Let There Be Light Series

Let there be light

Genesis 1:1-5

Greetings:

The Lord is good and his love endures forever.

In this new year 2023, I bless you with the words of our Triune God which is found in Genesis 1:3, “Let There be Light.” God would like to create a light in your life journey. He would like to bring a new beginning in your chaotic conditions. He would like to separate you from all those acts of darkness which threatens your life. I would like to leave with you three insights from these first five verses of Genesis 1. Firstly God creates, Secondly, God brings orderliness, and thirdly God separates light from darkness.

1. God creates out of nothing (Genesis 1:1)

We believe that God exists. We are here as believers of God. I don’t think that any atheist is present here. With the given understanding that all of you are the followers of Christ. I would like to affirm that God created the heavens and the earth. I am not here to explain the evolution theory but to promote creation theory. For us Christians, God exists in the form of Yahweh, God exists as triune God, God exists in the form of Jesus Christ, God exists as Holy Spirit. God lives forever and ever. Amen.

Why God created the heavens and the earth? According to the teleological argument for the existence of God, a purposeful intelligence that created this world because the world shows both purpose and intelligence. We can study God, but we can’t put Him under a microscope or test Him in a laboratory. We can only confidently know about Him what He chooses to reveal to us. We are also confident that what He chooses to tell us is profitable and useful for us rest of the things are hidden to us (Enduring word commentary). God makes no preparation, He employs no means, needs no secondary agency. He speaks, and it is done. His word alone contains all things necessary for the fulfilment of His will (Elliott).

In Genesis 1:1, we read in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The word in the beginning refers to the dateless past. It is the boundary between the time and eternity. The heavens and the earth were first creations. Please note that the Heavens were plural and the earth was singular( Genesis 1:1). So, in the beginning God created the heavens and not the present heaven and earth. The present heaven and earth refers to the new order brought to the chaotic world.

The Hebrew word ‘Bara’ means ‘to create.’ Bara describes the creation of an entirely a new thing. God created a new thing out of nothing. God created out of nothing ‘creatio exnihilo’. Only God can "create" out of nothing. Now, lets understand that God has connection with all of us because he has created us (Deuteronomy 4:32) - the human beings were created on earth, and he has redeemed us. I have created you o Jacob (Isaiah 43:1). The human beings life is very short (Psalm 89:47). Isaiah 40:26 God creates the numerous stars and calls them by their names. He knows all of us by our names. He knows or chaos. He knows our directions. The doctrine of ‘creatio ex nihilo’ is found in Hebrews 11:3, and Romans 1:20. The six days work was a reconstructive through his invisible powers and divine nature.

‘God said’ refers to an act of his powerful will, and a word of his power (Mathew Poole). So, Hebrews 1:3 refers to the substantial Word, who is his Son, by whom he made the worlds (Hebrews 1:2, Psalm 33:6-7 - God created by the word and breadth of his mouth who is Jesus Christ. According to John 1:1-3, Jesus was that word. John 1:10). The sentence ‘God said’ means an expressive of the will, power, authority, and efficacy of the divine Being; whose word is clothed with power, and who can do, and does whatever he will, and as soon as he pleases; his orders are always obeyed. Perhaps the divine Person speaking here is the Logos or Word of God, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, and who himself is the light that lightens every creature (2 Corinthians 4:6, John Gill).

The root bara? denotes the concept of "initiating something new" it’s going to be a new and different. Jeremiah uses the term of a fundamental change that will take place in the natural order (Jeremiah 31:22) The Psalmist prayed that God would create in him a clean heart through his spirit (Psalm51:10).

The description of God in chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Genesis gives two distinctive characters of God. First he is described as more exalted position, unreachable and without form as spirit. But the creation of man out of clay, out of dust, and out of earth shows that God is reachable, God looks for fellowship and he touches humanity and he created man with his own spirit and giving him the same status of his own image and likeness. One is Ruach form and the other is anthropomorphic in nature. (Terence E. Fretheim OT professor in Working preacher)