It won't stop raining 🌼"In the Beginning" Part IV

Genesis 1: 4-5

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.”

The power of God's work is undeniable throughout the first chapter of Genesis.

God speaks worlds into existence, and step by step we see His power.

In our previous devotion we discussed how God created light… that on the first day of creation, “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

That the One who is uncreated light, brought into existence created light.

The One who according to 1 Timothy 6:16, “…dwells in unapproachable light…”

This One, commanded created light to exist in the place where there was only darkness, and light came into existence.

However, there is a second part on this first day and here we’re told in verse 4 of today’s scripture that God separated the light from the darkness.

First, I want you to note the order of creation... On day one, we are told, that God saw that the light was good, and He divided, or in other words, He ‘separated’ it from darkness, forming day and night.

Notice, God is expressing His authority over the world that He has made and it is going to be exactly as He designed it.

Also, notice that there is sequence and order, then God surveys what He’s done and He judges it… “Good!” There will be seven times where we are going to come across this word of approval in chapter one… with God concluding on the sixth day that it was, “Very good!”  

Now God when God says it was good… that’s a pretty high standard. 

God Himself is the original standard of what is good, and He said it is good; it is good.  The standard of goodness is not outside of Himself.

Next, we are told, “God called the light ‘day, and the darkness He called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day” (v.5).

This was Day One. in the unfolding of creation.

Here we see that God accomplishes all his work by speaking… “God said…” and everything happened.

This lets us know that God’s power is more than sufficient to create and maintain the creation, and its existence is secure.

And with the creation of light, there was established a cycle of days and nights, periods of light and periods of darkness. 

We see that each day is identified by an evening and a morning. And I want you to notice the order of that… The evening comes first.

Here in the Western world, we divide our days like day into parts…

We begin our day at midnight… beginning with a period of darkness, then a period of light in between… and then another period of darkness.

But in the Eastern world the day begins at sunset so that each day starts with an evening and ends with a period of light.

This is in line with the way God works.

As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:46, "first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.”

Think about it… Isn’t this the Christian experience?

Didn’t we all begin our lives in darkness?

Then through the glorious redemption of the cross of Jesus Christ we passed into the light which is, as the Proverbs 4:18 says, ” But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”

We can see this order in the work of the Lord Jesus himself. There was the darkness of the crucifixion, passing very shortly into the glorious morning of the resurrection when he stepped forth into the glory… 

That’s a pretty spectacular first day, isn't it?  Just in case something might think this was some evolutionary process, verse 5 definitely says, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”  That’s a literal translation of the Hebrew.  Not one billion years… but one day.   

One cycle of light and dark, evening and morning, and creation is launched.