First published: Creation24(1):38–39 December 2001 Browse this issue Subscribe to Creation Magazine

Light, life and the glory of God

by Russell Grigg

In Genesis 1:3–5 we read: ‘And God said, Let there be light.  And there was light.  And God saw the light that it was good.  And God divided between the light and the darkness.  And God called the light, Day.  And He called the darkness, Night.  And the evening and the morning were the first day.’

Genesis 1:14–19 tells us that the sun and the moon were not created until Day 4, never­theless there was still a day-night cycle as at present (Exodus 20:11).  To account for this, creationists usually conclude that God provided the Day 1 light source, that it was on one side of Earth, and that it was the cause of the day-night sequence on a rotating Earth.¹

In our experience, light needs a source, but this source does not have to be the sun, moon or stars.  Other sources are fire, lightning, electric light globes, fluorescent tubes, luminous insects such as glow-worms and fireflies, etc.  In the Bible, we also find many examples of light without the sun, but originating from a supernatural source.  Most of these are associated with the glory of God, which in the Bible is usually mani­fested as light, although sometimes as fire.  This is not surprising, as the Bible tells us that ‘God is light’ (1 John 1:5; cf. John 8:12), and also that ‘God is a consuming fire’ (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29).

Biblical examples

Biblical examples of supernaturally caused light, in addition to Genesis 1:3, include the following:²

1. During the three-day plague of darkness on all the land of Egypt, all the Israelites ‘had light in their dwellings’ (Exodus 10:23).
2. In the exodus from Egypt, God led the Israelites by a ‘pillar of cloud’ by day and a ‘pillar of fire, to give them light,’ during the night (Exodus 13:21).  At night the pillar of cloud moved and stood between the Egyp­tians and the Israelites, and there was darkness for the pursuing Egyptians, but ‘light by night’ for the Israelites (Exodus 14:20).³

3. When Moses descended from Mt Sin­ai with the two tablets of stone, ‘the skin on his face shone’ as a result of his having talked with God (Exodus 34:29).

4. At the birth of Jesus, ‘the glory of the Lord shone round about [the shep­herds]’ (Luke 2:9).

5. At the transfiguration of Jesus, ‘His face shone like the sun’ (Matthew 17:2).

6. At the Resurrection of Jesus, the angel at His tomb had a countenance ‘like lightning’ (Matthew 28:3, see also Luke 24:4).

7. During the famous ‘road to Damas­cus’ experience of Saul (the Apostle Paul), ‘a light from heaven, brighter than the sun’ shone round about him (Acts 9:3; cf. 22:6, 9; 26:13).

8. When an angel of the Lord released Peter from prison, ‘light shined in the prison’ (Acts 12:7).

9. In John’s vision recorded in Revela­tion, the face of Jesus was ‘like the sun shining in its strength’ (Rev. 1:16).

10. In John’s vision of the New Jeru­salem, ‘the city had no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they might shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb [i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ, cf. John 1:29, 36]’ (Revelation 21:23).

11. This description of the heavenly city is repeated: ‘And there will be no night there.  And they need no lamp, or light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light’ (Revelation 22:5).

A religion of miracle

What should we conclude from these many Biblical examples of super­naturally caused light without the sun?  Just this: trying to explain away the creation of light on Day 1 before the creation of the sun, by saying that clouds obscured the sun until Day 4 or some­thing similar, so that one can add long ages to the plain text of Genesis, tends to do the cause of Christ a huge disservice.⁴

The examples given above of light without the sun in the Bible show that we can confidently say that God Himself provided the source of the Day 1 light.  It is probable that God created the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum at that time and it is possible that this Day 1 light manifested some aspect of God’s glory.

Similarly, God was the source of life on Earth—plant life on Day 3, animal life on Days 5 and 6, and human life on Day 6.  God did not need an evolutionary process to produce the first living things any more than He needed the sun to cause light to shine on the Earth on Day 1.  Ancients who worshipped the sun as the source of life were equally in error with moderns who invoke evolution (powered by the sun) for this purpose.

We should never lose sight of the fact that Christianity is a religion of miracle.  The Bible describes a huge number of miracles (concentrated in key parts of Biblical history)—from the supernatural acts of God during Creation Week des­cribed in Genesis, through the exodus from Egypt and other Old Testament miracles, to the many miracles associated with the birth, life, death and Resur­rection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  These in turn lead on to those recorded in the book of Acts, to the final Judgment of the wicked and reward of the servants of God in the heavenly city described in Revelation. 

Summary

The Bible clearly teaches that each Creation Day was an ordinary (approxi­mately 24-hour) day, with a night-day, evening-morning cycle.  The fact that the sun was only created on Day 4 does not contradict this, as the sun is not required for such a cycle.  What is needed, in addi­tion to a rotating Earth, is directional light.  Genesis tells us that light was already there from Day 1.  Many other parts of the Bible strongly suggest that it would have been quite in keeping with God’s activity, recorded in many other parts of the Bible, for this light to have emanated supernaturally from God Himself.

References and notes

1. For a more detailed analysis see Batten, D. (Ed.), The Answers Book, Creation Ministries International, Brisbane, Australia, pp. 34–35, 1999. Return to text.

2. In the box Light before the sun? from my article Morning has broken … but when? Creation23(2):53, 2000, four of these are mentioned.  This theme is now enlarged upon. Return to text.

3. Other examples of divinely caused fire include Exodus 24:17, 40:38 ; Leviticus 9:24; Numbers 11:1, Judges 6:21; 1 Kings 18:38; 1 Chronicles 21:26; 2 Kings 2:11, 6:17; and Acts 2:3. Return to text.

4. There is nothing new in these compromises.  Calvin, and before him Augustine, dealt with and disposed of similar arguments in the 16^th and 5^th centuries respectively. Return to text.