(Genesis) - Part 2 — Zac Poonen

Let's turn to Genesis chapter 1, that we've been looking at last week. We saw that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, and then there was the fall of Lucifer, and as a result of which the earth, described in verse 2, became shapeless, empty and dark.

Light as the First Work of God

Then we read the work of the Spirit of God and the Word of God, about remaking that destroyed earth. And we saw that the first word that God spoke was, Let there be light. And that is always the first word that God speaks.

Let there be light. God's Word is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. And we read in Psalm 119 verse 130 that the unfolding of God's Word gives light. And we can never expect God to be able to remake us if we don't allow His Word to find an entry into our hearts.

It is the Word of God entering into our hearts that brings light. We must remember that is always the first thing. And that's why those who neglect God's Word in their lives will remain in darkness. There can be no remaking of our lives apart from God's Word.

And that's why it's a very good habit for all of us to read God's Word every day. That's a habit that is good to pick up from childhood, to read the Word of God every day so that God can bring light into our lives.

We saw also that that was a picture of the resurrection, the first day of that old creation. It's similar to the first day of the week in the new creation where Jesus came forth out of the darkness of the tomb bringing light.

Then we read in verse 4, God saw that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness. Now the first message we read right there in the beginning of Genesis is God making light and seeing that the light was good.

God Is Light and Has No Darkness

If you turn to the first episode of John in the New Testament, he says there that we are proclaiming to you that eternal life, verse 2, which was with the Father, 1 John 1, verse 2. And verse 4, these things we write so that our joy may be made complete.

And what is the first message he has to give? He says this is the message, and it's very important to understand, the first message the Apostle John has to give to those to whom he's writing is, this is the first message we have heard from him and announced to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

If we say we fellowship with him and we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. For example, it goes on to say in chapter 2, verse 9, the one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in darkness because there is no such hatred in God.

God is light. God hates sin, but he doesn't hate people. God loves people. He hates sin. And so we see here that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Having read those verses, we can come back to Genesis chapter 1 and see what is the spiritual symbolism here in verse 4 of Genesis 1.

God saw that the light was good. Jesus once said to a rich young ruler, Why do you call me good? There is no one good but God. It is the light of God alone which is good. That is light. And God separated the light from the darkness.

Separation of Light from Human Tradition

Now it is very important to see that separation is not always brought by the devil. Division or separation is sometimes brought by God. And we read here that right in the first paragraph of the Bible, God made a separation.

There has always been a separation that God has made from darkness to light. God saw the light was good, and the very next thing he did was he separated the light from the darkness. Now we can say, according to God's word, that that light is first of all, as we have just mentioned, God's word itself.

God's word is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. We also saw in John 1 .4, that last time, that the life of Jesus, that is also a light. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

So we can say that that light symbolizes two things. First of all, the written word of God. And secondly, the living word of God, that is Jesus, his life. And those are the only two lights that we have in the world.

The written word and the life of Jesus. And concerning both of these, God saw, God inspected it, and saw that it was good. He's inspected his word and found that was good. He inspected the life of Jesus and said that was good.

Now, the very next thing he does, after inspecting light and seeing that it's good, is separating light from darkness. What does that mean? We can say that when men add the traditions of the church to the written word of God, it becomes a mixing of darkness with light.

And what does God do? It says there in verse 4, he separates the light from the darkness. When Jesus came to the earth, the Pharisees had mingled a lot of their traditions and the traditions of the elders that had been handed down for many, many centuries with the written Old Testament.

So the people there in those days had a mixed message. It was the word of God, light, mixed with the darkness of Cuban tradition. And what did Jesus do when he came there? He separated the darkness from the light.

And he rebuked the Pharisees in saying, he told them in Mark chapter 7, you have cancelled the word of God by holding on to your tradition. See that verse. In Mark chapter 7, Mark's Gospel chapter 7, verse 8.

Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men. When you have tradition mixed with the word of God, the end result always is, Mark 7 verse 8, the word of God tends to be neglected and the traditions of men tend to be exalted.

You find that, for example, in the Roman Catholic Church. The word of God mixed with the traditions of men, the end result is, the traditions of men have more importance than God's word. The second thing is, verse 9, you nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

In other words, the next step is, because of tradition, they reject God's word. The tradition of the church is more important than God's word. And Jesus said, verse 13, the third thing, you invalidate the word of God by your tradition.

They neglect it, verse 7, they set it aside, and finally, verse 13, cancel out the word of God altogether. So there's a tremendous danger when you mix human traditions with God's word. And so what did God do?

God separated the light from the darkness. Jesus came into the midst of that Jewish system and he separated the word of God from human tradition. And now, here is, we said that God's word is the light, we said that the life of Jesus was the light.

The Church as Light in the World

And do you know that the word of God says, there's something else which is the light. What's that? That's us. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 5, 16, you are the light of the world. Now that Jesus has ascended and gone up to heaven, and he himself is not here, but he has left the church as a light.

And what is the church to do? The church has to do the same thing that Jesus did, separate human traditions from God's word. Because God sees the light as good, and he doesn't want a sort of a mingling of the light and the darkness together, and so there has to be a separation of the light from the darkness.

It's God who does it. He did it in Genesis 1 himself, he did it in the gospels through Jesus Christ, and he does it today through the church. And through the ministries in the church, exposing human traditions and throwing it into the garbage bin.

Picking up human traditions one by one and throwing them in the garbage bin. Picking up human traditions one after the other and throwing them all in the garbage bin. It's the same ministry which God began in Genesis 1.

Because he sees the light as good, he does not want the light mixed up with the darkness. And when this happens, then we find that the Pharisees are angry. Then the Pharisees were angry with Jesus, and today's Pharisees are also angry with those who separate tradition from the word of God.

And therefore, those who stand for that will face the same fate as Jesus faced, and that is hostility from religious... I want to turn to 2 Corinthians now. We looked at this verse last time. 2 Corinthians 4 .6.

Light Shining into the Heart

For God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness. This is quoting Genesis chapter 1. Is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The first thing it says in 2 Corinthians 4, this is a commentary on Genesis 1, is shining into our hearts and giving us the revelation of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What's the next thing? We turn over to chapter 6, and verse 14, and it says here, Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Therefore, verse 17, Come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. Light cannot mingle with darkness. Therefore, be separate. This is the commentary of the New Testament on Genesis chapter 1, verse 4.

God separated himself in Genesis 1. He separated it through Jesus, when Jesus was on earth, and he separates light from darkness today through the church. First of all, as I said, the separation of the word of God from human tradition.

And this is why through the centuries, different groups of Christians have pulled out of some old religious system, some old Christian religious system, because they found that old Christian religious system was corrupt, mixed with tradition.

So a few of them who wanted the pure light separated. After some time, this group that separated got its own tradition, and again, this became a mingling of light and darkness. Another group came out of this, separating light from darkness.

And after a few, 50, 60, 100 years, this group has its own tradition, again mingles darkness with light, and so another group of wholehearted come out of that one. And in the history of Christianity, particularly the last 400 years, that's happened again and again and again.

Unfortunately. But in one sense, in a good way. In a good... It was a good thing because there's always been a pure testimony. Because some people dared to come out of a mingling of light and darkness.

Because they saw right in the first page of the Bible that God saw the light was good, and He does not like a mingling of light and darkness, so they pulled out. Whenever they found the word of God and tradition mixed up, they pulled out.

Fighting Human Traditions

Now, what can we learn from history? We can learn from church history that the greatest danger that any group faces when they pull out of another is that after some time, they can form certain traditions of their own and add it and teach it along with God's word as though this has equal importance.

And that's why, my brothers and sisters, as a church, we have to fight. Fight human traditions. It's a much greater battle to fight tradition than to fight sin. Because sin, everybody sees as evil. Traditions, people don't.

For example, you try throwing Christmas out of some churches and you'll find opposition. And yet, can you find a single verse about Christmas in the entire New Testament? No. But you try throwing it out of some churches and you'll find opposition.

Tradition is powerful. You can talk about sin, evil, adultery, and dirty thoughts and anger. That's okay. But tradition has such a power. It's amazing. I've seen it in almost every group under the sun.

Tradition. Creeping in. And in some cases a little bit, in some cases large. What is the battle that we must fight? The battle that we must fight is if we don't find it in God's word, we're not going to have it even if generations of Christians have accepted it.

We say that's got nothing to do with God's word. And particularly, God's word is revealed to us in the New Testament, which is in advance from the Old Testament because the word of God says the old is passed away, the new has come, Hebrews chapter 8.

And particularly the word of God in the New Testament. We need to ask concerning everything we believe and stand for, do you have a foundation for that in the New Testament? If not, be careful that it is not some tradition, maybe a good tradition, but a little bit of darkness, mingling with the light.

There are so many things like this we have to fight for if we want to stand pure. And the second thing is, this light, as I said, is not only the God's word, it is the light of Jesus. And there again, we can find mixture.

It may not be the matter of tradition, it may be the pure word of God, and yet, even though we hold the pure New Testament, yet there can be the mingling of worldliness with the life of Jesus. That also is darkness.

So we can say, just like the light is two things, God's word, and the life of Jesus, darkness also is two things, the traditions of men, and worldliness. Both are equally dangerous. Sometimes we can take a strong stand against the traditions of men, say, I'll have nothing of that in my life, and yet worldliness can come flooding into our lives, into our homes, and that has brought just as much darkness as a bunch of parasitical traditions.

Sanctification as Separation from Darkness

So we need to always keep this in mind, that God is always separating the light from the darkness. He began in Genesis 1, and He won't stop until Revelation 21, where we read about the new Jerusalem, crystal clear as light, and all the darkness has passed away.

But all the way up till then, God's separating the light from the darkness. Do you know the meaning of sanctification? Sanctification is a very big word, but all it means is setting apart. What is God setting apart?

Light from darkness. This is sanctification. God sanctifies me means God is increasingly setting me apart from the darkness in my flesh, from the darkness of traditions that have got mingled up in my thinking, along with God's Word.

You see, when we've become Christians, we are born again, we've got a whole lot of God's Word and traditions mingled up in our thinking, and God accepts us like that. He loves us, He accepts us with this mixture of light and darkness.

All of us have been accepted as a mixture of light and darkness. And then God begins the work, this work of Genesis 1 -4, of separating the light from the darkness. Separating the light from the darkness.

In other words, He tells us, why do you hold on so tightly to that? Do you find something in the New Testament for that? No. Get rid of it then. And you discover that you've got to get rid of another tradition that you've hung on to for so many years, that your fathers taught you, that your forefathers taught you, and you're keen about sanctification, and God separates you from one tradition after another.

And then, also God begins to speak to you about worldliness. About certain things, which other people may not consider darkness, but which God considers darkness. What is the definition of darkness? We saw that in 1 John chapter 1.

God is light. And in Him, there is no darkness at all. So we can say darkness is anything that is not compatible or agreeing with the life of God. Anything that does not agree with the divine nature, that is darkness.

According to 1 John 1 .5. In Him, there is no darkness at all. That's the definition of darkness. Anything that cannot get along with God's life, with the divine nature. Anything that's contrary to the divine nature.

That's darkness. And God is all the time cleansing out from our lives the things that are contrary to life. This is sanctification. And this is the work we must allow God to do, and do, and do, and do, continuously, till the day Jesus comes back.

The Blind Man Who Came into the Light

And it must never stop. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. Now I want to show you another illustration of this, in John's Gospel, chapter 9. In John's Gospel, chapter 9, we read of a man who was in darkness, and who came into the light.

And that was a blind man. It says in John 9 .1, he was blind from birth. And you know what blindness means? I saw an advertisement in an optician's office once. Well, shut your eyes to find out what blindness means.

That's what blindness is. You shut your eyes, and you understand blindness. Everything becomes dark. Blindness is darkness. And then when Jesus opened this man's eyes, he got light. And what could he testify after that?

Verse 25, in the last part he says, One thing I know. Whereas I was blind, now I see. Once I was in darkness, now I have light. And then the Pharisees were very disturbed by this. The Pharisees were arguing with him.

The whole section is dealing with the Pharisees arguing with him. And the next thing the Pharisees did was, verse 34, they put him out of their church. That's what happens when a man gets light, he gets thrown out of the church he belongs to.

Why? Because all the other people in that church are in darkness. You see, if you are born again, and your eyes are opened in the midst of a church where everybody else is in darkness, and you dare to open your mouth like this blind man and testify, Once I was blind, all these years I was sitting in this church, I was blind, but now I see.

Then the leaders of the church will throw you out. Whether it is if you get light on being born again and preach that, or whether it is when you get light on water baptism and preach that, or whether it is when you get light on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, or Christ manifest in the flesh, or victory over sin, or the body of Christ, or anything.

When we get light, the people who don't have that light get disturbed by the fact we get light. Then of course there are some people who when they get light, are like the parents of this blind man. And they were more diplomatic.

When the Pharisees asked them, Is this your son? He said, Yeah, he's our son, but we don't know how his eyes were opened. They said in verse 21, and in verse 22 it says, because they were afraid of the Jews.

But this man was not afraid. He spoke the truth and he got thrown out. Now the interesting thing I want you to see is this. What's the next verse after it says the Pharisees threw him out? See the next verse.

Verse 35. Jesus heard it. He always hears it when somebody gets thrown out of somewhere. And came to him. He always comes to the person who gets thrown out of somewhere. And what did Jesus do? He gave him more light.

He says, Now you only got your physical eyes open. Now I'll get your spiritual eyes open. Do you know the son of man? He says, Who is he Lord? He didn't even know who Jesus was. And he says, The one talking to you.

And it says he fell down, verse 38, and worshipped him. He got more light. And he said, Lord I believe. That's always what happens. I get light and I get thrown out and Jesus hears it. Comes to me. Gives me more light.

And when I stand up for that more light I get thrown out of some other group and Jesus hears it. Comes back to me. Gives me more light. Wonderful. To have light. God saw the light was good and separated the light from the darkness.

We can say that God allowed these Pharisees to throw this man out so that he wouldn't rot away in that synagogue. God has something better for him. And that's the thing that God does for many of us. When we get light, God allows some people in mercy to throw us out of their wretched system so that we don't rot away in that system.

It's God who is doing that. He may use Pharisees to do it. He may use bishops to do it. He may use priests to do it. He may use pastors to do it. He can use anybody. But it is God doing the same old business that he did in Genesis 1 -4 of seeing that this light is good.

I must separate this light from the darkness. The fellow doesn't have enough discernment to get out himself. Alright, I'll get the other fellows to kick him out. And that's God doing it. Separating the light from the darkness.

It started in Genesis chapter 1. It's been going on for centuries. It's gone on all the time. It's going on even today. So we see that God is doing that work even today and we praise the Lord when He does it in our lives too.

Children of the Day and Children of the Night

Verse 5 God called the light day and the darkness He called night. He gave two different names. We read in 1 Thessalonians 5 -5 You are children of the day not children of the night or of darkness. You are children of the light not of darkness.

1 John 3 John says you in this is manifest the children of God and the children of the devil. Do you know that in the world although all are human beings created by God some are children of God and some are children of the devil.

That's what John the Apostle said. That's what Jesus said in John 8 -44 to the Pharisees. He said you people who are religious rulers you are children of the devil. Jesus said that to people. You are children of the devil in John 8 -44.

And John the Apostle said the same thing. God calls people by different names. That's what we see here too. He called the light day and He called the darkness night. There are children of the day and there are children of the night.

For example the people who are the people who love the night. Normal human beings are not people who are waiting for the night. Who are the people who wait for the night? The thieves. The adulterers. The fornicators.

The evil people because they want darkness to cover what they are doing. Who are the children of the night? Those who love to do things that are wrong in secret. Those who tell lies don't want other people to know about it.

Those who write false accounts and cheat the government and cheat other people. They can call themselves Christians but God calls them children of darkness, children of the devil. He's given different names.

This is day, this is night. And even today. Let's not be deceived. Whatever we may call ourselves, whatever other people may call ourselves and whatever other people may think we are, God has given different names.

Today and night. And the important thing my brothers and sisters is what God calls you. Not what you call yourself or what other people call you. A lot of people think themselves to be children of God, whom God calls children of the devil.

A lot of people whom other people call children of the God, whom God calls children of the devil. Now we see here further in verse five. And there was evening and there was morning one day. That was twenty-four hours.

And it began with the evening. That means that's how it has been in the Jewish system. The day begins at six p .m. and finishes at six p .m. The evening first and then the morning. That's what we see here.

There was evening and there was morning one day. Now it's quite likely that the earth was created many thousands and thousands and probably even millions of years ago. I don't know. Because we don't know when Genesis 1 -1 took place.

In the beginning God created heaven and the earth. It could have been millions of years ago. But when it comes to this remaking on the first day, that's clearly twenty-four hours. And there were six days of twenty-four hours each in which God completed that work.

And then He created Adam. And we know from the ages given to us in the book of Genesis, which we have all the way down till our present time, that it's about six thousand years now since God made Adam.

It was about six thousand years ago that that first day on this earth took place of remaking. Though the earth and the heavens themselves may have been created even millions of years ago. Genesis 1 -1 verse 6.

Resurrection, Discernment, and the First Day

Now what did we see in the first day? Let's just recapitulate. We saw a principle of resurrection. Light coming out of darkness in the first day. We saw the principle of separation. We saw the principle of God naming light and darkness separately.

Separating good from evil. All this is an application for us because we read in Hebrews 5 -14 about those who exercise their senses to discern between good and evil. What is discerning between good and evil?

That's the same old thing of God separating light from darkness. This is sanctification, to discern between good and evil. Those are the mature who are always separating human traditions from God's work.

The Second Day and Heavenly Mindedness

Worldliness from the life of Jesus. That's maturity. So we find that all there in a nutshell in the very first day. Now the second day God said, let there be an expanse or a firmament in the midst of the waters.

The whole thing was covered with waters. We don't know to what great height. And this is an interesting thing. Can you imagine the earth, this sphere called the planet earth covered with water maybe to many kilometers high many many kilometers high of water covering the whole globe.

Not a site of earth anywhere. And then God says, I'm going to make a separation in the middle of the water.

Some of the waters are going to pull out. There will still.

Be waters underneath. But some of the top part of the waters, a few kilometers of water are going to pull out. And between those few kilometers of water and this water circling the earth will be what we call the heaven.

That's what we read in verse 6. Let there be a firmament. Later on we read in verse 8 that he called that expanse heaven. The heaven means the sky that we see, all of space that we can see. God created it by pulling the waters up above the heavens.

And he separated the waters, verse 7, which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse. Waters above the heavens. The waters below the heavens we know are the seas on earth. And what's in between he called heaven.

And the evening and morning were the first day. We can learn a little lesson from this. We don't want to speculate what those waters above the heavens are. I'm not interested in knowing that. But again, I see something here.

What did we see in the first day? Verse 4, God separated. What do we read in verse 7? God made the expanse and separated. There was a separation again. This principle of separation comes again and again and again in the first page of the Bible.

He separated, we can say, the heavenly from the earthly. Those are heavenly, these are earthly. That's the second lesson we learn on the second day. That God separates the heavenly from the earthly. The heavenly minded from the earthly minded.

God is doing that even today. And sanctification is to separate us from earthly mindedness to heavenly mindedness. For example, what does it mean in practical terms? To look at things from heaven's standpoint.

To look at money from heaven's standpoint. To look at honor from heaven's standpoint. To look at people from heaven's standpoint. To separate the heavenly from the earthly. That's the second thing we can say.

We see here. So putting the two days together, if you want a spiritual lesson, it's like this. We can say the first day is the separation of that which is satanic and sinful from our lives. And the second day is the separation of that which is soulish and human from that which is spiritual.

You see how all this is pictured way back there in the first page of the bible. God wants to separate us not only from evil, but also from that which is human and soulish. That which is earthly. And that's what we see here.

He separated that which is above the heaven from that which is below the heaven. There's just one point I want you to notice here. At the end of every day we find it says that God saw it was good. Notice the first day, verse 4, God saw it was good.

The end of the third day in verse 12, God saw it was good. And the end of the fourth day, verse 18, God saw it was good. And the end of the fifth day, verse 21, God saw it was good. And the end of the sixth day, verse 31, God saw it was very good.

Why the Second Day Is Not Called Good

Have you noticed that one day is left out? Have you noticed that at the end of the second day, God never said it was good. We don't want to speculate again what the reason for that is. But I just want to mention one thing.

That the second day is dealing with heaven. And we know from the New Testament that there are three heavens. The first heaven is what we see, space. The third heaven, we read in 2 Corinthians 12, is paradise, the immediate presence of God.

And in between the first heaven and the third heaven must be the second heaven. We read in Ephesians 6 .12 the dwelling place of evil spirits. When Satan was cast out of the third heaven, he ended up in the second heaven.

We considered that in our last study. So in the second heaven, Satan was there. Perhaps this was the reason why when considering the heavens, God did not say that it was good. Because all the other days, He did say it was good.

Separation of Land and Sea

That's just something significant. We see something of the exactness of God's word there. Verse 9. And then God said, Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place. Or we can say be separated into one place.

Again, separation. It's almost as though God is only interested in separation. You see, it's so interesting to see this, because a lot of people today have the idea that when you ask some believers to separate out from other Christians, they think that you're an agent of the devil.

Only the devil brings separation, brother. Only the devil brings division. Well, I say, turn to the first page of the Bible, and every day you find God separating. He's separating, He's separating, He's separating.

All the time He's separating. He separated the light from the darkness, He separated the waters above the heavens from the dry land from the earth. That's what we see here in verse 9. Separation, separation, separation.