Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #7 of Genesis chapter 1 and I will read Genesis 1:3-5:

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.

God has already created the substance which would eventually be formed into our present heavens and earth and darkness was upon the deep. Then God’s Spirit moved upon the face of the waters. It is still the first day and now God is taking it a step further when He 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.”

Let us talk about the fact that God saw the light and that it was good. At least seven times in this chapter we will see that God “saw” something after He created it. For instance it says in Genesis 1:10:

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Then it says in Genesis 1:12:

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And in the concluding verse of this chapter, it says in Genesis 1:31:

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So, God created and then He looked at what He had created and He recognized that it was “good.” We will talk about that when we get to these statements, but it is a recognition that what He has created is without sin – it is a pure thing, with no sin. Yet, later on after the fall of man and the subsequent curse on the creation, God would also make statements that He “saw” certain things. For instance it says in Genesis 6:5:

And JEHOVAH saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Here, God also “sees” what is taking place in the world, but at this point He is seeing “evil” and there is no pronouncement that it is good in any way. It is only evil continually, as God looks upon the hearts of men and this fits in with what we know from other parts of the Bible. For instance, it says in Hebrews 4:13:

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

It is simply the nature of God to be able to see everything and to know everything. It was true of this world from the very beginning and the very first moment of creation – God saw. God saw what He had made and for a short while He could pronounce it “good.” So there was at least a week in the history of the world when all was “good” and there was no sin of any kind. This was God’s report. When He looked, He saw goodness, but it was not too long before He looked (in the days before the flood) and He saw that “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Of course, that has been the condition of mankind ever since and God has seen man’s wickedness. He does not miss anything. He sees everything.

But, at the first, God spoke and said, “Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.” The creation started off as “good.”

One thing that really strikes us when we see that God spoke and created light is that we understand “light” to be identified and associated with the sun and the moon reflects the light of the sun. Also, the stars give forth some light in the night sky. We identify light with the celestial bodies of the sun, moon and stars. Yet, here, it is day number one of creation and it will not be until the fourth day that God will create the sun, moon and stars. However, He has already created light. We wonder, “How could God create light without the sun? Does not the sun give the light that the world experiences today?” The answer is, “Yes.” So how could God have created light before He created the sun? It is a fact of creation that God first created “light” and today scientists recognize that light has substance. It is made up of photons and light waves and these things can be measured, so they have substance. What the Bible is declaring is that God created a substance called “light” before He “attached it” to the light bearers. On the fourth day He would create the celestial bodies and He would attach the light to them from that day forward. From that point on, light would be completely identified with the sun, moon and stars. It is how God determined to do it and it is not difficult for God because He is God. He first created light and then created the sun, moon and stars a little while later.

Why would God start with the creation of light? Perhaps, the answer lies with the spiritual meaning of light. As we saw, “darkness” relates to sin and it relates to the judgment of God upon sin, so God began the creation with an earth that was “without form and void” and “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” God was prefiguring mankind’s fall into sin and their need of salvation. Yet, before the world began God had already worked out the plan of salvation; the Lord Jesus Christ was already the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and He was already the “day,” as the Bible calls Him: “This is the day which JEHOVAH hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” He is the light that forms the basis of the “day of salvation” and Christ had already died and risen from the dead to be declared the Son of God; as the Son, He then spoke and created the worlds. He created the heavens and the earth and all things. Because He had already made payment for the sins of His people, He could be called the Son through the resurrection from the dead.

Interestingly, God has developed a salvation program wherein the “light,” who is Christ, is tied with salvation. For instance, let us look at Psalm 27:1:

JEHOVAH is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

We see 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 light is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, as He would later enter into the world.

We looked at this verse a couple of times, but let us look at what it says of Christ, the Word, in John 1:3-5:

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.

In our last study we also looked at 2Corinthians 4, verse 6, where God ties the idea of light shining in darkness to salvation in Christ. It says 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.

Then there was the language of Psalm 80:19:

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

In many places we see where God relates light to salvation. According to the Bible, Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, so that means He took the sins of His elect upon Himself and died for their sins and, thereby, guaranteed the salvation of each of the elect. It is a certain thing. It is absolute. Christ died for these people and they are now forgiven all their sins and they receive eternal life. So we have the “light” of salvation before the world begins and then we see it in what will come as God creates the world on the first day. Then He will finish His creation and time will start to unfold. The Garden of Eden will be set aside and God will give instruction to Adam and Eve and then sin will enter in. The Word of God is given to man and just as God first created light and then later created light bearers, attaching the light to them, so too God creates the light of salvation through the Lord Jesus’ atonement and resurrection and then later God will “attach” that light to the Word of God, the Bible: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The light has already existed before the world was, but now in the process of time and history, God ties that light of salvation to His Word and He also ties it to the Person of the Lord Jesus who will enter into the world and be called the Light of the world. The light had already existed from the beginning, as the works were finished from the foundation of the world and, yet, at a certain point in history Jesus entered into the human race. He took upon Himself a human nature and He walked among men and God ties the light to the Lord Jesus and all He does as He shows forth or manifests the light. This is what the Bible says that light is able to do, in Ephesians, chapter 5. I will start reading in verse 11 because it has an interesting reference to “darkness.” It says in Ephesians 5:11-14:

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Here, again, is another verse that ties “light” to salvation. Notice what it says in Ephesians 5:13: “for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” What was the purpose of Jesus entering into the world? It was to demonstrate the things He had done from the foundation of the world. The Bible says it was to “make manifest” that He had already died for His people. What makes manifest is “light” and now He is the “light bearer” as God ties the light to the Lord Jesus, even though the Light previously existed. It really is a beautiful illustration of what God has done, spiritually. We know that the Bible calls the Word of God “light” in some places, like in Psalm 119:105:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Both the Word of God and Christ (as He entered into the world) are “light bearers.” They are light bearers that come after the light has already existed. The light that was there at the very beginning was the light that enabled God to have a salvation program at-the-ready as soon as Adam and Eve sinned. We do not know if Adam or Eve became saved; the Bible does not give us that information. We do know that one of their children, Abel, was a child of God because the Bible calls him “righteous Abel.” We also know that Cain was not a child of God. He slew his brother in an unrighteous way and there is no evidence that he ever became saved. But, right from the beginning, salvation was available. Had Jesus gone to the cross as yet? No, He would not go to the cross until 11,000 years later. Just think of that. At the time of creation, it was 11,013BC, according to the Biblical calendar of history. Lord willing, we will probably be spending a good deal of time with the Biblical calendar of history in later chapters, but the Biblical calendar is accurate and we are going to review it and make sure that we understand it correctly. We review everything in the Bible. We know that “election” is accurate, but if we come across a verse in the Bible that talks about the issue of “election” we review it. The Biblical calendar says that God created the things we read about in Genesis, chapter 1 in 11,013BC. Jesus would be born in 7BC and, therefore, creation was 11,006 years before Jesus would be born on earth. That is a long period of time. We feel it has been a long time since the birth of Christ in 7BC and we are now in the year 2015AD. The way we come to an accurate span of time between these two dates is to add 7BC to 2015AD and then we subtract “1” because there is no year “zero” and we see that it was 2,021 years ago when Jesus was born into the world. We would say that is a long time ago, but it was 11,006 years from creation to the time when Christ would be born. That is five times the length of time from Christ’s birth to our present day. Imagine that! The Old Testament saints were looking for the coming Messiah and they had to wait a long, long time. Yet, there are many people today that fight against the idea that Christ made payment for sin at the foundation of the world and they insist that He had to have died for sin in 33AD. That would be 11,045 years from creation to the time when Jesus would go to the cross, so what about all the saints that lived and died during that 11,045 years? How did God deal with the sins of Abel or Noah? How did God forgive them? How did God grant Noah grace in His eyes? We understand that it can only be through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but according to many people Jesus did not perform that work until 11,045 years later. Where is the payment for sin? Where is the blood that must be applied? The “life is in the blood” and God says in Hebrews 9:20-22:

Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

This is a key statement: “Without the shedding of blood is no remission.” I had a seminary professor that when asked how the Old Testament saints were saved, he said they were saved by trusting in the sacrifices that pointed ahead to the day when Christ would shed His blood on the cross. He actually said that and, yet, God says in the next chapter, in Hebrews 10:4:

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

So we can be sure that no animal sacrifice at any point could ever take away sin because the Bible says that “without shedding of blood is no remission.” It is not speaking of the blood of animals; that does not qualify and it is not in view, but it must be the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only wise God and Saviour, JEHOVAH: “I, even I, am JEHOVAH; and beside me there is no saviour.” It must be that blood that must be shed in order for there to be the remission of sins. If you have not the shed blood of Christ, there can be no remission of sins. That is a Biblical matter of fact. It is what the Bible teaches and you cannot have the remission of sins without the shedding of blood. Those that insist upon 33AD would say, “His blood was shed in principal. God knew that Jesus would come (to the cross) and since Jesus is God it was a guaranteed thing, so it was as though He had already died and shed His blood, making it available to apply to Old Testament saints.”

But, please, show us where it says in Hebrews, chapter 10 that without remission of sins there is no shedding of blood “in principal.” Where is that statement made? It is similar to what they say when they read Revelation 13, verse 8, where it says that Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and they say, “But that is in principal.” However, that is not found there. They are changing the Word of God and they are making a theological statement of belief that does not fit the Biblical evidence. It is not a matter of it being done “in principal,” but it is a matter of action when the Bible says that Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, making His blood available right from the beginning of time. God’s elect do not a problem with this, do we? We believe what the Bible says. Jesus died and His blood was available to be applied to the saints immediately.