Spirituality Column #779

October 19, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

First Light

By Bob Walters

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. – Genesis 1:3

Into the formless and void world with the Spirit hovering over the darkness on the deep, on the first day of creation, the first thing God created was light.

Fast forward to the Gospel of John: Jesus is asserting His identity with the argumentative and intractable Pharisees, saying in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world.”  OK, obvious question: Is Jesus this “light” God created?

Please don’t panic.  The answer is no.

Christ Jesus wasn’t “created,” for the simple reason that Jesus, as the Christ, is the second person of the eternal Father-Son-Spirit Trinity. Jesus Christ, like the entire Godhead, is “un-created.”  Nobody knows “where He came from.”  God just always was and will be.  Worry about something else.

But this “light” created on the first day of creation is fascinating, because the sun, moon, stars, and apparently all the things that cause physical light, weren’t created until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19).  So this first light was a creation of, if not Christ, then what?

My hunch is that everyone who regularly studies the Bible has their own answer for that one, but here’s mine.  The light created on Creation’s first day was God’s proclamation of His intention, will, purpose, and mission to divide the darkness and declare His glory in a world that “In the beginning”  was nothingness.  He molded it into a world only God’s love, truth, righteousness, perfection, and goodness could create.

And the Light of the first day is the authority bestowed on Christ to do so.

It was a good first week … then “very good” when man in God’s image was created on Day 6.  But we all know about the Garden, Adam, Eve, Satan, temptation, the apple, sin, the Fall, the curse, the expulsion, and God posting the Angel with the flaming sword barring Adam and Eve – all mankind – from re-entering the Garden.

We were “post-paradise” and on our own in a now-hostile world.  What happened to all that love, truth, perfection, etc., that was to mark the glory of God’s creation?  Did God change His mind? Change His heart?  Change his purpose?

No … far from it.  God’s light was the absolute diagram of love that would brook no part of sin.  But God, loving His Creation, kept a close eye on the creatures who had betrayed Him then and continue to betray Him to this day.

The light of life, purpose, and God’s glory that was Christ’s mission continued to shine in the heavenly realms of creation, tirelessly peeking at, prodding, and pronouncing to mankind God’s unwavering righteousness.

Mankind, with few exceptions, preferred/prefers the mantle of Satan’s darkness to hide its unrighteousness.  Jesus stepped into our midst as the perfect, restorative sacrifice to remove the angel with the flaming sword and light our way back into life in the Garden.

It is a gift we cannot buy, and a light that is ours, and yours, by asking in faith.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is confident this isn’t heresy (lmk if I need light<><).