WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT THE MOON

In recent months the eyes of the world, as never before in the history of the world, have been focused upon the moon. What does Scripture have to say about the reason for the creation of the moon? Note that in the first chapter of Genesis God has pointed out four specific reasons for which the moon was created. Genesis 1:14–18 reads: ‘And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And 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. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.’ The most obvious reason for the moon’s creation was to illuminate the night (v. 16). Men have always been frightened of facing darkness. From early times people were nomadic — they were herdsmen and shepherds. To a shepherd on the hillside the moon was a gracious gift from God, for no artificial means of illumination were possible nor were they provided. God made it clear at the time of creation that He had set a greater light and a lesser light — the sun for light by day and the moon for light by night — in order that men should not walk in darkness.

The thing this impresses upon me is that it was not God’s purpose to permit His creatures to stumble in darkness. Blindness was not a natural part of creation. It was an abnormality that came as a result of sin. The apostle John testified, “‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ (I John 1:5).

Genesis 1 also points out (v. 14) that the sun and the moon were given to mark the passage of time in an orderly fashion. It was the moon that marked months and years rather than the sun, for there was no change in the daily cycle of the sun that would mark a significant or a new beginning, for each day was like the preceding day. But with the waxing and waning of the moon, God provided for an orderly progression of time. The lights were put in the heaven for days and for years. He gave the lights in the heaven “to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good” (v. 18). While God is an infinite Being, unbound by time, man is a finite creature bound by time. And in order that man’s finiteness might be compared to the infinity of God, God provided for the marking of time.

In Genesis 1:14 we find the third reason that God created the sun and the moon. ‘Let them be for signs…’ Now signs in Scripture were manifestations of God — manifestations of God s character, God’s attributes. The signs or the miracles performed by Moses attested the authenticity of Moses as a messenger of God, and those performed by Christ authenticated His person and the work that He had come to do. In the apostolic era the apostles were authenticated by the signs which they performed.

In Romans 1:18–20 the apostle Paul, speaking of knowledge that man may have through nature around them, says, ‘The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things (about God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

What Paul tells us is that all men are responsible to God and answerable to God because there are certain signs that have been placed in nature that testify to the character of God and man’s responsibility to Him as the Creator. Paul does not single out any of the particular means of revelation in nature in Romans, but when we go back to Genesis 1:14 we find that the sun and the moon were placed in he heaven to be signs to all created intelligences that creation is responsible to God and is to acknowledge His sovereign authority.

Now when we consider the moon as a sign or the sun and the moon as a sign, they can be divided into two classifications: first of all as a sign to believers, then as a sign to nonbelievers. The sun and the moon that God put in the heaven, according to Psalm 19:1, revealed Gods sovereign power as the Creator. “The heavens (with the sun and the moon they contain) declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” The firmament bears testimony to the fact that the firmament — the heavens — came into existence as the result of the work of God; not by accident, not by chance, not by natural generation, but created by a sovereign, intelligent Creator.

This same psalm, in verses 4–6, suggests that the signs in the heaven bear testimony to God s sovereign control over His creation. And verse 2 tells us that these signs also bear testimony to the infinite wisdom of the Creator. ‘Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.’

I think of the questions that are asked Job by God, ‘Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? (These are references to recognizable constellations of stars in the heavens.) Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the heart?’ (Job 38:31–36). What God asked Job was this: Can you look at the signs that God has placed in the heavens without being overwhelmed at the wisdom of God who ordered the sun and the moon and the stars in their courses?

Again in Jeremiah 31:35, 36 the prophet speaks of God as the Creator who has ordered these signs and God says, ‘Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: if those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.’

This emphasizes the fact that the signs that God placed in the heavens were signs of God’s faithfulness, for the sun rises and the sun sets day after day without fail. The new moon comes and runs its course through the full moon to the waning moon and appears again month after month after month. These bodies in the heavens move with split second precision without alteration. Why? Because God is faithful, and man could so read of God’s faithfulness in the signs in the heavens that when God made a pledge or a promise to men, God s promise was as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise.

When the nation Israel, standing on the eve of captivity, doubted that they would be brought back to their land in fulfillment of the promises of God, God reminded them that there had been sunrise and sunset and new moon and full moon from the beginning of creation because God is taithful, and God who ordered the signs to teach man of His faithfulness would fulfill that which He promised.

Going back to Psalm 19:1 again, we find that those who considered the signs learned of God’s perfection. All that was revealed through the signs in the heavens by day and by night was to remind the one who studied the signs of the truth of verse 7, ‘The law of the Lord is perfect. ..’ The ordering of the universe by God is perfect because God’s creation is ordered according to the character of God, and the perfection discernible from the smallest snowflake to the vast expanses of the universe all testify to the perfection of God the Creator.

But I find that these signs are also signs to unbelievers. An eclipse of the sun or an eclipse of the moon, to believers, was a sign of God’s power, authority, wisdom, faithfulness, perfection. But unbelievers who saw those same signs in the heavens, in contrast, were moved to dread and terror. They anticipated an immediate judgment because the light of the sun or the light of the moon had been withdrawn.

Joel 2:10 and 31 speak of the signs in the heavens that foretell coming judgment. Revelation 6:12 refers to a consuming judgment during the tribulation, when, from man s vantage, ‘the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come’ (Joel 2:31).

Genesis 1:14 gives a fourth reason that the sun and, in this case particularly, the moon was created. ‘God said, Let there be lights in the firmament … for seasons.’ This translation would suggest that Moses is recording that the moon was given to divide spring from summer and fall from winter — the seasons of the year. But that is not the import of this word at all. The Hebrew word translated season is used 219 times in the Old Testament, but more than half of the times it refers to a gathering for worship and is translated a solemn assembly. It had to do with the religious festivals, with religious worship, with praise that was offered to God by those who saw the signs, received revelation from God and were moved to praise and to worship God.

We recognize that the nation Israel operated not by a solar calendar but by a lunar calendar. Their months began with the new moon, and each new moon introduced a new month. Some of the great religious feasts of Israel were marked by the moon. One was the Passover, which anticipated the coming of the Light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would illuminate man. This feast was observed at the full moon when the light was at its greatest. The last of the feasts, the Feast of Tabernacles, anticipated the gathering of the redeemed into the kingdom which Israel’s Messiah would establish. That feast was a feast of light, and it was observed at the full moon. The Feast of Trumpets, which marked the beginning of the harvest season, was to be observed at the new moon. The worship of those who had come to know God by faith was ordered according to the cycle of the moon.

Because we operate by a solar rather than a lunar calendar, we have missed the import of this repeated cycle. Few of us have looked at the moon in its orbit and have been moved to praise, to adoration as we contemplate the significance of the signs that these were designed to reveal.

There is another fact that I would call to your attention in the first chapter of John’s Gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ is introduced to us in these words, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (vv. 4, 5). The prophet Malachi predicted the coming of the Son of God into the world and called Him the Sun of Righteousness (Mai. 4:2). The sun is the source of light, and the One who is the source of all light came into the world that He might illumine the world by His coming and dispel the darkness by His very presence.

In Philippians 2:14, 15 we find that we are to do all things without murmurings and disputings “that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” The word translated light in Philippians 2:15 is different from the word translated light in John 1:4, 5. In the latter, as we have already said, the word signifies that which is a source of light. But the word translated light in Philippians 2:15 means to reflect an external light. Christ is light, but we have been made reflectors of light.

If you please, in these two verses we have a contrast between the function of the sun and the function of the moon. The sun is the source of light. It sheds its light on the moon, and the moon as a reflector reflects the light of the sun to the earth. What a good reflector the moon is was testified to by the astronauts when they were within a few miles of its terrain and saw the awesomeness of its surface. It is designed to reflect not its own light, for it has none, but to reflect the light of the sun.

Jesus Christ is the source of light for this darkened world. God has not made us suns, He has made us “moons” — reflectors whereby we receive the light that comes from Him and reflect that light into the darkness in which we live. Our function is not to generate light. Our function is to radiate or reflect in a darkened world the light that comes from the Sun of Righteousness.

But if the earth comes between the sun and the moon, the moon will never reflect the light of the sun. The moon then is in eclipse. May I say to you that if you allow anything to come between you and the Sun of Righteousness, His light will be eclipsed in your life, and there will be no light reflected to men who are in darkness. Some of us would have to confess to our shame that the love of this world and the love of the things of this world have so come between us and the source of light that we have failed to fulfill our function as illuminators in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

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