Dr. Anthony Raimondo

Close your eyes what do you see? When we lower our eyelids down over our eyes, we see darkness. Only when we give ourselves a visual suggestion word does our mind bring an object into view. Let us perform a simple test. Close your eyes and what you see is darkness now image a red apple. You see the red apple in the midst of the darkness. Now picture a banana it appears as if it is on a blackboard at school. In both of these scenarios, our conscious mind produces something in the darkness, so it was at the beginning of all things.

Open your Bible to the very first page Genesis chapter one. Follow with me, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,” Notice the next part of that sentences carefully, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” It says the spirit of God. It does not mean God was hovering over the waters. We have the second part of the Holy Trinity hovering over the water. The Holy Spirit is referred to as the Lord and Giver of Life in the Nicene Creed.

The next critical point in the second verse is the word water. Here our first thought is if there is no earth where is this water. We must first understand that the book of Genesis is not a science chemistry thesis. Therefore, the reference here is to the third part of the Trinity Jesus Christ. The water here is the first physical element. Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:4 NIV) This is living water God in physical form. We have a description of the Trinity in the first three verse of the Bible. God is saying, “Here I was in the heart of Darkness.”

The image of the apple in our mind is still in the darkness. We don’t see the apple clearly. In our mind’s eye, we may have difficulty in understanding its three-dimensional share. To see it more clearly we need to give it light. In verse 3 we read, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Jesus the Living Water brought fort the light. “Through him, all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:3 NIV) In verse 4 of Genesis, “God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. “ These two verses are the basic foundation for everything thing that follows in the Bible. You might ask me how is that possible. The first key is that God does not see Darkness as good. We know this because God said Light was Good. The second thing he does is separate Light from Darkness. You may say to yourself, “So What, how is that the bases for the rest of the Bible.” The answer is straightforward. It creates a duality there are now two primary conditions. ‘bonum et malorum’ in Latin translates to ‘Good and Bad. From the word malorum we get malum meaning evil, the result is ‘good and evil.’ Therefore, light represents good or righteous and darkness would represent evil. Thus when God said let there be light, He is also stating let there be righteousness. In 1 John 1:5 we read, “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.”

In the first 4 verses of the Bible we have six key points, 1 God is creator, 2 His Spirit was hovering, second part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, 3 Light God presence in a physical form, which is Jesus, 4, separation between light and darkness, duality and 5 there is no darkness in God. The sixth point is not directly mentioned, but is in the subtext of the first four verse is God’s purpose for creation, to eliminate darkness, and to create a world of light. As we continue to read the chapter, the duality continues being expressed. Day, and night, above and below, land and sea, greater and lesser, creatures that fly and those that don’t, livestock and wild animals, finally even work and rest. There is another faint clue that goes unnoticed after only some creations does God says and saw that it was good, while others there is no mention. We read in verse 27 and 28 the following, “So God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Notice after the creation of humanity there is no mention that he saw man as good. However, Genesis chapter one does conclude that God saw the total of His creation to be very good

Moving on to chapter two of Genesis and a closure look at Adam and Eve. What did God use to create man? First what is dust good for a new study has found that household dust purifies the air by neutralizing harmful ozone, according to The Canadian Press. Also, researchers from the American Chemical Society found that dust containing high amounts of squalene, a component in human skin, can reduce up to 15 percent of the ozone in the air. I want to repeat this, dust containing high amounts of squalene, a component in human skin, can reduce up to 15 percent of the ozone in the air. One more interesting detail from the science community is that 70 to 80% of dust is human skin. It is written in Genesis 3:19, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust, you will return.” The next time you find some dust in your home a part of you is already returning to dust of the earth.

What is also interesting in the method that God uses to create, He creates everything in chapter one except mankind with the spoken word. “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” (Genesis 2:7 ) Here is another critical component of God’s purpose. Adam, the first man, is a duality. The dust has no life or light in it therefore without the breath of life from God, man is dead. Adam to live needed the breath of life from God, without it man dies and returns to his natural state of dust. Humankind from the very beginning was created to be dependent on God. For darkness to be no more, it would need to take on the nature of light. In doing so, darkness is overcome by becoming one with the light. Therefore the first part of God’s plan was to create a duality. Out of that duality, a tree grows in the garden that was both beautiful to look at but very poisonous to eat.

Since Adam was made from the dust of the of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side they had no light in them only darkness. Since darkness was a part of their nature they would die, for the Lord God said, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17 KJV) The Lord God uses the word surely, meaning definitely or certainly. It implies that Adam and Eve would die. There is also another clue in Genesis 3:22 it is written, Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and also take from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” We have already read that God’s breath gave Adam life. Therefore it is God who would sustain a man’s life and determine the length of it. Follow with me Gen. 6:3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

Adam is made of dust, dark matter and the breath of life from God has a dual nature. As a result of Eve’s dark side, she is tempted through the sin of envy before she disobeys by eating of the fruit and passing it on to her husband. The serpent hits Eve hot button of jealousy. Let’s read it together, Genesis 3:5-6 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. Eve could not resist temptation because of her dark essence, for Adam and Eve had no light in them. Darkness is the root of evil so it produced envy in her heart, to glorify herself into a god; this was the first sin. The taking and the eating of the forbidden fruit was the consequence of envy, producing the action of disobedience which caused a break in the God-man relationship.

From the first disobedient behavior, all humans have failed to be righteous in the eyes of God. Time and time again man has sinned against God. We have often heard of the concept of original sin the first act of disobedient as past on to all of humankind because of our original parent’s sin. However, we are all born with darkness within us. What is the solution how can we overcome our dark nature? How can we overcome our duality of good and evil? The answer to our problem is darkness must be replaced with light, and that is God’s ultimate goal.

Let us now focus on the light the opposite of darkness. In 1 John 1:5 we read, “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him, there is no darkness at all.” It indicates that none of the characteristics of darkness are in God, no evil, no sickness, no death, but pure eternal righteousness. Therefore to remove darkness from our soul, our very nature we need to be filled with light. The Bible clearly shows that humans throughout the ages were not able to become filled with light by their own merit. The opposite is more accurate since time, and time again humankind turned its back on God.

God had a plan that man could not obtain light on his own, “Not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:9) God had a plan he would himself come to earth as a man to be the firstborn man of light. Many think it is too grand to be a man. Others will same how can he be two or even three persons at one. The fact is God can do anything He wants. As we have already read in the first few verses of Genesis the spirit of God hovered over the waters, not God himself. When the Spirit takes on a form, we have the third person of the Trinity. To put this concept more simply God is capable of separating, His mind, His emotional energy-spirit, and His body, physical appearance, any time he wishes, and so it was that God became flesh and was called Emanuel, God with us, in the person of Jesus Christ.

We know that Mary conceived like Sarah her ancestor without human seed, but by the second person of the Trinity. Matthew 1:18 tells us, “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” God, through His spiritual nature, manifest Himself into human form to be born as a human without human seed and therefore without darkness in him, as many call it original sin.

Jesus claimed boldly, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) Jesus a few verses later said, “You are blaspheming, because I said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.” Jesus also said, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.” (John 14:11) We have God in the flash who dies for the sins of humankind, but more important is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is in this event that God defeats darkness for all of us. You may ask, “How so?” The answer is accepting in faith that Jesus Christ died for your sins and accept Him as your savior you are now transformed from darkness to light. You now have the presences of the Holy Spirit in you. You are a new creation converted from darkness to light.

The transformation from darkness to light is the mystery of what Christ spoke of when He said, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” (John 3:3) Born of the Spirit of Light for no one can enter God’s Kingdom filled with darkness. However, God’s plan is still in progress. Now that humans can possess eternal light in them, darkness is defeated, and God can recreate a New Heaven and a New Earth made of only His Light. It is written in Revelation 21:22 “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

In conclusion, therefore accept the salvation that God offers through His Son and be transformed, born a new, filled with the light of the Holy Spirit, and look for the day of a New Heaven and a New Earth.