Genesis 1:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 1:4

Comments

The light is good in God’s sight, as he evaluates his own creation. It is right up at the front of creation: a gift to mankind, which will enable him practically and teach him so much. Of course it is involved in so many systems of life in the world, but it is also for pleasure and delight and discovery and education. Light that we can see – it exhibits and glorifies so many features of God’s creation. Light with all its colours and the things it illuminates, and it lifts moods in our fallen era of the world. And of course it teaches divine influence, too: it worthily represents blessing and truth and spiritual understanding and salvation. ‘And God saw the light, that it was good,’ the statement will be repeated a number of times. But it is certainly true of light. Meditate on what it does for us and our world. This is all in preparation for animal life, and then ultimately human life. These provisions come in advance. It has all got to be in place. Light for guidance, for pleasure, for understanding and enjoyment of his world, for exploration of his world. Man needs light. Light is wonderful, and it shows all the variety and the colours. Light enables us to drink in the enormous variation that God will create, and to enjoy these things. ‘And God divided the light from the darkness.’ There is going to be darkness too; even before the fall, even in a perfect world where there is no sin, no harm. This was before the sun was created on day four. Whether that was the beginning of the rotation of the earth and God gave his light from one source on one side of the earth, or whether that was how God gave it, an intermittent light, separating day from night, we are not told. But there is darkness even in a perfect environment before the creation of man. There is a purpose in that. There is darkness also, and rest is ordained. The darkness was good in the first place: it was for rest. Man needed rest from the very beginning, even before the fall. Also it was to print on the minds of men and women once they were created an appreciation for light. Without darkness perhaps, man, even if he had lived on without a fall, and certainly after the fall, would not have appreciated the light. Every morning you get up after a night of darkness, and you appreciate afresh the light. And that is supposed to remind us of the giver of light and his great goodness. Night is necessary so that we don't take day and light and vision for granted. Here is a lesson in itself about how God provides for us in such a way that we appreciate his gifts, so that we never take blessings for granted, so that we never forget the one who gives them, and remember where they come from,

Application

In these things we are taught, and even Adam and Eve were taught, that though you are in a perfect environment and you are perfect people, you are still weak: you are dependant creatures. God has ordained that you need rest and that your bodies must be revitalised, perfect as they may be, and that you receive things from your God. And you must appreciate your environment. So the veil of night is drawn over it for so many hours. All these things are right there in the beginning and we understand so much from this in our own lives. God gives blessings, but not nose-to-tail blessings, one hundred per cent of the time. Of course we are always to appreciate them and thank him for them.

Some people come to you and they say, ‘Why do I lack assurance? For several days I have lost my assurance?’ And sometimes it is not sin or anything like that, it is because God has drawn clouds across the heavens so that you seek him afresh and you appreciate your assurance and your blessing. This is how God has worked even before the fall. You have light, you have darkness also, and it teaches us.

Questions

The light and the darkness form the first day, and we can be quite certain that here in Genesis 1 we are talking about 24-hour days. It is inescapable that it is a 24-hour day. If the light divides a period of light from a period of night, and it's described as the first day, it's inescapable that that is a 24-hour day. It cannot possibly be anything else. ‘And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day’: the same division of day and night continues through the chapter. The passage defines the length of the day, four times over. In fact, the Hebrew in verse 5 reads, ‘There was evening and there was morning, day one. Our translators have made that a little more elegant by saying the evening and the morning were the first day, to conform the verse with the last verse in the passage. There is no way out of that: it is a 24-hour day.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Genesis 1:4 Commentary and Bible Study