LIGHT AND ITS EFFECTS

John 10 & 11

God is light, hence the revelation of God is light. Christ is light because in Him God is revealed. The entrance of God’s word gives light, because when received in faith it brings the light of what has been revealed of God into the soul. What the eye is to the body, faith is to the soul. Persons may have a great knowledge of scripture and scriptural teaching without having much light in their souls. Knowledge in itself is not light, though it is often taken to be. Light always produces an effect when received into the heart by faith.

In the blind man of John 9 we see the double effect of light, and the importance of following up the light that God may give us. First of all the man was the subject of the work of God. Apart from a work of God in us, we should none of us receive any light, because like this man we were born blind. Here as elsewhere in this gospel the state of man is in evidence, not his conduct. This state is the result of sin, it is a state into which Adam fell through listening to the lie of Satan. We inherit this state of sin and its consequences as born of Adam. “By the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many have been constituted sinners”, Rom 5: 19. Man cannot remedy his own sinful state, he cannot improve it. It calls for a work of God, He only can open the eyes of one born blind. The religious leaders could not deny the work, but they would not attribute it to God, nor recognise the fact that God was there in the Person of Jesus. They were so blind they could not see what was apparent to any one who had eyes to see. Their sin was that they said “we see”, and yet would not acknowledge what was so clearly manifest among them. Now the man whose eyes were opened saw something, he did not see everything all at once, the light broke in gradually, but he was faithful according to what he did see. He followed up the light he had received, he apprehended something of who Jesus was. He recognised that a work of God had been wrought in him, that the One who did it must be of God. He was a prophet. He was not a sinner as the Pharisees said. The more he was buffeted and persecuted by the religious leaders the more firmly he confessed the truth and bore witness to the One who had opened his eyes. He had received a measure of light and he followed it up, he was faithful according to the light which he had received. The result was that he found himself alone in his confession of Christ, the Pharisees cast him out of the synagogue and he was deserted by his neighbours and even his parents for they feared lest they too would be cast out of the synagogue. Thus we see that the effect of the light was to lead him out, outside every worldly circle, family, social and religious. This must always be the effect of the light of God being received into the soul. This world is a world of sin, alienated from God and controlled by Satan, it is characterised by enmity against God: all this is nowhere more manifest than in the religious world, John 15: 22-25. If then a man receives light from God and is faithful according to the light received, confessing what he knows, sooner or later he will find himself in the position of this man, led out, outside every circle in man’s world. There is no place for Christ or God in man’s world, and what is so anomalous is the fact that this is most manifest in the religious part of the world, it is here when tested that the greatest hostility to Christ has always been manifested.

Now what we find is that when completely outside, then he fully accepted the result of his confession, then he got the full light. Jesus, already Himself outside, met with this man and revealed Himself to him as the Son of God and he worshipped Him. Men will never get the full light as long as they are identified with the world, either in its social, political or religious systems. There are many who have received a certain measure of light; yet they do not progress, they do not go on to the full light, because they are not willing to accept the rejection of Christ, they will not break with the world in its various forms and systems. Often we have seen persons receive light and rejoice in it up to a certain point, but when they begin to see where it is leading them and what the consequence will be if they follow it up, then they draw back, they do not want to receive any further light. Such persons never come into the full light. They remain dwarfed and spiritually impoverished, they do not become worshippers, so that it is not only that they are great losers but God does not get His portion from them. The full light of God and the world are incompatible, they cannot go together. By the way, all this shews the folly of seeking light in the public ministry or in the writings of those who are mixed up with the religious systems of the world. Such may have a measure of light, but it is obscured by the thoughts of men, it is not clear full light.

The full light of Christianity is in the Son of God, there is nothing beyond what is presented in Him. In Him, the Son of God, shines the full light of God revealed as Father and also the full light of God’s purpose for man brought into relationship with Him in Sonship. Hence the end of ministry is to bring all “in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God”, Eph 4: 13.

This brings us to the other effect of the light. If on the one hand it leads out, on the other it leads in. If it leads the soul out of man’s world it leads the soul into God’s world. This we get in chapter 10. The Lord, after speaking of going into the Jewish fold to lead His own sheep out, presents Himself as the door and says, “By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture”, John 10: 9. What is brought before us in this passage is a new system, the Father’s world, of which the Son of God is the light and centre. A system of things in which all is of the Father and according to His pleasure and glory. A system characterised by divine affections in which eternal life is known and enjoyed. There is nothing of sin there, no darkness or death. Into that sphere of divine love, the believer is introduced to enjoy the Father’s love to the Son and to share the Son’s love to the Father. This is life and supreme happiness, the happiness which will be ours eternally. This world is characterised by liberty, satisfaction and rest. What a contrast to man’s world where all is unrest, vanity and bondage. In this scene of divine love we can live and grow in the knowledge of the Father and the Son as taught by the Holy Spirit; this is the highest privilege of Christianity, nothing can be greater than communion with divine Persons. If we follow the full light of Christianity which shines for us in the Son of God, we shall be led into this world of the Father even now. But it is only as we follow the light and accept the outside place into which it will lead us in fellowship with a rejected Christ that we shall know anything of this blessing into which it can lead us in the inside place. He who is the object of the Father’s love, His well-beloved Son, has been openly rejected in man’s world and is entirely outside and apart from it. When the man who had been blind got outside he found One who was there before him. In putting forth His own sheep He goes before them. “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth”, John 17: 19.

May the Lord help us to be faithful according to the light we have received and to follow it up and then we shall get more light.

Bristol

From Mutual Comfort vol 4 (1911)