21. LET THERE BE LIGHT

The first few verses of the Hebrew Scriptures reveal a metaphor deserving of much consideration and study. Genesis chapter one, verses one to five, states:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day (Genesis 1:1-5, emphasis added).

It is highly significant that the metaphor of light and darkness, Day and Night, is the first theme presented to us in the Bible. These opening words reveal not only the creation of the earth but also the grand theme of the great controversy between God and Satan—the war that had begun in heaven when iniquity was found in Lucifer, and which was about to be introduced on earth through Adam’s choice to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Light and darkness are the metaphors chosen by God to help us see the truth which has been hidden from our eyes by the deceptions of our common enemy. As we have seen, these deceptions have had primarily to do with God’s character.

Notice the same use of these two words in the following verse from the New Testament:

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6, emphasis added).

 

In this verse, Paul makes a direct reference to Genesis chapter one, verse three. God commanded “light to shine out of darkness” on the first day of creation when He said “Let there be light.” “Light” shining “out of darkness” implies that darkness was already there, and since darkness represents Satan (“God is light, in whom there is no darkness at all,” 1 John 1:5), this signifies that he had already rebelled against God and His law. His presence at the creation of the earth is revealed in the above five verses through the word “darkness.” He was already actively operating by his law of Good and Evil, which was spreading confusion about God throughout the entire universe.

What was the light God commanded to shine out of darkness, according to 2 Corinthians 4:6? It was “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” This means that on the first day of creation, Jesus, “through whom also He [GOD] made the worlds, (Hebrews 1:2)” was revealing “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” to the universe and to the future human race. The light that He commanded to shine out of darkness (Satan’s accusations against God’s character) was the very process of creating the earth—this was “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” What does this mean?

The Bible indicates that it was the creation of the earth itself that revealed that Jesus, along with the Father, was the Creator. The intelligent beings in the universe knew that the Father was the Creator, but they didn’t know that Jesus too was a Creator. The very act of revealing Jesus as the Creator became necessary for the precise reason that no one knew He was the Creator. How can this be, you might ask?

If the reader recalls, the war in heaven was between Michael and the dragon:

And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that ser- pent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation [THE CROSS], and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb [THE CROSS] and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Revelation 12:7-12, emphasis added).

Who is Michael? This passage itself reveals who He was: He was God’s “Christ,” “the Lamb” who conquered and destroyed the lies of “the accuser” by revealing the true character of God through His own blood, “the blood of the Lamb:”

 

Inasmuch then as the children [HUMANITY] have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself [THE LAMB, CHRIST] likewise shared in the same, that through death [THE CROSS] He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14, emphasis added).

In heaven, Michael and Lucifer stood next to each other as covering cherubs. Although Michael was God—and the word Michael means “who is like God?”—He took on the form of His creatures, just as He did here on earth when He became a man.

The war in heaven was fought between the two covering cherubs, the two protectors, guardians of the law. One of them had turned against the law and wanted to change it. Michael, the Son of God, would not go along with Lucifer’s pro- posed changes. Michael “loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” He knew—He, the true Lawgiver—that His law was as eternal as He and the Father were eternal.

A time came, after iniquity was found in Lucifer, that God gathered all the angels of heaven in order to reveal Christ true identity, and the Father Himself made the announcement:

The King of the universe summoned the heavenly hosts before Him, that in their presence He might set forth the true position of His Son and show the relation He sustained to all created beings. The Son of God shared the Father’s throne, and the glory of the eternal, self-existent One encircled both. About the throne gathered the holy angels, a vast, unnumbered throng—“ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11.), the most exalted angels, as ministers and subjects, rejoicing in the light that fell upon them from the presence of the Deity. Before the assembled inhabitants of heaven the King declared that none but Christ, the Only Be- gotten of God, could fully enter into His purposes, and to Him it was committed to execute the mighty counsels of His will. The Son of God had wrought the Father’s will in the creation of all the hosts of heaven; and to Him, as well as to God, their homage and allegiance were due. Christ was still to exercise divine power, in the creation of the earth and its inhabitants. But in all this He would not seek power or exaltation for Himself contrary to God’s plan, but would exalt the Father’s glory and execute His purposes of beneficence and love {PP 36.2, emphasis added}.

“The King of the universe,” the Father, “summoned” all the angels “that in their presence He might set forth the true position of His Son,” Michael. They had known Him as one of their own, an angel, a covering cherub. Now they see His true identity for the first time, and the creation of the earth would confirm God’s announcement. It was thus that the Father said:

For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You”?
And again:

“I will be to Him a Father,

 

And He shall be to Me a Son”?
But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.”
And of the angels He says:
“Who makes His angels spirits
And His ministers a flame of fire.”
But to the Son He says:
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness

[INIQUITY];
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

And:

“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;

Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will not fail.”

But to which of the angels has He ever said:
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Hebrews 1:5-13, emphasis added)?

Why is God making a distinction between His Son and the angels, if not for the reason that the Son had been under the guise of an angel prior to the announcement? God had not revealed His Son’s true position prior to this announcement. How is this possible? you might ask.

According to the Bible, when Jesus created, He spoke, and things came into being.

By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (Hebrews 11:3, emphasis added).

“The worlds were framed by the word of God,” and “things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” This suggests that prior to the creation of the earth, Christ’s creative process was an invisible one. Perhaps one could even say that the universe was made incognito by the Son—no one knew it was made by the Son.

Once Satan challenged and defamed God’s character it became of paramount necessity (not only for the salvation of the earth, but of the entire universe) that God reveal His Son’s true nature. Why? Because He was the only One who would be able to unmask the lies of the deceiver, and reveal the Father’s pure character of agape love. Jesus’ credentials must be disclosed and His authority established. Truth was the only weapon God used in this cosmic war.

The Bible does disclose Christ’s true position in various places:

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:8-9, emphasis added).

…For by Him [THE SON] all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16, emphasis added).

Satan had spread lies about God; thus, God commanded that truth, light, be given, and He did it through His Son.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they (Hebrews 1:1-4, emphasis added).

God “made the worlds” through His Son, Jesus Christ. The Son is “the express image of His person.” And the Son upholds “all things by the word of His power.” It is through the “word of His power” that Jesus creates—“Let there be…”

This first piece of evidence, given at the beginning of the Bible, reveals who Christ is and what His true position is. But it also reveals who God is—His character—because Christ is the “express image of the Father.” How are both the Father’s and the Son’s characters revealed in verse one?

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” (Genesis 1:1). The Father did this through His Son, who had the responsibility of executing all the work of creation. In the beginning, right in verse one, the Son is revealing that He is the Creator. Jesus is the Creator— this is the light, the truth about who He is, “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning,” James 1:17. Jesus is “the Father of lights.” What this means is that He is the ultimate light regarding who the Father is. Jesus is “the light, the way, and the life.”

 

“I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in dark- ness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12, emphasis added).

In Genesis chapter one, verse two, darkness sets in—this is not the work of the Creator. Darkness is death and destruction, and is the work of the Destroyer; but God is the light, the giver of life; He is the Creator, not the Destroyer. The “light” is restated again in verse three: “Let there be light; and there was light.”

What light did God create on the first day if the sun was created later, on the fourth day? Which “light” is referred to in verse three? This light could only be coming directly from God, and since this light is not a light we can see with our eyes today, as we can see the rest of creation (we don’t see it today in a literal sense as we see the light from the sun) this light could be metaphoric.

If this is true, then the light God created on day one was this: that as God rolled up His sleeves, so to speak, as He began the process of creating this planet, He be- gan revealing who He was, giving the light, the truth, about Himself. This was the light the universe had never before seen with their own eyes—the Creator at work.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:20).

We are told that the universe, angels and intelligent beings, the “stars” and “the sons of God,” shouted for joy when they saw God the Son in the process of creating the earth:

“…Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements? Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,

When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
(Job 38:2-7, emphasis added)?

We saw earlier that the Bible refers to Jesus as “the cornerstone the builders rejected” and we saw the meaning of the word “stone” and its meaning in the context of erecting God’s kingdom. Here, in Job 38:6, and Genesis 1 is this “cornerstone” being laid. In the beginning, when the sons of God shouted for joy, it was because they saw Jesus—the metaphoric Cornerstone—creating. By creating, Jesus was laying down the corner stone, the foundation of all our understanding about God. He was laying the groundwork upon which the entire “building” of the knowledge of God was to be erected—He was giving “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” He was showing the entire universe that God is the Creator. And as He did so, the universe stood in awe and “sang together,” and “shouted for joy.” What a chorus that must have been! Someday we too will hear them singing, and what a joy that will be! We will join them, and sing together the praises of our Creator!

If we follow the trail of the word “light” in the Bible we will find all the evidence needed to exonerate God from all of Satan’s false accusations. Here is exhibit number one for the defense: “God is light.” It is doubtful that anyone will dispute that throughout the Bible the word “light,” when used metaphorically, is always used in reference to God. The numerous uses of this metaphor creates such a complex network of information that it is hard to keep up with its complexity!

The Psalmist declares regarding the Creator:

For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light (Psalm 36:9).

He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday (Psalm 37:6).

These two verses tell us that God’s light is intricately connected with life, with righteousness and with His merciful justice. God’s light is His righteousness, and His righteousness is His justice, which is entirely opposed to Satan’s “justice.”

In Genesis chapter one, verse two, we see darkness already at work— “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.” What is this darkness, if God is light? This darkness can only represent Satan and his principles. And we must always keep in mind that Satan’s darkness contains a confusing and deceptive duality—a mixture of a supposed light and darkness. In fact, it is this confusing duality that causes the earth to become “without form” and “void,” as we shall soon see.

How are we to interpret Genesis chapter one, verses one, two and three? Did God create the earth in verse one, and then did Satan destroy it in verse two? And then did God begin recreating the earth again in verse three? This does not make sense—especially if we look at the Hebrew meaning of the words “without form” and “void” in verse two.

These words imply that there was life, during this period of darkness, intelligent life, which at some point ceased to exist. The only way to think of these two opening verses in a logical way, then, is to think of them as the shortest and most concise prophetic history of the great controversy. This means that verses one and two encapsulate the history of the earth from creation to the millennium—seven thousand years. God created the earth, verse one, and in seven thousands years Satan and his system of Good and Evil destroyed it, verse two. God was predicting what Satan’s Knowledge of Good and Evil would do to the earth and its inhabitants. 

Verse three then starts at the beginning again—now we are going to get the details of the story. It is as if God first gives us the big picture, and then He breaks it down for us to see the smaller parts. And the big picture is: God created the earth and Satan destroyed it.

When God created the earth, Satan had already rebelled in heaven. God is pure light, but darkness was already present through Satan in the beginning of our earth’s history. The proof is that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was in the Garden of Eden. Then what happens in verse two is that an enemy comes in and destroys the earth: “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep” (Genesis 1 2). This process of the destruction of the earth takes six thousand years. In the seventh thousandth year earth lies in complete and ultimate chaos.

The apostle Peter says:

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8, emphasis added).

Creation week is not only a literal week, from which we get our weekly cycle, but a symbolic and prophetic period of seven thousand years—“with the Lord one day is as a thousand years.” Each day of creation week equals one thousand years of human history. In this one-day-for-a-thousand-years week, God revealed to us, in a nutshell, the history of the earth in the con- text of the great controversy. Thus the literal creation week is also one whole symbolic week showing us the history of the great controversy.

Each day of creation week ends with the phrase: “So the evening and the morning were the second day.” “Evening and morning” represent night and day, which represent darkness and light. This symbolizes that throughout the six thousand years Satan’s and God’s principles, the “two principles contending for the supremacy,” would run parallel on the earth. There would be darkness and there would be light.

On day one God divides light from darkness—He reveals He is a creator. He is indicating that as we see destruction taking place throughout the ensuing millennia, we are not to become confused, thinking that this is His work. By dividing “the light from the darkness” and calling “the light Day,” and the darkness “Night,” God was separating His work, of giving life, from Satan’s work of destroying life. This lays the foundation, the corner stone, for our understanding of His character.

On day two, God divides the waters above from the waters below—the flood took place in the second millennium (the only day Moses did not write “And God saw that it was good”). On day three, dry land appears and vegetable life springs up—the lower life forms. Land, earth, signifies solid ground, as opposed to water, which is unstable. This is the rise of God’s truth on the earth as it was given to the descendants of Abraham. Israel was to spread the knowledge of God as vegetation covers the earth and Israel appeared on the third millennium. Israel’s limited knowledge of God’s character is symbolized by vegetation—a lower understand- ing, because the Sun of Righteousness had not yet come to earth.

On day four, God creates the sun, the moon and the stars — this represents Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, who came to earth at the end of the four-thousandth year to “give the light of the knowledge of God.” The moon, which reflects the light of the sun, represents the early church, out of which the seven churches of Revelation arise. These great lights in the firmament divide the light from darkness: truth from error, the Tree of Life from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

On day five, God creates the water creatures and the fowls of the air. This is the period of the early church and the beginning of the dark ages. What is interesting, is that water creatures and fowls of the air are symbols used in the Bible to depict Satan and his angels—the great fish that swallowed Jonah (Jonah 1:17), Leviathan (Job 41:1), the dragon and “every unclean bird” (Revelation 18:2).

In the beginning of the sixth day we read:

Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth ac- cording to its kind (Genesis 1:24-25).

This is, again, symbolism related to Satan. In Romans chapter one the exact same symbols are employed:

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things (Romans 1:22-23).

These are symbols of pagan gods. Many ancient gods were worshipped as birds (Isis and Horus), four-footed animals (Baal, Osiris), and creeping things (numerous snake gods). The sixth thousandth year begins with the Dark Ages and goes into the Renaissance and then the Age of the Enlightenment. Creep- ing things (serpents) are another symbol of Satan, who was behind these different movements. The Age of the Enlightenment is filled with teachings from the ancient gods of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Their teachings were entirely based on the reward and punishment doctrine of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. During this time, the church of God, the Tree of Life, was underground, in the wilderness (Revelation 12:6-14).

Then God made man in His image at the end of the sixth day. This is also symbolic that it is at the end of the great controversy (the end of six thousand years) that God’s people are sealed with His true character. The fact that on the sixth day God creates both the creeping things and man is significant. This represents the polarization, the dividing of mankind into both sides of the great controversy. The division of the people of the earth is explained in Revelation through the sealing and the mark of the beast. The sealing signifies those who are on God’s side—they are made in His image; they have the seal of the Father in their foreheads—His character of unconditional, impartial agape, merciful love. They have the same seal that Lucifer used to have.

Those on Satan’s side receive the mark of the beast. His people are marked in that they have chosen his principles of force and violence and their characters reflect his moral law of reward and punishment.

The seventh-day is the millennium, the Sabbath of creation week—a thou- sand years of rest for the earth, which lies in utter destruction, void and form- less. Those who have sided with Satan, who have had “no rest day or night” (Revelation 14:11), are also resting in death for a thousand years. Before this last “day” begins, at the end of the sixth thousandth year, Jesus comes and takes with Him all who have accepted God’s unconditional grace. They shall reign with Him for a thousand years, (Revelation 20:4), while the earth lies desolate. This is a painting put together with broad strokes and the Bible develops these themes in greater detail in different places.

A little study of the word “was” in Genesis chapter one, verse two, affirms these conclusions. This verse says “the earth was without form, and void;” the Hebrew word hâyâh—was—also means became. Hâyâh means:

to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (Strong’s Dictionary).


So we could possibly restate this verse this way: “the earth became with- out form, and void,” or “and it came to pass that the earth became without form, and void.” This opens up a complete new line of understanding How did it “come to pass” that the earth became “without form and void”? If we look at the words “without form” and “void” we will be able to show how.

“Without form”—tôhûw—means:

to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), i.e. desert; figuratively, a worthless thing; adverbially, in vain: — confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness (Strong’s Concordance).

Notice the word confusion in that definition. “Void”—bôhûw—means: to be empty; a vacuity, i.e. (superficially) an undistinguishable

These two words imply that there used to be life before where now are only ruin and desolation. So why did the earth reach this state of formless- ness and voidness? Because for six thousand years Satan’s reign of violence brought the earth to a state of complete ruin—he achieved this through his mixed principle of Good and Evil—confusion.

Now, these two words, tôhûw and bôhûw, are also used later on in the Bible to depict the earth’s condition at the end of Satan’s rule, at the end of six thousand years and during the millennium.

The prophet Jeremiah stated:

ruin: — emptiness, void.

I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form (tôhûw), and void (bôhûw)
And the heavens, they had no light.
I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled,

And all the hills moved back and forth.
I beheld, and indeed there was no man,
And all the birds of the heavens had fled.
I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were broken down
At the presence of the Lord,
By His fierce anger (Jeremiah 4:23-26, emphasis added).

The prophet Isaiah also described what will happen to the earth after six thousand years of living by Satan’s moral law of Good and Evil:

Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes it waste,

Distorts its surface

And scatters abroad its inhabitants.
The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered,
For the Lord has spoken this word.
The earth mourns and fades away,
The world languishes and fades away;
The haughty people of the earth languish
(Isaiah 24:1, 3-4, emphasis added).

Isaiah goes on to tell us why the earth is in this condition:

The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, Because they have transgressed the laws, Changed the ordinance,
Broken the everlasting covenant.

Therefore the curse has devoured the earth,

And those who dwell in it are desolate.
Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned,
And few men are left (Isaiah 24:5-6, emphasis added).

The earth was destined for self-destruction from the moment Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The reason the earth suffers destruction is because its inhabitants have gone away from God’s law of love, “they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant” by living by Satan’s violent law of Good and Evil. As a result we have become like Satan, and like him, we became destroyers. It is we, through his mixed principle, who are destroying the earth.

Notice what God said to Noah regarding the people living before the flood:

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Genesis 6:11-13).

The earth was filled with violence through man, who, without exception, had become completely steeped in violence. The earth itself, our physical world, was “filled with violence through them.” The cause of its destruction is clearly not God, even though Moses wrote so.

Our self-destruction is a direct result of transgressing God’s law of agape love, of breaking the eternal, “the everlasting covenant,” the nonviolent law of love. The complete destruction of the earth is a direct result of putting God’s law aside and replacing it with Satan’s law of arbitrary reward and punishment.

Isaiah goes on to describe how all joy is taken away from the people of the earth, the “city of confusion.” Interestingly, in this verse, the word “confusion” is the same word we saw earlier—the Hebrew word tôhûw, translated in Genesis chapter one, verse two, as “without form.”

The city of confusion (tôhûw) is broken down;

Every house is shut up, so that none may go in. There is a cry for wine in the streets,
All joy is darkened,
The mirth of the land is gone.

In the city desolation is left,
And the gate is stricken with destruction.
When it shall be thus in the midst of the land among the people,
It shall be like the shaking of an olive tree,
Like the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done (Isaiah 24:10- 13, emphasis added).

The prophet then sums up what will happen to our little planet as a consequence of adopting Satan’s confusing moral law:

Fear and the pit and the snare
Are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth.
And it shall be
That he who flees from the noise of the fear
Shall fall into the pit,
And he who comes up from the midst of the pit
Shall be caught in the snare;
For the windows from on high are open,
And the foundations of the earth are shaken.
The earth is violently broken,
The earth is split open,
The earth is shaken exceedingly.
The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard,
And shall totter like a hut;
Its transgression shall be heavy upon it,
And it will fall, and not rise again.
It shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord will punish on high the host of exalted ones,
And on the earth the kings of the earth.
They will be gathered together,
As prisoners are gathered in the pit,
And will be shut up in the prison;
After many days they will be punished.
Then the moon will be disgraced
And the sun ashamed;
For the Lord of hosts will reign
On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
And before His elders, gloriously (Isaiah 24:10-13, 17-23, emphasis added).

 

Here are depicted the kings of the earth, ruling the people through Sa- tan’s law. They are “exalted” within the hierarchy of Good and Evil and they rule the earth through force and violence. “They will be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit”—“the pit” in biblical language means death. Isaiah says that Satan shall be brought down to Sheol [THE GRAVE], to the lowest depths of the Pit” (Isaiah 14:15). But “the pit” implies more than just death—it implies eternal death. The Psalmist states:

That he should continue to live eternally, and not see the Pit (Psalm 49:9).

Satan and his followers will be spared the full experience of the second death until after the second resurrection. His followers will be “shut up in prison”— death—and “after many days they will be punished”—after a thousand years. At the end of the millennium they will be resurrected, and it is then that they will receive the full brunt of the condemnation of Satan’s law—“after many days they will be punished.” They will not be punished by God, but God will allow them to fully reap the results of their choice of clinging to Satan’s punitive moral law. Notice Jesus’ words regarding their resurrection, the second resurrection:

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (John 5:26-29, emphasis added).

“Those who have done good” have accepted love, grace and mercy as the ruling principles of their lives, regardless of their religion, race, status, or age. “Those who have done evil” have rejected agape love; they have chosen to live by Satan’s violent moral law. Who will punish them? The very system of judgment they use; they will condemn themselves. Theirs is the resurrection of condemnation—they will be condemned by Satan’s condemning system, which they have espoused. They “are condemned already,” John 3:18.

In Revelation, John expands this picture and says:

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.” And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh (Revelation 19:17-21, emphasis added).

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottom- less pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-6, emphasis added).

This entire history of the earth is what Genesis chapter one, verse two is describing. This is the history of sin from its beginning to its end. Then in verse three God divides the light from darkness. Light is again contrasted with darkness when God points to the two Trees in the midst of the Garden—the Tree of Life, light, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, darkness.

What has kept the earth in complete confusion is the fact that Satan’s dark- ness is comprised of a contradictory duality: Good and Evil, light and darkness. To take away all confusion, Jesus Christ gave a distinct and precise message to the Apostle John. He first gave this message to His disciples and now at the end of the world, He is opening our minds to the same. This message is of particular importance at this exact point in history—God is giving it because He knows we desperately need the pure and undefiled revelation of His character.

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

In his writings, the apostle John uses two words to describe God’s character. The first is “light” (1 John 1:5) and the second is “love” (1 John 4:8). Love is the essence of God, and light is a symbol of this truth in relation to His character of love. What does “there is no darkness at all in God” mean? How does the Bible, not human beings, define darkness?

If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:6-7).

If say we love God—that we have fellowship with Him—but walk in darkness, we lie not only to others but also to ourselves. Walking in the light as God is in the light, “we have fellowship with one another”— that is, with God. Then we also have fellowship with human beings, because God’s unconditional, impartial love transforms us.

The knowledge of God always comes first. From this knowledge springs our relationship to our fellow human beings. Likewise, the first four commandments have to do with knowing and appreciating God first. The remaining six portray how we treat our fellow human beings.

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:3-11, emphasis added).

According to these verses “light” is love and “darkness” is hatred. Agape love is the fruit of righteousness and hatred is the fruit of Good and Evil. We hate because we don’t have unconditional love, and we don’t have unconditional love because we operate by Good and Evil. Good and Evil then is darkness. When John says that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all,” he must mean that God’s love is pure and contains absolutely no particle of darkness from the domain of Good and Evil.

“No darkness at all” also implies that there was a need for this message—a false belief had existed before truth came in. It implies people had thought there was darkness in God. Jesus Christ’s message was to inform the world that it had seriously erred in attributing any aspect of the kingdom of darkness onto God’s character.

Darkness is complete in itself. When used in reference to darkness, the words “at all” are a deliberate over-emphasis. “No darkness at all” asserts we are not to have any mixture in our view of God—at all. It is imperative that we not attribute both the light (so-called) and the darkness of Good and Evil onto His character.

John’s message was to a people who believed, from the Bible, in a God tainted with darkness. Jesus taught that darkness is a character trait of the evil one and not of the Holy One. This is the message humanity needs to hear. The apostle Paul states that Darkness has to do with an incorrect knowledge of God’s character:

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6, emphasis added).

This passage presupposes that darkness prevailed in the minds of the people regarding God, and in particular in the minds of those who were given His oracles, the Old Testament. The ‘light’ given here is “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Thus Christ said:

I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life (John 8:12).

Jesus Christ, the light of life, removes the darkness—He removes our false understanding that God is involved with punishment and death. This has been the predominant belief of the human race. The glory of God is His goodness, His mercy, His essence of agape love, which is reflected in the person of Jesus Christ who said, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). And the apostle John says the following concerning John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world (John 1:6-9, emphasis added).

By saying that Jesus Christ is “the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world,” John implies that a false light had been given until the “true light” came. The healing of the man who was blind from birth was a merciful act to

undo Satan’s work in that man’s life. But his healing also has great spiritual significance for the whole human race because blindness is a metaphor for the darkness that has permeated the human mind.

Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.

 

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world’ (John 9:1-5).

Like us, the apostles were imbued with the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man sinned nor his parents sinned.’” What was Jesus saying? Weren’t this man and his par- ents, sinners like the rest of us? Aren’t all human beings sinners?

What the apostles were really asking was, “Whose sin had caused such punishment to come upon this man—his or his parents’?” They believed his blindness was a punishment from God. They were thinking by the law of Good and Evil, the conditional law of merit/demerit, reward/punishment.

Although both the man and his parents were sinners, Jesus wanted to get the message across that his blindness was not a punishment from God. His answer denies that God works by the law of arbitrary reward and punishment. In- stead, He shows that what Satan had meant for evil, God could turn around for good—“that the works of God should be revealed in him.” This is God’s glory.

By reversing Satan’s destructive works, in this case blindness, Jesus revealed that God is not the cause of illnesses or infirmities. Had He been, Jesus would not have acted contrary to His Father’s will. Jesus never worked contrary to the Father; He was in complete harmony with Him.

Most of us are born spiritually blind from birth, blind to the true knowledge of God’s character. Jesus came to open our eyes and give us spiritual sight so that we can see the unconditional love of God for us. This is the dividing line between eternal ruin and eternal salvation:

There are but two classes in the world, — the class that know God, and the class that know him not. The spiritual man belongs to the first class, the natural man to the other; and it is according to our estimate of the character of the Father and the Son that our class is determined. It is natural for the man whose soul is flooded with the love of Jesus, to see in God his father and his friend. He can and will teach others in harmony with the light which shines into the chambers of his heart. He will teach men the one way from sin to righteousness, revealing to the world the character of Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. Through the plan of redemption, a way has been provided whereby the sinner may be led from the depths of ruin upward to the paradise of God. This provision has been wrought out through an infinite sacrifice on the part of the Father and the Son. The love of God is expressed to man in the priceless gift of his Son; but Christ was given to a lost world, that we might be saved, not in our sins, but from our sins {RH February 10, 1891, Par. 2, emphasis added}.

Isaiah had prophesied that Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, would correct our wrong view of God. The apostle John quoted the prophet’s words at the beginning of His ministry:

And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles: the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned” (Matthew 4:13-16, emphasis added).

Here “darkness” is equated with “shadow of death.” Those who sit in “the region and shadow of death” are in darkness regarding the character of God. The “shadow of death” is governed by the death principle. If death is darkness, it cannot be of God, who is light and “in whom there is no darkness at all.”

The phrases “have seen a great light” and “light has dawned” both refer to Jesus. He revealed that “darkness” and “shadow of death” do not belong in God’s Kingdom. The philosophers of the Age of the Enlightenment claimed that there can be no freedom without contrasts—that light and darkness must exist at the same

time. This is exactly what Satan had claimed in the beginning of his rebellion. Emmanuel Kant, for instance, believed that the fall of man represented a shift from instinctual behaviour to conscious rational thought, thus allowing humanity to have true choice. What Kant meant by “instinctual behaviour,” was the single, pure principle of agape love that ruled Adam before he ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and by “rational thought” he meant the new mind- set of Good and Evil, which after eating from the forbidden Tree, Adam passed on to the entire human race. But since the fall, agape is no longer our instinctual behaviour—Good and Evil is now our default. Furthermore, conscious rational thought, that is, the choice between Good and Evil, is a mirage. Such choice does

not really exist, because both Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin.
To Kant, the idea of contrasts, having Good and Evil, was better than God’s original design—the singleness of
agape love. To him, having a mind ruled by Good and Evil enabled us to have rational thought, rather than just being mere robots, governed by a single principle. Thus in his opinion, the fall was absolutely necessary, even though he acknowledges that it may have caused evils and vices that were not known to mankind prior to the introduction of the duality of Good and Evil. Regardless of the evils, to him this new condition was preferable to the previous innocence and ignorance that existed before the fall.

In a book that discusses the philosophers and poets of the Age of the Enlightenment, M.S. Abrams quotes Kant’s assessment of mankind’s fallen state, from the essay Conjectural Origin of the History of Man:

The first step out of this condition was, on the moral side, a fall, and on the physical side the result of this fall was a host of evils in life (con- sequently, a mode of punishment) never known before (Meyer Howard Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 1971, p. 205)

Kant could see that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brought in “a host of evils in life” and he could even see that it brought in punishment (although he, like the rest of us, must have thought it was God who was punishing us), and yet he still thought this new status quo was better than the previous one.

Another thinker, William Blake, states:

Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell (William Blake, The Early Illuminated Books, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 144).

And Schiller writes:

This fall [Abfall] of man from instinct—which to be sure brought moral evil into the creation, but only in order to make moral good therein possible—is, without any contradiction, the most fortunate and greatest event in the history of mankind (Meyer Howard Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 1971, p. 208, 209)

Thus in the world’s reasoning, if God is light and only light, what choice does He offer? Human wisdom argues that in order for true choice to exist there must be contrasts. This means that there must be light and darkness in order for true choice to exist. And yet the Scriptures tells us that in God, there is no darkness at all:

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

Lucifer devised an idea he considered brilliant. This idea filled him with pride, for he thought it was the ultimate wisdom: he devised a principle that contained both “light” and “darkness.” However, the biblical metaphor of light and dark- ness refers to not only truth and error, but life and death as well. Since his Tree of Knowledge is responsible for death, what this means then, is that his principle that mixes a so-called “light” with darkness turns out to be entirely “darkness.”

But Satan claimed that his law offered freedom of choice, otherwise none of the angels would have accepted it. Good and Evil did appear to represent two different concepts, because it seemed to convey the idea that a choice existed within the principle itself. But inherently, Good and Evil could not offer the choice it appeared to suggest, because both its Good and its Evil culminated in chaos, destruction and death. What choice is there between two so-called opposites that end in death? True choice is between life and death which means that true choice is between the Tree of Life and Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Had Satan taken control of the universe, freedom would have been a thing of the past. If he had absolute authority, he would have had absolute, autocratic control over the universe’s government, and as such he would not have allowed anything else to exist aside from his law of Good and Evil. He would have done away with God Himself if he could.

Satan’s law guarantees that there would be no available alternatives, because lack of freedom is inherently established through his principle’s arbitrary nature. That is why the Bible characterizes his kingdom as slavery. Knowing this, Jesus came to give us the true alternative, the way of life, without which we would be eternally lost.

In the Bible, Egypt is a type of sin and iniquity, which is the principle of Good and Evil. Israel’s slavery in Egypt symbolizes the slavery of the entire human race under Satan’s principle of reward and punishment. Why was Egypt chosen as a symbol of Satan’s government? There are some very good reasons for this.

In ancient Egypt, “wisdom” was directly given to the Egyptian priests by the gods. The gods of Egypt taught them the law of Good and Evil and called it “civilization.” Reward and punishment is the law that ruled Egypt, and the proof is found in their symbols: Pharaohs are depicted as holding the “crook and the flail”—symbols of the reward and punishment system. Their head regalia depict the cobra (serpent)in at- tack mode. Humanity has been held in slavery to the Knowledge of Good and Evil since Adam and Eve partook of it—we are all in spiritual Egypt, shackled as slaves to our carnal, dualistic moral nature of Good and Evil since birth.

Moses, who took the people out of Egypt and to whom the law was given, was a type of Jesus, the Lawgiver Himself. Jesus would lead the people away from the condemning law of the serpent and would bring them into the safety of God’s law of mercy—His kingdom of unconditional, impartial love—the Promised Land. By giving us the truth about the God of agape love Christ can free us from Satan’s system of reward and punishment and lead us to Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, where agape love and righteousness reigns.

God grants freedom of choice to all His intelligent beings. The proof is that with- out freedom, Satan would not have been able to introduce the deadly Knowledge of Good and Evil in the universe. But Jesus promised, as we embrace the truth about God’s character, that we would be set free from Satan’s deceptions that lead us to death. Christ gives the truth, but our choice to believe and accept it still remains.

The truth Christ came to gives is the fact that God is life, and as such is not involved in any taking of life. Remember the definition of “good” and “evil:”

Behold! I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil.

Life equals good, and death equals evil. Clearly, God is the God of life. Thus, according to this biblical definition, if God was involved with death in any way, God would be evil. The Bible does point to the being that has the power of death, however:

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15).

It is our hope that the evidence provided in this book will help the reader to make choices that lead to hope, peace, love and life. God loves each one of us with an infinite love, and it is His will that we will be eternally together with Him.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8, 38 to 39, emphasis added).

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 3:17-19).

God’s unconditional agape love as revealed in Jesus Christ is a firm foundation from which nothing can shake us. The knowledge of His immutable love will enable us to get through the difficult prophetic times ahead of us and to meet Him face to face without fear.May we all accept the light of His unconditional agape love as revealed in Jesus Christ.