"Light" and "Lights" in Gen. 1

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openairboy

Puritan Board Freshman
\"Light\" and \"Lights\" in Gen. 1

Can someone shed some light on Genesis 1:3 and 14. V. 3 reads, "Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light form the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night..." And on the fourth day, "And God said, 'Let there be lights in teh expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be fore signs and for seasons, and for days and for years, and let them be lights in teh expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the leseer light to rule the night---and the starts..."

So, Day 1 has light and Day 4 has light, including the sun and moon. So, what is the difference in the lights and "nights"?

Thanks, openairboy

[Edited on 5-11-2004 by openairboy]
 
Light is that energy we associate with an emitter, like a lamp or the Sun. God is the source of light, just like he made and sustains everything else.

The "lights" of the fourth day are the customary light emitters (the Moon reflects the sunlight, but that too is a "giving off"). Here, the common emiter or source is presented as the light itself, just as we use the term in ordinary phrase: "turn on the light". It is a conceptual challenge to distinguish the Sun from the light it emits. But light didn't bring forth the Sun, nor the Sun its light originally. God supernaturally created both, and perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, the "product" before its natural "producer."

The sun, in particular: the light it gives off, can truly be said to be the source of life on earth. Without it the world we know of would simply be another cold stone heat-sink in a universe grinding down to absolute zero. But neither the sun, moon, nor stars are the original light source. God is.

So, neither are "day and night" contingent on the Sun originally. Rather, God alternated the periods of day and night quite independently of the existence of the sun and moon, finally puting the sun and moon in place to "rule" over the day and over the night. Hence, beginning on day 4 the lights assume their regular duties, which they have never since failed to perform.
 
The sun speaks to us of "the Sun of Righteousness" Malachi 4:2, and the moon borrowing its light from, and reflecting the light of, the sun,into the darkness,so we walk in the righteousness of Christ."Thy word is a lamp to my feet." Psa.119:105.
In Rev 12:1,the woman is symbolic of the church,and her feet rest on the moon,the light that comes from the sun(Christ),to quide her into her daily walk.
andreas.:candle:
 
I think it was in The City of God that Augustine couples it with Prov. 8, where reference is made to wisdom as God's first creation. The first of God's creation, as you noted, is light. Light is also the symbol of sight, for the eye and for the mind. We like to call the wakening of the mind 'illumination' or 'enlightening'.

I would also agree with Bruce, in that we need to distinguish between light and those 'things' which give off light. The sun, moon, and stars were not the originators of light, though they are sources of it.

A long time ago I gave my "cabinet-maker's" view of creation. Actually, its an approach from an artisan, in which the concept of a well-planned project follows the steps of manufacture, knowing from the very beginning what the final product is to be and look like. So a craftsman makes, for example, doors that will not fit until after he has made the frame for them, but he already knows the size, shape, and proper fitting beforehand, because he has meticulous plans to go by. Every size and figure is already there before any two pieces go together, just as much as if the project were complete already.

So too, God created the heavens and the earth. It would not be strange at all for God to speak in terms of the finished product, in terms of days, right from the start, and that we have the detail of when He fit that into His craftsmanship. The sun, moon, and stars, make no difference to the definition of 'day' for God, because He is not subject to time, and His creation was subject to His plan.

So it makes clear sense that light would have had to have been created before the lights were. And Bruce makes a good point that light would have had to have been created before anything else could be, from a dependency point of view.

I go with Augustine on this too. I think light has also to do with knowledge and wisdom, that these are dependent on light as well.
 
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