Genesis 1:14-19 The Greater and Lesser Light

Intro

We are moving now into the second half of the creation week. In our last time together we considered the first act of filling from day 3 when God created the plant life on the earth. Now today we are solidly into the filling phase of creation as we take up today and in our next time together the creation of the heavenly bodies.

In our time today we are going to consider this day of creation as a whole and then with the time we have left we are going to delve into some specifics about the sun and the moon, the two great lights that God places in the heavens and then in our next time together we will consider more about the stars and some of the wonderful ways that these celestial bodies display the glories of their creator.

Now as we get started today I want us to remember that in the midst of taking in all of the details about creation and how it was that all of these created elements came into being and how they set the stage for later theological developments and themes that will expand and be filled with meaning across the pages of scripture. In the midst of considering the science and how woefully inadequate evolutionary, long age, secular theories are to explain even the simplest elements of creation, not to mention the grandness of the universe and the intricacy of the human body and mind. As we consider all of these things, as important as they are, we must not forget to take time to simply sit in awe of the God who created all of this.

We are going to consider the sun today. One of the things that I like to do every year for the last few years now is to drive out to Morris cove on a clear evening, we don’t get a lot of those, but on a clear evening in June or July and watch the sun set on the water just off of Cape Cheerful. There is just something majestic about it. The colors of the sun reflected through the clouds and transformed as the light is forced to travel through more of earths atmosphere and as a result of a process known as Rayleigh scattering the shorter wave lengths of blue and violet are scattered out and only the longer red, orange and yellow wavelengths reach your eyes. This creates what we call the sun set and it is beautiful to me for that brief two month period to be able to see the sun fully set on the water and move through each and every one of these color filled transitions. I have yet to capture it but I am hoping one day to catch the faint green flash that occurs just as the sun dips below the horizon over the sea and for a moment the green rays of light are separated out and clearly visible.

We live in a world where something as simple as the sun going down each day is capable of producing such magnificence and beauty. We live in a world that was designed to reflect the glory of our creator. We must not lose that, we must not become so mechanical about understanding the text and the world that we loose sight of the glory of the one who created it all. Hopefully considering these things has the exact opposite effect. As we understand the text more clearly learn more more about the creation we ought to be driven deeper into contemplative and worshipful thoughts of the awe and glory of our God.

So lets take a moment to pray and then we will dive into this 4th day of creation.

Pray and Read

We read:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens 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 the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Now as we jump in here and consider the text itself I think we need to see that there is a poetic parallelism that forms the structure of the creation week. We see here the lights placed, on this 4th day, into the heaven that was created on day 1. When we turn to day 5 we will see the birds and the fish placed in the waters and the expanse of day two and when we get to day 6 we will see the animals and mankind placed on the land and amongst the plants of day 3. 1 - 4, 2 - 5, 3 - 6

There is clearly a structure to this week. Now as we discussed when we talked about the meaning of day in this text as it relates to the evening and morning structure and the length of time that transpires int he creation week, there is no need to assume that just because God chooses to create in such a way as to make use of this parallel structure that this means that the text is only poetic and doesn't have anything authoritative to say about the time period in which these things happen. No, as we saw then the text is structured so that there can be no mistake that this week is a literal week of 24 hour days.

So what then are we do do with the parallelism here?

Well, I think that we take it at face value for its place in this creation week and what it is teaching us about God. Our God we understand from the witness of scripture, starting here in this creation week is not a God of confusion and chaos but a God of order and structure. God, just as He commands His people in 1 Corinthians 14:40 does all things decently and in order, God is a God of order and as He forms and fashions and then fills the earth He does so in a way that is structured and clearly directed. The structure of the creation week, in other words, speaks to the nature and character of the God of creation.

God has plans and purposes that He intends to carry out in this world and He will accomplish them with the same care and precision through which He brings the world into being!

Lights

Now we read God’s command:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

“Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.

So we see here that God is creating lights if we glance forward to verse 16 we see that the wording changes a bit and the text says that God made the two great lights. This is different from the verb create or Bara that we see used most of the time in this account. Now we talked about this a little when we reviewed the verb create and there is nothing here that would contradict God’s creation ex nihilo but rather these verbs can be synonyms of each other. However, it has also been suggested that the change in verbs is owing to the fact that God had already created the light and on this day He is making vessels that will, from this point forward, contain and distribute the light that He has already created. In other words there is an effort here to make a distinction between the light and the vessel.

This fits well within the overall purpose of the structure of this 4th day in general which seems to be precisely aimed at making a clear distinction between the true creation narrative revealed authoritatively here in God’s word and the pagan creation myths of Moses’s day and beyond.

You see most of not all of the pagan societies including Egypt from which these people had just come and Canaan toward which these people were going ascribed the status of deity to the sun and the moon. It is interesting in this text that the names sun and moon are not even mentioned. Its not that the Hebrews didn't have words for this that Moses could have used but rather that the text is intentionally showing that these created elements are not God’s themselves but rather are created by God and then assigned their purpose and place as rulers of the day and night by their Creator.

So we see that these bodies are made by God to be the bearers of the light that had already filled creation.

We can draw a connection between this purpose and our own. The bible is quite clear that we as God’s people were created to bear the light of God and the glory of God to the world. A further picture of this is brought to us even as we have grown in our understanding of the science of how these lights work, an understanding that was likely not available to the Hebrews in Moses’ day but that we know now that the moon doesn't have its own light but rather reflects the light of the sun into the dark places of the earth.

As 2 Corinthians 4:6 tells us:

2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And Matthew 5:14-16

Matthew 5:14–16 ESV

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Just as these heavenly bodies are now being created to bear the light of creation so also we have been created to bear the light of Christ and the glory of God into the sin darkened world.

Expanse

Next we see that the lights are placed in the expanse of the heavens. We read this 3 times in these few verses, verse 14, 15, and 17.

This is another great reminder that we need to understand this creation narrative from the position of a viewer on earth. Some might consider what we said about the expanse a few weeks ago created on Day 2 and assume that God is lying here because we know that even the moon, the closest of these bodies exists well outside of what we would call our atmosphere. Now there are those who maintain that the expanse created on day 2 was the entirety of space from the surface of the earth to the edge of the universe but I said that I don’t currently fall there but rather with those who say that the expanse created on day 2 was the atmosphere with the waters below being the sea and the waters above being the clouds.

Now from the position of an observer on the earth when you look up into the expanse the stars and the moon and the sun all feature there. Just as the birds are said to fly across the face of the heavens so also there is no great difficulty here with understanding that the lights that God has placed in the heavens appear to us, here on earth, to be features of the sky though they are far far beyond it. And so what ever camp you fall into there is no great difficulty in understanding this text in a way that remains faithful to the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.

Purpose

Lastly then we see the purpose of these bodies. We see in verse 14 that they are to separate the day from the night, and also for signs and seasons, for days and years. We see in verse 15 they are to give light upon the earth and in verse 16 they are to rule the day and the night and we see ruling and separating reiterated in verse 17.

Now there are a lot of commonalities there.

We see they separate the day from the night. Similar to the original design that light was separate from darkness so here we see that these lights are purposed to separate day from night. As the sun rises in the morning and as it sets each day comes into fruition and then cedes itself to the darkness of night.

Now one of the things that I find interesting about the creation of these lights is that with the creation of the moon we have a body that is created to give light into the darkness. When God separated the light from the darkness on day 1 there would not have been any sort of illumination in the dark areas and yet we see a glimpse here into, again, the character and nature of God that even as He has drawn a distinction between light and darkness that he does not leave the world in total darkness during the night. God has created this body, the moon to reflect the light of day from the sun back into the darkness that envelops the earth as it spins away from the sun.

Again we remember that God has not left this world in darkness but has sent light into the darkness, first through His Son who came as the light of the world and then through those who have believed on His name who are made to bear that light through our lives to the world around us!

Next we see that these lights are for signs and seasons and for days in years. This again speaks to the nature of the time frames involved in the creation week and that while there is some poetic structure being use here there is also a very real and concrete establishment of the times and seasons of the earth. Clearly as these bodies are being brought into existence they are conforming already to the 24 hour day structure that God has established in the world and for which these bodies now will form the primary means of distinguishing the passage of time.

For signs and seasons. Well we know that it really is the sun that is responsible for the seasons. In a bit here we are going to take a look at even more of the amazing things we know about the sun but we know that due to the tilt of the earth and the rotation of the earth on its axis and the orbit of the earth around the sun that all of these factors align perfectly to create a world with, generally speaking, 4 seasons. Depending on how close to the poles or the equator you get these can be longer or shorter but there still exists seasons.

This is a good place to mention that there are those who believe that the earth as it was created did not have a tilt to its axis but that our tilted axis is the result of a comet or giant meteor crashing into the earth during the flood. Now not only is there no evidence of this but we also know that it would take a object of such immense size just move the earth by 1 degree that there is no likelihood that something hitting the earth could have tilted the earth the 23 or so degrees it is tilted its axis. On top of this we see right here in the account of creation that seasons existed before the fall and before the flood, the sun was placed in the sky that we might have seasons! (Summer, Fall,Winter, Spring, all parts of God’s good creation, I need to remind myself of that for summer some times and others might have to remind themselves of this about winter)

Now what about signs? Well we certainly know that God uses these bodies to provide general signs for the earth. Jesus chides the religious leaders in Matthew 16:2-3 for being able to read the signs of whether in the sky.

Matthew 16:2–3 ESV

He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

We also know that it was a star that lead the wise men to the Christ Child and we read about various heavenly elements that will mark days of judgement. Mankind has also long used the sun and moon and stars for navigation.

One of the key points to remember though is that while there is a general purpose of the lights in the sky to provide signs to the earth and while God has used these elements in unique ways for specific signs, there is no provision here for things like astrology or the searching for messages in the stars pertaining to personal events in your life or to events in the world in particular. This is not the type of sign that Moses is talking about.

The Babylonians are condemned as those who have sought wisdom and a the telling of the future from the stars in Isaiah 47:

English Standard Version Chapter 47

13  You are wearied with your many counsels;

let them stand forth and save you,

those who divide the heavens,

who gaze at the stars,

who at the new moons make known

what shall come upon you.

14  Behold, they are like stubble;

the fire consumes them;

they cannot deliver themselves

from the power of the flame.

So while the lights in the sky were created to be signs this does not validate something like astrology which is condemned in scripture.

One of the greatest signs though that I believe the lights in the skies proclaim is the reality of God’s existence and His might and power as creator! We will see this more in our next time together but one of the constant questions that you hear asked is if the universe is so large and there are so many stars and star systems and galaxies out there in space how could there not be life anywhere else? The universe just seems to big for us aloe!

You may have heard of the pale blue dot, the picture captured by the pace craft Voyager 1 in 1990 that caused the famous atheist Carl Sagan to say:

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives…Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.”

When looking back at the earth from the distance of 3.7 billion miles the earth does indeed seem quite small and our place in the universe of such little importance and yet it is here that the only life that has ever existed was created and thrives. It is here that the Son of God entered into the world and took on flesh and the nature of a man that He might die on the cross to save ruined humanity from our trespasses and sins. Here on this pale blue dot in the midst of a vast universe. A universe that grows more and more vast every time that astronomers are able to look farther out.

Not that long ago using the new James Web telescope they were able to focus on another deep field area, an area previously thought to be relatively empty and there it found nearly 800,000 galaxies. This also happened a number of years ago with Hubble!

This I believe is one of the signs that these lights speak and they speak it loudly. Notice that all of the lights created beyond the sun and moon are encapsulated by the phrase “and the stars also” not an after thought as some try to assert but a notable statement of the grandeur and power of God to create these vast expanses of stars and simply record them with so few words.

As mankind presses farther and farther into their disbelief and stubborn suppressing of the truth that they know about God as revealed in the book of Romans, even as thy work to suppress this knowledge and they gaze farther and farther out into space they find there this giant glaring neon sign written in an innumerable number of stars and galaxies that there is a creator of the universe who is great in power and wisdom! The stars serve as a vast sign of the greatness and grandeur of their creator.

As Psalm 19: 1-6 tells us!

Psalm 19:1–6 ESV

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

We also see the sun and the moon described a rulers. The sun to rule the day and the moon, the lesser light to rule the night. This language of rule speaks to the prominence of the light in the sky. We know that there are lights in the sky that are vastly larger than our moon and even our sun. We will see some of these next time, however, despite the immense size of some of these celestial bodies, never the less, from our position here on earth the sun and the moon do indeed rule the skies.

Some try to challenge the biblical record by noting that the sun and moon are not the largest bodies in the sky, even in John Calvin’s day, well before modern astronomy they had determined that there were bodies in our own solar system that were larger than our moon and yet the moon is called the great light to rule the night. There were those even then that challenged Calvin on the veracity of scripture based on these findings. Calvin in responding to these objections, even so long ago, gives us a great outlook for how to view the relationship between science and Genesis:

Commentary on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis Chapter 1

Moses makes two great luminaries; but astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons, that the star of Saturn, which, on account of its great distance, appears the least of all, is greater than the moon. Here lies the difference; Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labour whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend. Nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them. For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God. Wherefore, as ingenious men are to be honoured who have expended useful labour on this subject, so they who have leisure and capacity ought not to neglect this kind of exercise. Nor did Moses truly wish to withdraw us from this pursuit in omitting such things as are peculiar to the art; but because he was ordained a teacher as well of the unlearned and rude as of the learned, he could not otherwise fulfil his office than by descending to this grosser method of instruction. Had he spoken of things generally unknown, the uneducated might have pleaded in excuse that such subjects were beyond their capacity. Lastly, since the Spirit of God here opens a common school for all, it is not surprising that he should chiefly choose those subjects which would be intelligible to all. If the astronomer inquires respecting the actual dimensions of the stars, he will find the moon to be less than Saturn; but this is something abstruse, for to the sight it appears differently. Moses, therefore, rather adapts his discourse to common usage.

And lastly we understand that we mark the passage of days and years using these bodies. We mark one day each time the earth rotates before the sun and the moon circles the earth and we mark a year each time that the earth orbits the sun. For 6000 years now mankind has been able to perfectly keep the time using these bodies that God had designed for this purpose.

And it was so

Lastly I want to point out the little phrase “and it was so” at the end of verse 15. There are those in the progressive creation camp like Hugh Ross with Reasons to Believe who claim that God sort of wound things up and got it started but then then through millennia things have developed and changed, the sun formed and the stars formed and such. Well, here is the problem for the progressive creationist. This little phrase means that this has been locked in, this element of creaton is fixed. The stars didn't develop over long ages they were brought into being along with the sun and the moon on day 4 and have remained in existence ever since. John MacArthur says it this way:

It’s a way of saying something was fixed. And again, it militates against this idea of progressive creationism. That God made something that started some evolutionary process. He made it, he fixed it. It was firm. It was established.

I continually find it encouraging that scripture provides perfect arguments against all of these supposed challenges even long before there were originally raised. Moses wrote about this day and formatted his writing to challenge the pagan beliefs of his day and to provide his people with a foundation from which they could reject those pagan ideas and live faithfully to their Covenant King and yet even as He wrote God made sure that the words he wrote would be sufficient to answer objections that would be raised 1000’s of years from when the words were written! Scripture is amazing because its Author is amazing!

The Moon, The Lesser Light

Now lets just take a few moments here as we close for this morning to consider the marvelous creation of these two great bodies, the sun and the moon.

The moon is an amazing. Not only does it rule over the darkness, bearing the sun’s light back into the dark parts of the world but it is also essential for the tidal systems of our oceans. Without the moon our oceans would remain stagnent and the shores would be filled with debris and litter and the ocean currents would not move. Very few things could live there and they would soon stink. As a costal community we are well aware of how important the tides are and yet if the moon was not precisely where it is in relation to the earth and if it were of a larger or smaller size it would not be able to effect the tides as it does. It is precisely located to generate this system that is vital to life on earth.

Additionally the moon actually provides a solid refutation of cosmic evolution. Long age scientists have no real explanation for the origins of the moon. It was once thought that the moon as formed by a celestial object being captured by earths gravity or that a chunk of the earth spun off to form the moon. Both of these theories have been largely rejected due to the nature of the moon's circular orbit and the effect that the tidal forces of earth would have exerted on a chunk being pulled off.

Most now believe that a chunk of something two or three times the mass of Mars hit the earth and the debris from this collision formed the moon. However there are many problems with the angular momentum involved, the rates of spin between the earth and the moon that can’t be solved and have to be tweaked to form a working model of this formation and also the moon and the earth are to similar in composition to have been formed from such a collision.

Additionally the moon is far to close to the earth to have formed the supposed 4.5 billion years ago that these scientists claim. As the earth’s rotation slows, which it is, the law of conservation of angular momentum says that the angular momentum lost by the earth must be gained by the moon and so, as Jonathan Sarfati points out even if the moon started its receding from a point in direct contact with the earth, which it could not because if it was ever any closer in the past than 11,500 miles it would have been ripped appart by earths gravitational forces, but say it could start from touching the earth, it would have only taken 1.37 billion years to reach where it is today. Thats a long time for sure but not nearly long enough for their theory.

The long agers are like that last poor kid left on the geeky dodge ball team as the other team throws 5 or 6 balls toward him at one time. The poor kid just cant dodge them all no matter how hard he tries. The problems for long agers with the moon just pile up.

I would also add that the moon is a beautiful piece of creation. The interplay between the moon and he earth and the sun is so precise that the rations of size and distance between the three objects align perfectly to form the wonders of nature like lunar and solar eclipses. The earth also casts a shadow on the boon that has allowed even the ancient peoples to understand that the earth is a round ball in the sky.

Sun, The Greater Light

The sun is also an amazing light. It is positioned perfectly in relation to earth to support life. Our planet sits perfectly in what is known by many as the goldilocks zone. Here the earth is just the right temperature to support liquid water. Any farther away and the water would freeze, any closer and the water would evaporate. God has placed us at the position that is just right.

The sun is gigantic, 1.3 million earths could fit inside the sun. The sun is powered by nuclear fusion where hydrogen atoms is combined to form helium. This conversion releases energy as some of the matter is lost per Einstein's E=MC2. The energy output from he sun requires that 4 million tonnes of matter are converted to energy every second! 4 Million tonnes! Thats like consuming 77 Titanics every second!

Now contrary to what Super Man might tell you our sun is not yellow it is white and the wavelength output from the sun nearly matches our eyes peak sensitivity. Its like it was made for us to be able to see things well because that is exactly what God made it for.

The sun is a relatively large star though there are much larger ones and yet it is quite stable and while we do have solar flares from time to time that can interrupt things here on earth they are nothing like what can be observed elseware in the universe.

The sun as a star also challenges any effort to postulate how it could have been formed by natural processes. Scientist talk about these cloud forming nebula regions out there in space and say that through gravity these gas clouds collapse into tight balls of gas that begin to produce heat and react until a star is formed.

However, this has never been observed and observational science again via the rules of angular momentum make it impossible for this to happen. Picture a figure skater. As they spin the draw their arms in and what happens? The spin faster. This is due to the law of the conservation of angular momentum. This means that as the gas would be drawn inward the increased spin would seek to drive it back out again and the force of the spin is far greater than the force of gravity.

No, the perfect positioning and design of these two great lights and the systems they rule over clearly display the wisdom and power of the one who created them!

Now in our next time together we will explore the stars and some more of the wonderful aspects of that giant neon sign God placed in the sky to show His wisdom, power, majesty and might.