<p>4:6- see on Jn. 13:32.</p><p><i>Seeing it is God that said- </i>It is emphasized that God created through His word of command; He said, and it was done (Ps. 33:6,9; 148:5; Is. 40:26; Jn. 1:3; Heb. 11:3; 2 Pet. 3:5). God is outside the constraints of time, and outside the possibility of His word not being fulfilled. Therefore if He says something, it is as it is done, even if in human time His command is not immediately fulfilled. Thus He calls things which are not as though they are (Rom. 4:17). It is in this sense that the Lord Jesus and those in Him are spoken of as if we existed at the beginning; although we didn't physically. And so God spoke the words He did on six literal, consecutive days, and the orders ('fiats' is the word Alan Hayward used) were therefore, in this sense as good as done. But the actual time taken to carry them out by the Angels may have been very long. The Genesis record can then be understood as stating these commands, and then recording their fulfilment- although the fulfilment wasn't necessarily on that same day. It would seem from later Scripture that the orders and intentions outlined by God on the six literal days are still being fulfilled. Take the command for there to be light (Gen. 1:3.4). This is interpreted in 2 Cor. 4:6 as meaning that God shines in men's hearts in order to give them the knowledge of the light of Christ. The command was initially fulfilled by the Angels enabling the sun to shine through the thick darkness that shrouded the earth; but the deeper intention was to shine the spiritual light into the heart of earth-dwellers. And this is still being fulfilled. Likewise the resting of God on the seventh day was in fact a prophecy concerning how He and all His people will enter into the &quot;rest&quot; of the Kingdom. The Lord&nbsp; realized this when He said that even on Sabbath, God was still working (Jn. 5:17). The creation work had not really been completed in practice, although in prospect it had been. In this very context the apostle comments that although we must still enter into that rest, &quot;the works were finished from the foundation of the world&quot; (Heb. 4:3). See on Col. 1:15.</p><p><i>Light shall shine out of darkness- </i>The new creation is effected with the same power, Spirit and word as the natural creation.</p><p><i>He shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge- </i>The initiative in granting this 'light of knowledge' is with the Lord. It is not that the Bible is a riddle to be solved, which some manage to crack, and thereby through the light of knowledge come to know the Father and Son. By contrast, we are being told here that the Lord took the initiative by direct action within human hearts. But as happened at Corinth, some choose to restrict God's intended pathway, they grieve the Holy Spirit, and &quot;limit the Holy One of Israel&quot; as did Israel of old.</p><p>Paul's description of how the light of the glory of God in Christ shines in the heart of the new convert was not without reference back to his own Damascus road conversion (Acts 9:3; 22:6; 26;13). Because the light was shone to us, we reflect it to others. &ldquo;In the beginning&quot;, perhaps a huge period of time ago, God created the heavens and earth. But the present creation can be seen as being constituted some time later, after the previous creations. When during the six days of creation He said &quot;Let there be light&quot; this may not have necessitated the actual manufacture of the sun; this was presumably done &quot;in the beginning&quot;. But the sun was commanded to shine out of the darkness (2 Cor. 4:6), and therefore from the viewpoint of someone standing on the earth, it was as if the sun had been created.</p><p><i>Of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ- </i>We read in Is. 52:14 that the Lord's face was more marred, more brutally transmogrified, than that of any man. And yet reflecting upon 2 Cor. 4:4,6, we find that His face was the face of God; His glory was and is the Father&rsquo;s glory: &ldquo;The glory of Christ, who is the image of God&hellip; the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ&rdquo;. Who is the one who redeems His people? Isaiah calls him &ldquo;the arm of the Lord&rdquo;: &ldquo;To whom has <i>the arm of the Lord</i> been revealed?&rdquo; (Is. 53:1; compare Is. 52:10). Then he continues: &ldquo;<i>He</i> grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground&rdquo; (v. 2). So, the <i>arm of the LORD</i> is a person- a divine person He is God&rsquo;s &ldquo;right arm,&rdquo; His &ldquo;right-hand Man&rdquo; He is also human: He grows up out of the earth like a root out of dry ground.</p>