51. LIGHT WAS CONCEIVED IN CREATION

51. LIGHT WAS CONCEIVED IN CREATION

Let us paraphrase Genesis 1:1-3:

When God began to create [the duality][i] heaven, and earth, the earth was [materially] formlessness, [spatially wandering, rationally mad, intellectually without order, spiritually and visually totally dark] and [virgin] emptiness. Darkness [was the veil that] covered the surface of the [boundless] chaos. And the Spirit, [Breath, Wind], proceeded to heal her.  [In lifting the veil of darkness from her], God said [of this union]: “Let Light begin to be.” And Light [was conceived in her and thus] began to be.

Of this portion of Genesis Milton writes in Paradise Lost as he addressed Christ:

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born,

Or of the Eternal Coeternal beam,

May I express thee unblam'd? Since God is Light,

And never but in unapproached Light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee

Bright effluence of bright essence increate

Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,

Whose fountain, who shall tell? before the sun...."[ii]

Duality: There has been considerable discussion over the supposed duality in Christian religion. Many have declared that the duality did not exist in the Old Testament and that it was totally foreign to the true religion of the Jews. It did not need, however, to be imported as some would have it, from Babylon, or Greece, or Zoroastrianism. Although the duality is not apparent in our English translations, it is apparent in the dual forms of the Biblical Hebrew, even of the first verse of the Bible.

The duality, then, is the source of the possibility of the chaotic conditions of the earth and therefore of evil. 

It is the reconciliation of earth and heaven and their reunion that brings about the blessings of order and peace. This perfect unity is the source of, as well as the result of, Light.  Earth and Heaven are reunited in earth's conception of Light. In the fullness of time that Light that was conceived in the beginning comes to full maturity in the Perfection of Light, Jesus.

The prophet Isaiah saw this beautiful truth:

The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.... And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, ....he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:1b, 5-6) 

As Light, Christ is the “Everlasting Father” of Isaiah 9:6. The Hebrew is ’âbiy-‘âd, translated by Gesinius as “perpetual father.” Since the word ‘âd means “time,” a possible translation would be “Father of Time.” Christ was both Abraham’s progenitor and his Seed, as also He was of David. [The Seed is only activated by Light.] As Abraham’s seed produced the fleshly Israel, and also Christ according to the flesh, so Christ is the progenitor of the spiritual Israel for it is His bloodline that survived the destruction of the Jews in the first century. No other Jewish or Israeli bloodline or official genealogy survived. As Christ raised and ascended and is alive forevermore, He perpetuates the bloodline of Abraham forever and is the source of the Holy Seed that produces the new birth, bringing sons and daughters into the kingdom and producing, perpetuating and increasing the spiritual Israel, the Light of the world, Jesus. (Matthew 5:14)

Revelation means “Perfection of Light.” While God is unapproachable Light, (1Timothy 6:16), Christ is revealed Light. The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, then, is the written manifestation (that which makes manifest is light), of Jesus Christ and shows Him as the "Perfection of Light."

The purpose of Light, or Revelation, is to show, (cause to see), and this purpose is the one given for the Book in its title sentence: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass."  This is parallel to the passage from 1 Timothy 6:14b-16, "The appearing [revelation] of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in His [referring to God in verse 13] times He [God] shall shew [reveal]."

The Light that God commanded to be conceived or begun in the beginning waxed brighter and brighter throughout the revealed Scriptures until, at last, it reached its perfection in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The whole Bible could rightly be named "The Revelation of Jesus Christ." But while this Light was conceived in Genesis, it was at that time hidden, but in the incarnation it was revealed, and in the Spirit it is perfected. Taking this title sentence as the key to the interpretation of the Book, we are required to interpret its symbols as symbols of Light.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” LIGHT!

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[i] The duality is indicated by the dual form for waters, mayim, and the double-dual form of heavens, shâmayim. We see in verse 6 that there were waters both above and below the firmament. The waters above the firmament were in the heavens. The alphabetic letter mêm in its oldest form indicates “waters” and appears as a representation of the waves of the sea. The form of the word mayim may be the reduplication of the mêm in order to represent the double-waters of both heaven and earth.

   The early forms of the alphabetic letter shin is thought to represent two teeth, and the meaning perhaps represents the two sets of teeth, the upper and the lower, as the idea of essential apposition. The shin could therefore have been added to represent the upper realm of waters, shâmayim, as opposed to the lower waters, mayim.

[ii] Marjorie Nicholson, Milton, John, A Reader's Guide to His Poetry, (New York, Octagon Books, 1971).

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context.

My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com  or www.xulonpress.com.

 Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net .