The Light of the First Day
The light God spoke on the first day, before there was any sun, was a promise of the light of the new creation, and that light is the risen Christ.
Scripture shows this in five steps:
- Genesis 1:3
- Romans 5:14, backed by Isaiah 46:10
- John 1:4-5
- 2 Corinthians 4:6
- Acts 26:23 and 2 Timothy 1:10
It all comes together in Revelation 21:23, backed by Isaiah 60:19.
On the first day God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. But the sun was not made until the fourth day. So what was that first light? Some say it was the eternal Son, already shining at creation. These passages show something else. The light of the first day was spoken as a promise. God told the end at the beginning. And the promise came true when Christ rose from the dead.
Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Genesis 1:3
The verse has two parts. “God said”: that is God’s own word, His speaking. “There was light”: that is what His word brought about. The sun and moon come later, on the fourth day: “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night” (Genesis 1:16). So the first light did not come from the sun. Genesis keeps it apart from the lights that rule.
Romans 5:14
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.”
Romans 5:14
Adam is “the figure of him that was to come.” The first creation points forward to the second. The first Adam points to the last Adam, Christ.
This is how God speaks: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done” (Isaiah 46:10). God says the end first. Then, at the end, it comes true. So the light of the first day can be a promise of what was still to come.
John 1:4-5
“In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
John 1:4-5
John does not say the life came first and then the light. He says the life is the light. Here “him” is the Word, God’s own speaking.
And darkness is where that life is missing. Before God spoke, “darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). There was no life. Death is a going back into that darkness: “unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19). I know that darkness. Without God’s word, it is where I am headed.
“The darkness comprehended it not” means the darkness did not overtake the light. Death could not hold the life. As Peter said of Christ: “it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24).
2 Corinthians 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.”
2 Corinthians 4:6
Paul puts the two ends together in one sentence. The same God who said “Let there be light” now shines in our hearts, in the face of Jesus Christ. The glory is God’s. The face is the man’s.
Acts 26:23 and 2 Timothy 1:10
“That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.”
Acts 26:23
“But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
2 Timothy 1:10
Here the promise comes true. Christ is the first to rise from the dead, and He shows light to the nations. Rising and light belong together. He abolished death and brought life to light. Paul says this purpose was given “before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9).
And see when it happened: “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark” (John 20:1). In the Greek it says “day one” of the week, just as Genesis says of the first day of creation. The light of day one was found on the morning of the empty tomb.
Revelation 21:23
“And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”
Revelation 21:23
Isaiah said it long before: “The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light” (Isaiah 60:19).
The new creation keeps the light of the first day, God’s glory with no sun. It lets go of the lights of the fourth day. The light is God’s glory, and the Lamb is where it shines. “And there shall be no night there” (Revelation 22:5). What Genesis 1:3 promised, Revelation 21:23 fulfils.
What this means
The light of the first day was not the Son already shining. It was God’s promise, spoken at the start, of the light of the new creation. That light is Christ, raised from the dead.
Christ is the light God spoke, not the One who spoke it. God said, “Let there be light.” Christ is that light: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).
The sun of the fourth day was made “to rule the day,” as Adam was made to rule. Christ came into that first order as a man, “made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). He was crucified on the fourth day of the week, the day the sun was made. And on the first day of the week the tomb was empty. He rose into a light that does not set.
I was in the darkness. “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). The light is not mine. It is His, and I have it only in Him.
Connected chains
This cluster is built on Babel Deified the Heavens, It Is Finished: Creation Completed at the Cross, Christ Carries the Father's Name, The Shadow Whose Body Is Christ, Brought Forth and The Spirit Is God's Own. It also goes hand in hand with Out of the Miry Clay.