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, … . . .
