LIGHT
[p. 469] LIGHT
I have been thinking, dear brethren, about light. It is one of the greatest suggestions that enters into this moment. Indeed, it is one of the greatest facts connected with our position here on earth, that we have light, and that light peculiarly enters into our convocations; and as it shines in the assembly, it shines in those who form it in their dwellings. So that we are told here in Exodus that whilst there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days, so that they saw not one another, yet all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. And Joseph’s dream serves to show that light radiates in family connections. When God commanded light to shine out of darkness, there is no allusion to households. There were none. There were none, save as we may regard the universe as God’s house. There is good ground for saying so, for it is said in connection with the house of God that He who built all things is God. “All things” is the universe. We have, indeed, in that epistle that I am alluding to, Hebrews, the fact that the worlds were framed by the word of God; “the worlds”. That alludes to the universe too. “All things” would imply more detail than “the worlds”. There are not as many worlds as there are things. But “all things” would point to the universe, and “the worlds” would point to subdivisions of the universe; each centred doubtless in a system, a stellar system, with a centre of attraction; suns and moons and stars. We are only acquainted, as I may say, in a physical sense with one of these systems, knowing, however, that there are others.
But we have the one great thought as to this — the Father of lights. James, in his epistle, speaks of the Father of lights. There would be some allusion to the heavens, in a limited sense, no doubt, to our own sun, but in a wider sense to the Source of all light, which God [p. 470] is. He is the Father of lights; He dwells Himself in light unapproachable, we are told. So that we are impressed with this thought of light; it becomes very expanded as we meditate upon it. But it comes down to each of our dwellings. How each of Israel’s households had light as connected with each other is a matter of interest, but it must have been spiritual. And what one is thinking of now is, as to the household just started, as it takes its place in a dwelling, inclusive of a building, a dwelling-place, that there should be indeed light in it. And so the wide allusion that I have made connects the household of each believer with a great central thought of light. There is only one Source of light, and that is God. He is the Father of lights. In Genesis 1, as I was saying, there are no households in the sense in which we are speaking of them now, save the universe; and that is illuminated by God. But the urgency of it is seen in the use of the word “command”. In Genesis 1:3 it says, “And God said, Let there be light”. For the stress is laid on the divine word in Genesis 1, but the divine word becomes a command when brought into the New Testament. Everything was regulated by the word of God. Peter stresses that as regards even the flood; “having its subsistence out of water and in water, by the word of God” (2 Peter 3:5). Everything in Genesis 1 has a fixity by the divine word, which carries with it more than command, because it carries wisdom. The mind of God is in it. “And God said, Let there be light. And there was light”. He said it; a word that has to be carried down to our circumstances, because whilst the command is imperative, the word of God carries, as I said, wisdom and carries the mind of God. So that if I am in a given position, or a heavenly body is in a given position, it is not simply the divine fiat, but that the divine mind required that. And that makes everything more interesting, because each position occupied implies the skill of God; He said, and what came about from His word was good. Everything was good.
[p. 471] I referred to Exodus, because the idea comes down to the house; to the believer’s house. The Israelites, we are told, had light in all their dwellings. We find in the early part of this book of Exodus that God made houses for certain women. God was honouring them because they were saving the males in Israel, which the enemy would destroy. There can be no doubt that God intended to suggest in the making of houses (for the word is “made”) that they should be a pattern in Egypt. God was honouring these persons; for certainly it was a great honour that He should make houses for women; and it is clear that the suggestion carried with it distinctiveness as to dwellings. They would not be mere coverings, mere shelters. They had the dignified word of “house”. He made them houses. And whether these houses became patterns for the Israelites is not stated, but certainly one may assume that faith, as in persons like the mother of Moses and the father of Moses, would lead them to think of the houses God had made. They would be models of architecture for Israelites; not for Egyptians, but for Israelites.
And these houses, if the thought may be carried into this verse, were suitable to God; and that is what one had in one’s mind, that our dear brother and sister to whom we have already alluded with full commendation — for they carry with them, I am sure, the full commendation of their brethren in this departure, in this new relationship into which they have entered — that their household may be a household of light. Psalm 87:2 distinguishes between the gates of Zion — that is, where judicial services were carried on among the saints, assembly service, the gates involving authority — it distinguishes between the gates of Zion and the dwellings of Jacob. “Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob”. But that infers that He did also love the dwellings of Jacob.
If you will allow me to turn to Isaiah just to point out what many of us know, in chapter 4, it is said, “when the [p. 472] Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have scoured out the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. And Jehovah will create over every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and over its convocations, a cloud by day and a smoke, and the brightness of a flame of fire by night: for over all the glory shall be a covering. And there shall be a tabernacle for shade by day from the heat, and for a shelter and for a covert from storm and from rain” (verses 4-6). I was thinking of that, dear brethren, as entering into what is before us; that is, the covering — “a cloud by day and a smoke, and the brightness of a flame of fire by night: for over all the glory shall be a covering”. How God regards the households; that is, after the purging, the cleansing. And we must apply the idea of purging and cleansing to the present time. We know that marriages are going on, current all the time, with no regard for this matter of purging or cleansing. We are living in dreadful times. Pollution is all around us, and young people come under the power of it in their offices, and schools, and work places. “And as it took place in the days of Noe, thus also shall it be in the days of the Son of man:” the Lord Jesus says, “they ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage” (Luke 17:26,27). It went on regularly, but there was no purging. It went on until the flood came upon them and drowned them all. How dreadful that was! But it was due to God, because an institution that He had Himself made, that is marriage, as we have said in our prayer, was carried on, but in a state of corruption; “for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth” (Genesis 6:12). And that is what has come about at the present time. The world has returned to that. But the Lord Jesus said that went on until the day that Noah entered into the ark. That is, a certain thing happened: Noah entered into the ark. God had begun all over again. There were four married couples in the ark; they were not drowned. The flood [p. 473] came and drowned them all, we are told, but these four couples were not drowned; they were saved so as by water. They would not ignore the need of water; water was not only judgment there, overwhelming judgment, but it was purging; it was cleansing. And Noah and his family were saved as through or by water. That is our position.
There were no marriages, of course, in the ark; they were married couples — four of them. No doubt their marriages would have been different from the ordinary corrupt marriages of the day, and their father had faith; Noah had faith, and God found pleasure in Noah and in his family. He prepared an ark for the saving of his house, and that saving implied cleansing; the washing of regeneration. Marriages before God can have no moral value save as these conditions exist — the principle of purging as we get in Isaiah 4. But it is here now with us, through grace, and the light of cleansing is with us; and this light is to enter into houses. So that Israel had light in all their dwellings, and that light involved the exclusion of impurities which marked the Egyptians. The darkness was all around; the darkness could be felt, but the Israelites had light in all their dwellings. And that light (as I was saying, for us it is purging) — that light is connected by Joseph in his second dream with the sun, moon, and stars. I mean to say, not that he is making a point of light, but he is making a point of the sun, moon and eleven stars, meaning the household of his father. Incidentally, the point in the dream is that the household — “the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me”. That is the point he is making, for he is a type of Christ, and whatever authority is in the husband must be subservient to Christ’s authority. Marriage is to be “in the Lord”. That word “in” is power. It is a question of the power that is in Christ; the authority that is in Christ; marriage is “in the Lord”.
And so Joseph’s dream connects the idea of the family with the sun, moon and eleven stars; he was the twelfth, of course. But he was speaking actually of the family of his father, and he is exempted because he is a type of Christ. He must have pre-eminence in everything. If He went to a marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, He was not an ordinary guest. His mother thought to make Him that, thinking that He ought to be subservient to her because she was His natural mother; but He says, “What have I to do with thee, woman?” (John 2:4). He was on a higher level. He never comes down to our level in that sense, and faith always recognizes the supremacy of Christ. So Joseph is here exempted in his dream. There are eleven stars, and his father and mother are subject to him. That is what I was thinking as to this matter of our dear brother and sister. Our brother is the sun, and she is the moon; it is a question of Christ and the assembly; the household — the light radiates in that connection. As I was saying, James says the Father of lights is God. That would be a type of God, a suggestion of God Himself; the Father is the Source of light, and the sun and the moon are what I was thinking about. On the fourth day of the creation the sun and the moon are set up. On the first day we get light, but it is as commanded, or issuing forth by the divine word; but on the fourth day we have the sun and the moon, Christ and the assembly. That is what I was thinking of, how they illustrate the assembly, I mean the relationship of Christ and the saints. It is love radiating, but love in the sense of light. So in the believer’s household it is the sun and the moon; that is, the sun is greater light. It says in Ephesians 5:24, “But even as the assembly is subjected to the Christ, so also wives to their own husbands in everything”. Not only subject, but subjected. It is a question of the divine mind. We can never gain, but lose, by disregarding the divine mind. It is not only a question of subjection, that is, her whole attitude; but God’s mind is that she is subjected to her [p. 475] husband as the assembly is subjected to the Christ; and it is in that connection that we have radiation of light, light such as God approves, such as is a testimony to our neighbours, and such as promotes assembly material; light in the dwellings of the people of God, the dwellings of Jacob, all contributory to the gates of Zion.