Light and Darkness

Genesis 1:4 “And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. “

The creation is the most studied and least understood event in the Bible. We are not going to study this again for a better understanding about the event but for a little more light about who God is.

After the beginning and when the earth was without form and void, God brings light to set things right. We can understand that God did not see anything good in creating heavens and the earth. Here darkness does not point to the absence of light but is described as an object. Since darkness was on the surface of the deep, there was something even more abominable in the deep. Above the deep was solid earth and then water was covering the whole earth. Above the waters was the Holy Spirit moving around. In Rev 21:23 we read that the glory of God will illuminate and Jesus will be the lamp that provides light to the New Jerusalem. This is the importance of Christ in The Trinity. In John 17:5, Jesus has mentioned about the glory that was shared between the Father and Christ before this time. Based on these verses, we may understand that the Father and the Son were glorious before the earth was created but this glory was not present in the earth when it was without form and void. It was dark everywhere. This could have been because of Lucifer’s fall into the deep.

Even when the presence of the Holy Spirit was there, light was required.  The requirement of light has to be seen with a right revelation from God. The creation of the heavens and the earth is not revealed to us in detail but our revelation starts with the creation of light. After God created the light, He saw that it was good. This was not because He could see things only with light (Psalms 139:2), it was because it was His glory that was shining on earth. This explains why God had to separate His glory apart from darkness. Glory and sin cannot be together.

But the Holy Spirit and sin can be found simultaneously which should be noted particularly. The role of the Holy Spirit is very crucial in our salvation. He is the part of God the Father who is able to be support in our darkness. He is the person who is waiting for the light to come into our lives. In 1 Cor 6:19, we read that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and it does not mean that we cannot sin or sin drives the Holy Spirit away, but it means that we are rejecting the ownership of the Holy Spirit. He will still be hovering around waiting for an opportunity when we will come back to Him.

Also, it was not mere words that created this division but this division requires hands. This is applicable in our personal lives. Blessings are easy, but cleansing requires toiling and hard-work even to God. Let us be very careful during temptation. Failure is very expensive. We read this in Mathew 18:12-14 where a loss of a single soul is very painful and it makes everybody else in the fellowship exposed to temptation as the master has abandoned them in search of a single person. Our sins cause pain to us, our family, church and the person who suffers most is Christ Himself. We need to exercise that kind of caution when in the outer world outside the presence of God.

From Verse 14 onwards, we read God creating separate lights with responsibility to rule the earth. These lights are categorized as bigger, smaller and then stars. We also see that all herbs, plants and trees were created before these lights and these plants had capabilities to reproduce through their seeds before their creation. If we understand that it was the glory of God which was there to create all these plants, then all sea and animals were created under the sun which is another source of light, we can see that we are inferior to these plants. All the sea and land animals have eyes and the brain which needs somebody to rule. The plants do not need disciplining. That’s why God created these lights to rule the day and night.

This can be compared with Jesus wanting us to be lights of the world after He Himself was the original light. God sees the light as good and for this light to stay good, it needs separation from darkness. In each family or situation or location God places some people as lights to rule. Many lives are created when these lights rule. But, the tendency of human beings is that they look at the stars and not their actual rulers to rule them.

God did not work at night time, everything was performed during the light. This teaches us to not try anything without His presence. If we are outside His presence, we should just survive the night time and wait for the day to complete. In the morning, His mercies are new and so we wait for His mercies to forgive our failures during the night time. We complete the day with receiving forgiveness and had renewed our relationship with Him. And God does not consider the rest we take without His presence as a proper resting. We need to rest with Him on the Sabbath.

Our God is awesome in giving us plenty of lessons and messages in every action He does. We are expected to exactly follow Him. Let us understand Him more and love Him more.

Amen.