Light Before the Sun? | Exploring Genesis 1

How could there be evening and morning before God created the sun, moon, and stars?

In this episode, Pastor Charlie explores several historic Christian views on Genesis 1, discusses what Moses was communicating to Israel, and explains why the central message of creation isn't lost even when Christians disagree on some of the details.

Whether you've wondered about the days of creation, the light before the sun, or how to interpret Genesis faithfully, this conversation will help you think carefully while keeping your focus on the Creator.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the QA with Pastor Charlie Podcast. This week we have a question coming out of Genesis as we're starting up our Genesis series on Sunday mornings. And this person's asking about some stuff that's going on in Genesis 1, and they say that in verses 3 through 6, God creates light and darkness, and he separates them. But then later on in verses 14 through 19, that he creates two great lights, one to rule the day and one to rule the night. And the question is how was their morning and evening in three days before the sun and moon were even created?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

That is a great question, and that is one that still is a puzzling one for people as they kind of wrestle with this Genesis creation narrative. And there's probably two predominant views of trying to explain how that could be. I know there's always more that stem from that, but I think I'll tackle probably the two predominant views. And one thing before we get into this question is I am excited as we've been working, you know, started Genesis this last week, and I think there's a lot of questions that people are going to have as we kind of wrestle with it, try to figure out what exactly is it saying, what is it not saying. And so I want to encourage anyone who has questions not to be afraid or shy about sharing those with us. Because I do think through the dialogue, at least it kind of helps our minds. While we might not ever come up with concrete answers, at least come up with plausible answers, explanations to it, uh, and then just kind of understand what God is telling us in this Genesis narrative. Now, one thing I will say is that we don't need to allow questions like this that we might not have firm answers to keep us from believing what God is telling us in the narrative. I think one of the key things that we take away from this opening, Genesis 1, is that God is the creator. I'm becoming more and more convinced the more I study it that part of what Moses, the author, is doing is making sure the people of Israel have a clear understanding that their beginning didn't come in the ways that other cultures believe through pagan gods or through coincidences or random chaos, but instead it came from a sovereign creator who purposefully and willfully ordained things to bring about human life and for it to flourish and for it to be a good thing. And so again, even though maybe the earth began in a form of chaos, it it started that way because God said, you know, when I say chaos, probably not even the right words, formless void or wild and uninhabitable as it could read, that that was a way that God was beginning, but to bring something good from it, not that we just came from chaos. We came from order and structure. And I think that these six days of creation, however you want to interpret them, whether literal 24-hour periods, whether time periods, or maybe even more realms or cosmological, what they are establishing is that God is a God of order and he's doing things in a purposeful way. And I really think all of it is he's trying to lead us to, he's giving this good place for humanity, whom he's made in his image, to dwell, uh to have dominion over, but ultimately to enjoy him and worship him in the middle of it. Now to go to the question, how is it possible that there would be evening and morning, light, darkness, and then not until day four do we get the sun, moon, and stars? And what we do know, scientifically speaking, is that the earth revolves around the sun, and that gives us our 24-hour solar days. And so it's a great question. How is that possible? I think there's two predominant answers that people would have. And the first one is that essentially in Genesis 1:1, it says, in the beginnings, God created the heavens and the earth. It could say, in the beginning, God created the universe. And so that opening verse or opening statement there is just a simple blanket statement that God created everything that we know and the order in it. And then he begins to narrow his focus down. Now, one of the things that's interesting as we're trying to interpret Genesis is in our time and place, we want to look at things from up down. Now, why is that? Well, because we have a view of space in the earth from that context. We have the ability to know that because of satellites and images and pictures, we in our time and place have the ability to look at the earth from the top down. For the bulk of human history, that's not been the case. They've had to look from the bottom up. And so when they're thinking about how do we view things, it's from here and then we view our way up. And so for some, uh, especially some old earth creationists, Hugh Ross, I believe, has this view. He's saying that the sun and moon and stars and everything were already created, probably in the first verse when God created the universe. But from the author's perspective, he didn't know that they existed. So there was maybe some form of gas or this dome atmosphere that was on the earth at that particular time, it the sun, moon, and stars were not visible. By day four, which Hugh Ross would say it would be an extended period of time, by day four, God has over a period of time allowed it to become visible to where from the perspective of the person on the ground, now they're there, even though they already had been, but from his perspective, now that they're seeable and they're understanding what the purpose of them are. So that's one view. Uh already created in Genesis 1.1 when God created the universe, but from the perspective of the person on the ground, it's on day four that they're seeable and we know what their purpose is. Uh it's plausible, depending on how you interpret the role in Genesis. All right, so the young earth perspective is going to be, and I think there's a lot of merit to this, from the perspective of the light at the beginning was God's glory. It was his light that shines into the world. Part of the reason that they're going to believe that is because there's a picture in at the end of time when God recreates the new heaven and new earth, and there's no need for the sun because the light of God, his glory, is going to be manifest, and we don't need the physical sun. And so, from that perspective, for the first three days, God's light is the light that's shining into the world. And then on day four, he creates the sun, moon, stars, all of these, you know, the greater light and the lesser light that then is going to take the place of his divine light and then serve as what gives us our seasons, our times, and things of that nature. And I do think there's something there because I do think that this first light is probably the light of God's glory. It's he is light, you know, in him there's no darkness at all. Now, here's where I probably come in different than the young earth view. And I've been a young earther for most of my life, but I would tell you that I've deviated from that, probably some. Not that I don't think it's plausible, not that I don't think that there is great reasoning behind it. I've just kind of come more from the perspective of I'm not sure that Moses' intent is to give us the scientific reasoning that we want it to. I'm just not convinced that's the place that he's writing from. I think what Moses is telling us again is that God created this earth functionally, orderly, purposefully. And I do think that what he's doing in day one is that this light and darkness is the order of time. So we know that our earth, our world functions in time. And I think what he's saying is, all right, so on day one, God established the realm of time. Day two, he establishes the realm of the sky and the seas. Day three, he establishes the realm of the land. And then if you notice and look, on days four, five, and six, he's filling those realms. So after he establishes time and order, he then comes in and says, okay, day four, and I don't think he means literal days in this, but on the fourth point of it, I'm gonna bring in the sun, moon, stars that are going to now be the placeholders of this time and order. So you all have festivals and times of worship and seasons and all of these things. That's the realm that's that's gonna fill it. The second thing, I created the the sky and the seas. And what does he tell us happens then next on day five? The creation is swarming with birds in the air and creatures below. Day three. Order three, I'm gonna create the land, and then on day six, he fills the things that are gonna inhabit it. So I think that the intent of the author, more than just giving us days or even periods of time, is just from a more cosmological view, giving us the realms and order that God created, and then he's showing us how he filled those according to his plan. I again think that one of the primary purposes of Moses, the author, is to establish the difference between what they were hearing in pagan cultures about how the earth came to be and where humanity came from, and using their type of language and pictures, but saying, no, this is what our God did. This is the true God. Yahweh is the supreme, sovereign ruler over all of these things. So you didn't come from chaos of God's fighting, and then here comes humanity. God purposefully designed you, He created this realm, this cosmos for you to be a part of. And you're a special part of God's creation that bears his image in the world, and God wants to relate with you in a unique way. And then I think Genesis 2, he narrows it down for us and gives us this view of the garden. And it's far more intimate. It's this place of worship that God sets the man and woman in and basically says, I'm a God who wants to bless you. I want to give you great things. Now, here's a choice eat of the tree of life and you live with me and walk with me forever. But if you choose to eat of the tree of knowledge and good and evil, then you're gonna die. And so I want to bless, I want to give good, and I think that's the picture of maybe what Genesis 1 is setting up for us. Now, again, if you have a different view of that, and we're gonna look at this Sunday, like I think there's several views, believe it or not. I think most Christians think there's like one view, and it's their view of what Genesis 1 is. And if you look throughout history, uh there's been multiple views of what Genesis 1 is all about. Uh matter of fact, I just uh asked AI because of course AI knows everything. I just had a curiosity asked AI to see what it would say. Like, what is the predominant Christian view of creation? Seeing, well, what answer would it give? And it essentially said there's not one, that throughout the ages. And so I think we need to broaden our view a little bit of understanding that that whatever view you hold is not the only one that Christians have held. And then how you view Genesis 1 is going to determine how you interpret things like, well, where did this light come from? Again, I think God's creating order in time. The light that we see there first and foremost is the light of his glory, but then in that realm, he fills it with these heavenly uh objects to, you know, bring about order in time, and it fills that realm, just as he created a realm for birds and sea creatures to be in, then created a realm for land bearers to be in. So that would be my answer. I think it's worth for people to read and expand their understanding uh from a variety of perspectives. I think it would be very helpful for people rather than just to like read one view and then let that view tell them why everyone else is wrong, because that's how we tend to do things. I'm gonna hone in on a view and I'm only gonna read that view and let that view tell me why no one else knows what they're talking about. Right. We'll take a step back, read from other perspectives, and then from that formulate uh how you would interpret it in an informed way.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, that's good. I'm excited for us to keep going on Genesis one on Sunday morning. But as we come up with more questions along the way, because I'm sure there'll be many, I have plenty on my own. Um, y'all can send those in to questions at firstmore.com and we'll see you guys next Friday.