The well-known phrase fiat lux, the Latin for “Let there be light” originates in Gen 1:3. From the Latin verb fiat, “let it be done,” comes the English noun fiat, “a declaration or order made by singular authority.” In current English usage fiat usually has a negative, sometimes arbitrary connotation: “The dictator issued a fiat claiming ownership of all sugar plantations.” In Gen 1:3, however, fiat lux represents the very first communication from the eternal Creator of the universe. LET THERE BE LIGHT! Lux derives from an Indo-European root that gave us leuko, as in “leukocyte” (white blood cell) and eventually our word “light.”
Directness of thought and action
The full sentence consists of just four short Hebrew words. Rendered literally but stiffly, it would read, “Let be light, and was light.” When so few words say so much, the impact resounds. The first act of the creation week comes with the utmost possible brevity and therefore the maximum impact. The declaration is short, direct, and pithy.
God, by fiat, opened the beams of heaven. Nowhere else in the creation account does anything come into being by the mere agency of God’s spoken word. In all other instances where God says, “Let there be,” another verb (usually “made” or “created”) follows. Here the simple expression of will produced the desired result, and without any apparent physical source. Of course, God is light, and thus needed no source. Though the sun will not show up for three more days, the creation account seems comfortable with this arrangement. Light has an origin greater than Earth’s sun.
If God had said “Let there be light,” followed by the sentence, “And God created light,” how would that differ from “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light”? Physically the act would look the same to a hypothetical observer, but the text wants to emphasize the directness of the action.
Context of “Let there be light”
At the end of the Prologue, God, manifested in the Spirit, hovers over the surface of the water. Earth at this time is completely covered with water, so when the text states that the Spirit of God hovers upon the face of the water, it means that God hovers over the earth. With nothing before Day One to mark any kind of time, it would be fruitless to speculate “how long” before the first day God created the earth. The text reveals three facts:
- God created the earth before Day One.
- The earth is dark and desolate, but God is present.
- Then God brings light to the earth.
These three facts connect the hovering of God’s Spirit with the fiat that brings light. The last statement of verse 2, “the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters,” leads into the first statement of verse 3, “And God said, “Let there be light.” Imagine the darkness, then suddenly light! God is present upon the darkened earth. At the revelation of his will our planet becomes full of his glory. A hypothetical observer can now see the water-covered globe.
Separating light from darkness
The first of the original deficiencies is corrected when darkness gives way to light. Next, God does something remarkable: he separates, or divides, the light from the darkness. Possibly the light diffuses throughout the visible heavens so there is no longer any darkness, but rather a grayish twilight-like haze exists until God separates the light from the darkness. The light makes the earth visible, but is diffused into a subdued glow that will not suffice for the divine plan. God needs yet to separate the light. I think, however, the text presents a different picture of this separation.
Why does God even need to separate light from dark? Aren’t light and dark completely different already? Don’t they naturally separate one from another? What do we learn from this activity?
God’s separating light from dark is the first of two steps to define the function of light. On the fourth day, he will further localize the light into discrete heavenly bodies. For now, God must first separate the light from the darkness. Also, the act of separation itself is a key feature of the creation week, as well as the entirety of Genesis. God is continually separating and selecting to achieve his ends.1Separation is inherent in the activities of creation. Making a thing implies that it be defined, at least in part, by what it is not or what it is separated from.
The notion that the light diffuses dimly through the darkness until God separates them may or may not be the case. However, the one clue we have to the process of the separation is not spatial, but temporal. In the cycle of light and dark on the earth, night is dark and day is light. Dark and light occur in the same space, separated in time as Earth rotates on its axis. Darkness and light will naturally fall on different areas of the planet when Earth begins to rotate. Thus, the separation of light from the dark might be a way of referring to Earth commencing its rotation.
Time
Given a rotating Earth and the phrase “evening and morning,” God establishes the concept of time by using alternating periods of light and dark at the same locality. Light follows dark follows light and so on. Evening is listed first (evening and morning) because evening represents the dark that was already in place when light appeared.
As a by-product, the separation of light from dark creates the concept of “time.” Time is an abstraction, but it can only occur in a physically ordered universe. The creation of light, and its subsequent separation from darkness, installs a parameter that perhaps as no other defines the limitation of our mortal physical world. We live in a world defined by the passage of time. The eternal realm has no reckoning of time. The declaration of “evening and morning” brings the single most defining limit of our existence — time. It runs (for us) only one way, always forward, never backward. Time is the fundamental feature that distinguishes the realm of earthly life from the realm of eternal life.
The activity of separating signifies something profoundly spiritual. The text records this act to teach us that once light exists, it needs also to be specified so that its full role and function will be fulfilled. Darkness is the prevailing natural condition into which God brings the light. However, simply having light there won’t do. He also has to specify its role and location so that it can fulfill its purpose.
Naming and approving
Part of specifying the role of light includes giving it a name. God makes the light appear, and he gives it the name “day.” The darkness (the natural state, or the absence of light) becomes “night.” Thus light is named and designated so it can function, awaiting further developments on the fourth day.
God’s approval introduces a new concept. Seeing that the light is good does not involve any creative action. It does not need to be in the text to move the account along. Declaring something good is a value judgment.
The text reads that God sees that the light was good. This is the only one of the six “it was good” statements that specifies the object of God’s approval. The remaining five times this formula appears, God sees that “it” is good; the “it” being absent but understood in Hebrew.2This unique construction emphasizes the connection between God and light. The light is good because God is light and God is good.
Thus the first day ends, with evening coming first, then morning. Evening, or dark, the natural state that prevailed until God commanded light, has to come first, then the dawn of the first morning as God directs his light upon Earth. Presumably, and inferred from the phrase “there was evening and morning,” but not stated in the text, the first day ends after one rotation of the planet. At the close of Day One, the earth has light, but it is still without form and void. The work will continue.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One