The First Day

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” Genesis 1: 1-5

J.I. Packer says of creation, “He did it by fiat, without any preexisting material; his resolve that things should exist (“Let there be...”) called them into being and formed them in order with an existence that depended on his will yet was distinct from his own. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were involved together (Gen. 1:2; Pss. 33:6, 9; 148:5; John 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-16; Heb. 1:2; 11:3)”.

The story relayed to us in Genesis chapter one is the story of the physical universe coming into existence. It is God creating the frame work in what he has made that we as human being would know his character. Romans 1 reads, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,” The language of Genesis one is designed to be read literally but it contains many metaphors about the nature of man and his relationship to God. We know from later portions of Genesis that God made man out of clay. In that sense man began formless, empty and dark. The Lord hovered over us and ultimately breathed the breath of life into us. The God said “Let there be light.” This light is also reflective of the nature of God. 1 John 1:5 says “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Now God was not part of the light. He is external to the light but the light reflects his character, pure and ordered. In mathematical terms “light ranges from wavelengths of 7x10-5 cm (red) to 4x10-5 cm (violet) and (like all electromagnetic radiation) travels at the speed of light, 299,792,458 meters per second or 186,282 miles per second.” In other words light demonstrates from the outset that God was creating a universe that was orderly and not random.

The next thing that the Lord does is to separate light from darkness. He does not do this for his sake but for our sake. Psalm 139:12 reads, “even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Darkness and light are the same to God, but they are not the same to us. God separates the light from the darkness that we might know that with each new day we are called to choose between light and dark, between holiness and sin. Finally there was evening and morning.

God is also external to time, however he called us to live in time. It is type of time that is punctuated with new beginnings. It teaches us that God’s compassion can be experienced with the beginning of each new day. “It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23. God was indeed faithful on day one and he has been faithful every day since.


http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/packer/08creator.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/27356/p_index.htm