Now back in I John 1 again. Send out the revelation of Yourself which is truth. That is what these scriptures add up to. It is the revelation (truth, light is the revelation) of His way, of His doctrine and so the metaphor of light in Scripture signify information being given or asked for. Whereby then we know that darkness indicates ignorance, confusion, misunderstanding. And when light comes those things are dispelled. Now when darkness is replaced by light then there is the opportunity for what? - right choices, right understanding, an improvement in judgment, repentance - which one really cannot do until he has truth, until he can turn to the right standard. Otherwise he is going to turn to standards that may be different from what he already has but are equally wrong until God chooses to light the way with His truth. We are helpless before the onslaught of tradition, the traditions of men.
Thus we can begin to understand why sin is defined as it is. Sin is the transgression of God's law. That is very plain. But the words that are translated sin into English do not mean that specifically. They mean such things as missing the mark, wandering from the path, or even rebelliousness. Now think about this. God is light. It is one of the ways that He is described in the Bible. God is light. God is love. God is Spirit. Jesus Christ said, I am truth. Light is truth.
All of these words are descriptors to help us to understand God somewhat more. Light emphasizes a characteristic or quality or attribute of God and that is truth in all of its purity. It stresses His willingness to communicate. Do you know how it does that? When a light is turned on in darkness, you cannot miss it.
God wants to reveal Himself! He is light. He wants to reveal Himself. He is willing to communicate. He is willing to have a fellowship. And He is showing us that it is His willingness to do so. He is showing us that it is His nature to reveal Himself to us without limit. How does He do it? He does it by providing guidance. He does it by providing for us an understanding of what He is, you see, His standards.
Light enables us to see our way. Remember light and truth. Truth enables us to see our way. When God reveals Himself He turns on the light. It is that simple. How does He do it? The mechanism is truth. He reveals truth about Himself. Now how important is this truth to us?
Let us just take what we might call a practical situation. Imagine yourself walking in darkness. I am not talking here about an ordinary darkness. Even at midnight, or 2 A.M., there is a certain amount of light that is available to us, reflected light, usually coming from the moon. So what we normally see in nature is not total darkness, but we see things in the dark of night as varying shades of black, or varying shades of light.
But have you ever experienced absolute, total pitch darkness? Anybody who has ever toured something like Carlsbad Caverns or some of the other caverns that you can go down into in the east, you have experienced this because normally part of the tour that they give you, they take you into a big room and sometime or another they are going to shut off all the lights. And if you have never experienced that, you have not experienced an unusual experience that you need to have. It can be terrifying in a very short period of time because you feel absolutely helpless. There is no way you can turn and begin to move and feel secure in your movement.
Even when we are able to see somewhat as out in nature, and we will just say the dark of night, we do not see things in their true shape and form. It is very likely that even under that circumstance we are going to move with a great deal of hesitancy. We are going to, every once in awhile, run into things and we might run into them very hard and we might get very badly hurt trying to move around freely, even in the dark of an ordinary night. One thing for sure is that it is going to be, at very best, … . . .
That may seem a strange place to begin a sermon on sin, but you will see what I mean in just a little bit. The material creation of earth to make it habitable for mankind began with light, and so does the spiritual creation. The spiritual creation - to make us habitable for the Kingdom of God - also begins with light.
Light is used as a symbol of being given the power to perceive. Because we can perceive, we are then given direction as to how to proceed. As long as we are in darkness, we do not know which way to turn. It is very likely that no matter which way we turn, we are going to run into something, get hurt, fall in the ditch, go off the cliff, kill ourselves, or whatever. But once a person has light, then the obstacles begin to become more distinct, and we can dodge them. We can avoid them. We can begin to pick a clear path. I think you understand the drift, because those obstacles are sin which comes in many forms and shapes.
So even as God miraculously began removing the darkness of the destroyed created world, He has begun removing the darkness of the spiritual world from our destroyed, headed-for-death lives - by means of both a revelation of Himself and a revelation of what constitutes sin. Even though we have our eyes open, we may not be aware of what these obstacles we are looking at are.
I know that you know that is true, because as you have progressed in God's way, sin should become clearer. It comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Sometimes, there are little things that trip us up, and sometimes there are big things that seem about ready to crush us. Without God shining in our hearts, we would have no idea what these things are. But God does not stop with revealing. He begins to give us also a great deal of detail about these things so that we can begin to see sin in a clearer and clearer light.
What this does is it gives Him a double-barreled approach in that He reveals both what we should do and be, as well as what we should not do and be. In other words, the double-barreled approach is: one positive, one negative; what we should do, and what we should not do. Both of these approaches are necessary to clearly define sin.
False doctrines are formulated by those who do not understand these two extremes. False doctrines are followed by those who also do not understand, because if they did understand - if they had a clear vision, if the light of God was really shining on these obstacles - they would avoid them, would they not? We would think they would, anyway.
Let us turn over with II Corinthians 4, verse 1. In the moral realm, the development of these faculties depends entirely on the renewal of the spirit. Light is frequently used for spiritual illumination, especially the illumination that is effected in the mind by the indwelling of God's Spirit.
Verse 6 tells us that the same God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness at the creation is the One who illuminates our hearts and minds to truth. The apostle John recorded that Jesus said, He who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God.
Throughout the Bible, light is the symbol of knowledge, purity, and truth. In contrast, darkness is a symbol of ignorance, error, sin, and misery. The idea here is that God removes ignorance and floods our minds with light and truth. So David asked God to send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me.
The truth is generally used as a symbol for what brings joy and prosperity, and is strongly associated with spiritual joy that results from the positive influences of the Spirit of peace.
We know that God is light and is gloriously associated with light.
In all of the Bible's references to light, light is not self-generated. It usually appears unexpectedly outside the earth and human realm, transforming that realm with divine radiance.
As a symbol, light represents both the transcendence and immanence of God; it is from above, but it permeates everyday life. So light is often used as a symbol of holiness and purity, and it represents an attribute of holiness and thus a personal quality of God.
Paul's description of the light of God's gospel to the faithful in Corinth best captures the various meanings of light.
So this is the link between physical creation and the new creation, between the Old Testament and the New Testament, between physical reality and spiritual reality.
God gives the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and this salvation is called the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Christ is the Teacher, Enlightener, Guide, and Savior of humanity. He gives us light, that is, He gives us understanding, truth, and wisdom.
Verse 6 tells us that the same God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness at creation, is the One who illuminates our hearts and minds to the truth. The apostle John recorded that Jesus said, He who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.Doing the truth and coming to the light are crucial to our salvation.
Throughout the Bible, light is a symbol of knowledge, purity, and truth. Darkness, in contrast to this, is a symbol of ignorance, error, sin, and wretchedness. God removes this ignorance and pours a flood of light and truth on our minds. David asked God to send out Your light and Your truth and let them lead me. Light is used for that which cheers and renders prosperous. It is applied with great force to spiritual joy, arising from the happy influences of the Spirit of peace. God's Holy Spirit has a very important part to play with that light. Without it, there is no light.
The text within the Bible itself that comes closest to summarizing the range of meanings of light is Paul's description of the light of Christ's gospel that we read earlier in Corinthians.
The true light from God comes out of our hearts and is not just an appearance; it is not just a form. That light that comes from God is the link between creation and the new creation, between the Old Testament and the New Testament and between the physical reality and the spiritual reality.
The darkness of what? Ignorance! Was darkness covering the whole earth when it was in chaos following Satan's rebellion? Yes! God caused the light to come into us. It shone out of the darkness of ignorance and the confusion and chaos of our lives.
Judgment is now on the church of God because that sequence is in action in each individual life of converted people.
What was Jesus Christ's glory? It was His character! It was the way He lived. It was the way He preached. It was the way He gave Himself for mankind - death on the stake - and rose again as mankind's Savior.
Think of this in a very earthly, carnal, approach, manner, mode: Does not the glory belong to those who accomplish great things?
The same thing is true for those who have accomplishments in any other area. The glory goes to the ones who have done great things.
Nobody has ever done what Jesus Christ has done!
So we see that some of that glory is reflected in the way that He looks, but we have to get the order correct. That what is most important in God's eyes is what a person is, rather than what a person looks like. Maybe we might say that unless a person reflects the character of God, he will never show much glory.
They did not see that kind of glory when He was a human being, yet God recorded that they did see His glory. That which really counted, and that which led to the effulgent glory as very God now.
We must remember that we serve the One who is Creator and Savior, and He deserves more reverence, honor, and glory than we could possibly give Him. But we cannot expect to be admitted into His presence with an attitude of disrespect - reciprocity.
Here is an allusion to creation. In Genesis 1:3 God said, Let there be light. The same God who commanded light to shine out of darkness in the physical world, the physical realm, when He began creation, commanded that light be given to us. And how is that light given to us? Through the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now see, he is referring back to Moses. Remember Moses had the veil over his face, but Jesus does not have the veil on His face. The whole reality of God, the great glory, everything that God is, we can see in the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ. That is what he is saying here. You look on Jesus, you will live - eternally. Everything that is godly and eternal and righteous and holy shines from Jesus' face, from His life, from His example, from His teaching.
So that God can have the glory. If we were all spirit and had this treasure, we might be able to do it. But now we are in these earthen vessels. We are able to sin. We are able to go backwards. We are able to stray from the path. It is only by the grace of God that we do not. So God gets all the glory. As much as we may try to get real, to live truth, we could not ever accomplish one iota of it without the aid of God. Remember, Jesus said, Of ourselves, we can do nothing. How true it is. We would all just be a quivering spot of jelly I guess, without the aid of God.
