THE scene in which God began to work is described in Genesis 1:2 by three words — confusion, emptiness, darkness. Then God comes into the scene, and His first day’s work is:
1. God said — Let there be Light, and there was light.
2. God saw — the Light that it was good.
3. God divided — between the light and the darkness.
4. God called — the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Tracing these symbols through the Old Testament we find—
1. Light. — Exodus 10:23: “The children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” Exodus 13:21: “A pillar of fire to give them light.” Exodus 25:37: “They shall light the lamps thereof that they may give light over against it.” These are the three remarkable ways in which light is brought in before the historical books begin. Then the Book of Samuel begins by showing the lamp of God going out, 1 Samuel 3:3, and closes with the One who is to be as the light of the morning, 2 Samuel 23:4, while a lamp is to be kept for David, Psalms 132:17. All through the historical books light is connected with the morning, “the morning light” occurs in 1 Samuel 14:36, 25:22,34,36; 2 Samuel 17:22; 2 Kings 7:9. Then come the books specially dealing with light and darkness, and which contain more passages relating to light and darkness than all the rest of the Old Testament together. These are Job, Psalms, and Isaiah.
Job has a lot to say about the difference between light and darkness, as seen in God’s ways and man’s experience, but God’s question to him is, “Where is the way to where light dwelleth?” (Job 38:19), and he is brought to see himself in God’s light, “Now mine eye seeth Thee” (ch. 42:5).
Psalms has for its keynote Numbers 6:25, quoted six times, viz., Psalms 31:16, 67:1, 80:3,7,19, 119:135, also “the light of Thy countenance,” Psalms 4:6, 44:3, 89:15. Light depends here upon the relation of the soul to Jehovah. “In Thy light we shall see light,” Psalms 36:9. Job is the discovery of self in the light of God, Psalms is the heart finding light only in the enjoyment of God, and so God’s ways are seen in the light of His countenance.
Then Isaiah gives the dispensational side, the light comes after darkness, Isaiah 60:1, when the glory of the Lord is revealed. But Isaiah 45:7 goes into the counsels of God, and shows what is only found here, “I form the light, and create darkness.” The word “form” is that used of the potter, and points to the plan or design of Him who forms; while “create” is the word used in Genesis 1:1, and speaks of the sovereign will and power of Him who creates. So light is shown to be linked with God’s purposes of grace and glory, while darkness gives no escape from responsibility to Him by whom and for whom are all things. “The day is Thine, the night also is Thine,” Psalms 74:16. “If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me; for the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee,” Psa. 139:14
Then the prophetic record closes with the wonderful word, “at evening time it shall be light,” Zechariah 14:7. Thus, indeed, God’s day begins with evening; the passover lamb and the evening sacrifice are ever in God’s thoughts, and the thought of faith turns thither in the time of darkness, 1 Kings 18:36; Ezra 9:4,5 Psa. 141:2; Daniel 9:21.
The New Testament goes back to the binning, and we learn why God brought in light first. “God is Light,” but that is to be seen in Jesus. “The life was the light of men.” True, darkness comprehended it not, showing the meaning of “God divided” the light from the darkness; it is not separation, but difference of nature. Man may put light for darkness and darkness for light, Isaiah 5:20; but light and darkness can have no concord, 2 Corinthians 6:14, because they are already eternally different in nature. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,” 1 John 1:5. But the result of God’s commanding the light to shine out of darkness is that light has shined in our hearts, 2 Corinthians 4:6, and we are now “light in the Lord,” Ephesians 5:8; we have a nature that is of God, this is developed fully in the First Epistle of John. But we are also “lights,” Philippians 2:15, and there is responsibility to shine.
But just as the prophetic history in the Old Testament closes with the failure of everything depending on man’s responsibility, and shows all resting upon Christ, so again the prophetic record in the New Testament closes with the failure of the Church, the last light set up in the world, Revelation 2 and 3, and shows all secured in Christ, the only faithful witness, and the book of God ends in eternal day, no night there, “the Lamb is the light thereof.” God begins and ends with Christ.
B. S. ED.