.
Bones of men and animals, instruments of warfare, petrified wood, and other wonderful things found in mountains and valleys are remains from that created order, not proof that the earth was populated long before the record by a race vastly superior in size or existed tens of thousands of years. They do give evidence of a state of things differing in many respects from the present, but the time of their existence can be learned only from the inspired record. The much larger size of men, animals, and trees before the flood and the great changes made in the earth by the flood account for them. Without Bible history geology can prove nothing, and geology does not contradict the literal reading.
Just how God accomplished the work in six literal days has never been revealed, and His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence. Human science cannot search out the secrets of the God of Heaven, for it belongs to the secret things that belong to the Lord. It is not to be set aside for explaining creation from natural causes or for the suppositions of geologists that contradict it, and seeking to account for it upon natural principles leads only to uncertainty. What God has revealed about creation is made very plain, clear and intelligible. Those things revealed give sufficient evidence upon which to base faith, leaving man without excuse.
The record of creation was preserved in its purity through the ages by the divine Mind and Hand, and the Word of God alone gives an authentic account of the creation of the world. It belongs to the great facts of creation as presented by inspired writers, which are pillars of the Christian faith and part of God's holy Word handed down at the cost of suffering and blood. Reinterpreting the days to accommodate the Bible to science rests on the claim that millions of years were required for the evolution of the earth from chaos, which rests on inferences erroneously drawn from facts observed in nature. Such reinterpreting undermines and destroys the force of the word of God. It is inconsistent to declare what God revealed in Daniel and Revelation too obscure to understand while eagerly receiving mere human suppositions about what He has not revealed.
To say the first week required indefinite periods makes indefinite and obscure what God made plain. It charges God with commanding men to observe seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom. To profess to believe the record of creation while holding that indefinite-period view is infidelity in disguise and the worst kind of infidelity. A large share of the professedly Christian world practically rejects the facts of creation either wholly or in part, along with the fall of man, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God. The Bible is within the reach of all but is little valued, and few really accept it as the guide of life, while infidelity prevails to an alarming extent not in the world merely but in the church. In the last days upon the merest pretense the word will be considered unreliable while human reasoning opposed to plain Scripture facts will be received, and the earth will be almost destitute of true faith.
Living by the Record
The six working days that include the bringing forth of cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth are the reason six days of each week are given to man for labor, while the seventh day on which God ended His work and rested after the heavens and the earth were finished on the sixth day was blessed and sanctified and set apart as a day of rest for man in commemoration of creation. In that rest He proclaimed His will to all the earth that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed, making the Sabbath a holy sign and perpetual covenant to be kept. That first week was just like every other week, with God generating or producing some new portion of His work each day so that each day is accounted a generation, and He measured off the first cycle as the sample for successive weeks to the close of time, originating the weekly cycle of seven literal days, six for labor and the seventh for rest, in the great facts of the first seven days.
The week of seven literal days commanded in the fourth commandment stands directly on this literal first week as its foundation, for the day of this work was a literal day like every other day of that week about six thousand years ago, not a vast indefinite period and not one of seven vast indefinite periods. To make the days indefinite destroys the force of that commandment which commands a week of seven literal days in commemoration of creation, makes indefinite and obscure what God made very plain, and charges God with commanding men to observe seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom. To profess to believe the record while holding that indefinite-period view is infidelity in disguise and the worst kind of infidelity. The creation account is to be taught to children on the Sabbath amid the fields and groves as the reason for the institution of the Sabbath, when the earth came from His hand holy and beautiful with every living creature and every flower, shrub and tree answering its Creator's purpose, everything lovely to the eye and filling the mind with thoughts of God's love and every sound music in harmony with God's voice, though sin marred that perfect work and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are all the result of disobedience, yet the earth though marred with the curse still reveals God's goodness, forbearance and love.
The first chapter sets forth the Lord's plan in the beginning for equal taxation of the mental and physical powers, where study of books is combined with useful employment in physical labor such as cultivation of the land and care of the living creatures and the earth. This account is to be the chief study in schools, where patriarchs and prophets are met in converse and what redemption cost is learned, the cost paid by the One who was equal with the Father from the beginning and sacrificed His life that a people might stand before Him redeemed from every common, earthly thing and renewed in the image of God. Education is a failure unless the understanding grasps the truths of divine revelation and the heart accepts the teachings of the gospel, and the mind must be trained to comprehend the important truths that concern eternal life. Minds are to be carried higher than now thought possible, and heart and mind are to be trained to preserve purity by receiving daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth.
God could have spoken the whole world into existence in one day yet took six days to make it, and His six-day work teaches that regular hours for sleep and work should be preserved, labor should stop before exhaustion, and turning night into day and day into night is poor policy. The creative energy that called the world into existence is in the Word of God, and that Word imparts power and begets life. Every command is a promise which, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One, transforms the nature and recreates the soul in the image of God, and the life thus imparted is sustained in the same way, for man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What God created remains a reservoir of means ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure, and nothing He made is useless, while tares did not belong to that creation but were sown by the enemy after the curse, and rational beings should not alone cause confusion in the world but should live to God and honor Him, for God and Saviour is all-wise and all-sufficient and came to this world that His perfection might be revealed in them.