Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #6 of Genesis chapter 1 and I will read Genesis 1:1-5:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

I will stop reading there. We have been studying the first couple of verses. In our last study we were looking at Genesis 1:2:

And the earth was without form, and void…

I should point out that the Lord Jesus Christ created the world after He had predestinated a people to save and after having taken the sins of those people (the elect) upon Himself and paying for their sins from the foundation of the world. This is what the Bible tells us. Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, according to Revelation 13, verse 8 and some other verses. This means that God’s salvation program was already mapped out and already developed and all the work of atonement for those He chose to save were already finished. Hebrews 4, verse 3 tells us that “the works were finished from the foundation of the world.” The wages of sin is death and Christ rose from the dead after He made the payment for the sins of His people. He rose from the dead to be declared the Son of God, according to Romans, chapter 1.

It says in Hebrews 1:1-2:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

By the Son, God created the worlds. We will not turn there, but in Romans, chapter 1 Jesus was declared to be the Son through the resurrection of the dead and, therefore, He had to die and rise from the dead and at that point God declared Him to the Son and as the Son of God He created the world. Jesus spoke in the beginning to create: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus created all things. He created the universe. He created the heavens and the earth and He created the earth “without form and void” and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Then it said in Genesis 1:2: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

I went through this little review because it is important for us to consider that at the time of creation, Christ had already made payment for His people and laid out His salvation program and then it was just the matter of history unfolding and God seeking out all those He had intended to save until the last one was found and He had accomplished the program of evangelization. We know that God completed that program on May 21, 2011 and then He shut the door of heaven.

Here, at the beginning during the original creation, God is able to picture salvation because He knows everything that will take place in time. He knows that man will soon fall into sin and that He will be the Saviour. He will have salvation available immediately after Adam and Eve fell into sin. For every human being thereafter, God’s salvation program was already in effect. Of course, the blood of Christ could only be applied to those that had been chosen and for whom Christ died from the foundation of the world. This is the reason that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord because it was already accomplished – the works were finished. Therefore, salvation was available for Abel or for Abraham or for Noah or for any of the elect.

Therefore, when God says, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light,” it was the earliest historical parable of God’s magnificent salvation program, as He would bring the Gospel to save the people He had determined to save out of the world.

The “darkness” is key. It is interesting that God creates a world of darkness and that is because He had a plan to bring the light. Before God can bring the light of salvation, there needed to be the fall into sin. You would not save people that have not sinned or transgressed the Law of God. So there must be “darkness” first. The judgment of God upon sin is always darkness. When Adam and Eve sinned they entered into spiritual darkness. They spiritually died. When God brought judgment upon the churches, He brought the churches into spiritual darkness. When God brought judgment upon the world, He brought the world into spiritual darkness. The darkness is an indicator of the judgment of God upon sin: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” We were in darkness. It says in Ephesians 5:8:

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

The word “sometimes” would have been better translated as “aforetime.” God is not saying that we were “in darkness,” but He is saying that we “were darkness.” In other words, we were in the condition of “darkness” and it is as if we were darkness itself, due to our fallen state. That is the idea in Genesis 1:2: “and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The “deep” refers to the waters and they will later be formed into “seas” and in the Bible God does typify mankind as “seas” or as “waters.” In other words, darkness was upon mankind – it was our condition because of sin. We read in 2Corinthians 4:6:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

We can see how it relates to Genesis 1:2, as we see that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the “waters” and then God said, “Let there be light: and there was light.” Then there was light that shined into the darkness. Mankind fell into sin and God sent forth the Lord Jesus, the Light, to shine into the darkness of the hearts of certain individuals He had elected to save and they began to experience “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The elect were drawn from the darkness to the light, as it says in 1Peter 2:9:

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

This is salvation. Salvation is the light that comes into the darkness. Remember how the Lord moved the Apostle Paul to recount his experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus and it says in Acts 26:15-18:

And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

The Gospel was for the purpose of turning the unsaved from spiritual darkness to the light. When God saved a person, that individual would be translated out of the kingdom of darkness and of Satan and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son or “into the light.” The light would shine. That is the wonderful picture God uses in regard to the coming of Christ, in Isaiah 9:2:

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

This same language is used when Jesus makes His appearance in the New Testament. We find it is quoted in Matthew 4:15-16:

The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

It is a clear reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is also referenced in Luke 1:76-79:

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Christ came to give light and to be the light, according to John, chapter 1. It is significant that John 1 also speaks of creation in John 1:1-5:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

So, very definitely, Christ is the light. He is the “day” of salvation. It was the shining forth of the Gospel light that brought salvation to sinners in the day of salvation, the time period in which God determined to save His people. It says in Psalm 80:3:

Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

Then it says in Psalm 80:7:

Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

Also, it says in Psalm 80:19:

Turn us again, O JEHOVAH God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

The light brings salvation and in this early declaration in Genesis, chapter 1 God has just spoken and created the heavens and the earth: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” This demonstrated how God would deliver salvation to those He had obligated Himself to save through the Spirit and through the Word of God. The Spirit would move through the Scriptures and faith would come by the hearing of the Word of God. Salvation would come through the light of the Word of God. God would bless the Word to those He had predestinated unto salvation and they would be instantly saved, according to the timeline for that individual. One moment they would be “dead” and the next moment they would be “alive.” One moment they would be in “darkness” and in the next moment they would be in the “light.” That is what verse 3 of Genesis 1 is picturing, as God said, “Let there be light: and there was light.” Let there be the Gospel. Let there be grace and mercy. Let there be light that can penetrate the awful and terrible darkness that man in his rebellion has brought about due to sin. Of course, God’s judgment was the “darkness,” but it was all because of man’s sin as they sinned and came short of the glory of God. The penalty of “darkness” and “death” came and, yet, God is a gracious, good and merciful God, so from the foundation of the world He mapped out His plan to save a people for Himself, perhaps, as many as 200 million people. From the very beginning, it would be the purpose of creation, as God’s plan was to save these people over the 13,000+ years of history. There would be a time of judgment and then God would turn His attention to eternity future.

This is one of the more glorious statements in all the Bible, as we read, “Let there be light: and there was light.”