by Kevin Burton
If you want to know who you are in Christ, look no further than the opening lines of Genesis.
If some doubt you, or you doubt yourself because of lingering sin within you, hear a thought from Alistair Begg, speaker on the Truth For Life ministry.
We’re looking at Genesis 1:3-5 (NKJV).
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light” and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
“The evening was ‘darkness’ and the morning was ‘light,’ and yet the two together are called by the name that is given to the light alone! This is somewhat remarkable, but it has an exact analogy in spiritual experience,” Begg writes.
“In every believer there is darkness and light, and yet he is not to be named a sinner because there is sin in him, but he is to be named a saint because he possesses some degree of holiness. This will be a most comforting thought to those who are mourning their infirmities and who ask, ‘Can I be a child of God while there is so much darkness in me?’
“Yes; like the day, you do not take your name from the evening, but from the morning; and you are spoken of in the Word of God as if you were even now perfectly holy, as you will be soon,” Begg writes.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (Eph. 5:8 NKJV).
“Christians have undergone a dramatic transformation which is described as having been transformed from darkness to light,” reads a passage on Ephesians on http://www.bible.org. “In the Bible, salvation is never spoken of as a trivial matter. Those who are saved by faith in Christ are not merely improved, they are radically transformed.”
But it doesn’t always seem that way, to those looking on with imperfect human eyes.
“You are called the child of light, even though there is darkness in you still,” Begg writes. “You are named after what is the predominating quality in the sight of God, which will one day be the only principal remaining.”
This line of thought reminds me of the Psalmist who prayed, “O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You. Let not those who wait for You, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed because of me;
Let not those who seek You be confounded because of me, O God of Israel” (Psalm 69: 5-6 NKJV).
What a day that will be when we are freed from our sin nature and no longer have to pray such prayers. But God has decided that we first have a time to serve Him on earth.
“Notice that the evening comes first,” Begg writes. “Naturally we are darkness first in order of time, and the gloom is often first in our mournful apprehension, driving us to cry out in deep humiliation, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
“The place of the morning is second; it dawns when grace overcomes nature. It is a blessed maxim of John Bunyan, ‘That which is last, lasts forever.’ That which is first yields in due season to the last; but nothing comes after the last. So though you are naturally darkness, once you become light in the Lord, there is no evening to follow; ‘your sun shall no more go down.’'”
“The first day in this life is an evening and a morning; but the second day, when we shall be with God forever, shall be a day with no evening, but one, sacred, high, eternal noon,” Begg writes.
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