“Let there be light….” (teaser)
This is the reference photo for an upcoming illustration entitled “Let there be light”. It occurred to me the other day, that God may have created light as a spiritual entity, and may have not had the by product of a star or a sun in mind at the time. At least not in this context. I began to wonder if the passage in Genesis 1:2 is refering to Jesus Christ; who declared himself to be the light of the world. (John 8:12) So, actually I’d just be agreeing with him (Christ) in thinking this to be true. In fact, the scriptures say everything was created by him, and for Him. (Colossians 1: 15,16) I’m beginning to believe that this creation story, for the most part, is about the structure and working order of the Kingdom of God, that it is story of redemption from spiritual darkness and chaos, and that it is not a literal story of the creation of this planet and it’s biological inhabitants. I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to think this way, nor the only one.
There are, at least, a couple of reasons that I can think of off the top of my head, (in a natural sense) for this to be the case; besides the scriptural/spiritual reasons listed above. Genesis 1:1 states that he created the heavens and the earth. (Step one) Unfortunately, none of us saw how that happened so, lets go to the next thing. Then He (God) was looking at the way things were going and contemplating the next step. (Gen 1:2) It says also that the earth was in darkness and chaos, or literally a wasteland. (paraphrasing a little here). I believe this is possibly a reference to spiritual darkness not an absence of light waves.(again see Col 1:15,16) Also, God created the plants and then the sun.(Gen 1:3,4) It seems a little out of order doesn’t it? I mean, God knows plants need sunlight for photo synthesis. Right? Of course, the author may not be refering to the star at the center of our solar system either.That does stand to reason if we follow the line of thought that is being introduced here. (Well, there are alot of arguements to be considered, when formulating an opinion on this particular account.) Because, later on, the writer of Genesis says that the plants hadn’t sprouted yet (Gen.2:5)., so…., either it doesn’t matter what the order is, even if this is a literal account of the beginings of life on this planet or, maybe, there exists the possibility that there are multiple creations going on simultaneouslyor, the writer wasn’t talking about physical plant life either. Wow! I personally like the last two explanations best.
Anyway, this illustration is to be a fantastical representation of light as an entity all its own apart from the known souces that we understand. The young man you see here is my son Yiri. I’ll begin work on the painting in the next day or so. You’ll be able to see this illustration in progress at the Village Coffee Shop Saturday, March 20,2010.
Guess what…..?
The great thing about following Christ and learning to hear God is that there is always room to back up. I”ve learned over the course of time that when you hit a dry spot the best thing to do is stop and take stock of where things are going. Personally, the Samson piece is becoming laborious and fraught with tedium. So, for the time being that project is on hold. In this paricular line of creativity, if it ain’t fun don’t do it. When the excitement wears off or just plain isn’t there you have to change direction.
Moreover, I want this blog to be directed by the spirit of God. The painting of Samson has all the ear marks of being grunted out. I’ve learned over the years that if God isn’t on the page you’re on stop. Going through this art lesson on line feels “dry”. None of this is a waste of time though, following God or working to find his heart never is. But, when He says its time for a change of direction, it is. You just feel it. The life has gone out of the endevour. It has with this one. Following Christ is to be exciting and full of life. Painting this illustration of Samson isn’t, or at least not like it was. Honestly, it never was all that exciting. I think I was just gointhrough the motions. It took 9 years to get David and Goliath from the sketch book to the canvas. So much of what we do for or because of God is about timing. So, lets just say it isn’t time to do this painting. It may or may never be. Who knows? But if God wants it done it will happen. Eventually.
Anyway, I’m going to change direction. I’ve got a show/demonstration to do next weekend, which will be the 20th of March. I’ve got something in mind for it which I’ll start soon. Stay tuned I think you’ll like what you see. Meanwhile, here is a painting for you to enjoy! Oh yeah, in case you didn’t notice I pulled all the sketches etc. of Samson off this site. It seemed the thing to do.
“Let there be light……..” (in the begining)
I’d like to start by thanking Rachel Schepp for encouraging me to do work of this sort. By that I mean, an illustration with a scripture verse attached. Sorry, its taken so long to get around to this Rachel.
The point of this is, as I wrote in my last blog, to shed some light (no pun intended) on some passages of scripture that illudes to, but doesn’t strictly pertain to the creation of the earth. The first few verses of the book of Genesis really do seem out of order if you consider the current theories of how life evolved on this planet. And yes, I do believe in evolution. But that isn’t the topic of discussion here. What I do want to discuss, however, is being described in these first few verses. There is a lingering thought in my mind that I would like to try and articulate.
At the dinner table a couple of nights ago we were reading from the book of John. The narrative in that book begins something like this: In the begining was the Word. The greek word for “word” is logos. The root of our english word logic. There once was an early third century apologist by the name of Tertullian.( By the way if your not familiar with the term “apologist”, I’ll attempt to define it for you. Basically, they were men who took it upon themselves to explain to the rulers, governors, and emperors of roughly the 1st through the 3rd centuries why their punishment and/or persecution of the early christians was unjust. Many times they are the best resource outside of the scriptures for information on what the early church believed and practiced.) Anyway, Tertullian was for the most part, the last of these. He was, however, a very learned man. He was fluent in Greek, though he was from north Africa, and even though it was probably not his native language; he understood it and spoke it very well. He was a lawyer by profession, and no matter what you may think of lawyers, the are generally pretty good at expressing themselves. Tertullian was extremely articulate.
Tertullian’s description of the word logos is a very interesting one. He likened it to the voice of ones own thoughts. Awesome description of the Word of God, Jesus Christ, don’t you think. Now, back to the book of Genesis: The Spirit of the Lord God is “brooding” over the face of the deep. He’s thinking,he’s thinking very deeply, and quite literally his thoughts took form.” Let there be light”, is just one of of His incredible thoughts.
03/25/2010 | Categories: art | Tags: acrylic painting, Bible commentary, bible illustration, Fantasy illustration | 2 Comments »