Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
This could be viewed as a heading or introduction to the section. It could however be also viewed as the first part of the description. This study will assume it is the latter. Verses 6-9 of this same chapter show that although the heavens and earth were created first, they as yet were formless and empty, with the shaping and definition to come later. At this stage, they were just the raw materials which were yet to be shaped and formed. This verse could be understood to mean 'in the beginning, God created matter, reality, and the universe in their rawest, most basic forms'.
Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The 'earth' was not yet a planet. It had no form, that is, no shape. It was essentially a hunk of un-molded clay, a bucket of wet cement. In verse 1 God created the cement. In verse two we see that what has been created is 'waters', that is matter contained in liquid form. The whole universe is a space [the heavens] completely filled with matter [the earth, in the form of 'waters']. God here is standing over his creation as an artist before a blank canvas (having just made the canvas himself) or a sculptor before a block of unshaped marble (which he just created).
Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
We can see in verse 14 that the creation of actual sources of light (sun, moon, stars) did not occur for some time yet. So what is this 'light' that God creates here? The next verse shows us that at this time, light and darkness were mixed, blended. They had not yet been separated in the way they are for us, when we perceive them. But isn't that an illogical statement? Can light and dark be blended, when one is by definition the absence of the other? You may answer yes, but I would answer no. Therefore, I must assume that the light being talked about here is not light as we know it. I think a certain clue as to what sort of 'light' is meant here can be found in verse 4;
Light is separated from darkness, light is declared to be good, and darkness is not declared to be good, almost as a contrast, the missing declaration conspicuous by its absence.
'God saw that the light was good'. The darkness is not described as good. God created light, which was good, and darkness, which was not.
I would like to suggest (firstly, as light and darkness cannot mutually co-exist in our understanding of them, and secondly because he had not yet made any of the 'lights' which come in verse 14) that what God was creating here was the difference between 'good' and 'not good', or as we call them, good and evil. Genesis 1 is written as a poem, not as a piece of systematic theology, and so the word 'light' is used poetically to talk about about the creation of morality as a concept.
God created light first, and then afterwards separated light from darkness. This suggests that previously they were mingled, a sort of proto-light. This might suggest then, that He first created a 'scale of light', that is, all the possibilities of morality. He first created the universe, reality and matter. He then created the laws of right and wrong, of good and not-good, the full scale of right and wrong, of all possible deeds, thoughts, or motives. He first created the whole list, every possibility, and then began to refine the chaos.
Genesis 1:4
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
God next made a separation in the great scale of morality. Light no longer meant 'proto-light' (all possible deeds thoughts or actions with no inherent goodness or badness). Proto-light was gone, morality was attached to deeds. Some things were designated 'light' (good), and other things were designated 'dark' (not-good). Light was not in the form of any light we know (daylight, moonlight, starlight), it was a more pure, raw, light; light in its very essence. Its presence was good, its absence was not. Its absence was called Darkness. He made the two mutually exclusive; for Light to exist it must be separated from the darkness.
The really fascinating part is the creation of moral darkness. The only reason I can think of for moral darkness (evil) to exist is free will. For 'choosing-the-light' to exist, darkness must also exist as the alternative (if there is only good to choose, then the choice between good and evil has been already made for you). This implies three things. Firstly, that freewill is an inherent part of 'light', that freewill is good, and righteous. Secondly, paradoxically, the good 'freewill' cannot exist without darkness as an alternative option, making the creation of evil a necessity if you want pure light, and thirdly, that the amount of good brought about by creating freewill sufficiently outweighs the amount of bad risked by the creation of evil, which justifies God in allowing evil to exist.
God refined the list of possibilities created in proto-light into two categories, creating right and wrong. The fundamental and basic rules of our universe which determine morality, justice and conscience. He made them before he even made anything that lives, and while they came after matter itself (suggesting matter is amoral), everything else which came after was created under the wing of this momentous creation; the plumb-line of righteousness (Isaiah 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line).
However, believing that in Genesis 1:3-4 the light God created was moral light does not necessarily mean that visible light was excluded from that creation. The fact that God uses the words light and darkness to symbolise good and evil (not just here but all throughout the bible) suggests that He made light (in the sense that we understand it) to be the physical symbol of good, and darkness to be the symbol of the absence of goodness, that is, evil.
Next we come to the matter of the source of the light. Chapter 1:5 states that there was a morning, day, evening and night, suggesting that in the first 'day' there was visible light. Where was the light coming from? You may disagree, but I believe that visible light needs a source. I know God could technically create light without a source, but here in creation he seems to be being systematic and pragmatic (see the growth of the trees and shrubs in chapter 2:5). I believe that God chose to embody all that moral and visible light entailed, and that therefore the light source was God Himself (we see that God lights the entire Heavenly city of Jerusalem Revelation 21:23 'The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.') He chose to be completely good, and to be the embodiment of goodness itself. As a result of this, He became the universe's source of visible light too, in its purest form. If visible light is the symbol of goodness, then God, choosing to embody all goodness, became a pure source of utterly pure, raw, blinding light.
We can see this double-meaning of light embodied in God elsewhere in the Bible too:
1 John 1:5 states 'God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.'
1 Timothy 6:16a states 'God... alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light'
and here's a very interesting one about Jesus;
John 1:9 'The true light... was coming into the world'
God embodied 'true light'. Pure light, that existed before sun, moon or stars, that 'no-one has seen or can see' (1 Tim 6:16b). Jesus was at times too bright to look at (for example on the mount of transfiguration), but the light that he brought was not primarily visible light, but moral light.
We can see from elsewhere in the Bible that God also 'locked' his decision to embody moral light, and made it his permanent and irreversible state for eternity; He threw away the key, and bound Himself to permanent everlasting goodness. We can see this, because despite His omnipotence, Hebrews 6:18 states 'it is impossible for God to lie', and 1 John 3:9 states that 'he cannot sin'.
It may seem that I am over-analyzing what should be a simple and straightforward uncomplicated verse, but the way it is referred back to by the New Testament writers lead me to strongly believe that it is a profound and incredibly deep text, not a simplistic and straightforward one.
Genesis 1:5
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
There was a night and a day, an evening and a morning, but no sun? If at this time in pre-history, God was the only source of light so far created, then this could be understood to mean God came, and then went. His light came, and then his light left. The use of the words 'in the beginning' in verse 1 suggest that God entered into the linear world of time. The Bible tells us elsewhere that God exists outside of time, and so perhaps this verse suggests that after his creating work on the first day, God left for a while, to let the created matter be, or to let it develop.
The question must also be asked (mainly because it is such a contentious one in evangelical circles) of whether or not a literal day is meant here or not. I would argue that it is not, for two reasons. The first one is fairly obvious, in that there was no sun, or planets yet, and so the very concept of a literal day makes no sense at all in that setting.
The second (and most compelling) evidence for a non-literal 'day' refers forward briefly for a few verses, to the creation of the trees. Verses 1:11-13, state that the trees were created on the third day. Chapter 2 verse 5 states: 'Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground' This verse suggest clearly to me that God placed the plants in the ground in seed form, requiring watering and a man to work the ground. If not, why include this sentence? God created the seeds, but they were to grow following natural processes of watering and farming.
Next we scroll forward to the sixth day when the man and woman are made, (1:27-31), and are told in 2:15-17 that by this day all the trees were fully grown. If God was allowing trees and plants to grow by natural processes, and by the time the man was in the garden they were all fully grown, then the 'days' cannot be literal. I will therefore view the use of the word 'day' in the creation story to mean 'era' of creation.
(Just as a small side note, I find the inclusion in 2:5 of the reference to rain very interesting, because according to the story of Noah, the great flood in Genesis 6 was the first time rain fell on the earth. This reference to rain seems to have been written for the benefit of the Mosaic-age Israelite readers to assure them that it was for normal, natural reasons that the shrubs had not yet grown up. The next verse in 2:6 explains that the water they needed rose up through the ground from streams, and so the reference to rain seems almost pointless in being there, unless it was to reassure the reader that there was no 'magic' in the air or in the soil, the plants and trees grew normally as they would have done in post-Noahic Israel, requiring farming and rain. This again supports reading 'day' as 'era', because if it was natural normal soil, with no miracle working on God's part to speed up the process, then it cannot have been a literal day or three in which these things occurred.)
So we see, in the first 'day', the first era of God's creation he does these things (possibly in this order)...
1 - Creates reality, the universe and matter
2 - Creates the whole spectrum of do-able things, without any moral value attached of good or bad.
3 - Divides all do-able things into 'right' or 'wrong'
4 - Associates visible light with things that are right, and darkness with things that are wrong
5 - Chooses to permanently embody pure light, both in its physical form and moral state.
6 - Leaves his creation for a while.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
This could be viewed as a heading or introduction to the section. It could however be also viewed as the first part of the description. This study will assume it is the latter. Verses 6-9 of this same chapter show that although the heavens and earth were created first, they as yet were formless and empty, with the shaping and definition to come later. At this stage, they were just the raw materials which were yet to be shaped and formed. This verse could be understood to mean 'in the beginning, God created matter, reality, and the universe in their rawest, most basic forms'.
Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The 'earth' was not yet a planet. It had no form, that is, no shape. It was essentially a hunk of un-molded clay, a bucket of wet cement. In verse 1 God created the cement. In verse two we see that what has been created is 'waters', that is matter contained in liquid form. The whole universe is a space [the heavens] completely filled with matter [the earth, in the form of 'waters']. God here is standing over his creation as an artist before a blank canvas (having just made the canvas himself) or a sculptor before a block of unshaped marble (which he just created).
Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
We can see in verse 14 that the creation of actual sources of light (sun, moon, stars) did not occur for some time yet. So what is this 'light' that God creates here? The next verse shows us that at this time, light and darkness were mixed, blended. They had not yet been separated in the way they are for us, when we perceive them. But isn't that an illogical statement? Can light and dark be blended, when one is by definition the absence of the other? You may answer yes, but I would answer no. Therefore, I must assume that the light being talked about here is not light as we know it. I think a certain clue as to what sort of 'light' is meant here can be found in verse 4;
Light is separated from darkness, light is declared to be good, and darkness is not declared to be good, almost as a contrast, the missing declaration conspicuous by its absence.
'God saw that the light was good'. The darkness is not described as good. God created light, which was good, and darkness, which was not.
I would like to suggest (firstly, as light and darkness cannot mutually co-exist in our understanding of them, and secondly because he had not yet made any of the 'lights' which come in verse 14) that what God was creating here was the difference between 'good' and 'not good', or as we call them, good and evil. Genesis 1 is written as a poem, not as a piece of systematic theology, and so the word 'light' is used poetically to talk about about the creation of morality as a concept.
God created light first, and then afterwards separated light from darkness. This suggests that previously they were mingled, a sort of proto-light. This might suggest then, that He first created a 'scale of light', that is, all the possibilities of morality. He first created the universe, reality and matter. He then created the laws of right and wrong, of good and not-good, the full scale of right and wrong, of all possible deeds, thoughts, or motives. He first created the whole list, every possibility, and then began to refine the chaos.
Genesis 1:4
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
God next made a separation in the great scale of morality. Light no longer meant 'proto-light' (all possible deeds thoughts or actions with no inherent goodness or badness). Proto-light was gone, morality was attached to deeds. Some things were designated 'light' (good), and other things were designated 'dark' (not-good). Light was not in the form of any light we know (daylight, moonlight, starlight), it was a more pure, raw, light; light in its very essence. Its presence was good, its absence was not. Its absence was called Darkness. He made the two mutually exclusive; for Light to exist it must be separated from the darkness.
The really fascinating part is the creation of moral darkness. The only reason I can think of for moral darkness (evil) to exist is free will. For 'choosing-the-light' to exist, darkness must also exist as the alternative (if there is only good to choose, then the choice between good and evil has been already made for you). This implies three things. Firstly, that freewill is an inherent part of 'light', that freewill is good, and righteous. Secondly, paradoxically, the good 'freewill' cannot exist without darkness as an alternative option, making the creation of evil a necessity if you want pure light, and thirdly, that the amount of good brought about by creating freewill sufficiently outweighs the amount of bad risked by the creation of evil, which justifies God in allowing evil to exist.
God refined the list of possibilities created in proto-light into two categories, creating right and wrong. The fundamental and basic rules of our universe which determine morality, justice and conscience. He made them before he even made anything that lives, and while they came after matter itself (suggesting matter is amoral), everything else which came after was created under the wing of this momentous creation; the plumb-line of righteousness (Isaiah 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line).
However, believing that in Genesis 1:3-4 the light God created was moral light does not necessarily mean that visible light was excluded from that creation. The fact that God uses the words light and darkness to symbolise good and evil (not just here but all throughout the bible) suggests that He made light (in the sense that we understand it) to be the physical symbol of good, and darkness to be the symbol of the absence of goodness, that is, evil.
Next we come to the matter of the source of the light. Chapter 1:5 states that there was a morning, day, evening and night, suggesting that in the first 'day' there was visible light. Where was the light coming from? You may disagree, but I believe that visible light needs a source. I know God could technically create light without a source, but here in creation he seems to be being systematic and pragmatic (see the growth of the trees and shrubs in chapter 2:5). I believe that God chose to embody all that moral and visible light entailed, and that therefore the light source was God Himself (we see that God lights the entire Heavenly city of Jerusalem Revelation 21:23 'The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.') He chose to be completely good, and to be the embodiment of goodness itself. As a result of this, He became the universe's source of visible light too, in its purest form. If visible light is the symbol of goodness, then God, choosing to embody all goodness, became a pure source of utterly pure, raw, blinding light.
We can see this double-meaning of light embodied in God elsewhere in the Bible too:
1 John 1:5 states 'God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.'
1 Timothy 6:16a states 'God... alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light'
and here's a very interesting one about Jesus;
John 1:9 'The true light... was coming into the world'
God embodied 'true light'. Pure light, that existed before sun, moon or stars, that 'no-one has seen or can see' (1 Tim 6:16b). Jesus was at times too bright to look at (for example on the mount of transfiguration), but the light that he brought was not primarily visible light, but moral light.
We can see from elsewhere in the Bible that God also 'locked' his decision to embody moral light, and made it his permanent and irreversible state for eternity; He threw away the key, and bound Himself to permanent everlasting goodness. We can see this, because despite His omnipotence, Hebrews 6:18 states 'it is impossible for God to lie', and 1 John 3:9 states that 'he cannot sin'.
It may seem that I am over-analyzing what should be a simple and straightforward uncomplicated verse, but the way it is referred back to by the New Testament writers lead me to strongly believe that it is a profound and incredibly deep text, not a simplistic and straightforward one.
Genesis 1:5
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
There was a night and a day, an evening and a morning, but no sun? If at this time in pre-history, God was the only source of light so far created, then this could be understood to mean God came, and then went. His light came, and then his light left. The use of the words 'in the beginning' in verse 1 suggest that God entered into the linear world of time. The Bible tells us elsewhere that God exists outside of time, and so perhaps this verse suggests that after his creating work on the first day, God left for a while, to let the created matter be, or to let it develop.
The question must also be asked (mainly because it is such a contentious one in evangelical circles) of whether or not a literal day is meant here or not. I would argue that it is not, for two reasons. The first one is fairly obvious, in that there was no sun, or planets yet, and so the very concept of a literal day makes no sense at all in that setting.
The second (and most compelling) evidence for a non-literal 'day' refers forward briefly for a few verses, to the creation of the trees. Verses 1:11-13, state that the trees were created on the third day. Chapter 2 verse 5 states: 'Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground' This verse suggest clearly to me that God placed the plants in the ground in seed form, requiring watering and a man to work the ground. If not, why include this sentence? God created the seeds, but they were to grow following natural processes of watering and farming.
Next we scroll forward to the sixth day when the man and woman are made, (1:27-31), and are told in 2:15-17 that by this day all the trees were fully grown. If God was allowing trees and plants to grow by natural processes, and by the time the man was in the garden they were all fully grown, then the 'days' cannot be literal. I will therefore view the use of the word 'day' in the creation story to mean 'era' of creation.
(Just as a small side note, I find the inclusion in 2:5 of the reference to rain very interesting, because according to the story of Noah, the great flood in Genesis 6 was the first time rain fell on the earth. This reference to rain seems to have been written for the benefit of the Mosaic-age Israelite readers to assure them that it was for normal, natural reasons that the shrubs had not yet grown up. The next verse in 2:6 explains that the water they needed rose up through the ground from streams, and so the reference to rain seems almost pointless in being there, unless it was to reassure the reader that there was no 'magic' in the air or in the soil, the plants and trees grew normally as they would have done in post-Noahic Israel, requiring farming and rain. This again supports reading 'day' as 'era', because if it was natural normal soil, with no miracle working on God's part to speed up the process, then it cannot have been a literal day or three in which these things occurred.)
So we see, in the first 'day', the first era of God's creation he does these things (possibly in this order)...
1 - Creates reality, the universe and matter
2 - Creates the whole spectrum of do-able things, without any moral value attached of good or bad.
3 - Divides all do-able things into 'right' or 'wrong'
4 - Associates visible light with things that are right, and darkness with things that are wrong
5 - Chooses to permanently embody pure light, both in its physical form and moral state.
6 - Leaves his creation for a while.
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