4. "And God said, let there be light, and there was light." First the activity of the Holy Spirit and now the spoken Word. No less than ten times in this chapter do we read "and God said." God might have refashioned and refurnished the earth without speaking at all, but He did not. Instead, He plainly intimated from the beginning, that His purpose was to be worked out and His counsels accomplished by the Word. The first thing God said was, "Let there be light," and we read, "There was light." Light, then, came in, was produced by, the Word. And then we are told, "God saw the light, that it was good."
It is so in the work of the new creation. These two are inseparably joined together—the activity of the Spirit and the ministry of the Word of God. It is by these the man in Christ became a new creation. And the initial step toward this was the entrance of light into the darkness. The entrance of sin has blinded the eyes of man’s heart and has darkened his understanding. So much so that, left to himself, man is unable to perceive the awfulness of his condition, the condemnation which rests upon him, or the peril in which he stands. Unable to see his urgent need of a Savior, he is, spiritually, in total darkness. And neither the affections of his heart, the reasonings of his mind, nor the power of his will, can dissipate this awful darkness. Light comes to the sinner through the Word applied by the Spirit. As it is written, "the entrance of Thy words giveth light" (Ps. 119:130). This marks the initial step of God’s work in the soul. Just as the shining of the light in Genesis I made manifest the desolation upon which it shone, so the entrance of God’s Word into the human heart reveals the awful ruin which sin has wrought.
5. "And God divided the light from the darkness." Hebrews 4:12 tells us, the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." This is not a figurative expression but, we believe, a statement of literal fact. Man is a tripartite being, made up of "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thess. 5:23). The late Dr. Pierson distinguished between them thus: "The spirit is capable of God-consciousness; the soul is the seat of self-consciousness; the body of sense-consciousness.’’ In the day that Adam sinned, he died spiritually. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body; spiritual death is the separation of the spirit from God. When Adam died, his spirit was not annihilated, but it was "alienated" from God. There was a fall. The spirit, the highest part of Adam’s complex being, no longer dominated; instead, it was degraded, it fell to the level of the soul, and ceased to function separately. Hence, today, the unregenerate man is dominated by his soul, which is the seat of lust, passion, emotion. But in the work of regeneration, the Word of God "pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," and the spirit is rescued from the lower level to which it has fallen, being brought back again into communion with God. The "spirit" being that part of man which is capable of communion with God, is light; the "soul" when it is not dominated and regulated by the spirit is in darkness, hence, in that part of the six days’ work of restoration which adumbrated the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, we read, "And God divided the light from the darkness."
6. "And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters . . . . and God called the firmament heaven" (Gen. 1:6, 8). This brings us to the second days work, and here, for the first time, we read that "God made" something (Gen. 1:7). This was the formation of the atmospheric heaven, the "firmament," named by God "heaven." That which corresponds to this in the new creation, is the impartation of a new nature. The one who is "born of the Spirit" becomes a "partaker of the Divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). Regeneration is not the improvement of the flesh, or the cultivation of the old nature; it is the reception of an altogether new and heavenly nature. It is important to note that the "firmament" was produced by the Word, for, again we read, "And God said." So it is by the written Word of God that the new birth is produced, "Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth"(Jam. 1:18). And again, "being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23).
7. "And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself" (Gen. 1:9-11). These verses bring before us God’s work on the third day, and in harmony with the meaning of this numeral we find that which clearly speaks of resurrection. The earth was raised out of the waters which had submerged it, and then it was clothed with vegetation. Where before there was only desolation and death, life and fertility now appeared. So it is in regeneration. The one who was dead in trespasses and sins, has been raised to walk in newness of life. The one who was by the old creation "in Adam," is now by new creation "in Christ." The one who before produced nothing but dead works, is now fitted to bring forth fruit to the glory of God.
