In our last blog article, we began to dive into the days of Creation. We considered the reality that God created by speaking everything into existence, which is to look at Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 26, and 29 when it says Then God said… The focus in this article is to consider what God said and created on Day One of Creation.
We read from Genesis 1:3-5 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
We are going to take our time in these verses to consider the full weight of these words. This will take more than one article to walk through these opening words of creation. In this article, we will focus upon the substance of creation, namely light.
About a month from drafting this article, my brother, who pastors a church in our hometown of Tennessee, called me up with a wonderful question. His church had opened an “Ask the Pastor” night to the youth of the church. They said, “You can ask him any question.” One young man just wanted to make it clear, “I can ask him anything about the Bible?” “Yes.” “Anything?” “Yes.” His question read, “What does the Bible say about the color yellow?” What a wonderful question! This is especially wonderful because my brother and I are color-blind. Color has been a part of our lives, whether we liked it or not. My brother had his answer to the question, pointing the young man to the rainbow and the throne room of God where the rainbow surrounds God’s throne, taking the young man to the flood and then the book of Revelation. He then asked how I would answer this question, and I took him to the first day of creation with light.
Some years ago, I came across a paper by a physicist on the creation of light. I have since lost this paper, but I recall the physicist explaining the creation of light on Day One of creation would have been the creation of color too. This blew me away, and then I began to study more. Dr. R.C. Sproul once asked a young man while holding up an orange, “What color will this orange be when I turn off all the lights?” The answer to the question of Sproul was black. I also recently watching a documentary on the deep sea. A marine biologist explained that there is no color at the bottom of the ocean. As one dives deeper into the depths of the ocean, color goes away. How fascinating! General Revelation gives us a proper look into what exactly happened when God said Let there be Light. But there is more.
There are some who consider General Revelation (the creation itself) and produce a slightly different conclusion and, for them, a problem. Their argument goes like this: how could there exist light, if God had not created a source for light? This argument is based on an improper view of the uniformity of nature. The uniformity of nature is simply to understand what God said to Noah concerning the preservation of the creation with seasons and the laws of nature.
For instance, gravity reveals that what goes up must go down. This was Sir Isaac Newton’s eureka moment as an apple hit him under the tree. Gravity. But what if I told you there are several examples of defying gravity?
First, there are birds which defy gravity, and science has explanations for it. Then, there are our planes, which science also has an explanation for. There are rockets as well. If the bird dies or the engines short out, then gravity would take over and bring them crashing to the ground. But there is one example that science still cannot explain, the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Miracles, like the resurrection and the ascension, seem to go against the law of uniformity. We must understand that our finite minds have not observed every occurrence. The law of uniformity simply tries to explain uniformity and assumes all things are uniform. It is, in some respects, a circular argument. The philosopher David Hume deals with this law as he looks upon billiards. How do I know when I hit this ball with this stick that it will strike that other ball every time? Hume concluded he did not know without doubt. I ask, how do I know that when I hold the mic up for a mic drop that it will drop every time? The answer is that I am assuming the law of uniformity. Therefore, the skeptics of creation cannot understand light without a source.
But this light does have a source. The source is God. When considering the rest of Scripture, we find a different source of light at the return of Christ. Here is the original source of light- the Glory of God. What we need to grasp is that God does not need the sun to shine to give light to mankind. God is the source of light. God’s glory shines brighter than any luminary that has ever existed. To apply this even further, not only is God the source of light, but remember what Jesus said in John 8, I am the Light of the World, and then we must be reminded that God’s Word is a lamp for our feet a, light for our path (Psalm 119:105). Then, we see the Spirit of Light who opens our eyes to see Jesus and our ears to hear His Word. This is the wonderful illumination of the Holy Spirit. So, I ask the skeptic, what other source of light do we need other than God Himself?
In our next article, we will continue to dive into Day One of creation.
