Humans are not the only rulers or vice-regents created by God in Genesis chapter one. This fact jumped out at me this year when rereading Genesis again – more proof that no matter how well I might think I know a text, there are almost always things that I’ve missed. No, there are rulers other than humans in Genesis 1 that are created and given authority. These rulers are none other than the sun, moon, and stars.
[14] And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, [15] and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. [16] And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. [17] And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, [18] to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. [19] And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Gen 1:14-19
This text says that God created the sun, moon, and stars to:
- Separate the day from the night, the light from the darkness
- Be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years
- Give light upon the earth
- Rule the day and rule the night
These entities in the heavens are created to be separators, signs, givers, and rulers. These roles that God himself carries out directly in the first verses of chapter one, he will now do vicariously through his appointed rulers, similar to how he will rule through mankind.
As an aside, this shows the silliness of the objection that holds that Genesis 1 is in error because the creation of light comes before the creation of the sun and stars. Of course, the God who is able to create a light-giving star is also able to create and give light directly without that star. The order of events simply shows a logical movement from direct ruling and giving to mediated ruling and giving. Throughout history, great emperors in Central Asia tended to rule our mountain peoples through emirates, client kingdoms that ruled in the name of the great shah or pasha far away. To govern well, any emperor who conquered our area would, for a period, rule directly, but then quickly raise up representative kings who would exercise his rule locally. This is a helpful metaphor for what we see going on in the Genesis creation account.
Also, what a fascinating window this account gives us into what the sun, moon, and stars actually are, as opposed to merely what they are made of.
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”-CS Lewis, The Dawn Treader
The sun is a separator, a sign, a giver, a ruler – one in the form of a giant ball of flaming gas.
The necessary implication of all of this is that there are things that fall under the creation mandate of the sun, moon, and stars that do not fall under the creation mandate of mankind. Yes, humans are tasked with multiplying and filling the earth, subduing it, and having dominion over the plants and animals (Gen 1:26-30). We are charged with tending and guarding Eden (2:15), and through it, eventually the whole earth. But it seems that this dominion does not trespass into the dominion given to the heavenly lights. They have rightful rule over some parts of creation. We have rightful rule over others. We have neighboring, yet distinct, client kingdoms.
Fallen man is, of course, going to attempt to usurp their rightful place and to take dominion in ways and spheres which do not belong to them, just like our first parents did. And this will somehow lead to disaster, just like it always does. In light of this, it seems like it would be helpful to have a better understanding of what those areas of creation are that are not part of our rightful dominion. True humility and freedom so often come down to simply being honest about what God has or has not given, and then seeking to live within those good, sovereign lines.
First, it seems that we must not attempt to rule the separation of day and night, their light and their darkness. This is one we are actually flirting with, at least in one direction. Advances in technology and the unprecedented affordability of artificial light in our modern age mean that humans are increasingly chipping away at the natural darkness, the nightness of night. This is allegedly resulting in greater economic productivity and physical safety, but it’s also playing havoc with our sleep, health, and happiness. No, the darkness of night is a good part of creation from before the fall. We ignore its importance or set out to conquer it at our own peril.
I have often thought about the fact that the generations living today are likely the first in the history of the world to be largely unable to see the stars in the night sky. Humanity is overwhelmingly an urban race now, living in cities and towns where light pollution means that, when we look up, we simply do not see what every other age of humans before us has seen – stars too many to number. What kind of effect might this be having on us? What happens to a humanity unable to feel how small it is because, when it looks up, all it sees is the haze created by its own electric creations? Does this mean we are losing one of the primary ‘preachers’ of the glory of God in creation (Psalm 19:1)?
To live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars’ separation of day and night.
Second, we must not attempt to usurp the sun, moon, and stars’ roles as the primary signs of the passage of seasons, days, and years. They set the rhythms of time, and we (and our calendars) are wise to honor that. Civilizations that have attempted to organize their time in different ways, which to them seem more convenient or efficient, have discovered this to be either impossible, illogical, or at least extremely inconvenient. Thus, the Soviet Union’s attempts to replace the seven-day week with a ten-day week, the Nepreryvka, ended in abject failure. Similarly, in order to better ambush his enemies, Mohammad did away with the sacred days that served every year to sync the Arab lunar calendar with the solar year. By doing this, he foolishly untethered the Islamic calendar from the solar year, meaning calendar dates were no longer reliably fixed to agricultural seasons, and events like Ramadan rotate through the entire year on a confusing 33-year cycle. In the opposite direction, our modern Western calendars contain evidence of a time when our months needed to be changed so that the West could better align with the rule of the celestial spheres. September, October, November, and December originally meant “seven, eight, nine, ten,” but the Romans had to insert July and August in there because they found their harvest festivals increasingly taking place further and further away from the actual harvest – something they correctly felt to be foolish and unsound. These ancient Westerners wisely sought to align their annual calendar with absolutely crucial things like harvest time.
In contrast to the annual calendar, one of the odd things about being a Westerner living in Central Asia is realizing that my Central Asian friends are still living in daily rhythms closer to the patterns of creation than I am. Their closing up shop and family dinner times are still attached to sunset, not to a fixed 24-hour clock. They know that the appearance of a certain star on the horizon means the hottest part of summer has come to an end. All of the mothers sense at once when the weather is saying it’s time to bring out the rugs for the annual autumn cleaning. In all of this, I can’t help feeling like they know and sense things about the heavens that I should also know and sense, were it not for the culture I hail from, with its relentless impulse to act like nature is irrelevant.
To live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars’ signs regarding the seasons, days, and years.
Third, it seems we must not attempt to usurp the heavenly bodies’ role as the primary givers of light. This is related to the first point, but it’s worth restating that even though cheap, artificial light is a great blessing, it needs to be stewarded carefully. It is not a good replacement for natural sunlight. Things like vitamin D deficiency, poor sleep, and depression are some of the more obvious consequences that come from pretending like LEDs or fluorescent lighting can replace the good old-fashioned light of our patron star. Our teams in Central Asia learned this the hard way as many of the houses we rented early on were like dark cement caves that only increased the mental health challenges otherwise faced on the mission field.
To live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars as the primary givers of light on the earth.
Fourth, we must not attempt to rule day and night, to rule time itself. What might this look like? Well, I like a time travel story as much as the next guy, but it would seem that Genesis 1 makes a case against humans seeking to manipulate time in ways like this. We may not be as far along in invading the heavenly lights’ dominion of time as we are invading their dominion of light and darkness, but stories of time travel continue to captivate our popular culture just as stories of artificial intelligence captivated it half a century ago – and look what’s happening with AI. No, it’s only a matter of time before humanity figures out how to mess with time itself. And when that happens, Christians will need to know and maintain that this is out of bounds, not a part of our creation mandate, the kind of thing that is sure to get very bad, very fast.
Just to clarify, I’m not speaking here about human efforts to organize time and to seek to redeem and steward it well. That is very much a part of our mandate (Col 4:4). But those efforts are attempts to measure and record and live according to something that is governed by another (see point 2). They are not efforts to take over its governance, to mess with the fabric of time itself. Governance of that fabric belongs to God and to some of his other vice regents, the heavenly lights.
No, to live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars as the primary rulers of time.
Strange as it may seem, and should Christ tarry, we may increasingly face ethical dilemmas that involve invading the rightful domain of the sun, moon, and stars. It seems, therefore, to face this kind of future, we will need to go back to the beginning, back to Genesis 1, to think carefully about what exactly is part of our mandate, and what is not. Yes, we are client kings, vice regents of creation – but so are those shining rulers in the sky.
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Entrusted to the Dirt 