God divided the light from the darkness. He so put them
Light 153
Word of God, that is, His will and the good pleasure of it, is quick and powerful. Christ is the Word, the essential, eternal Word, and by Him the light was produced. For in Him was light, and He is the true light, the light of the world (John i. 9). The divine light which shines in sanctified souls is wrought by the power of God, the power of His Word, and of the spirit of wisdom and revelation, opening the understanding, scattering the mists of ignorance and mistake, and giving the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, as at first "God commanded the light to shine out of darkness" (2 Cor. iv. 6). Darkness had been perpetually upon the face of fallen man, if the Son of God had not come and given us understanding (1 John v. 20).
The light which God willed, when it was produced, He approved of. "God saw the light that it was good." It was exactly as He designed it, and it was fit to answer the end for which He designed it. It was useful and profitable. The world that now is a palace would have been a dungeon without it.
It was amiable and pleasant. "Truly the light is sweet"' (Eccles. xi. 7). "It rejoiceth the heart" (Prov. xv. 30). What God commands He will approve and graciously accept, and be well pleased with the work of His hands. That is good indeed which is so in the sight of God, for He sees not as man sees. If the light be good how good is He that is the fountain of light, from whom we receive it, and to whom we owe all praise for it, and all the services we do by it?
2. LIGHT AND DARKNESS God divided the light from the darkness. He so put them asunder as that they could never be joined together or reconciled. "For what fellowship hath light with darkness ?"' (2 Cor. vi. 14). And yet He divided time between them, the day for light and the night for darkness, in a constant and regular succession each to the other. Though the darkness was now scattered by the light, yet it was not condemned to a perpetual banishment, but takes its turn with the light. It has its place because it has its use. For as the light of the morning befriends the business of the day, so the shadows of the evening befriend the repose of the night and draw the curtains about us that we may sleep the better (cf. Job vil. 12). God has thus divided time between light and darkness because He would daily remind