B’resheet (In the Beginning) Genesis 1:1–6:8

The Light of Messiah

Parashat B’resheet opens the Torah with the foundational declaration, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Before Israel, Abraham, Sinai, or human history, there is God. ADONAI is revealed from the opening words as Creator and sovereign over everything that exists. Isaiah echoes this truth when he describes ADONAI as the One who “created the heavens and stretched them out” (Isaiah 42:5).

The creation account immediately draws our attention to light. The earth is tohu va'vohu—formless and empty—with darkness over the surface of the deep. God then speaks: “Let there be light,” and there is light (Genesis 1:3). What makes this remarkable is that the sun, moon, and stars do not appear in the narrative until the fourth day. The light of Genesis 1:3 precedes the luminaries that ordinarily govern day and night.

The rabbis also wrestled with this unusual detail. The Babylonian Talmud, Chagigah 12a, asks how light could have existed on the first day when the heavenly luminaries appear on the fourth. Rabbi Elazar answers that the light created on the first day was a different kind of light, by which Adam could see “from one end of the world to the other.” Because of the wickedness that would come through the generations of the Flood and Babel, ADONAI concealed this light, reserving it “for the righteous in the future.” The Talmud connects this hidden light with Genesis 1:4—“God saw the light, that it was good”—and Isaiah 3:10, “Say of the righteous that he is good.”

This Jewish tradition becomes particularly interesting from a Messianic perspective. Later Jewish commentary went even further in associating the first light with Messiah. Tz’enah Ur’enah, commenting on Genesis 1:3 and drawing upon Isaiah 60:1, speaks of God ultimately illuminating Israel with the light of Messiah: “Arise, shine; for your light has come.” In this interpretation, the light associated with creation anticipates the Messianic light that will shine upon Israel in the age of redemption.

There is another unusual detail within the first day. Genesis 1:5 does not call it yom rishon, “the first day,” but yom echad—literally, “one day.” The following days are numbered second, third, fourth, and onward, making the wording of the first day stand apart. Whatever additional significance may be present, creation begins with darkness giving way to light and concludes that first movement with echad. The God whom Israel will later confess as echad in the Sh’ma is the One who speaks light into darkness.

Yochanan deliberately returns us to B’resheet when he opens his account of Yeshua: “In the beginning was the Word.” He continues, “All things came into being through Him...In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness” (John 1:3–5). His language echoes Genesis: beginning, creation, Word, life, light, and darkness. Yochanan presents Yeshua not merely as one who teaches about light, but as the One through whom creation itself came into being.

This gives even greater depth to Yeshua’s declaration, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12). The One calling humanity out of spiritual darkness is connected with the creative light of B’resheet. Rabbi Paul draws upon the same imagery when he writes, “God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in Messiah (2 Corinthians 4:6).

The theme becomes even more striking when we move from the beginning of Scripture to its conclusion. Yochanan sees the New Jerusalem and writes, “The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). He later adds, “There will no longer be any night...because the Lord God will illumine them” (Revelation 22:5). Scripture begins with light existing before the sun and ends with a renewed creation having no need of the sun for its illumination. The Lamb is its lamp.

Between these two pictures stands the tragedy of Genesis 3. Adam and Eve disobey ADONAI, sin enters human experience, and humanity is driven from Eden. Cain murders Abel, violence increases, and by Genesis 6 the inclination of the human heart has become continually evil. Yet darkness will not have the final word. In the midst of judgment, ADONAI promises that the seed of the woman will ultimately crush the serpent (Genesis 3:15).

Isaiah later announces the coming redemption in the language of light: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of ADONAI has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). Darkness covers the earth, but ADONAI rises upon His people. The imagery that begins in B’resheet now points toward redemption.

From a Messianic Jewish perspective, the connection is powerful. B’resheet begins with darkness and the command, “Let there be light.” The Prophets anticipate the coming of that light upon Israel. Jewish tradition speaks of a primordial light reserved for the righteous in the age to come and later connects creation’s light with Messiah. Yochanan identifies Yeshua as the Light of the World, and Revelation ends with the Lamb illuminating the restored creation.

The light shines from B’resheet to the New Jerusalem. What appears in the opening verses of Torah reaches its fullness in Messiah Yeshua—the Light of the World, the Light of Life, and the One through whom darkness will finally give way to the everlasting light of ADONAI’s Kingdom.