The word ‘light’ appears approximately177 times in the Old Testament and 95 times in the New Testament. These figures only represent the use of ‘light’ inferring God and Jesus and the figures depend on the version of the Bible. The Apologetics Study Bible: Christian Standard Bible was the reference in this short essay.
The first use of ‘light’ appears in Genesis 1.3 at the Creation when God said “Let there be light.”1* Other references show God and Jesus proclaiming they are ‘light’– not like ‘light’ but, are ‘light.’ The concept of ‘light’ is profound and significant in that it symbolizes the presence of God and Jesus2* Additionally, it also represents guidance, purity, holiness, and divine nature that illuminates the path of the believers.
Furthermore, ‘light’ is much like the Holy Spirit due to its association with guidance, clarity, understanding, and righteousness. Life and salvation are connected to ‘light’ overcoming the darkness of evil and sin. Jesus is called ‘the light of the world.’ He brought eternal life saving people from spiritual darkness.3*
‘Light’ is also acknowledged as wisdom and revelation enlightening minds and hearts to comprehend divine mysteries and truths. Enlightenment and ‘light’ are not the same but are related. They share a common theme of illumination whether it be literal or metaphoric. Enlightenment can be seen as the eternal counterpart to the eternal reality of ‘light’ Enlightenment generally infers to a state of understanding or awareness after being achieved through insight as intellectual insight.4-5*
Following are examples of ‘light’ inferring God and Jesus:
John 8:12 – “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”
John 1:5 – “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
1 John 1: – “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
Psalm 27:1 – “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
Matthew 5:14-16 – “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Charismatics of Light
That holy light of God and Jesus gives to believers i Illumination, guidance, protection, wisdom, truth, divinity, hope, renewal, positivism, and transformation.
Sources
1*Microsoft Copilot, (as of December 7, 2024). [figures and definitions].
2* The Apologetics Study Bible: Christian Standard Bible. (2017). Nashville TN.
The
first recorded Sabbath is found in Genesis 2:1-3 – “Thus
the heavens and the earth were completed in their entire vast array.2 By
the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh
day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the
seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of
creating that he had done” (NIV). This was to be a day of rest for both mankind
and animals and it was set aside as holy to allow people to rest their bodies
and have time to worship and concentrate on God. The seventh day (Sabbath)
starts at sundown on Friday and concludes at Saturday/s sunset and this command
is part of the Jewish law (Zondervan, 2009, p.806). The Christian Sabbath
begins at midnight Saturday and ends at midnight Sunday. In this essay,
Following is the history of the Sabbath and how it was never authorized by God
to be changed to Sunday (Webb, 2008). [This is a matter of history, not an
attack or judgment on the Roman Catholic Church (RCC)].
There is a misconception about the Sabbath being for Jews only.
The first Sabbath came about by God’s directive following the sixth day of Creation.
Jesus said in Mark 2:27 that the Sabbath was made for Man. No ethnic group is
mentioned. Adam and Eve were not Jews and it was nearly 3,000 years from the
Creation before “Jews” appeared on the scene (Coulter, 2013). Another factor
about the Creation is that Jesus was there. “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him
nothing was made that has been made“(John 1: 1-3). Jesus declares
Himself “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2: 27-28): “Then he said
to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord
even of the Sabbath.” Paul declared
“There remains Sabbath keeping for the people of God” (1 Peter 2: 10: “ Once
you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Returning to the Old Testament, we
see that Abraham was pleasing to God because he obeyed God in all things and
James in the New Testament calls him “the Friend of God” (James 2:23). In
Exodus 16, we see that the Sabbath is being observed before the Ten
Commandments were given to Moses that included the fourth commandment regarding
the Sabbath. The people were instructed to gather manna as needed for each of
five days, but on the sixth day, they were to collect enough for that day and
the next day which would be the Sabbath.
This shows that Sabbath was still being observed since Creation
(Coulter, 2013).
The Sabbath law also reminded the Israelites that God was the
Creator and provider of all they had and by setting this day aside for a
special purpose, it gave them as humans a sense of holiness and a sense of
agelessness in worshiping their Creator (Ex. 20:8-11); Hill & Walton, 2009,
p.138). However, by the time of Jesus,
the legalism of Judaism had concealed the humanitarian and practical benefits
of the Sabbath or outright removed them (Matt. 12: 1-4; Mark 7: 1-13; Hill &
Walton, p. 138). The Jews had forgotten or ignored that the Sabbath was made
for Man and did not (or would not) understand that spiritual work that included
acts of healing and aiding the poor on the Sabbath glorified God as good works
on the Sabbath (Coulter, 2013). Coulter (2014) says the “Sabbath is a day of
blessing as it was in the beginning and a day of redemption and salvation.”
Jesus observed the Sabbath as was the custom and an example of
this is in Luke 4:16 which records his appearance at the Nazareth synagogue
where He read from the Scriptures and He journeyed to Capernaum where He taught
on the Sabbath (Luke 4:31-32). Jesus taught many times on the Sabbath. At
Creation, He had made the Sabbath a blessing for all mankind and Jesus used it
for teaching, preaching, healing, and exorcising demons, all for ridding people
of sin (Coulter, 2013). The last command of Jesus before He ascended into
Heaven was to tell his apostles to “teach and do only those things they had
learned from Him.” There was neither a mention of changing the Sabbath to Sunday,
nor did the apostle teach it (Coulter, 2013). In summary of the apostles, as an
examples: when Paul was teaching in Greece, he found that the Gentiles were
already observing the Sabbath. He also taught Gentiles to keep the Sabbath. In
Philippi (Macedonia), Luke said they went to a river on the Sabbath and taught
there (Acts 16:12-13).
It was about 300 years following the era of the apostles that the
Emperor Constantine (as a Roman Catholic}instituted Sunday (first day of the
week) as the Christian Sabbath, separating them from the traditional Sabbath
ordered by God . The Roman Catholic Church boldly announced that it moved the
Sabbath to Sunday by its own authority to commemorate the Resurrection of
Jesus. Following are quoted questions and answers from the Roman Catholic
doctrinal and catechism documents.
Question:
Which is the Sabbath day?
Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Question: Why do we worship on Sunday
instead of Saturday?
Answer: We observe
Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of
Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.
Question: Have you a way
of proving that the Church [Roman Catholic] has the power to institute
festivals of precept?
Answer: Had she no such
power, she should not have done that in which all modern religion agree with
her – she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of
week,, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which
there is no Scriptural authority (Doctrine et al., 1927, pp. 50, 147
Following are two quotes found in Coulter (2013): “The
Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath . . . There is no
Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course any Scriptural obligation”
(The Baptist Watchman, n.d.) and “The observation of the first instead of the
seventh day rests on the testimony of the church and the church alone” (Hobort
Church News [Episcopalian], 1894). There are some Protestant churches that
observe Saturday as the Sabbath such as Seventh Day Adventists and some
Baptists and others. It has been suggested by various church denominations such
as the Seventh Day Adventist that the Protestant churches apparently were so
accustomed to worshipping on Sunday, that when the separation from the Roman
Catholic Church occurred during the Reformation, they did not return to God’s
Sabbath, so they carry the baggage imposed by the Roman Catholic Church,
unaware or not. ). [Because the
Protestant Church made no objection to changing the Sabbath day, the RCC
believed they had additional authority for the change].
From the Encyclopedia Britannica under the
article, Sunday. Notice: “It was Constantine who first made a law for the
proper observance of Sunday and who appointed that it should be regularly
celebrated throughout the Roman Empire.” When Constantine pressed his pagan hordes into the
church, they were observing the day of the sun for their adoration of the sun
god. It was their special holy day. In order to make it more convenient for them
to make the change to the new religion, Constantine accepted their day of
worship, Sunday, instead of the Christian Sabbath which had been observed by
Jesus and His disciples (Crews, 2003).
Conclusion
God
blessed the seventh day following His Creation. This is the day that He chose
for us to rest and not to worry about laboring but to worship Him. This is a
scared time to fellowship with our Creator. God did not change or authorize a
change from the seventh day to the first day of the week, replacing His
ordained Sabbath. The Roman Catholic Church in concert with Constantine made
the change on its own authority. Many Protestant churches carried this custom
into their doctrines, perhaps not realizing their error.
References
Hill, A.E. & Walton, J.H.
(2009). A survey of the Old Testament.
Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan.
Life
Application Study Bible (NIV). (2005). Carol Stream,
IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
Zondervan
Handbook to the Bible (4th ed.). (2009). Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Electronic sources:
Coulter,
F.R. (2013). Which
day is the true Christian Sabbath–the true Lord’s Day: The seventh-
day of the
week, or the first day of the week? Retrieved from
Before
we delve into the study of angels, I would like to discuss radiocarbon-14
Dating and its good points and flaws. The upcoming study will cover thousands
of years and the dates are important as you will soon see in the series. Carbon
dating can be accurate to a degree, but scientists have determined that is
generally not practical to measure ages greater than 20,000 years. This is due
to radioactivity of the carbon becomes so insignificant that it is very difficult
to acquire an accurate measurement (Weber, 1982).
Some
of the reasons that cause problems with radiocarbon-14 dating start with the
assumption that the amount of carbon-14 kept a constant rate. This assumption
was made in error because factors such as Earth’s magnetic field is weaker now
and fluctuates, the Genesis flood, contamination from outside sources,
above-ground radiation, carbon in the atmosphere, and faulty assessments
(Weber, 1982; Callaway, 2012).
Ben
Panko (2016) and Malcolm W. Brown (1990) agree that radiocarbon-14 is in
jeopardy because of all the chances of errors. Errors were found as much as
3,500 years. However, a better method created by Japanese scientists promises
to eliminate the current problems. Does the current method of dating disprove
the Bible? Not a chance, because the Bible has never proved to be wrong.
Carbon dating has proven a young Earth existed in the days of Enoch and Job.
Using the Bible as a guide,
archeologists have discovered lost cities thought to be myths and carbon dated
to the correct era.
“Today, the
amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into Earth’s atmosphere is
threatening to skew the accuracy of this technique for future archaeologists
looking at our own time. That’s because fossil fuels can shift the radiocarbon
age of new organic materials today, making them hard to distinguish from
ancient ones” (Panko, 2016).
In
conclusion, biblical records were written by people who were alive at that time
and other ancient sources support those records. Although radiocarbon-14
dating is accurate to a point, errors as much as 3,500 years were found. There
is research being conducted on radiocarbon-13 for better accuracy as well as a
new method by Japanese scientists,
Sources
Brown, Malcolm W. (1990).
Errors are feared in carbon dating. New
York Times. (Author reports on interviews with several scientists
concerning carbon dating accuracy).
Callaway, Ewen. (2012).
Carbon dating gets reset. Scientific
American. Flaws are discussed about carbon dating and how a new method
developed by Japanese scientists will be more accurate.
Panko, Ben. (2016). Thanks to
carbon fuels, carbon dating is in jeopardy . . . Smithsonian. Author discusses causes of carbon dating errors and
how a new method of dating may solve the problem of accuracy.
Although the Bible was
not meant to be a book on natural science, it contains the wisdom of God and
how the ancient Hebrew people obeyed Him in caring for the human and nature’s
ecology. Professor of Philosophy Holmes Rolston, III, (1996), at Colorado State
University, looked to the Bible to
study how the ancient Hebrew people, who were in better and closer contact with
the land than modern people, cared for the lands from which they drew their
substance either as pastures for livestock, or as field crops. Furthermore, he
had an interest in learning how human nature relates to the Bible, and as to how it works and how it
should work in regard to human values. Unlike science, Rolston said, humans
must have morals to make their ecology perform correctly because they have a
conscience and do not live well with other people without the love of God and
their neighbors.
Rolston
approached human ecology from the human nature aspect rather than the
scientific view. He attributed the Hebrews with knowing that in each seed and
root, there was the possibility of reaping a crop. He also acknowledged the
wisdom of Abraham’s realization that he and Lot needed to save their pastures
from destruction from overgrazing. He made the ethically ecological decision
that he and his nephew should separate their herds of goats and sheep and find
other grazing lands.
An ethical and moral situation that Rolston also addressed was
that 80 percent of the world’s produce was eaten by 20 percent of the
population which meant that 80 percent of the people were forced to eat the
meager 20 percent remaining. This was and is a horrible ratio that became an
ethical problem. There was only so much available land on which to grow food
and this also created a human ecological problem that ended up being centered on
ethics instead of science. It became a matter of morals and loving your
neighbor. According to Rolston, Isaiah 5:7-8 is a metaphor of greedy land
owners who have acquired adjoining lands until they have gained it all. He
posits that no intelligent human ecology can happen until the people learn to
use the land justly and charitably.
Rolston further said that the Hebrews adhered to the laws of God
because they believed their fertile lands were a gift from God as their creator
and whom they must obey to flourish in their land. One of the laws was to have
one of their fields lie fallow every seventh year. This allowed the soil to
recover its minerals and become fertile again, and remains a practice even
today. Rolston regards the Bible as being about longevity and keeping the earth
sustainable and is a separation between what exists and what should exist.
Harking back to the days of Adam and Noah, Rolston reminds his
readers that God reestablished his covenant with Noah to save animal species
for future generations and mankind was to repopulate the earth in its kind and
not to be a threat to the animals. Adam and Noah, he said, were appointed
trustees over creation and by extension ourselves as stewards of the earth. He
pointed out how Job rejoiced over God’s creation of fauna and flora with the
psalmist of Psalms 104 proclaiming the same (Job 38, 39, 40 NKJV). The
ancients, while not having the scientific knowledge of today, realized the
ecology of the earth was special and needed to be respected.
Conclusion
The
Bible writers have proclaimed from
cover to cover God’s creative work and we are directed to obey Him and to love
and live within the natural world because we are intertwined and we are
intricately dependent upon nature to exist.
It behooves us to respect and care for the ecology of all concerned.
Humans must place a high value on the natural world that God provided for us
and we must become the good stewards as God commanded. Rolston again reminds us
that the story of Noah makes us aware of the various forms of life “and to the
biological and theological forces producing them. What is required is not human
prudence but principled responsibility to the biospheric Earth to God,”
(Rolston, 1996). Rolston concluded that the Bible
directs people how to live among each other in love and justice within the
natural world that he created just as the Hebrew culture saw themselves living
in harmony with nature.
References
NKJV
Study Bible. (2007). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Rolston, H. (1996). The Bible and Ecology. Interpretation, 50(1), 16-26. Retrieved from http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true e&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0000908036&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Scientific and Christian Viewpoints may appear at
First to be Opposing
Copyright 2018 by Joan Berry
Scientific and Christian viewpoints may appear at
first to be opposing, but a closer look will reveal that they are very much in
agreement and that science is not the enemy of the Biblical account of the
Creation. The Creation has always been a matter of great interest to Christians
as well as to those in the various fields of science. Admittedly, neither the
Bible nor the Creation account were written to be sources of scientific
information, but they have had an intriguing attraction for scientific
investigation that many times resulted in confirmation of what Christians have
taken in faith all along. From a Christian’s perspective, the creation account
was where God first revealed himself; the purpose of his creations; and a as a
triune God who set a plan of salvation in place that led to the New Testament
and Jesus Christ. This essay will not cover theories of evolution; the topics
will be limited to the importance of Genesis, purpose of creation, comparison
to a Mesopotamian creation myth, Biblical creation process, and examples of
agreement between science and the Biblical account of Creation.
“In the beginning . . .,” the first words of Genesis
set the stage to explain the origins of our planet, nature, mankind, and God’s
purpose for us. God did not need humans for company or a new place to live, he
created the Earth and its inhabitants as a means to have a relationship and
dwell with mankind who was expected to worship him and take care of the
paradise he created for them (Hill & Walton, 2009, pp. 23, 58). God showed
his presence as he created the cosmos as a place he wanted to be, and then Adam
and Eve lost this special presence of God when they sinned, and God again
introduced his presence in the covenant with them as to what their lives would
bring to them (Hill & Walton, 2009, pp. 77-78; Gen. 3 NIV).
God could have destroyed his creation of mankind for
their disobedience, but in his mercy and grace spared their lives and banished
them from the garden. In the New Testament Adam is referred to as a type of him who was to come (Rom.
5:14) indicating that in some way that Jesus is connected. According to the
NKJV (2007), we should consider that both came into the world under unusual
circumstances as sinless people: Adam as the head of the old creation and Jesus
as the head of the new creation and as such God had planned for our salvation
from the beginning (p.2). It should be mentioned here that God is a triune God
(God, the father (Is. 40:28), Jesus, the son (Col. 1:16), and the Holy Spirit
(Job 33:4). There are many other
references and these are but a few examples: Matt. 29:19 and II Cor. 13:14.
During the creation process in Genesis 1:26, there is a reference … let us make man in our image, according to
our likeness, which most Christians also take to mean a triune God head is
involved. Some scholars think that the plural of god was often used during this
epoch but meant one god, but the other verses throughout the Bible seem to
refute that and Genesis implies that God being a spirit, was not talking about
angels or other created beings.
Genesis has similarities to Sumerian and Mesopotamian
creation myths and because these texts are older, some believe Genesis was
developed from those sources, but there are major differences (Hill &
Walton, 2009, p 81). The creation myths are the product of pagan societies that
assigned gods to everything, but in Israelite religion there was the one and
only God. For example, there was no moon god or goddess, God made the moon for
light and a way to note the change of seasons – function. Mankind was created
in the image of God and the world was created for them. In mythology, mankind
was an afterthought and presented as a slave to the many pagan gods (Hill &
Walton, 2009, p 83). Genesis presents mankind as very special: the crown of
creation, made in the image of God, and granted a priestly identity at creation
(Skillen, 2011, p 123). Skillen (2011)
posits that this was a revolutionary break with mythologies and the pagan bond
was broken forever; mankind had, under God, dignity, purpose, and freedom and
was empowered (p. 123).
Genesis is
literature and the record of the “beginnings” including the foundations of Old Testament theology and was not meant
to be a source of scientific information, however archaeologists use its
content to locate ancient ruins and
scientist consult it in their
investigations of nature and the cosmos (Hill & Walton, 2009, p 78). It
must be remembered that science uses methods to study material things (matter
and energy) and expresses results in materialistic terminologies – the
mechanics of how something works, but not the meaning and purpose (Lucas, 2005,
p 140). An example given by Lucas was
that two people were standing on a beach; one was a scientist and the other was
a Boy Scout. They both saw a bright light flashing at intervals at sea. The
scientist was excited by the intensity and distance and wondered what its
source could be. The Boy Scout saw it as an SOS signal and ran for help and
saved many lives. The scientist could not get beyond the technical aspect of
the light’s properties to wonder who was holding the light and why – the
primary reason (p 140). The point could
be made that God gave us the capacity to understand that science is an
acceptable and often necessary way to find the truth about nature. The Bible
has its limitations which does not
include detailed information about scientific matters for example a course in
astronomy, but we have been made in God’s likeness and are able to understand
the truths in his created order which is something that modern scientists have
come to realize (Lucas, 2005, pp. 143-145).
Creations that scientists have pondered are many and
several will be briefly discussed here as examples of their investigations
including some that are a little controversial.
In the Bible firmament means heavens, and the root word refers to
something hammered out as metal as a bracelet (NKJV, 2007, note p. 4). Using
this as a background for Gen. 1:6, scientists believe the separation of the
water above and below is a reference to the asteroid belt which separates the
outer gaseous planets from the terrestrial planets (inside planets) and forms a
circle as a bracelet. From 1974-1982, the
National
Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) probes, Voyagers and Pioneers, detected ice
and water on Neptune and Uranus, Saturn’s moons and rings, and Venus. And we
know from recent robot probes on Mars that there is water there, also (NASA
Missions, 2012 updated).
In
Genesis 2:7, God made man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into
him. This is thought of as molding man from clay (NKJV, 2007, note p. 6).
Beginning in the 1960s, scientists discovered that clay has the properties of
being able to store and transfer energy and contains some of the building
blocks of life. This was further confirmed in 1985 by the American Research
Center (Klein, n.d.).
Following
are a few examples from a compiled list of scientific proofs of the Bible by J.
N. Clayton (n.d.):
A place in the north void of stars
was found in the 19th century and the Earth is held in place by
invisible forces was discovered in 1650 (Job 26:7NIV):He spreads out the northern skies over empty
space; he suspends the earth over nothing. Arcturus and other stars
move through space was discovered in the 19th century (Job 38:32
NIV).
Isaiah, in the 8th century BC, declared the earth
was round, discovered in modern times in the 15th century (Isaiah 40:22):
He sits enthroned above the circle of the
earth and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens
like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
Blood is necessary to life discovered in the 17th
century (Lev. 17:11 NIV): For
the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make
atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for
one’s life. Only three centuries ago the complete meaning of what blood
meant to life was discovered by William Harvey (Merrill, 1991, pp. 35-36).
Psalms 8:8: the
birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of
the seas. Oceans were discovered to have natural guided streams (or paths)
in 1854.
Genesis 1:2 NIV: Now
the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Earth was in nebular
form initially, discovered in 1911.
Conclusion;
Even though science confirms what we already have accepted as truth through God, we must remember that upon learning through science out of curiosity does not eliminate the revelation of the nature of God; and that science tried to explain things without God being involved. It is important to understand that God created (Hill & Walton, 2009, p 96). The purposes of Genesis were to present God as the Creator of all, to give the account of origins of the cosmos, and proclaim the assumption that God existed and that he planned from the beginning to lead us to Christ and salvation (Lucas, 2005, p 151).
Book sources:
Hill, A. E., & Walton, J. H. (2009). A survey of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Life Application Study Bible –New
International Version (NIV). (2005). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
Merrill, E.H., (1991). An historical survey of the Old Testament (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic
New King James Version Study Bible (NKJV), (2nd ed.), (2007). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc
Electronic sources:
Clayton, J.N. (n.d.). Scientific proof of the Bible. Retrieved from http://www.kingjamesbible- online.org/Scientific-Proof-of-Bible.php
Klein, D.R. (n.d.). Organic chemistry. Retrieved from http://www.skeptictank.org/files//atheist2/isue11b.htm.
Lucas, E. (2005). Science and the Bible: are they incompatible? Science And Christian Belief,-28fb-46d3-96f9-a006edcc4842%40.
NASA Missions. (2012 updated). Voyager and Pioneer missions chart. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Skillen, J. W. (2011). The seven days of creation. Calvin Theological Journal, 46(1), Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6c6d3a7c -69de-48ad-863b-bbe6e56cc20a%4111-139.