Darkness – Genesis 1:1-5 (NKJV)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness * was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that * it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”
* words in the boxes denotes that the word is not in the original text but is inserted to fulfill the grammatical requirements for English so that the text can be understood.
We’ve discussed light in the previous lesson, so I think while that’s fresh (hopefully) in your mind lets discuss the opposite. Darkness is the realm of dominant chaos. The absence of God’s law structure and word. But thanks to the first set of verses in Genesis 1, we see that darkness can’t shut God out. It can’t prevent God from interacting.
God puts darkness in its place and gives it a name. What does that tell us? It tells us that the God of the Bible who is referred to as the embodiment of light itself [This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all – 1st John 1:5] God still has dominion over darkness! God can tell darkness where to go and what it can and can not do.
In the Bible darkness is both the unknown and unrighteous, but God can and does use it. It’s one of the plagues God strikes a sun-worshipping Egypt with, [So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. – Exodus 10:21-23] to show that He was both above their gods and had dominion over not just Israel but over them as well.
However in the same book we see Moses draw near to God who was in a thick darkness to conceal His glory to a people delivered but unbelieving. [And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. – Exodus 20:20-21] Darkness is both underneath God’s feet in David’s song of deliverance in 2nd Samuel, chapter 22.
What’s going on here? Well the hebrew word being used in Ex 20 and 2nd Samuel chapter 22 is arapel, which denotes a heavy cloud cover. The word for darkness in Genesis 1 and Exodus 10 is hosek. So there’s a difference in the darkness attached to the presence of God – arapel & the darkness of sin that we need the presence of God to deliver us from in Psalm 107 and symbolizes the choices the wicked make when abandoning the path of uprightness in Proverbs chapter 2 verse 13 – hosek.
Darkness isn’t something Christians can escape. Grief, sorrow and confusion happen but the God we serve is more powerful than the darkness. There should be places in our soul and spirit that darkness can’t touch. There should be parts of our mentality that darkness can’t reign. Chaos can’t be the default state of the follower of Christ, because as children of light we understand that order and structure are the foundational aspects of a righteous path.