---
title: Genesis 1:3
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/genesis-1-3/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/genesis-1-3.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Genesis 1:3
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Genesis 1:3

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "And God said: "Let there be light." Then there was light."

## JW Usage

Taken as a straightforward demonstration of Jehovah's unaided power — he speaks and it happens. Because the Watchtower reads the whole creation account as Jehovah working either alone or through his master worker, the spoken word here is understood as a command, not as a person. JWs will not connect this verse to John 1 unless you make the connection for them.

## Protestant Usage

This is where God's method of creating is established, and the method turns out to matter. God does not shape the light or assemble it. He speaks, and it is. Psalm 33:6 draws the conclusion out: "By the word of Jehovah the heavens were made" — a line the NWT keeps intact. Now open John 1. John begins with the same three words as Genesis, and then tells you that the Word through whom all things came into existence was with God and was God, and that this Word later became flesh. Put simply: Genesis says God created by his word, and John says the Word is a person who can be known by name. This is a gentle argument rather than a confrontational one, and it works well early in a conversation because it asks nothing the JW cannot check. Read Genesis 1:3, then Psalm 33:6, then John 1:1-3, in their own Bible, in that order, and ask what John is doing with the opening of Genesis. Compare Genesis 1:1, John 1:3.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Two Matches, One Candle — How Three Persons Create as One](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/trinity-causal-overdetermination.md) — Causal overdetermination and opera ad extra sunt indivisa [Deity of Christ]