God Forms (1:3-13)

There’s a pattern to God’s activities during the creation week: first He formed and then He filled. He made three spheres of activity: the heavens, the landmasses, and the waters; and then He filled them with appropriate forms of life.

Day one (vv. 3-5). God commanded the light to shine and then separated the light from the darkness. But how could there be light when the light-bearers aren’t mentioned until the fourth day (vv. 14-19)? Since we aren’t told that this light came from any of the luminaries God created, it probably came from God Himself who is light (John 1:5) and wears light as a garment (Ps. 104:2; Hab. 3:3-4). The eternal city will enjoy endless light without the help of the sun or moon (Rev. 22:5), so why couldn’t there be light at the beginning of time before the luminaries were made?

Life as we know it could not exist without the light of the sun. Paul saw in this creative act the work of God in the new creation, the salvation of the lost. “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6 nkjv). “In him [Jesus] was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).

In verse 4, God deemed the light “good.” In Scripture, light is associated with Christ (8:12), the Word of God (Ps. 119:105, 130), God’s people (Matt. 5:14-16; Eph. 5:8), and God’s blessing (Prov. 4:18), while darkness is associated with Satan (Eph. 6:12), sin (Matt. 6:22-23; John 3:19-21), death (Job 3:4-6, 9), spiritual ignorance (John 1:5), and divine judgment (Matt. 8:12). This explains why God separated the light from the darkness, for the two have nothing in common. God’s people are to “walk in the light” (1 John 1:5-10), for “what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14-16; see Eph. 5:1-14).

From the very first day of creation, God established the principle of separation. Not only did He separate the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:4) and the day from the night (v. 14), but later He also separated the waters above from the waters beneath (vv. 6-8), and the land from the waters (vv. 9-10). Through Moses, God commanded the people of Israel to remain separated from the nations around them (Ex. 34:10-17; Deut. 7:1-11), and when they violated this commandment, they suffered. God’s people today need to be careful in their walk (Ps. 1:1) and not be defiled by the world (Rom. 12:1-2; James 1:6-8; 4:4; 1 John 2:15-17).

Since God is the Creator, He has the right to call things whatever He pleases, and thus we have “day” and “night.” The word “day” can refer to the portion of time when the sun is visible as well as to the whole period of twenty-four hours composed of “evening and morning” (Gen. 1:5). Sometimes biblical writers used “day” to describe a longer period of time in which God accomplishes some special purpose, such as “the day of the Lord” (Isa. 2:12) or “the day of judgment” (Matt. 10:15).

When we speak about spiritual things, it’s important that we use God’s dictionary as well as His vocabulary. Words carry meanings and giving the wrong meaning to a word could lead to serious trouble. It would be fatal to a patient if a physician confused “arsenic” with “aspirin,” so medical people are very careful to use accurate terminology. The “Christian vocabulary” is even more important because eternal death could be the consequence of confusion. The Bible explains and illustrates words like sin, grace, forgiveness, justification, and faith, and to change their meanings is to replace God’s truth with lies. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).