There are two creation stories in the Bible. One is the familiar Genesis story of the Old Testament:
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day (Genesis 1:1-5).
The other is the creation story found in the New Testament in the prologue of the Gospel of John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5).
There are several intriguing differences between these two versions. In the early verses of Genesis, “God” is spoken of generically. He is not characterized and is called θεος or Theos, which is a general name for the supreme divinity. The Supreme Divinity already exists and “created heaven and earth,” though they are void and empty. This Theos could easily be seen as a strictly monotheistic God or even Great Watchmaker, which is exactly what he is to Jews and to Muslims who reject the Incarnation.
In John’s description, the Word already exists, was with God, and was God. “God” is also referred to here as Theos by John. But then John goes further and defines who this generic Theos is. “Word” is of course λογος or Logos, which describes mental activity. Since thoughts, words, and ideas can only exist in minds, John therefore defines Theos as a Mind, not just as a generic supreme deity or a principle of existence. This Logos is the same but different from Theos. In other words, John begins his gospel with a description of the Trinity.
The Genesis account then describes Theos as “making” light. “Light” here is phos, which we have seen in a previous post refers to the Incarnation. We can therefore deduce that this created “light” in Genesis is the Incarnation. If this light wasn’t the Incarnation, but was the illuminating light of God himself, then it would not be created, but would rather be uncreated just as God himself is. We can also deduce that this “light” is not natural physical light, as in photon light, since God does not create sources of physical light until the fourth day. (The second day God creates grasses and trees to bear seed and fruit. The third day is dedicated to separating the water from the land.) On the fourth day,
God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven for illumination to divide day from night. Let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years. Let them be for illumination in the firmament of heaven to give light on the earth.” It was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. So evening and morning were the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-18).
This seems confusing. “Light” was created first day then there are “lights” created again on the fourth day? There is a difference between “light” and “lights.” In the Greek, “light” is phos and “lights” here are φωστηρ or phoster which means a luminary, something that gives light, not light itself. On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon, and stars not just to generate light and rule over the day and night, but to “divide” the light from the darkness. When the firmament was created, it separated the phos light from the “darkness.” The word used for “darkness” is σκοτος (skotos), which is a lack of light, but is also used to describe the misery of hell.
This is getting interesting — if phos is the Incarnation that was created on the first day, then as Creation progressed to the fourth day, a strong demarcation appeared between the Incarnation and the misery of hell. God saw that this demarcation was good. “Goodness” as a concept implies many positive attributes, including correctness. So, we might say that God saw that the division of the Incarnation from hell was the correct thing to do. The correct thing is also the required or true thing. In other words, it is what truth demands and the inevitable thing a God of Truth must do. In other words, if the truth of the Incarnation exists, the existence of hell inevitably follows.
St. Augustine and other Church Fathers saw the created light on the first day as the angels. It doesn’t seem that they considered that the phos light could be specifically associated with the Incarnation, perhaps this was because the dual nature of natural light was a complete mystery to them, even though in John’s prologue, it is obvious and hard to interpret “light” in any other way. We know from Scripture and Tradition however, that angels are messengers and bearers of God’s uncreated light. The greatest of all the angels was Lucifer (Latin for “light bearer”). Tradition has it that when he was shown the Incarnation (which pre-existed him) at the moment of his creation, his pride in his beauty could not bear the thought that he must be the servant of this fleshly God-Man, let alone the dirty rabble of creatures made in His Image.1 He literally revolted2 and drew a third of the angels with him (Revelation 12:4). The battle between the good angels led by the archangel Michael and the bad angels led by Lucifer is the dividing of the light from the darkness that is referred to in Genesis. Heaven and hell are divided on the fourth day and each creature goes to his assigned place based solely upon whether he specifically accepts or rejects the Incarnation.3
As Jesus says of him, “He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). "Murderer” is ανθρωποκτονος or anthropoktonos which literally means a manslayer. This explains Lucifer’s implacable obsession as Satan with killing the Son of Man after he enters into time and Satan’s frenzied Pyrrhic victory at the Crucifixion.
As an intransitive verb, “revolt” not only means to “renounce allegiance or subjection,” (to rebel), but it also means to experience or turn away in disgust. This, in addition to pride alone, better explains Lucifer’s violent and implacable hatred of God and all of the creatures made in his image from the first instant he beheld Him.
In the New Testament, Jesus makes clear that he has come to bring division (Luke 12:51-53 and Matthew 10:34-39) between those who believe in him who is the Incarnation and those who do not. This is underscored again in the parable of separating the wheat from the tares (Matthew 13:24–43). The tares are stealthily sown in the wheat field by the Enemy in the night and will be separated at the direction of the “owner” (Incarnation) at the “harvest” (i.e., Last Judgement).