LIGHT
[p. 76] LIGHT
My thought is to bring before you, as God may enable me, the great moral characteristics of Christianity. I do not intend to speak of the doctrine upon which Christianity is founded, but rather of what Christianity consists in, in the hope that we all may be better instructed as to this. The doctrines may come out, but my object is to show you that which God saw fit to introduce into the darkness of this world, and into which we as Christians are brought. The great pervading evil in Christendom is that divine things have, in men’s thoughts, been materialised. A common idea with many is that life is communicated through baptism; there is nothing moral about that, it is a material idea. Again, people speak of the “house of God”, and mean by it a material building. Then such things as “harvest thanksgivings” are common, that is worship in connection with material blessings. All is materialised. It is well to get our eyes opened to the terrible departure in all this from what is of the Spirit of God.
Now what I want to show you is the contrast to all this of the divine thought in Christianity; for certainly Christianity is not materialistic, it is all intensely moral. It is not even like the millennium, namely, a condition of manifest blessing, or what one might call, for want of a better expression, a condition of actualities.
When I speak of the features of Christianity, I mean its moral features; and I think they may be put in this order — first light, for that is the first thing with God, and it is the first with every one of us. What follows light is liberty. Then life; and finally unity and testimony. You see they are all [p. 77] moral, and they are all characteristic features of Christianity as God intended it to be here.
I think any one can follow the points I have indicated, and their succession. I only intend at present, by God’s help, to touch upon the first, for it is a very large field on which I have entered. When one speaks of Christianity in its moral characteristics it is impossible in the course of an hour to traverse the whole extent of it.
The first great idea in Christianity is light. God no longer dwells in the thick darkness as in times gone by; now the first blessing of the gospel is that God has shone out in light, and the practical result in regard to believers is that “we walk in the light as God is in the light”. That is where the believer is understood to be. I want to make that point plain, for there are thousands of people professedly in Christianity, who as to their consciousness of things, as to the state of their souls, are not one single bit in the light. I know it as well as possible. I was many a long day professedly a Christian before there was light in my soul, and I do not doubt that most of us would admit the same. We were professedly Christians before a single ray of light from God penetrated into our hearts.
I say that in the divine thought of Christianity the first thing is light. The apostle says in 2 Corinthians 4: 6, “God who commanded that out of darkness light should shine, hath shined in our hearts to give the light” — what light? — “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. You see how the apostle puts it there, referring to Genesis 1. So, too, he had previously said in that same passage, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not, lest the light of the glad tidings of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine for them”.
[p. 78] Now I dare say you noticed in the passage I read at the beginning, in which Paul gives an account of his conversion, the occurrence of the world “light”. The first thing that affected him was light. At mid-day, as he was going on the road to Damascus, there appeared a light brighter than the sun. The greatest natural light was surpassed by the brightness of the light that appeared to him. That was the very first impression that the apostle got. Then afterwards, where he gives an account of his mission, he tells us it was to go to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes” — that is preliminary — “to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me”. It is evident that light must have had a great place, in the thought of God at all events, in what was connected with the apostle. He was first affected by light, and it was the light of grace.
I will now try to show what I understand by light, and I think I can put it in a way sufficiently simple to be generally understood. Light is God in the revelation of Himself. Light and truth are very intimately connected. By truth I understand that which may be known of God. It may be even by creation. That is how scripture describes truth. Light being the revelation of God makes manifest everything which comes within its range. In 1 John 1 it says, “This is the message that we have heard of him that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we walk in the light as he is in the light”. That God has thus shone forth, is the foundation of Christianity. The thought of God in the gospel in regard to man is, that man should be brought into the light, should be enlightened in his soul as to the truth of God, that is, as to what God is. Man’s thought would be that he might get forgiveness of sins. He will surely get that, he [p. 79] cannot have the light of God without it, but God’s thought is that He may be known in the heart of man.
I will tell you what is to be dreaded at the present moment — holding correctness of doctrine without really the doctrine being light in the soul. I believe it is a great danger to which we are exposed, for if doctrine has not the effect of enlightening the soul as to God it has not done its work. You will see how that must be, and how consistent it is with truth. The effect of sin was that man got into darkness. If I put it in other words, man lost the knowledge of God. That was the effect of the fall. God was lost to his soul. Therefore when he was left to himself (as God left the heathen to themselves) man became more and more degraded. They had lost the knowledge of God, they did not choose to retain God in their knowledge, and simply fell lower and lower. Men worshipped things that morally were inferior to man. They made gods of all sorts of things, even of serpents, that in intelligence were inferior to man himself. It only shows you how morally degraded man became when he had lost the knowledge of God. Man proved that he had fallen into utter moral darkness. Now in the gospel God virtually says, I will come in and reveal Myself in the heart of man. I will make myself known in the midst of the darkness of the world, in a way suitable to the state of man. That is the divine idea in the gospel — a most wonderful thought. To me it is inconceivably blessed to think of God coming into the darkness of this world with the determined purpose, in spite of everything, sin, Satan, the world, and all here, to make Himself known in grace in the heart of man. That is what the commission of the apostle was, “to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God”. What comes afterwards is what I should call supplementary, “that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me”. The great point of the passage is the turning from darkness to light and from Satan’s power to God, that instead of men remaining in the darkness into which they had got as the effect of the fall, they were to be brought into the light of God revealed in love. The truth of God becomes light in the soul of man, because man gets light by truth. It brings his heart into the light so that he might be in the light as God is in the light.
I add a little more in detail of the grace of God in that respect, for it is a great thing to be established in the first principles of truth. It is very important for every one of us to get hold of the divine thought in the gospel. And the first principle of the gospel is that it is God’s approach to man. I do not believe that the gospel in itself speaks about man’s approach to God. It is the announcement to men of God’s glad tidings concerning His Son.
There are four ministries spoken of by the apostle Paul in scripture, and I believe they are distinct. There is the ministry of the gospel, the ministry of the new covenant, the ministry of reconciliation, and the ministry of the mystery. You must not confound them, for the last three at all events are ministries to believers; but the ministry of the gospel is of God’s glad tidings not to believers but to men. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared”. That is, God has been pleased to reveal Himself in the gospel to man, in order that man’s heart may be enlightened with the knowledge of His grace.
Now before I speak of how we come into it, I must refer for a moment to the way which God has taken to reveal Himself. If God reveal Himself to man it must be in a way suited to the state of man. It would have been impossible for God to reveal [p. 81] Himself simply as a Judge. It would not have been suitable. There would have been no grace about it. Man was sinful and a sinner before God, and therefore the very first principle of the revelation of God must of necessity be grace. Hence as the first step in this direction God provided a sacrifice, which should clear sin completely from before Him. If I look at the work of Christ in its first and most important aspect it is for God, and that is where a mistake is often made. People do not see what I should call the God-ward aspect of the work of Christ. In the Old Testament figure you get in the day of atonement the blood sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat; that is what I should call the divine aspect of the work of Christ, and the gospel is based upon it. If you want one word for it, common amongst us, it is propitiation. God in infinite grace has been pleased, before ever there was any approach on His part to man in the gospel, to provide a sacrifice which has cleared sin from before Himself. This is the witness of the grace of God, and is the first thing I see in Christ. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Victim provided of God, He who was to clear sin from before God, came out from God, and that is the witness which God has given of His grace.
There was the personal ministry of Jesus on earth before this work; but the coming of Christ here in that sense really anticipated His death, and the truth of the glad tidings could not come out fully until after His resurrection. Then, when sin has been cleared from before God, and the blood has been sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat, the witness that sin has been cleared, then God comes out to reveal Himself in the glad tidings to the heart of man. God can point to Christ and say, Can you have any doubt about My grace? I have Myself provided the sacrifice which has cleared sin from [p. 82] before Me, in order that I might reveal Myself in grace to the heart of man. It was the divine way. Man had not a word to say to it. God did it entirely on His own account. It came entirely from the divine motion. Jesus says, “I come to do thy will, O God”. It is not the common idea of a substitute which is presented here. Sin was cleared, not by a substitute for man, but by a divine Person. There is the truth that Christ was delivered for our offences, but the great point is that God cleared sin for Himself, by One who came forth from Himself — a divinely appointed, divinely provided Victim. And when we speak of the grace of God, we do not speak of any particular Person of the Godhead. It is very important that, while we distinguish the Persons of the Godhead, we should maintain in our souls the truth of God, in the unity and counsel of the Godhead. It was the Son who became Man that He might be a Victim, and by His own sacrifice remove sin completely from before God: He appeared once in the end of the world, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. I have told you the divine object in this already, and I want you to ponder it. It is, that God might be revealed in man’s heart. Do not miss this, because if you fail of the divine object, you will not get into a living Christianity. You will get into the sort of Christianity in which plenty of people are, but you will not get into the Christianity of God, to be in the light as God is in the light. Therefore, when I point to Jesus, I say, Do you doubt the grace of God? “God has set him forth to be a mercy-seat through faith in his blood”.
The mercy-seat is, I judge, where God speaks to man. The mercy-seat in Israel was where God put Himself in communication with Moses to give him a charge for the children of Israel, viewed as a redeemed people. Now, in the gospel Jesus is the [p. 83] mercy-seat. Why? Because in Him God speaks volumes. In Jesus is revealed to you the grace which provided the Victim which has completely cleared sin from before God. Jesus speaks to every heart now. The very name — Jesus is “Jehovah saving”.
Now another point. Jesus speaks not only of grace but of righteousness. God has set Him forth as a mercy-seat for the declaration of His righteousness, but you cannot touch righteousness until you have touched grace. The principle of the gospel is, that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life; but you must begin with grace, because the first thing which God provided was that which cleared sin from before Him, and that was a question of pure grace on the part of God, which took account of the state and necessity of man, and, in order that He might be made known to the heart of man, provided the sacrifice to remove sin. Now, sin having been removed and God glorified in its removal, the righteousness of God is in man’s favour. The power of God has acted in righteousness, to release man from the penalty of death; and not only so, but to set man in the place of supreme honour and glory to carry into effect every result of the removal of sin. Righteousness is declared. It is not declared simply in terms, it is declared in Jesus. I do not know how better to express it — Jesus speaks volumes, and God declares in Jesus His righteousness. Sin brought death into the world. Death came in as God’s penalty on sin. “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. When sin had been removed by Christ being made sin, and bearing its judgment on the cross, Christ went into death, because the penalty of death lay upon man, that in death He might glorify God, that everything might be accomplished. “Without shedding of blood is no remission”. He went into death, but [p. 84] as having first perfectly removed sin. He goes into death for the glory of God, and God is glorified in His death, and what then? The power of God raises Him again from the dead, and He is the witness of the righteousness of God — righteousness in which God can act in power in raising man from the penalty of death. He must be the first to rise from the dead, but then the truth does not stop there. Christ is exalted to be the minister of everything that He has secured. He is Lord. He is raised again that He may have dominion both over the dead and the living. He is a quickening Spirit, set above all that He may fill all things. I do not believe that God has now a single thing to say to man apart from Christ. If I wanted to tell a man the way of salvation, what should I say? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved”. And why should I say that? In my own mind the thought would be, that, in the Lord Jesus Christ, God is completely revealed to man. I can well understand the apostle saying to the Philippian jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house”. I have sometimes said (although I do not want to be misunderstood) that man is saved by light. We often talk about man being saved by faith; but there is no substantive value in faith, and man is saved by light. He is saved by God being revealed to his soul. God could not be revealed to his soul if grace had not blotted sin out; but Christ removed sin in order that God might be revealed to the heart of man in grace, and that is God’s way of salvation for man, and is the reason why I say that man is really saved by light. He is brought into salvation by light. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”. What is the meaning of that? Well, that you have got [p. 85] divine light, the revelation of God in your heart; for you confess with your mouth, “Lord Jesus”, the One in whom God has been pleased to reveal Himself, and whom God has raised from the dead. All that shines in the face of Jesus. It is the shining forth of the effulgence of God. There is the light of God seen in the way in which God is to be known in the soul of man, and that is the proper result of the presentation of God’s glad tidings; God is revealed in the heart of man which, apart from that, was in utter darkness. The gospel went out to people who were in the darkness of heathenism to turn them from darkness to light, that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance. They do receive these things, for you cannot possibly turn to God revealed in grace, without getting forgiveness of sins and inheritance; but the point of it is that you are turned from darkness to light, and from Satan’s power to God. I wonder if every soul here has a true sense of the Lord Jesus Christ as being the blessed revelation of God, who has come out of His own place to be known by man.
Now a word or two in regard to apprehension, because I have spoken of the truth on the divine side. If we look at things from our own point of view, we regard the gospel as it affects us, and the gain which we get through it; but I think it is very important to see the divine object in it, and I cannot doubt the truth of what I have said, that the light of God was to come into the heart of man, His glory was to be known there as seen in the face of Jesus, it was to be a revelation to him of God, suited to his state and condition. Now the first thing in the commission to Saul was “to open their eyes”. The eyes of the Gentiles were to be opened, and that is what new birth properly effects. This opening of eyes was put in a certain sense into the hands of the apostle in his ministry, but the real [p. 86] opening of the eyes is the work of God’s Spirit. But though a man’s eyes may be opened, he has not got light, but he craves light. When first the work of God begins in a man, you may depend upon it that man will not rest until he gets light. If you want an illustration I take Nicodemus. What he wanted was light as to God. Take any man where the work of God has begun, that man wants light. He has got his eyes opened like the man in John 9, he begins to see the falseness and unreality of everything here, but whatever he may crave, he has not got light as to God, God is not yet revealed to him.
Now the next point is, “To turn them from darkness to light”. Darkness really is the degradation in which man was in heathenism. What was light? The revelation of God in grace in Christ. That was part of the apostle’s mission, though first man’s eyes were to be opened. Then he was to be turned from darkness to light, to the blessed revelation of God in the face of Jesus, and from Satan’s power to God — the latter went with the turning from darkness to light. When there was real turning to God, what then? Well, they turned to a God who had been revealed to them in the gospel, they were not to turn to an unknown God, or a God with whom there was any uncertainty — that would not have been light; but to God as He had revealed Himself to them in the gospel. The gospel came to them first on the part of God to reveal what God was, then they turned to God as He had revealed Himself in grace and in righteousness.
“That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in me” — two things that are commonly connected in scripture. But to me they are accompaniments of the gospel; the vital point to my mind is the turning from darkness to light, and from Satan’s power to God, so that God is apprehended in the soul as He has been pleased to reveal Himself. Now the light of God has taken possession of the soul of the believer, and thus it is we come to be in the light as God is in the light, that is in the full light of the revelation of God. That is the very first principle of Christianity, you cannot touch anything else until your soul is brought into the light of the revelation of God. You cannot talk about deliverance or life or testimony until you are brought out of darkness into God’s marvellous light, into the blessed light in which God has been pleased to reveal Himself in the gospel. I do not think it has been sufficiently seen that the first aspect of the work of Christ was God-ward, in order that God might reveal Himself to man in grace. It began with God bringing Himself in Christ close to men in a Man; and now in the gospel God has revealed Himself fully to man in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, suitably to the state and condition in which man is — that is, in grace and, in ability to justify. The full expression of it is, Christ Himself raised from the dead and set far above all heavens, in order that He might fill all things. That is what God has done for the display of Himself. Man is now the vessel of that display. What a wonderful thing it is to have turned to God in that way! So that now it is not simply that God is in the light, but we are in the light. That is the first principle of Christianity, and the effect of it is this, that you get your heart established in grace. I have greatly enjoyed lately the thought that I am in the light in which God has been pleased to reveal Himself. I can understand the expression, “Rejoice in the Lord”. Why? Because in the Lord, God is revealed in all His thought to man. God has thus come out in blessed grace; and the benefit that we get is forgiveness of sins, and not only that, but the [p. 88] Spirit given to us to indwell our bodies, so that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.
May God give us really to know the great light in which God has shone out, that we may better see the first great principle of Christianity as God has been pleased to establish it here. Amen.