What did God create on the fourth day of creation week?
"And God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day" (Genesis 1:14–19).
Plants need light to grow. God created them to produce seed after their own kind, making them capable of reproducing themselves, as we saw on day three; but He also made them to filter air through a process called photosynthesis. This process uses the sun to filter carbon dioxide and water into food for the plants and air for everything else. Notice here again how God has lovingly prepared the creation for living creatures.
On day one God created light, but it was not the light we are so familiar with—not the sun, or the moon, or the stars. God created all of those on day four. There are a few things of note here which bear mentioning before the conclusion of day four.
First, as with everything else in creation, God commands into existence something that does not exist (Romans 4:17). God says, "Let there be lights…And it was so." It should never be casually overlooked that God speaks and things that we can barely fathom appear out of nothing. Our sun, for example, is a ball of hot hydrogen and helium burning at around 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, or 15 million degrees Celsius. Just imagine the power of God who simply said, "Let there be…And it was so." This is the God of creation. And He didn't just create the sun, He placed it exactly where it needs to be. At 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth, the sun is precisely the right distance to support life on our little planet. Any further, we would freeze and die; any closer, we would burn. Here, on the fourth day of creation, God creates the sun, the moon, and the stars.
The greater light (the sun) rules the day; fulfilling the role which the light created on day one has filled so far, the sun now dominates the period of time we call "day." This is the same period of time which was called day from the beginning, but now, it is dominated by the sun. The lesser light (the moon) rules the night. Of course, modern science has shown us that the moon itself does not give off light; rather it reflects the light of the sun, and it does so in such a way that it can provide enough light for us to move around at night. God has placed these two lights in the sky "to separate the light from the darkness" and to establish them for His creation as "signs and for seasons, and for days and years." These are the same days as those which were established before the sun and moon were created.
We cannot overlook the rest of what was created on day four, but it's easy to miss. Astronomers believe there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 billion stars in the galaxy. To put that in perspective, a U.S. penny is 1.52mm thick. If you stack just one billion of them on top of each other, the stack would be around 1,000 miles high. What an astounding number! And each star is different from the next, with varying colors, sizes, chemistry, and even burning at different temperatures. Other than our sun, the nearest star to us is over four lightyears away. What an amazing aspect of creation! The beauty is visible in the night sky and astounds the visual senses; the distance confuses the mind; the variety tickles the creativity of our hearts. All of this, in three words, "and the stars." In comparison, God dedicates an entire chapter to the creation of mankind (Genesis 2), and yet, for the vastness of the galaxy, the variety of the stars, the multitudes of planets, and the sheer unimaginable volume of space in between them, God uses three little words. In the Hebrew it's only two words. Why? Because God created them for us. They glorify His name, but they are not the pinnacle of God's creation; that blessing is reserved for humanity. For it is humans alone who are created in the image of God.
Finally, as with each day of creation, "And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day." All is perfect according to God's perfect standard, and here the fourth day is concluded. Four literal days, and we can't even count the number of stars which are represented in the text by three little words.
Copyright 2011-2024 Got Questions Ministries - All Rights Reserved.
