Biblical Journey - Day One

Let There Be Light

Genesis 1:3-5; 4:14-18

On the first day,

God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. God saw that the light

was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the

light 'day', and the darkness He called 'night'.

On the fourth day,

God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day

from the night"......... God made two great lights, the greater light to govern

the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God

set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth, to govern the day

and the night, and to separate the light from darkness.

It is obvious that the sun, moon and stars were all created on the fourth day. So what was the light that God created on the first day?

To begin to answer this question I took a closer look at how the light in day one was described compared to the light in day four.

I started with the easy part... day four's lights:

-- "Let there be lights..." There were more than one light.

-- These lights were set in the expanse or the sky which had been created on the second day.

--These lights were made to govern, or rule over, the day and the night which were already in

existence.

--These lights were the sun, the moon and the stars.

So what do we know about the light on the first day?

--The light was good.

--The light was separated from the darkness that was already there.

--The light was called "day" and the darkness from which it was separated was called "night".(Remembering that the sun and moon were not yet created)

--On that first day there was evening and morning.

The question remains, "What IS that light?"

Interestingly, only a few Sundays ago in church, the sermon was about the awesomeness of the universe that God created and how small we humans are compared to it's vastness and yet He chooses to be concerned with even our smallest troubles. During this sermon it was stated that when God said, "Let there be light"....POOF!...the big bang...and the universe began.

In this theory then, the light was the sudden explosion of all the matter and energy of space that had been condensed into a singular point..... or The Big Bang.

I suppose acceptance of this interpretation would depend on whether or not you are a strict creationist or if you allow for some scientific answers on how God created. As for me, this theory is a perfectly plausible one but I did not let that stop me from investigating further.

I thumbed my way through several different translations of scripture to see if any of the differing verbiage would give me a clue about this first day light. For the most part I found that there were different words for the terms expanse (firmament, dome, space) and sky (heaven) but nothing for the word light. However, while looking in a New American Bible there was a postscript that lead me from Genesis 1:3 to 2 Corinthians 4:6 which reads:

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness", has shone in our hearts,

that we in turn might make known the glory of God shining on the face of Christ.

I also remembered that John 1:1 started with, "In the beginning" just like Genesis 1:1. In John, Jesus is described as, "The Word" who was there at the beginning with God and was God. In verse 4, John tells us that in Jesus,

was life and that life was the light of men that shines in the darkness and the

darkness has not understood it.

Here again we find a light and a darkness that have nothing to do with the sun, moon nor stars or the absence of them.

In John 9:5 Jesus says, "I am the light of the world" and similar verses are found throughout the new testament.

Is that,then, the first day light? The light that shines in the hearts of men? The light of God's glory--the same glory that shines on the face of Christ who is the light of the world?

Perhaps the very first task on the very first day was to "Let there be light"......

Let God's glory be separated from the darkness and shine.

Let that light, the glory of God, separate night from day even without a moon to rise.

Let there be morning and evening even without a sun to set.

Perhaps it was this....

Perhaps it was the Big Bang....

Perhaps it was something totally different...

but whatever it was

--it was good!