Darkness & Light – Advent 2018 – Genesis 1

John Carter – November 26, 2017

{ESV}

¹ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

{Manuscript/Outline}

God is the Creator

• “Contrary to ancient Near Eastern mythologies, in which the earth had no beginning, and in contrast to Greek philosophical thought, in which the existence of the world from eternity is a basic presupposition, the Genesis cosmology fixes by the use of the phrase “in the beginning” (beresit) an absolute beginning for creation.”[1]
• Right of Ownership – You did not create God, God created you!
  • Isaiah 45:9
    ⁹ “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,
    a potamong earthen pots!
    Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
    or ‘Your work has no handles’?
  • Romans 9
    ²¹ Has the potter no right over the clay,
• Greatness – There is no one greater than God
  • Psalm 19:1-6
    ¹ The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
    ² Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.
    ³ There is no speech, nor are there words,
    whose voice is not heard.
    ⁴ Their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
    In them he has set a tent for the sun,
    ⁵ which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
    ⁶ Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
    and its circuit to the end of them,
    and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
• Uniqueness – There is no one like God
  • Isaiah 48:12-13
    ¹² “Listen to me, O Jacob,
    and Israel, whom I called!
    I am he; I am the first,
    and I am the last.
    ¹³ My hand laid the foundation of the earth,
    and my right hand spread out the heavens;
    when I call to them,
    they stand forth together.

God Hovers (Rules) Over His Creation

• “Yes, there is a formlessness there, a foreboding darkness, but all is kept in check under control by the spirit of God.” [2]
• Sovereignty – God is finally and ultimately in control over all creation so that he is able to exert his own will. We cannot spend a great deal of time on this doctrine here, but we must acknowledge that God exerts his sovereignty from the beginning.
  • Isaiah 45:5-7 (Light/Dark, Good/Evil)
    ⁵ I am the Lord, and there is no other,
    besides me there is no God;
    I equip you, though you do not know me,
    ⁶ that people may know, from the rising of the sun
    and from the west, that there is none besides me;
    I am the Lord, and there is no other.
    ⁷ I form light and creat darkness;
    I make well-being and create calamity;
    I am the Lord, who does all these things.

God Created Light and Dark (Revelation and Concealment)

• Before God created light he created the heavens and the earth, and it was dark.
  • When God called light ‘good’ he wasn’t calling darkness evil/bad. God wasn’t establishing dualism.
  • Light and Dark is not the Christian version of Buddhism’s Yin and Yang.
• God created darkness
  • Isaiah 45:7
    ⁷ I form light and create darkness;
    I make well-being and create calamity;
    I am the Lord, who does all these things.
• God dwells in darkness
  • 1 Kings 8:12
    ¹² Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
  • 2 Samuel 22:10
    ¹⁰ He bowed the heavens and came down;
    thick darkness was under his feet.
  • Psalm 18:11
    ¹¹ He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
    thick clouds dark with water.
  • Psalm 97:2
    ² Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
    righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
• God also created and dwells in light
  • 1 Timothy 6:16
    ¹⁶ who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
  • James 1:17
    ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
  • 1 John 1:5, 7
    ⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
  • Psalm 104:2
    ² covering yourself with light as with a garment,
    stretching out the heavens like a tent.
• God created darkness to conceal and God created light to reveal. This is why he simultaneously dwells in darkness and in light.

God Intended His Creation (Work) to be seen from the Beginning

• Revelation – To show what could not be seen
  • Isaiah 45:18-19
    ¹⁸ For thus says the Lord,
    who created the heavens
    (he is God!),
    who formed the earth and made it
    (he established it;
    he did not create it empty,
    he formed it to be inhabited!):
    “I am the Lord, and there is no other.
    ¹⁹ I did not speak in secret,
    in a land of darkness;
    I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
    ‘Seek me in vain.’
    I the Lord speak the truth;
    I declare what is right.
  • Luke 8:16-17
    ¹⁶ “No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. ¹⁷ For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
• Illumination – To enlighten those who receive the light
  • Isaiah 49:6 – Israel (Jesus) act as a light to the Nations
    ⁶ he says:
    “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
    to raise up the tribes of Jacob
    and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
    I will make you as a light for the nations,
    that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
  • John 3:19
    ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
  • John 9:5
    ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
  • John 8:12
    ¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Christ came as the revelation of the Godhead. He came so that we might see God. At one time we had access to God, but because of the fall, we ourselves were unable to remain in the presence of Yahweh. One of our first acts in the garden was to hide. We tried hiding from the Father of Lights. God created darkness to remain hidden. But God also created light so that we might see him more clearly. As Paul says, “¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

{Translation}

{Reading Notes}

Reading Notes

• Isaiah 44, 45 – God is creator of Light and Darkness
• “The NRSV alternative reading has much in its favor: “When God began to create” the heavens and the earth. Not only is it a grammatically sounder option in terms of Hebrew, but it rhetorically anticipates—and is thus more consistent with—the concluding statement in 2:2, God finished the work that he had done. That is, “God began” and “God finished,” in 1:1 and 2:2 respectively, form an INCLUSION to the overall account of creation.”[3]
• “Contrary to ancient Near Eastern mythologies, in which the earth had no beginning, and in contrast to Greek philosophical thought, in which the existence of the world from eternity is a basic presupposition, the Genesis cosmology fixes by the use of the phrase “in the beginning” (beresit) an absolute beginning for creation.”[4]
• “The exalted and sublime conception of the Genesis account of creation presents, at its center, a transcendent God who, as supreme and unique creator, speaks the world into existence.”[5]
• “The theocentric manifestation that God forms light and creates darkness as much as peace and evil serves as an introduction to the God as the Potter metaphor, which illustrates the absolute sovereignty of God within the realms of human history.”[6]
• Genesis 1 – Isaiah 45 – Romans 9
• “The Larger concern is this: Does Gen. 1:1 teach an absolute beginning of creation as a direct act of God (In…)? Or does it affirm the existence of matter before creation of the heavens and the earth?”[7]
• “Gunkel was quite correct when he said, ‘The cosmologies of other people contain no word which comes close to the first word of the Bible.’”[8]
• “’In Israelite thought nothing, not even evil and darkness, could be removed from the dominion of Yahweh. Gen. i 3-5 makes darkness the result of a work of division, not of creation in the sense in which the word is used elsewhere in Gen. I’ Possibly darkness has both a benign and sinister nuance in the Bible.”
• “Yes, there is a formlessness there, a foreboding darkness, but all is kept in check under control by the spirit of God.” [9]
• “Interestingly, in the Ugaritic texts this verb is always associated with eagles. Thus from the Ugaritic passages and from the Deuteronomy passage it appears that rahap describes the actions of birds, not winds.”[10]
• “We see here a reference to the situation prior to specific creation, a situation of formlessness but over which God’s Spirit superintends.”[11]
• “In sum, the position taken here is that v. 1 is an opening statement functioning both as a superscription and as a summary. Verse 2 then describes the situation prior to the detailed creation that is spelled out in vv. 3ff. It has long been observed that the creation days fall into the pattern of movement from generalization to particularization.”[12]

[1] P.10-11 – The Genesis Creation Account and its Reverberations in the Old Testament

[2] P.115 – NICOT Hamilton

[3] P.9 – Mercer Commentary on the Bible

[4] P.10-11 – The Genesis Creation Account and its Reverberations in the Old Testament

[5] P.29 – The Genesis Creation Account and its Reverberations in the Old Testament

[6] P.275 – The Genesis Creation Account and its Reverberations in the Old Testament

[7] P.105 – NICOT Hamilton

[8] P.107 – NICOT Hamilton

[9] P.115 – NICOT Hamilton

[10] P.115 – HICOT Hamilton

[11] P.117 – NICOT Hamilton

[12] P.117 – NICOT Hamilton