In the 4th verse of the Bible, after God creates light, he declares it “good” and separates it from darkness. As we see in the future days of creation God loves to declare things “good.” Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God “…has made everything beautiful in its time.” Then chapter three goes on and tells us about there being a time to be born and a time to die and all things in between, both the good things and what seems like bad things. It reminds me of the Jerusalem Bible’s translation of the Apocrypha book of Sirach. In chapter 11 and verse 4 we read, “Good and bad, life and death, poverty and wealth, all come from the Lord.” In Genesis 1:4 we see that light is good and can’t help but notice that darkness is not good! It says, “And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.”

It’s all good, is an interesting statement. God made it clear that it’s not “all” good. I know that God will “work” all things together for our good, but he doesn’t tell us that “all things” are good. We know there are bad things in the world. Hughes acknowledges verse 4 as the “…beginning of the motif of darkness and light in Scripture, in which darkness and light are mutually exclusive realms. Ultimately Christ will bring eternal light to his people and to all creation. The end will be an explosion of light.”1 But we live in a world were bad things happen and sometimes they happen to good people! We lost a 40 year old friend to Covid recently. Would anyone really say such a things is “good.” No! But we have faith that God will “work out” even that terrible thing to be good for all involved. We won’t see that till the Lord returns in my opinion or until we’re reunited with our loved ones in Heaven. In the mean time his wife and family and friends will miss him dearly! But on that great day, an “explosion of light” will dispel all the darkness in the world. I don’t think we’re really looking at the idea of physical light and darkness. It seems to me we’re looking at what is “good” and then what is “bad” in contrast. Guzik says, “Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14–19). This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect. In the new heavens and the new earth, there won’t be any sun or moon. God Himself will be the light (Revelation 22:5).”2

There is plenty of darkness in our lives now and we all experience it. Sometimes the darkness in our lives seems so awful that we can feel it. This is the kind of darkness that God had Moses bring upon the Egyptians in Exodus 10:21. It says that the darkness was so severe that it could be felt. I believe that Jesus took that darkness upon himself on the cross of Calvary. You are way ahead of me here, aren’t you? John 1, the New Testament Parallel of Genesis 1 present to us the resolution of our darkness. There will be the great “explosion” of light when Christ returns but we can remember than the darkness of our lives even now has been defeated. It’s the ultimate promise of the fulfillment of the whole story of the Bible when Jesus will dispel the darkness once and for all at the end, but he can dispel our pains of the day through faith in him. In John 8:12, Jesus said, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” There is a sense in which Butler is absolutely correct, “God is still separating darkness from light and in principle evil from good. Many in this world would mix darkness with light and wheat with the tares and sheep with goats. But it is an unholy mixture.”3

1 R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 28.

2 David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 1:3–5.

3 John G. Butler, Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis (Clinton, IA: LBC Publications, 2008), 14.