Spiritual Time

God created the heavens and earth in seven days (Gen 1). No one was there to observe, so this must be God’s view of time. He lives in the spiritual world, so Genesis 1 speaks of spiritual time, whatever that means. We live in a physical world, so we find spiritual time a difficult concept to understand.

We live in physical time. Physical time is created in the image of spiritual time, in the same way that humans are created in the image of God. Thinking of physical time gives us a hint of spiritual time, means but it is only a hint. It is so totally different that we find it hard to grasp what it means. Peter said that one day to God is like a thousand years for us (2 Pet 3:2), but that is only a hint and not a linear relationship.

God lives in the spiritual realm, so he is not limited by physical time. He can jump from one point of physical time to another without limit. The existence of spiritual time suggests that God’s activities are punctuated in some way that is analogous to the way we live, but a way that is freeing, and not constraining like our lives.

This means that the events that God describes in terms of spiritual time, may not match what actually happened in physical time. Actually, physical time only got started part way through the process of creation, so it is not a very good guide to the order of things.

The fact that God operates in spiritual time explains why God can give a different perspective on the creation in Genesis 2. He is explaining what he did, which is not the same as what was experienced by the physical world in physical time.