The First Day of Creation

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Genesis 1:3-4

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.…

1. Man's fallen nature is a very chaos, "without form and void," with darkness thick and sevenfold covering all. The Lord begins His work upon man by the visitation of the Spirit, who enters the soul mysteriously, and broods over it, even as of old He moved upon the face of the waters. He is the quickener of the dead soul.

2. In connection with the presence of the Holy Spirit the Lord sends into the soul, as His first blessing, light. The Lord appeals to man's understanding and enlightens it by the gospel.

3. If you keep your eye upon the chapter you will observe that the light came into the world at first by the Word "God said, 'Let there be light.'" It is through the Word of God contained in this book, the Bible, that light comes into the soul. This is that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

4. The light which broke in upon the primeval darkness was of a very mysterious kind, and came not according to ordinary laws, for as yet neither sun nor moon had been set as lights in the firmament. Can we tell how spiritual light first dawns on nature's night? How He removes darkness from the understanding, and illuminates the intellect, is a secret reserved for Himself alone.

5. The light came instantaneously. Six days were occupied in furnishing the earth, but a moment sufficed for illuminating it. God works rapidly in the operation of regeneration: as with a flash He darts light and life into the soul. The operations of grace are gradual, but its entrance is instantaneous. Although instantaneous, it is not, however, shallow and short lived.

I. THE LORD SEES WHATEVER HE CREATES. "The Lord saw the light."

1. He was the sole observer of it. Neither eye of man, nor bird, nor beast was there to behold the golden glory; but God saw the light. Newly enlightened one, it may be you are pained because you have no Christian companion to observe your change of heart: cease from your sorrow, for God beholds you.

2. That light had come into the world in a noiseless manner, yet the Lord saw it. The entrance of God's Word which giveth light is effected in "solemn silence of the mind." If men make an illumination, we can hear the crackling of their fireworks over all the city; but when God illuminates the earth with the sun, the orb of day arises without a sound. Although the work in your soul has been so quiet, so hidden from the eyes of men, so unremarkable and commonplace, yet take comfort from the text, "The Lord saw the light." No trumpet proclaimed it, but the Lord saw it; no voice went forth concerning it, but the Lord saw it and it was enough; and in your case it is the same.

3. The earth itself could not recognize the light, yet the Lord saw it. How often do we mourn that we have scarcely more light than suffices to reveal our darkness and make us pine for more. Oh, troubled one, lay this home to your soul, the Lord saw the light when earth herself could not perceive it.

4. Let us not forget that besides the light there was no other beauty. The earth, according to the Hebrew, was "tohu and bohu," which, in order to come near both to the sense and sound at the same time, I will render "anyhow and nohow." Even so your experience may seem to be a chaos, nohow and anyhow, exactly what it should not be, a mass of unformed conceptions, and half-formed desires, and ill-formed prayers, but yet there is grace in you, and God sees it, even amid the dire confusion and huge uproar of your spirit.

5. Remember, too, that when the light came it had to contend with darkness, but God saw it none the less. So, also, in your soul there still remains the darkness of inbred corruption, ignorance, infirmity, and tendency to sin, and these cause a conflict, but the light is not thereby hidden from the eyes of God.

6. For many reasons the Lord sees the light, but chiefly He sees it because He made it, and He forsakes not the work of His own hands.

II. THE LORD APPROVES OF WHAT HE CREATES. "God saw the light that it was good." He took pleasure in it.

1. Now, as far as this world was concerned, light was but young and new: and so in some of you grace is quite a novelty. You were only converted a very little while ago, and you have had no time to try yourselves or to develope graces, yet the Lord delights in your newborn life. Light is good at dawn as well as at noon: the grace of God is good though but newly received; it will work out for you greater things by-and-by, and make you more happy and more holy, but even now all the elements of excellence are in it, and its first day has the Divine blessing upon it.

2. Here we must mention again that it was struggling light, yet none the less for that approved of by the Lord. We do not understand how it was that the light and the darkness were together until God divided them, as this verse intimates; but as John Bunyan says, "No doubt darkness and light here began their quarrel," for what communion hath light with darkness. My brethren, I am sure you are no strangers to this conflict, nor is it to you altogether a thing of the past. You are in the conflict still. Still grace and sin are warring in you, and will do so till you are taken home. Let this help you, O ye who are perplexed; remember that struggling as the light is, God approves of it, and calls it good.

3. As yet the light had not been divided from the darkness, and the bounds of day and night were not fixed. And so in young beginners; they hardly know which is grace and which is nature, what is of themselves and what is of Christ, and they make a great many mistakes. Yet the Lord does not mistake, but approves of that which His grace has placed in them.

4. As yet the light and darkness had not been named: it was afterwards that the Lord called the light "day," and the darkness "night," yet He saw the light that it was good. And so, though you do not know the names of things, God knows your name.

5. The light of the first day could not reveal much of beauty, for there was none, and so the light within does not yet reveal much to you; and what it, does reveal is uncomely, but the light itself is good, whatever it may make manifest.

6. But why did God say that light was good?

(1) I suppose it was because its creation displayed His attributes.

(2) He loves the light, too, because it is like Himself, for "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."(3) Light is eminently good, for the Lord spent a whole day in creating and arranging it — a whole day out of six. This shows that He attaches great importance to it. Moreover, he gave it the front rank by occupying the first day of creation's week upon it. Even thus the plan of grace was early in the mind of God; it was and is His masterpiece, and He has never yet placed it in the background.

(4) I suppose that the Lord approved of the light because it was a seasonable thing. It was what was wanted to begin with. Not but what God could work in the dark, for, as to natural light, in that respect darkness and light are both alike to Him; but we can all see that the works of His creating skill needed light, for how could plants, animals, and men live without it?

III. THE LORD QUICKLY DISCERNS ALL THE GOODNESS AND BEAUTY WHICH EXISTS IN WHAT HE CREATES. The Lord did not merely feel approbation for the light, but He perceived reason for it: He saw that it was good. He could see goodness in it where, perhaps, no one else would have been able to do so.

1. Let us note, then, that light is good in itself; and so is Divine grace. What a wonderful thing light is! Just think of it! How simple it is, and yet how complex. Light, too, how common it is! We see it everywhere, and all the year round. Light, too, how feeble and yet how strong! Its beams would not detain us one-half so forcibly as a cobweb; yet how mighty it is, and how supreme! Scarcely is there a force in the universe of God which is more potent. The grace of God in the same manner is contemptible in the eyes of man, and yet the majesty of omnipotence is in it, and it is more than conqueror.

2. Light is good, not only in itself, but in its warfare. The light contended with darkness, and it was good for darkness to be battled with. Grace has come unto you, and it will fight with your sin, and it ought to be fought with, and to be overcome.

3. The light which came from God was good in its measure. There was neither too much of it nor too little. If the Lord had sent a little more light into the world we might all have been dazzled into blindness, and if He had sent less we might have groped in gloom. God sends into the newborn Christian just as much grace as he can bear; He does not give him the maturity of after years, for it would be out of place.

4. Light was good as a preparation for God's other works. He knew that light, though it was but the beginning, was necessary to the completion of His work. Light was needful, that the eye of man might rejoice in the works of God, and so God saw the light that it was good, in connection with what was to be. And, oh, I charge you who have to deal with young people, look at the grace they have in them in relation to what will be in them.

5. What a mass of thought one might raise from this one truth of the goodness of light and the goodness of grace, as to their results. Light produces the beauty which adorns the world, for without it all the world were uncomely blackness. Light's pencil paints the whole, and even so all beauty of character is the result of grace. Light sustains life, for life in due time would dwindle and die out without it, and thus grace alone sustains the virtues and graces of the believer; without daily grace we should be spiritually dead. Light heals many sicknesses, and grace brings healing in its wings. Light is comfort, light is joy, the prisoner in his darkness knows it to be so; and so the grace of God produces joy and peace wherever it is shed abroad. Light reveals and so does grace, for without it we could not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

IV. GOD RECORDED HIS ESTIMATE OF THIS FIRST DAY'S PRODUCT. "God saw the light that it was good."

1. This leads me to say to the young Christian, the Lord would have you encouraged.

2. My last word is to older Christian people. If the Lord says that His work in the first day is good, I want you to say so too. Do not wait till you see the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth day before you feel confidence in the convert and offer Him fellowship. If God speaks encouragingly so soon, I want you to do the same.

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