T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5
Light
Reading: John 1:1-28.
"Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness" (1 Thess. 5:5).
"While ye have the light, believe on the light, that ye may become sons of light" (John 12:36 ASV).
I think it is the Lord's will for us that we should be occupied with the matter of spiritual light. And a very elementary study of the Word of God will bring us very quickly to see that the Lord places a very great deal of importance upon light, that with Him light is a very vital matter. We shall first see that nothing can be done without light; then we shall see that possessing light is to be in possession of a treasure of inestimable value. We shall further come to see that that is shown to be true by the fact that light once offered and rejected, turned from, brings about a state which is unspeakable in its misery. Probably we should be surprised, even those of us who have studied the Word of God more or less thoroughly, if we were able to get a really clear, full, strong grasp of all that the Scriptures have to say about light, and if the Holy Spirit gave us the inner meaning of the Scriptures in this connection, there would be a tremendous movement in our hearts.
We have heard light spoken of disparagingly. It has not always been called 'light' in that connection; it is sometimes called truth, which is another word for doctrine. We have heard such phrases as "mere doctrine" or "mere truth". Of course, we know what is meant when those phrases are used, but I mention it at this point lest we might fall into a careless way in using such language. By those phrases, of course, people mean the doctrine, the truth, is not accompanied by something else which is important. They speak of it as something held merely in the mind, and they speak of it therefore as "mere doctrine", or "mere truth". But there is no such thing really as "mere doctrine" or "mere truth". Doctrine, truth, light are things of immense importance and value. They are indispensable and the Lord places upon them such a value as to make it perfectly clear that if once those things have been brought by the Spirit of God to anyone, and they have not been accepted and obeyed, that one may find that they have been brought into a most terrible state of a darkness which never existed in their experience before.
The force of this exhortation: "While you have the light, believe on the light, that you may become sons of light" (John 12:36), must be set over against another word: "If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Matt. 6:23). It is a darkness darker than the darkness which was there before the light was. And you and I, who are privileged to be in a realm where there is much light, the light of the truth of the Lord, need from time to time to be reminded of the tremendous value in God's eyes of the truth with which we are entrusted. We can regard it as commonplace; we can lose the sense of its value and importance.
Familiarity may breed some measure of contempt and we need constantly to be before the Lord, that the force and power of the truth with which we are so familiar may never be lost; hence this double reference to being "sons of light". There is a meaning in that phrase which lies beneath the surface, which you and I want to get hold of: "sons of light". That is, to be people who have been generated by the light and are the living product of the light, the living monuments of the light, whose very existence testifies to the birth which light has brought about in us. "Sons of the light". It is fuller than that. It is not simply being generated as infants; it is coming to a full place in the manifestation of the light: the difference is between there being truth, light, revelation, and doctrine with which we are associated in a religious way mentally, intellectually, and on the other hand, our being the living expression of that light, of that truth: "Sons of the Light". It carries us a long way beyond just knowing the content of the Bible. It produces men and women who are the personification of the truth; they are the sons of light, but you see the light is intended by the Giver of Light to produce that.
The Lord sets such value upon the Light that He gives, as in that He recognises that that light can become expressed in living personalities which are the product of that Light, so that all looking on will say: "Such and such do not merely know truth, they are the truth which they know, they are sons of light." And only as we are growingly such, is the value of the light which we have, manifested.
Well now, unless we recognize the Lord's mind in the giving of light, and cherish the light because of its power of constituting a personality which expresses that light, living beings which are a manifestation of that light, only as we cherish the light in the light of that, shall we be saved from the awful peril which is the peculiar peril of a people who have light, and that is: of becoming people who are more in the dark than anyone else. The world is in darkness, but the world which has never had the light is not nearly so much in the dark as anyone who has had the light and has not responded to the light.
There is a darkness deeper and darker than the darkness of having never been enlightened. It is called "the outer darkness", and the outer darkness is for those who have had the light presented and have rejected, or who have not appreciated, that light. Now, that is a very strong word for us, it may sound harsh. I do not intend it to be that; it is only by way of getting to the heart of this matter of the importance and value of spiritual light, and what light is intended to bring about when the Lord gives it, and of course, what great peril there is bound up with having light.
Light was God's first work. To darken that light was the devil's first work. Light being God's first work implies quite clearly that everything else comes out of light where God is concerned. Darkening being the devil's first work implies that all that God intends by light can be frustrated if the light is darkened. That is a contemplation of considerable seriousness.
Let us note a few things literally and symbolically about light, as we have it in the Word.
You notice that it says in the first reference to light in the Scriptures, that God said: "There shall be light" and there was light. That is the literal translation of the Word. Light came by the word of God. Now: "Then God saw that the light was good: and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night". "And God divided the light from the darkness", or "and God separated the light from the darkness... and God called the light Day; and the darkness He called Night." It is not the same word there in the Hebrew as: "Then God said, "Let there be light"; God proclaimed the designation of both. It was as though He said: "You are Day"; "You are Night"; God separated between. It was the result of a special apprehension of the value of the light. (Now this wants a little close analytical following). The word 'the' there in the Hebrew: "And God saw the light" is a Hebrew word of tremendous emphasis. It is the word which carries all the force of 'Amen'; ''; it is a word of emphasis. "And God saw the light, that it was good" and God made a proclamation: "Day". And everything, in the purposes of God, from eternity to eternity is bound up with that, and it is something by itself. Night; that stands in another realm altogether, of a different order, and God has separated between the two.
Light is a Distinguishing Factor
The light has God's special emphasis and stands in clear distinction and separation unto God for His purposes and is the distinguishing feature of everything relative to God. It is the distinguishing feature between God and satan. "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5), says the apostle. Satan is always connected with darkness, even when he assumes the guise of an angel of light; his purposes are darkening, deceiving purposes. They are works of darkness still, and satan as an angel of light cannot stand the true light; he has to go. He is found, when transformed into an angel of light, to be darkness, when he comes into the presence of the true light.
I can put that into a simpler form, more up to date, experimentally. There are people of God who become deceived, not by what is obviously a black, dark deception, or delusion, or error, but become carried away concerning something which they are certain is light, is true, has all the marks of being according to the truth; and the day comes when those people come into the true light, and they find the very light they had embraced was darkness. Everything of satan is darkness. Much of what he does can only be revealed as darkness when the true light appears. Light is the distinguishing feature between God and satan all through the ages.
Light is the distinguishing feature between:
and Evil.
Holiness is always light, is always transparency, is always purity, is always sincerity, is always unmixed, unadulterated. Holiness is an essence of which there are no degrees; it is absolute. You cannot have degrees of holiness. You may have measures of holiness in one sense, but you cannot have degrees of holiness. Can you discriminate between a measure and a degree? A measure is an amount; a degree is a quality - in the way I am using it now, anyway. You may have a measure of holiness, but that measure is holiness; there is no mixture about it. You cannot have in holiness so much unholiness. Though it be but a little, it is utter in its quality.
Holiness is of God and in Him there is no unholiness, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." You may have a small measure of God, but that measure is without unholiness, and to increase the measure of God means to lessen the measure of unholiness, for the increase of God and the increase of holiness can never go on in corresponding increase of evil, or without the reducing of evil in the life. Holiness and evil are distinguished by the light. Light is the distinguishing feature between the two.
Light is the distinguishing feature between:
