QUESTION: What was the length of the "day" in Genesis 1?
ANSWER: We understand the word "day" in the first chapter of Genesis to mean simply our ordinary 24 hours; we do not consider it scriptural to believe that each of these days may include a long period of time. But we must remember that, between the first verse of Genesis 1 and the commencement of the actual six days' work, millions of years may have intervened, leaving ample room, most surely, for all the facts of geology.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Then we are told, "the earth"—not the heaven—"was without form, and void."
We are not told how long this was after it was created, nor how it fell into this state; but most surely, God had not so created it. And then begins the record of the six days in which God prepared the earth for man to dwell upon.
It is not the object of the Bible to teach us geology or astronomy, but we may rest assured that there is not a single sentence in that divine volume which collides with the facts of geology or any other science.
We must, however, draw a very broad line of distinction between the facts of science, and the conclusions of scientific men. Facts are facts wherever you find them; but if you follow the conclusions of men, you may find yourselves plunged into the dark and dreadful abyss of universal skepticism.