© 2013 by Tom Boynton (editing by Kathy Boynton)

Have you ever contemplated what it was like before God created the universe? God’s description of creation reveals an earth initially shrouded in darkness. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep…” (Genesis 1:1-2). But, on the very first day of creation, God blessed it with a physical illustration of His eternal spiritual glory. Scripture records, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). This light was an illustration of Jesus who would later come as “… the light of the world” (John 8:12). As God proceeded, He placed a great variety of life upon the earth. This included man, created in God’s own image, to enjoy physical light with his eyes, and the greater light of God’s glory with his spirit. But, through Satan’s temptation, man disobeyed God, and God’s wrath was upon him. All of humanity became bound by sin. Man lost all ability to comprehend or enjoy God’s bright eternal glory.

Man’s loss of spiritual life was grievous and complete. Relatively few would ever escape its consequences of eternal darkness and torment. Only payment of incredible price, by a perfect man, could satisfy God’s wrath and restore man’s fellowship with God in the great light of His perfect holiness. Millennia later, God, in love, sent God His Son to be born of a virgin to die, as that perfect man, to redeem His people who would be given hearts of repentance. Shortly before Christ’s sacrificial death, He gave us an interesting peek, back into the past, as He prayed to His Father, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). As Jesus, the light of the world, prepared to suffer His bloody and agonizing sacrificial death at Calvary, He anticipated continuation of His own glory with the Father. This is the same glory God had illustrated, on that very first day of creation, when He created light!

When you contemplate the baby Jesus, will you recognize that He is God, born to die, as the light of the world, to save sinners? Will you ask Him to forgive you and give you eternal life in the glorious light of His presence?

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