How could there have been light before God created the sun and the moon? (Genesis 1:14–16)
The sun was not created until the fourth day, yet there was light on the first day (Genesis 1:3). What's up?
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Asked September 13 2021
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Jack Gutknecht
Supporter
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Tim Maas
Supporter
The Bible says that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). I would therefore say that God exists (and had existed since eternity past) in a separate dimension that is not part of our space-time continuum. Before God began His creative work, that continuum was characterized by darkness. God's first creative act was to transfer the light of His dimension to ours, maintaining the pre-existing darkness but placing the light and darkness in separate, alternating domains. This light was capable of producing vegetation on the earth, but did not take the specific form of the sun and moon (which, of course, derives its light from the sun) until the sun was created on the fourth day.
Francisca Rios
Supporter
The word of God was the light. God's Spirit was in the darkness until he spoke it into existence with the words, "Let there be light!" Let him see, open his eyes, and he began to make wonders from the heavens to the earth.
Ben Jones
Supporter
There are two different sources of visible light (not including Jesus Christ who is the light of the world) and they are natural light and artificial light. The passage in question cannot refer to Jesus because Jesus is God and not a created being, so the passage must be speaking about created light only. Natural light sources produce light naturally without any human involvement. Examples are the sun, the stars, lightning/electricity, fire, lightning bugs (fireflies) jellyfish and glowworms. Artificial light is light made by humans. Examples of this are light emitting diodes (the light in your cell phone or television screen and LED light bulbs), incandescent light bulbs, flashlights, fire, lasers, electricity and fireworks. Then we have Infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) light which are the two types of invisible light (invisible to us but not to God.) So we should not confuse "light" being only from the sun as many people do. Electricity comes in two different forms, natural electricity as in lightning and static electricity and generated electricity from electrical generating plants powered by water, fusion (atomic power) or by coal, gas, or oil. So as you can see, while we usually think of light as coming from the sun, there are many more light sources in the world that are not directly from the sun.
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