THE WORLD TO COME AS PRESENTED IN THE EPISTLE OF JAMES
[p. 303] LIGHT AND LIFE
John 1: 1 - 13; 6: 17 - 21; 12: 46 - 50
It will be apparent from the passages which I have read that the subject primarily before me is light. Truth and light are intimately connected, and yet the idea in the two terms is somewhat different. Many moral elements blend into one another. You could not draw any sharp line between them. In fact, all moral ideas must be intimately connected, and therefore you could not attempt to define any one in hard-and-fast lines; still each moral idea presented to us in Christianity has its own particular force. There are certain things which can be said in reference to light which could hardly be said in reference to truth; and so, on the other hand, with regard to truth, certain things may be said which would not quite apply to light.
I have been struck with the wonderful fund of moral ideas presented to us in Christ, which could not have been presented anywhere else. Righteousness, holiness, peace, truth, light, and many more. They can only be found in Christ. I do not believe that elsewhere you could get true light in regard to any one of these ideas. Yet the terms were in use among men. The Spirit of God did not create those terms or words, but takes up words or terms current among men and makes the words to express ideas which are purely of God. All that men have said about them could not convey to you a divine idea.
I think I must refer very briefly to what has been before us on previous occasions for the sake of connection. We began with righteousness. I have said on several occasions that righteousness is the rule of the moral universe, and that lawlessness stands in contrast to it. Lawlessness means that those characterised by [p. 304] it are outside of moral rule; this will come out fully in the lawless one. He will be outside of all divinely-appointed rule. He will do his own will, and when man does his own will it is evident that he is lawless, outside the obligation and force of divinely-appointed rule. Rule is an unquestionable principle in the physical universe, and if it is the secret of order there, it must be the secret of all right order in the moral universe.
The effect of righteousness is peace. Until you get the establishment of righteousness there cannot be peace. Another quality connected with righteousness is faithfulness. Practically righteousness is faithfulness in every divinely-appointed relationship. They are bound together in Scripture, and the effect is peace. The one attracted to Christ in the way of righteousness is outside of the moral confusion around him in the world. In the world there is confusion and disturbance, and the secret of it is, that man seeks his own glory instead of God’s.
I pass on to truth, which is contrasted with falsehood, or rather falsehood with truth. I do not know that I am very far from right in saying that truth is the expression of right things as they are. In falsehood, things are made to appear what they are not. Truth is not exclusively that which is presented to us, but becomes subjective in those who have come into the light of it. One thought alone shows that: you want truth in the inward parts, you need to have “Your loins girt about with truth”. Your loins are not girt about with light, but with truth. I think this passage gives us a sense of the subjective application of truth. Truth is presented to us — Christ is the truth — but at the same time, the Spirit is the truth in us, and therefore the affections are regulated according to the truth which has been made known to us.
Now we come to light. The connection between light and truth is intimate. Light is more purely an [p. 305] objective idea, that is, it is a something appointed which has come in, and in which we can walk. It is that in which you may not only walk (and you may walk in truth), but it is that in which you can live. It is not really possible to live except in light.
Two things are continually connected in Scripture, light and life, and, on the other hand, death and darkness are put together. Life cannot thrive in darkness even in physical things. If you were to shut up a person in absolute darkness, without a ray of light, I doubt whether life would long subsist. We are accustomed to regard light as essential to life, any way essential to healthy conditions of life.
There is another point connected with light, and that is, we may look at it as brought before us in the Person of Christ. He could say when here, “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”. And so He said to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world”. In John 12 Jesus said, “I have come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness”. There we have darkness put relatively to light.
Now in the order of creation in Genesis 1 the first operation is the ordering of light, and then on the fourth day is the constitution of the sun and moon. “God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night”. I have no doubt that the account given to us is in accord with God’s moral ways. As to looking at it from a scientific point of view I have no concern, because it is given to us in relation to God’s moral ways. When I am high enough up I shall be able to see the consistency between God’s ways in creation and ordering and His moral ways. In regard to Genesis 1, when the Spirit of God began to move, you can understand that the first thing was to disperse darkness. How could the Spirit of God tolerate darkness? This was impossible,
[p. 306] and the moving of the Spirit of God dispersed the darkness: it could not be otherwise.
But on the fourth day is the appointment of constituted lights: “God made two great lights”, and after that life is brought in. You do not get life in the animal creation before light; it comes in after the constitution of appointed lights; and that conveys a moral idea, and that is, that life is to subsist in the presence of an appointed light. After the appointment of the two great lights you get the creation of life: fishes in the sea and flying things in the air, etc., all brought into existence, and they live in the presence of the appointed light. You must remember that when that account was given to us sin had come into the world. Sin had not come in when God constituted things, as related to us; but before the account of it was written, sin had come in, and I have no doubt that the ways of God at the beginning are written in such a way as to present a foreshadowing of God’s ways in grace.
I come now to the application. Christ came into the world, and was the true light which, coming into the world, shed its light upon every man. There could not be life on earth until light came in, and that in the sense of an appointed light. Christ is the appointed light. He came into the world, and in His presence here we get the thought of life brought out. It is the first time life spiritually was revealed, though I do not doubt for a moment that God was working before that. He had been working from the beginning, but before the Lord came there was not the idea of life. He says, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it very abundantly”, and it proves that it is a principle with God that life is to be in the presence of a constituted light. Scripture was not needed until sin had come into the world, and the things related to us in the Old Testament were in view of God’s ways in Christ. Now you have the light — [p. 307] Christ come. There is not simply an atmosphere of light, but a constituted light: just like the sun is the appointed light of the natural world.
But there is this contrast between Christ and the sun. At the beginning the sun was appointed in an atmosphere of light. It brought its own brightness into the atmosphere of light. But when Christ came into the world, He came into an atmosphere of darkness. When the light came it shone in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Darkness and light were extremely near together when Christ was here. It was but one step from the one to the other, and yet the darkness did not comprehend the light, and the light did not dissipate the darkness. The time will come when the darkness will be completely dissipated, but it was not dissipated by the light when Christ came; still the light was there and shone, and those who apprehended the light had to take but one step out of the darkness into the light. The Lord said: “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”. God has brought us out of darkness into His marvellous light, and so when Christ was here, souls took one step out of darkness, and they found themselves in the light of life.
Now I want to show you how that morally life is dependent upon light. We read, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not ... That was the true Light, which, coming into the world, lightens every man”. That does not mean that every individual man is enlightened, but every kind of man. When the appointed light came into the world it came in for the whole world. It could not be simply light for the Jew, but light for the world — Jew and Gentile — and that was the proof that it was the true Light. And all this was in view of life. “In him was life”. The light was the [p. 308] presentation of God, and the presentation of God in such a way as that there could be life for men in the presence of it. So long as God was hid, the idea could not be entertained of life. You can understand a work of God preparatory, but life could not be until God had come out. On the one hand, no one could know God’s heart, and, on the other, man was before God under the sentence of death. The truth came to light in Christ, that God is love, and that it was in the heart and power of God to remove man from under death. Christ could say, “I am the resurrection and the life”, and that was brought out in connection with the death of Lazarus. It was in the mind of God to remove man from the power of death under which he lay, and at the same time to reveal Himself in doing it — that He is love. We have that brought out in John 3: 16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. In chapter 5: 25 it says, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that have heard shall live”. And further, “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment”. That is quoted from a very interesting chapter, which opens with the proof that it was in the power of God, by His word in Christ, to relieve the paralytic from his weakness. The love of God is brought to light. That is light, and in the presence of that, life is practicable for man. Life was not practicable for man until God was revealed, and it was seen that God could take man out from under the sentence of death. Man was in darkness, and unacquainted with God, the Jew just as much as the Gentile, they were equally in darkness as regards God, both were under death, and there was thus no [p. 309] difference between them. Any difference that existed between them was in that the Jew had the law, but then the law was the ministration of death. In Christ the love of God is revealed, and the power of life is there — He is the resurrection and the life — and now you can understand the words of the Lord, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly”.
But there is another quality connected with light, and that is, it makes manifest. “He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God”. I want just to make plain that light is necessarily a test. The light which had come in, according to John 3: 16, was the revelation of God’s disposition towards the world. Christ’s presence brought that to light. The love of God came into the world in the way of testimony, and Christ was that testimony. He was the witness of the love of God toward the world, irrespective of Jew or Gentile. Thus the love of God came into the world in the way of testimony, and in the presence of the light men were all proved. He that did truth came to light; he was attracted — there was a power of attraction in the light. On the other hand, the one who did evil did not come to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. If anyone came to the light it was the proof of a work of God in him; there is a power of attraction in what is of God. We see this exemplified in Nathaniel, for instance. We know pretty much in our own experience that no one could have come to the light except as the result of God’s work in him. “He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved”. The light came in Christ into many associations and circumstances here. Take, for instance, the twelve disciples, eleven of them were attracted to the light. There was a work of God in them. Judas was very near the light, but after all he [p. 310] was in thick darkness. There was not simply an atmosphere of light, but a light which carried its own brightness, like the sun which is not dependent upon anything on earth. All the brightness was in Christ, the light shone, but men like Judas might be only one step from the light, and yet in the midst of darkness.
Again, in the house of Simon the Pharisee the woman of the city who was a sinner was doing truth. People would have judged her differently, just as Simon did, perhaps would not have taken any notice of her, but still she was so far doing truth, and the light attracted her. Simon was not doing truth: he was covering up all he was and thought by an unreal appearance. He was in darkness, and was not attracted by the light, and yet he was only one step from the light. Christ was a guest in his house; the sinner was attracted by the light, while Simon was in complete darkness, but was exposed.
I speak of these things to show the character of the light. It was an appointed light which shone in its lustre, but it needed that eyes should be opened to apprehend it, because man, like Simon, is covering up everything as to himself with an unreal appearance, doing evil, and not coming to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. As regards people of today, do you think they would like everything uncovered? It is very different with the Christian whose eyes have been opened, everything has been uncovered. Then it is he does truth, and is attracted to the light because he apprehends that in the presence of the light it is possible for man to live. How gracious of God to send His Son into the world as light in which it is possible for man to live!
I will refer now to two or three passages, the first of which is Acts 9: 3 - 5, “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven ... and he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,
[p. 311] whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks”. And 1 John 1: 5 - 7, “This then is the message which we have heard from him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all ... But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”. And Philippians 2: 14 - 16, “Do all things without murmurings and disputings ... shining as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain”.
What I have been saying hitherto has been connected with Christ upon earth, His presence here. It is very wonderful that Christ has been here on earth, and has brought God to light. He showed to men, as we have seen, that He had come here to bear the liabilities of man so that in the presence of light man might live. Now the passages which I have just quoted refer to what is true at this present moment. Paul began with light from heaven, Christ Himself; He saw a light above the brightness of the sun. Stephen had looked up stedfastly into heaven, and had seen the glory of God and Jesus, but had to suffer for his testimony, and then Saul sees a light above the brightness of the sun, and hears a voice. That was the beginning with Saul, and there was a work of God in him. He could not have borne that brightness for a moment apart from a work of God, and he learned that in the presence of light it was possible for him to live. Had it not been so, Saul, as being a persecutor and an enemy of grace, would have been withered by the light. The beginning showed the Lord’s mind in regard to Saul in His saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” How tenderly Christ addressed him, calling him twice by name! The Lord spoke thus to him, and he learned in his soul that it was possible for him to live in the light of God. The Lord did not say, “Ananias, Ananias”, but He had to reach the heart of Saul, and did so in the greatest tenderness.
In the passage in 1 John we find that there is no darkness in God; no dark spot. If you look at the sun you may discover dark spots in it, but it is not so with God. There could not be found anywhere in God sanction for moral evil. He is light, and there is no sanction there for moral obliquity.
Another point is, God is in the light; that is, in Christ, in the light of revelation. He has come out, and man can live in the presence of the light. God is no longer hid in darkness. That must necessarily have been the case until Christ came, because no one was adequate to reveal God except the One who could take up man’s liability and bear the judgment which lay upon man. It was impossible for God to be revealed until Christ came, for that reason. No one but the Son of God could relieve man from that which lay upon him, and therefore the revelation of God waited Christ’s coming. Now God is in the light, and we walk in the light as God is in the light, and the effect of it is that we have fellowship one with another, and there is no imputation of sin. We have come to the reality of Christian fellowship which is in the Spirit and in love, and are apart from imputation.
We have forgiveness of sins, and forgiveness of sins is morally the end of the man that sinned. When fellowship comes in it is fellowship in the Spirit, that is, in the Spirit of another Man. That man that sinned has never come to life again for God, and fellowship is now in the Spirit of Christ.
There is no such thing as fellowship one with another simply as Jew and Gentile, it is only in the Spirit of Christ. We walk in the light as God is in the light. It is the most wonderful thing conceivable to be in the light of God without fear, no longer under the judgment of God, but in the presence of His love.
[p. 313] But there is our testimony here, and that brings me to the passage in Philippians. If we are lights in the world you must remember that we are not like the sun. We are not the source of light. We are like planets. The difference between a planet and a fixed star is that a star shines in its own light, but a planet by reflected light, and that is the case with a Christian. If you are in the light you are a reflector of light. A precious stone is never a source of light, it reflects it. It is not because of anything in us, but because of being in the light that we hold forth the word of life. You are in the light of the sun, the appointed light; and Christ is that light. In Ephesians it is said, “Now are ye light in the Lord”, not in yourself, but in the Lord, and you reflect that now. We hold forth the word of life because we have found out that in the presence of the light life is possible for man. That was not so until God had shone out in Christ, and we are to shine, holding forth the testimony of life.
My heart is filled with thankfulness to God that He has come out as light. It is not only that He is light, but that He is now in the light, and we can walk in the light as He is in the light. No measure short of that will do when we are brought into His marvellous light.
I do not think I can maintain anything much more important than that forgiveness of sins has come in as closing up man’s history, and every person who has forgiveness lives for God in Christ in the light of the revelation of God’s love in Christ, free from every liability in the presence of the light in which God has shone out.
May God make these things intelligible to us and give us to be in the good of them. Light and truth go intimately together, but light has its own proper and appropriate place.