Scripture
3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Audio Commentary
Abstract
On the first day God speaks light into being — the first element of the created order — and Scripture layers meaning onto it: light stands for truth, holiness, and knowledge, and the passage insists that the way to a heart for God runs through an enlightened mind. As at conversion, so at creation: by the mere power of His spoken word God calls light out of darkness, and He is pleased with the work of His own hands. Separating the light from the darkness, He also divides time itself, naming the day and the night as their sovereign — so that even the evening which precedes the morning serves to set off the coming light.
Brief Observations
-
Light, the first-created thing — The first element God brings into the created order is light itself, spoken into being on day one.
-
Light as truth exposed — Scripture ties light to truth: those who practice the truth come to the light, while unrepentant sinners work in darkness, deceived into thinking their deeds can be hidden from God’s omnipresent gaze.
-
God is light — In Him there is no darkness at all; fellowship with Him means walking in the light, and it is the blood of Christ that cleanses those who do.
-
Light as knowledge — the mind before the heart — Light also denotes knowledge, and here the passage corrects a common error: the path to a heart for Jesus runs through the mind. God shines the light of the knowledge of His glory into human hearts; the mind is enlightened first, and the heart follows.
-
Conversion mirrors creation — Without restricting God’s power or the Spirit’s supernatural work, the parallel holds: just as God called light out of darkness at creation by the power of His word, so He calls the soul out of spiritual darkness — the results immediate, permanent, and exactly according to His specification.
-
Light is good, and God delights in His work — Scripture calls light pleasant and good for the eyes, and God pronounces His own handiwork good — a pattern that extends to the believer’s sanctification, in which God takes pleasure in the work of His hands.
-
Separating light from darkness — God divides the light from the darkness, a separation Scripture associates with holiness set apart from sin.
-
Dividing time — By the same act God divides time, giving day and night; in the present age the two remain mingled, hellish crimes amid unspeakable beauty.
-
Sovereign over day and night — Both the day and the night belong to God, and by His authority He names them; existing outside of time, He is sovereign over it. That evening precedes morning fits His way of using darkness to heighten the shining that follows — and day one is the first day of both the world and the week.
Full Commentary
These verses expand on God’s work which He did on the very first day of creation. The first element of the created order which God brings into being is light itself. This light is given for us because Scripture teaches that God doesn’t need it. Psalm 139:12 says, “Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.” Scripture considers the role of light as fundamental to our walk with Jesus. Light reveals God’s works to us and allows us to see His glory in the creation. Light also facilitates our kingdom work. When Jesus is speaking to His disciples in John 9:4 He says, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” As Christians we must live in the light if we expect to accomplish anything meaningful for the kingdom of God.
Scripture also teaches that, “He who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” Unrepentant sinners do their works in darkness because they’re deceived into believing they can conceal the work from God’s omnipresent gaze. Many times they also want to conceal the sins from the judgment of their peers. The righteous desire the light so that their works may be revealed to the glory of God the Father. Light is often used as analogous to truth because it’s only by light that all other things may be seen. This is why we say things like, “Let’s shed some light on the situation.” When we’re talking about revealing truth in a matter.
Scripture says, “That God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” So you see how the scripture draws a close association between light, God, and the spirit of truth. God is the divine source of all light and the light itself leads us to Him. The light is also qualified as good and it’s used in scripture to denote God’s goodness. James says, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
In scripture light also denotes knowledge and knowledge concerns one’s mind. Most Christians get this wrong — but the pathway to having a “heart” for Jesus runs through the mind. The first piece of order God creates in the midst of the precosmogonic chaos in Genesis is light. Paul says transformation begins with the renewing of our mind. Ephesians connects the enlightenment of the eyes of our hearts to knowledge of God.
2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Light always comes first. Your mind must come first, then your heart will follow. American evangelicals want the heart without the mind and this is why they can’t find it. In the view of scripture, light, knowledge and mind are deeply interconnected. If these don’t come first then following our hearts is a dangerous enterprise because our hearts remain desperately wicked according to Jeremiah’s evaluation.
There may be some supernatural element at play when the Spirit of God converts a soul, and I’m certainly not going to restrict God’s power to human comprehension of nature — but I think we make a mistake if we trivialize the power of God opening the door to our hearts simply by enlightening our understanding. One major difference between conversion and corruption is that God seeks to reveal Himself to you while Satan seeks to conceal himself from you. Satan’s work to darken the soul is most effective when we don’t notice it happening. That’s why sins are often tempting at first consideration. All sins are forged in deception and their corrupting effects are not readily apparent or else we wouldn’t be enticed by them. The serpent didn’t tell Eve the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would cause the fall of man, he told her it would make her like God.
We see in these verses that the light was made by the word of God’s power. God’s word was, “Let there be light.” The results were immediate, permanent, and done exactly according to His specifications. God’s word is so powerful that He merely speaks and a world is formed. Jesus Christ is called the Word of God, He is the eternal Word, and by His wisdom light was created. Light itself is sourced within Jesus. Jesus is called the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. By God’s grace sinners can be made beacons of divine light which shine into the world. The power of scripture is such that it imparts the spirit of wisdom and revelation. It gives us the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ. It opens our understanding and remediates the confusion of ignorance and error.
The thematic parallel between conversion and creation is now in plain view. At creation, by the power of His spoken Word, God called forth light out of darkness. At a person’s conversion, the word of God as given in the holy scriptures, calls forth light out of the darkness of a lost soul. This parallel is why in 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Scripture says Jesus came to give us understanding so that in Him we may know the true God and eternal life. Without Jesus, darkness would cover fallen man forever.
Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes that light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. Proverbs tells us bright eyes gladden the heart and good news puts fat on the bones. When God called forth light out of darkness on the first day of creation He saw that it was good. This meant the light came forth precisely how He designed it and was profitable to His good purpose for it. It’s by light that we’re able to see the beauty of God in His creation — without the light all of these things would be hidden from us.
As a Christian it’s useful to keep in mind that God is pleased with the work of His own hands. We see this evidently in the creation account, but it applies to your own sanctification as well. If the Spirit of God is resident in you and is making you more like Jesus, you can be certain you are being transformed into the highest order of goodness. Scripture says God sees not as man sees, so we know His judgment is primarily reliable as an objective standard of goodness. Entire libraries of books have been written concerning the question of how to live a good life — and the resounding, unimpeachable answer according to scripture is to live a life like Jesus. To live like Jesus is to live your best possible life.
In verse 4 of this opening passage in Genesis we read that God separated the light from the darkness. Thematically scripture associates light with holiness and dark with sinfulness. Paul gives the Corinthian church injunction against associating with sinners when he says, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” So again we see echoes of this separation between the light and darkness of the created order repeated concerning the light and darkness of man’s soul.
But that’s not the only lesson to be learned from God separating the light from the darkness. We also see that He used this separation to divide time as well. The light is for the day and the darkness is for the night. Throughout our mortal lives we are helplessly bound to this intermixture of light and darkness. We need the light of day to get our work done and go about our business, we need the dark of night to find repose and restoration in sleep. The light has its uses and so does the darkness. Scripture describes Heaven as being a perfect place where there is perpetual light and no darkness. Hell is often described as being a place of total darkness with no light.
At the present moment we live among the mixture of those two. We see hellish influences and heinous crimes amidst unspeakable beauty and the awe-inspiring revelation of God. In this life we learn to expect variability in the providence of God. Sometimes we get joy, other times we get sorrow. We experience seasons of peace and we also experience seasons of trouble. To be Christlike means to walk courageously through both light and darkness and to keep the faith that He has overcome the world.
Scripture says both the day and the night belong to God — and it’s by this authority He named the light day and the darkness He named night. God exists outside of time and He Himself is sovereign over time. There will come a day when even time itself will cease as we know it and be consumed by eternity. For the present moment we’re able to integrate the regularity of day and night into our worship of God by being diligent to serve Him during the day and to rest in Him during the night. Throughout both day and night we immerse ourselves in His word and meditate on His scriptures.
We finish this Bible study by observing verse 5 conclude the first day of creation, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” It’s notable that the scriptures speak of the evening preceding the morning. Throughout the Biblical stories we see God use darkness to add contrast to the shining of light. When Jesus died on the cross scripture says darkness fell over the land for three hours. Jesus is the Light of the world so it’s logical to expect darkness to cover the Earth for a time after His death. Perhaps the three hours signify the three days He would be in the tomb before the Resurrection — but what’s more important here is that the light of the gospel was preceded by a time of darkness. God brings light out of darkness just like we’ve been talking about in creation as well as in man’s soul.
Day one of creation was the both the first day of the world and the first day of the week. God’s famous utterance, “Let there be light” happened on day one of the world. Jesus Christ, who is the Light of the world, is Resurrected on the first day of the week — and this is because His Resurrection on that early morning marks the first day of a new creation. That’s really the principal lesson we should take from this maiden voyage into studying the Bible together: that the entire corpus of scripture points to our Lord Jesus Christ. Even the very first verses at the beginning. As we continue this journey together I want to you to remember that Bible study — from Genesis to Revelation — is a worthy investment of our time and our attention because it is by God’s word that we may know Him.