Did God Create Light before the Sun? (Genesis 1:1-19)

The Bible seems to say that God created light four days before He created the sun. How can that be? Is that correct?

Most people who pick up a Bible and start reading it are confused by the sequence of events described in the first chapter. It seems to say that God created light on the first day of the week, but God didn’t create the sun until the fourth day.

I gave you the first key to solving this mystery in the last lesson. I showed you that the Bible actually says that God created the whole universe—including the earth, sun, moon, and stars—before the first day began. Let’s read that again, in Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God created the universe, the earth, the sun, moon, and stars sometime in the distant past.

Then, verse 2 describes the earth right before the first day:

And the earth was empty and desolate, and darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God spread out on the surface of the waters.

Here, before the first day, the earth is covered with water, and there, on the surface of the ocean, it is dark. The sun and moon are already in the sky, because they were created in verse 1. But from the surface of the ocean, the light can’t be seen. Perhaps there is a thick cloud of volcanic ash surrounding the earth. Then, God begins to renew the earth.

Genesis 1:3-5:

And God said, “Let light be.” And light was. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated between the light and the darkness. And God called the light “Day,” and the darkness He called “Night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—day one.

It might help for you to imagine that you are on a little boat in the middle of this dark ocean, and then God says, “Let there be light.” At that moment, the dark clouds above you disappear and suddenly you can see the light of the sun.

Now, one thing you should note is that it says, “there was evening and there was morning one day.” Every day has two parts. One part is dark and one part is light. In this chapter, the first part of each day begins with evening, and the second begins with morning. In the Bible, a day always begins at sunset.

So if you are imagining yourself in a little boat, the first thing you would see is the light of sunset. Then it is dark, and the next morning the sun rises, and at sunset the first day is complete and the second day begins.

Let’s read about the second day beginning in verse 6:

> And God said, “Let an expanse be in the middle of the waters, and let it be separating between waters and the waters.” And God made the expanse, and it separated between the waters which were under the expanse, and the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. And God called the expanse “Heaven.” And there was evening, and there was morning—a second day.

What is being described here?

God creates an expanse and calls it heaven. This expanse is the sky or air around the earth. If you are still imagining yourself on that little boat, now you have air to breathe. Below the sky is the water in the ocean, and above the sky you can see clouds, which are the waters above.

In the Bible, the word heaven is used to describe three different places. The first heaven is the sky where the birds fly. The second heaven is outer space where the stars and planets are. And the third heaven is where God lives, which is somewhere outside of the physical universe.

Now let’s read about the next day, beginning in verse 9:

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be collected to one place, and let the dry land be seen.” And it was so. And God called the dry land “Earth,” and the collection of the waters He called “Seas.” And God saw that it was good.

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees making fruit according to their kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth.” And it was so. And the earth brought out vegetation, seed-bearing plants according to their kind, and trees making fruit according to their kind, whose seed is in itself. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—a third day.

Here on the third day, we see the water being drawn down, exposing the mountains and dry land, and plants appearing on the earth.

Now, we come to the fourth day, which confuses many people. Let’s read about it, beginning in verse 14:

And God said, “Let lights be in the expanse of the heavens, to make a separation between the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the great light for the rule of the day, and the small light for the rule of the night—and the stars. And God gave them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over day and over night, and to make a separation between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—a fourth day.

The confusing is in verse 16, where it says, “God made the two great lights.” This is obviously describing the sun and the moon. Most people think this means that God created the sun, moon, and stars here on the fourth day.

But that isn’t what it says. Notice that it says, “God made the two great lights.” It doesn’t say God created the two great lights.

The word create and the word make don’t mean the same thing.

The word create means to create something out of nothing.

God created the sun, moon, and stars out of nothing in the beginning. That is described back in verse 1.

Here, on the fourth day, the sun and moon are already up in the sky, and then God “makes” them. What does that mean?

If you make a clay pot, you don’t create it out of nothing. You start with the clay and form it into a pot. If you made your bed this morning, you did not create your bed. You simply arranged the sheets or the blankets on your bed. In the same way, when the Bible says God made two great lights, it doesn’t mean that God created them at that time. It means that they already existed, and He arranged them. So on the fourth day God arranged the sun and moon in a way so that the cycle of months and years would be just right.

Now let me tell you something that you have probably never heard. If you go way back in history, you will find that ancient civilizations everywhere used the same, simple calendar. Every month had 30 days. There were 12 months in a year. And every year had 360 days.

The Egyptians originally had a 360-day year, but later they changed it 365 days and created a myth to explain where the five extra days came from. The ancient astronomical records of the Babylonians consistently record that they year was 360 days long. Soon we will see that in the early chapters of the Bible they used a calendar that had 30 days in each month. Eventually all societies changed their calendars, but some remnants of the original calendar survived.

For example, the most holy site in Islam is a building called the Kaaba, in Mecca. Before the Muslims cleansed the Kaaba, there were 360 idols there—one for each day of the year—even though the year didn’t have 360 days at that time. We still divide circles into 360 degrees, one degree for each day of the ancient year. Soon we will see that the length of a year in Bible prophecy is also 360 days.

Was everyone in the ancient world confused about the length of months and years? Or were the sun and moon perfectly arranged to create a perfect calendar, that later got disrupted?

Regardless of the original length of a year, what God actually created on the fourth day was a system of time. A calendar.

So we have solved the mystery of the fourth day. God didn’t create the sun and moon on the fourth day. He simply arranged them to establish a calendar.

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So far we have seen that those who say the Bible is scientifically inaccurate have simply misunderstood what the Bible says. Tomorrow we will examine the Bible’s account of the creation of life and compare it to the theory of evolution.