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Gen_1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Ver. 3. And God saith, Let there, &c.] He commanded the "light to shine out of darkness." {2Co_4:6} "He spake the word, and it was done." {Psa_33:9; Psa_148:5} {a} Creation is no motion, but a simple and bare emanation; which is, when without any repugnancy of the patient, or labour of the agent, the work or effect doth voluntarily and freely arise from the action of the working cause, as the shadow from the body. So God’s irresistible power made this admirable work of the world, by his bare word, as the shadow and obscure representation of his unsearchable wisdom and omnipotency.
And there was light.] This first light was not the angels, as Augustine would have it; nor the element of fire, as Damascene; nor the sun, which was not yet created, nor a lightsome cloud, nor any such thing; but the "first day," which God could make without means, as Calvin well observeth. This light was the first ornament of the visible world, and so is still of the "hidden man of the heart," the new creature. {Act_26:18} The first thing in St Paul’s commission there, was to "open men’s eyes, to turn them from darkness to light," &c. To dart such a saving light into the soul, as might illighten both organ and object. In which great work also, Christ’s words are operative, together with his commands, in the mouths of his ministers. "Know the Lord; understand, O ye brutish among the people," &c. {Psa_94:8} There goes forth a power to heal, as it did in Luk_5:17; or as when he bade Lazarus arise, he made him to arise, so here the word and the Spirit go together; and then what wonder that the spirit of darkness falls from the heaven of men’s hearts, "as lightning". {Luk_10:18} So as that they that erst "were darkness, are now light in the Lord," {Eph_5:8} and do "preach forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light". { åîáããåëçæå , 1Pe_2:9}
{a} Dei Dicere est Efficere. "of God to speak is to accomplish"