Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.“

Genesis 1:5

God doesn’t associate His Name with anything evil (Psalm 23:3). His Name is only associated with things that are good, positive, and beneficial. In the Hebrew of this verse, God’s name is written in the phrase naming light, but only a pronoun is written when darkness is referenced. Darkness exists, it is a thing, and it is given a proper place; but Light is beneficial. Darkness’ place is only in the terrestrial spheres. In the spiritual, heavenly realms, darkness has no place (Revelation 21:23).

This verse is where God names the parts of a DAY: ‘Daytime’ and ‘nighttime’. He again seems to be speaking forward (Romans 4:17), calling and giving permanence to the fundamental system of days which includes the rotation of the Earth, which won’t really come into play until God creates the physical luminaries (the suns) later on – which will bring in orbits and gravitational pulls. Even though those celestial bodies do not yet exist, there are those who believe the rotation of the Earth started here.

Prior to this point (verses 3-5), creation was unstructured. It was undefined. As God speaks permanence to things, structure comes into being. Calling them by a name indicates their boundaries when they assume their form. With day and night spoken out, God establishes TIME. Once every part of the globe has experienced an evening and a morning, one DAY – as a segment of time – has passed or been completed. This brings with it the notion of ‘before’ and ‘after’. It is also the building block of ‘seasons’.

‘Day’ can now be a spiritual unit of knowledge, opportunity, and blessing (Ephesians 5:8-10); an identification with light; and a unit of time that includes the hours of daylight and nighttime.

‘Darkness’ can now be a spiritual unit of ignorance, limitation, and bondage (Ephesians 5:11-15); an identification with the absence of light; and a unit of time restricted to the hours without daylight – ‘night’. It can also include abstract concepts like death, blindness, and nudity.

With the unit of time established, the Hebrew calls it ‘one day’ NOT ‘first day’. The reason – grammatically and conceptionally – is that ‘first’ implies it is one of a series. ‘One’ indicates a thing exists without the existence of a second (or more) – which is the case here. This was a day, but there is nothing in the verse to indicate more will happen – which makes me think that rotation of the globe hadn’t started yet.

Because God names them evening and then morning – the symbol of how He brought light to darkness and order to chaos (vs 1-4) – the Jews reckon their unit of a single day as beginning at evening and ending at the next evening: from sunset to sunset.

It is comforting that God is with us in both daytime and night (Psalm 42:8). His faithfulness endures at ALL times, and is renewed every morning (Lamentations 3:23) – ensuring that it lasts throughout our WHOLE day.