Genesis 1:14-19

Day Four of Creation

Part 2

 

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the sky (in the heavens; the second heaven-outer space) to separate between the day and between the night. 15 And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the sky to give light upon the earth. And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night; and He made the stars also.

 

17 And God set them in the firmament of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate between the light and between the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

 

Three reasons why God created these light-generators (the sun, moon and stars):

 

1. The light-generators were created by God as permanent markers to divide the day from the night.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the sky to separate between the day and between the night.

 

Beginning with the first day and continuing thereafter, there was established a cyclical succession of days and nights—periods of light and periods of darkness.

 

In the Hebrew “yōm” – meaning “day” never means “a period of time.” It means either a day (in the twenty-four-hour sense), or the daylight portion of the twenty-four hours (“day” as distinct from “night”).

 

Nothing in Scripture itself permits the view that the days of creation were anything other than literal twenty-four-hour days. If “evening” – the night and “morning” - the day were long periods of time as naturalists suggest, all the life God created would have been unsustainable.

 

 

The sun God created fully developed and fully functional maintains an amazing balance of light and energy that is perfect to sustain life on earth.

 

The moon, like the sun, helps keep the perfect balance of earth’s life-sustaining environment. Ocean tides are caused by the moon’s gravitational pull. High tides align with the moon on both sides of the earth. The earth bulges slightly both toward and away from the moon, and this affects the water level of the oceans.

 

2. The light-generators were created by God for signs and seasons, and for days and years.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the sky (in the heavens; the second heaven-outer space) to separate between the day and between the night.

 

These light-generators were markers to indicate times and seasons and in that way they regulate our lives. They set our calendars. They determine the length of a year. They divide the year into seasons. And they mark the passage of our days and nights.

 

The length of our days and even our sleep patterns are set in perfect harmony with the amount of time it takes the earth to complete one full rotation.

 

All life on earth is perfectly suited to a twenty-four-hour day, and according to Scripture, that is because the same Creator who made all living things also determined and fixed the length of our days.

 

God has so designed it that the rotation of the earth on its axis is what determines a twenty-four-hour day. The moon’s orbit around the earth determines our months and the earth’s orbit around the sun determines our years.

 

Our week comes from the creation-week of Genesis 1 which governs how humans mark time. Seven twenty-four-hour days comprise one week as it did the week of creation.

 

3. The light-generators were created by God to illuminate the earth and to rule the day and the night. 

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the sky to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night; and He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the sky to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate between the light and between the darkness.

 

The Hebrew verb for “rule” (masal) means “to dominate.” Thus God has granted the ability for the sun and moon, as secondary agents, to shine forth light upon the earth and to be the largest objects in the sky to the human eye. It is in that sense that they dominate (rule) the sky.

 

God said it, “and it was so.” Not, “and it will be so.” It is instant and complete creation that is in view, not progressive creation.

 

 

God created the stars to illuminate the earth and be signs of our seasons. Sailors for thousands of years have been able to chart their course by the stars because, from man’s perspective, they don’t appear to be moving.

 

 

It did not take a billion years for the light from a star which is a billion light-years away from the earth to reach the earth after the star was created. The light-trail from the star to the earth was created instantaneously the moment God created the star itself.

 

And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Everything worked exactly the way God planned it. It was good! There were no defects and no deficiencies. It was complete and perfect, not lacking anything.