The First Day, Part Two

A LOOK IN THE BOOK
with Darrell Nichols
Fourth in a series of studies on some key verses in the Bible

Genesis 1:3-5
 (1) In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (ESV)

CREATION’S DESCRIPTION (continued)
In our last blog, we studied Genesis 1, verse 2, and saw three things that were absent:
An absence of landscape
An absence of life
An absence of light
In today’s blog, we will examine Genesis 1, verses 3-5 and discover three things that were present.

In verse 3, God provided what was desperately needed—light. Darkness completely enveloped the earth prior to this. In His perfect wisdom, God knew that a world in continuous darkness was not a good thing. So in verse 3, “…God said, Let there be light…” and He waited…and He waited…and He waited some more…until light finally appeared! ☺ No, that is NOT the way it happened. “God said, Let there be light, AND THERE WAS LIGHT.” The light was immediate. The light was instantaneous. The light was miraculous. The light was the work of the divine Originator and Creator, Jehovah God!

The Presence of Power
The word “light” in verse 3 refers to illumination. To illuminate something means to supply or brighten with light. The creation of light in this verse demonstrates the presence of power. “God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” THAT IS POWER—power that only God possesses! If it’s even possible, let’s try to illustrate just how powerful God’s power is.

When you enter a room that is dark, you simply flip a switch on the wall and the lights come on. That’s not really using your power though, that’s using electrical power! What if, however, you entered the room and caused the lights to come on (illuminate) just by SPEAKING? Could you (without fancy gizmos and other technology, e.g., motion detectors) illuminate the room using only the power of your spoken word? Of course not. No mere human is able to provide light simply by speaking light into existence, but that is exactly what God Almighty did! Jehovah God is a great and mighty God, isn’t He?

​The Presence of Perfection
Now look please at verse 4. “And God saw the light, that it was good.” According to the Creator, it is good that we have light. God looked at what He created and was pleased that there was light. First, there was a need, then
He supplied it by speaking it into existence. He proclaimed the result to be “good.” The word “good” in this verse means pleasing. In other words, God was pleased with the light. It was perfect.

We see here the presence of perfection. God created the universe (“the heavens and the earth” – verse 1) and it was a dark universe. Then God created light and earth became illuminated. Question: Where did the light come from? It couldn’t be from the sun because in verse 4 it had not yet been created (verse 16). So, where did the light come from? [EDISON?! Who said Edison? ☺] No, the light came from God. There is no other reasonable explanation. No other conclusion is a valid one. God created the light. He is the Source of the light! The Bible teaches us that the light of the world is Jesus, the Son of God—the second member of the Trinity. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). God provided His own light to illuminate the world! Perfectly.

The word “good” is found in Genesis 1 seven times. In addition to verse 4, He pronounced His works of creation “good” in verses 10, 12, 18, 21, and 25. And the last verse in the chapter (31) tells us that God looked at His entire creative work—the big picture—and called it “VERY good.” He liked what He saw. Considering the words of Scripture here, it seems to have been important to God that His creation be pleasing. Why was that important? Because He knew for whom He was creating it. He wasn’t creating it for Himself. Think about it…God did not need a place to live. He was creating all the things mentioned in this chapter for all of us, for all of mankind.

The Presence of Purity
The next word I want us to notice is the word “separated.” That’s an unusual word to be found in a creation chapter, isn’t it? In the middle of His creative work, God chose to do some dividing. The word “separated” can sometimes conjure up negative thoughts or feelings. Isn’t it sad when homes divide because of sin and end in divorce? It can also be a little sad when a son or daughter leaves home and goes off to college or the military. Entering college or the military is generally considered a good thing, but there is still an element of sadness to it. From a parent’s perspective, the thought may be that the family is dividing.

Early in Genesis, God begins dividing. When God separates, it is a positive thing and not a negative thing. In verse 4, God divides the light from the darkness. “And God separated the light from the darkness.” He wanted to establish a distinction between light and darkness. He wanted there to be a clear difference between light and darkness. In Genesis 1, God began His divine practice of separation by dividing light from darkness. In verse 5 the Bible says, “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” The term Day came from God. The term Night came from God. Why did God divide—separate—these two entities? In part, to demonstrate the presence of purity. God’s holiness requires a separation of light from darkness. A personal study on the divisions and separations in the Bible would be time well spent. As you study the Scripture, you’ll see how God separates the holy from the unholy; the wheat from the chaff; the sheep from the goats; the good from the evil; and so on. God literally divided the light from the darkness in Genesis 1, and the principle of separating “light” from “darkness” is clearly seen throughout the Scriptures.

In our next blog, we will examine the last sentence of the verse which says, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."

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Darrell Nichols is an Elder and Pastor of Education at commUNITY church in Muncie, IN.
He can be reached at darrell.nichols@beincommunity.com or on Twitter @_nichols_dimes