About the Author
Known throughout the world at the turn of the century as "Pastor"... Charles Taze Russell was an author, lecturer and minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on February 16, 1852. His authorship of the series, Studies in the Scriptures, included The Divine Plan of the Ages, The Time is At Hand, Thy Kingdom Come, The Battle of Armageddon, The Atonement Between God and Man, The New Creation, plus many others.
His life was totally devoted to teaching the Bible, writing and publishing religious articles, lecturing and proclaiming the message of the blessings which would come to mankind when Christ establishes His Kingdom on earth. He did more than any other man in modern times to establish the faith of the people in the validity of the Holy Scriptures.
His weekly sermons were published by a newspaper syndicate composing some 2000 newspapers with a combined circulation of fifteen million readers. "His writings are said to have greater newspaper circulation every week than those of any living man...." (Editor of the "Continent")
In addition, his missionary tour of Russia, where he delivered lectures to thousands of Orthodox Jews on "the regathering of the Jewish people to Palestine," plus his travels to Japan, China, Korea and India to preach the Good News were widely known. On his return to America he was given a standing ovation at the New York City Hippodrome by thousands of Jews, his discourse on "The Returning Favor to Israel" being published by Hebrew newspapers, both in America and Europe.
Convinced of the harmony of the Bible, Pastor Russell devoted his life to the cause to which he gave his life ... the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. He died while on a lecture tour ... October 31, 1916, leaving no estate whatever. Thus closed the career of a most remarkable Christian.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
MANY are Jehovah's agents, and innumerable his agencies, connected with one and another feature of his creation; but back of them all is his own creative wisdom and power. He alone is the Creator, and, as the Scriptures affirm, "All his work is perfect." He may permit evil angels and evil men to pervert and misuse his perfect work; but he assures us that evil shall not for long be permitted to work blight and injury; and that eventually, when he shall restrain and destroy evil, we shall discern that he permitted it only to test, to prove, to refine, to polish and to make his own holiness, gracious character and plan the more resplendent in the sight of all his intelligent creatures.
When in Genesis we read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," we are to remember that this beginning relates not to the universe, but merely to our planet. Then it was that "the morning stars sang together" and all the angelic sons of God "shouted for joy"--when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth and "made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness its swaddling band." (`Job 38:4-11`) But a still earlier beginning is mentioned in the Bible; a beginning before the creation of those angelic sons of God; as we read: "In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Logos was with the God and the Logos was a God: the same was in the beginning with the God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." (`John 1:1-3`) (See Series V, Chap. 3.) Since Jehovah himself is from everlasting to everlasting, he had no beginning: the "Only Begotten" has the high distinction above all others of being "The beginning of the! creation of God"--"first-born of every creature." (`Rev. 3:14`; `Col. 1:15`) Other beginnings came in turn as the various angelic orders were one by one created; and these beginnings were in the past, so that their hosts could shout for joy when our earth's creations, related in Genesis, had their beginning.
Examining the Genesis expressions critically, we discern that a distinction is made between the creation of the heaven and the earth (`verse 1`) and the subsequent regulations, or ordering of these, and the further creations of vegetable and animal life. It is these subsequent operations that are described as the divine work of six epochal days. `Verse 2` tells us that in the very beginning of the first day of that creative week the earth was--though without form (order), and void (empty)--waste, empty and dark. This important item should be distinctly noted. If recognized, it at once corroborates the testimony of geology thus far; and, as we shall be obliged to dispute the deductions of geologists on some points, it is well that we promptly acknowledge and dismiss whatever does not need to be contended for in defense of the Bible. The Bible does not say how long a period elapsed between the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth, and the beginning of the creative week used in perfecting it for man: nor do geologists agree amongst themselves as to the period of this interval--a few extremists indulge in wild speculations of millions of years.
Coming, then, to the creative period--the ordering of affairs in our heaven and earth in preparation of the Paradise of God for man's everlasting home--we note that these "days" are nowhere declared to be twenty-four-hour days; and, hence, we are not obliged thus to limit them. We find in the Bible that the word day stands for epoch, or period. The fact that it is most frequently used in reference to a twenty-four-hour period matters nothing, so long as we have the record of "the day of temptation in the wilderness ...forty years" (`Psa. 95:8-10`), and sometimes a "day" or "time" representing a year period (`Num. 14:33,34`; `Ezek. 4:1-8`), and also the Apostle's statement--"A day with the Lord is as a thousand years." (`2 Pet. 3:8`) Most assuredly these epoch-days were not sun days; for the record is that the sun was not visible until the fourth day--the fourth epoch.
We believe our readers will agree that although the length of these epoch-days is not indicated, we will be justified in assuming that they were uniform periods, because of their close identity as members of the one creative week. Hence, if we can gain reasonable proof of the length of one of these days, we will be fully justified in assuming that the others were of the same duration. We do, then, find satisfactory evidence that one of these creative "days" was a period of seven thousand years and, hence, that the entire creative week would be 7,000 x 7 equals 49,000 years. And although this period is infinitesimal when compared with some geological guesses, it is, we believe, quite reasonably ample for the work represented as being accomplished therein--the ordering and filling of the earth, which already "was" in existence, but "without form [order], and void [empty]."
