Darkness meets us in Genesis 1:2 in connection with the overthrow of the

world (see Overthrow3,7).  Its first occurrence associates it with Judgment.

In the same chapter darkness is separated from light (Gen. 1:4,5,18).  The

only other occurrence of darkness in Genesis, is in the fifteenth chapter,

where a horror of great darkness descended upon Abraham, as God spoke of the

condition of Israel while in Egypt (Gen. 15:12,17).  The next book, Exodus,

uses darkness in a typical sense (Exod. 10:15,21,22; 14:20), and always with

a sense of evil.  The ways of the wicked (Prov. 4:19), the end of the wicked

(Isa. 8:22) is darkness.  Darkness is likened to the shadow of death (Psa.

107:10), and the extremes of punishment find their expression in 'chains of

darkness' or 'everlasting chains under darkness' (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6).  The

doctrinal usage of darkness in the New Testament is a consistent reference to

evil.  Paul's gospel was intended to turn his hearers from darkness to light

(Acts 26:18), and the Redeemer's sacrificial work delivered such from 'the

power of darkness' (Col. 1:13).  The principalities and powers that

antagonize the church, are described as 'the rulers of the darkness of this

world' (Eph. 6:12).

The fact that not one of the thirty -one occurrences in the New

Testament means anything other than evil, provides a strong argument for

seeing in Genesis 1:2 the overthrow of the world, not its creation.  If 'For

God Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness' (2 Cor. 4:6) is a

reference back to Genesis 1:2 and is used as a picture of our unregenerate

days, then Genesis 1:2 cannot be a mode of creation, it must be a condition

that speaks of a lapse or a fall.

A word or two may be acceptable on Isaiah 45:7 where we read:

'I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil:

I the Lord do all these things'.

The parallelism is apparent.

A

I form light,

B

And create darkness.

A

I make peace,

B

And create evil.

When we examine the word 'evil' (see Wages of Sin7) we shall find that

it refers as many times to the thought of calamity as an infliction, as it

does to moral evil, the context alone deciding.  Had the word 'evil' meant

here moral evil or sin, the contrasting word would have been 'good', and we

have actually heard those who teach from Isaiah 45:7 that God is the Author

of moral evil and sin, misquote the word and say, 'I make good and I create

evil' which but reveals their bias and condemns their awful teaching.  The

contrasting word is 'peace', and the teaching is that reward (peace) and

punishment (evil) alike are meted out by the same Lord.

Skotos (darkness) occurs four times in the Prison Epistles (Eph.

5:8,11; 6:12; Col. 1:13).  In Ephesians 4:18 it is skotizomai.  There are

eight occurrences of skotos in the earlier epistles (Rom. 2:19; 13:12; 1 Cor.

4:5; 2 Cor. 4:6; 6:14; 1 Thess. 5:4,5; and Heb. 12:18 in the Received Text).

Let us keep steadily before the mind the fact that 'God is light and in Him

is no darkness at all' (1 John 1:5).  Observe, too, the double negative here

ouk ... oudemia, or as Moffatt puts it: 'In Him there is no darkness, none'.

Let us see to it that in all our attempts to interpret Him, there shall be

'no darkness, none'.