Light  – Genesis 1:1-4 (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.”

 

* 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.

 

The first thing the Bible wants us to understand. Lets look at a couple of words in the original Hebrew. Elohim (a pluralized term denoting God) created the shâmayim (a dual term denoting 2 heavens) and eres (a noun denoting the earth) but just making it and leaving it without shape (form), empty (void) and in the dark was unacceptable. God sends His very Spirit to interact with creation to prepare it for further and more intimate contact with God and His subsequent command. The next command creates LIGHT. God then inspects the light and sees that it is good (Good  – Lesson __). Then God divides the light from the darkness making each separate and therefore distinguishable one from another.

 

What is this light that God created? Why was it created first?

 

We find answers in a combination of 2 verses in Psalms 119. The verses are 105 & 160. 

 

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” & “The sum of your word is truth,
and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.”

 

Here we see that God’s word is considered light and also considered truth and law. We can therefore conclude that the light God creates in Genesis 1 is truth and law. So on the first day of creation God set out to create the rules and laws by which the rest of creation would be governed by. Science backs this up because when water is in the vacuum of space it vaporizes, what keeps the water of the Earth from doing the same? The law of gravitation and the atmosphere, which can be thought of as a sort of heaven. So God uses His command, His law, His light, His word to SHAPE the earth and the reality in which the earth was to operate under.

 

This lines up better than the idea of ONLY physical light being created. This also gives us insight of what the Bible considers darkness: Lawlessness, chaos, disorder. So when the Bible says believers of Christ should be children of light that means they should be law abiding, truthful people who are structured.

 

Light can’t lose to darkness. Every light has it’s radius of influence, a stadium spotlight affects a different area than a flashlight you keep on your keychain. It’s a mistake for the flashlight to define its success by comparing ITS sphere of influence to the spotlight’s. They were built for different functionalities. The question they should be asking is am I beating back the darkness to the best of my ability?” If the answer is yes go in peace my brother or sister. If not, pray for what you need in order to do what you are called to do as a believer.

 

Light is the roadmap that allows one to separate themselves from the world and to become more like Christ day by day.