Light Musings

The title of my blog today matches that of the sermon from this Sunday and is somewhat of an ironic double entendre. To muse about something is to think deeply about it and get lost in thought, but if you take “light” to mean “not heavy” it turns into an oxymoron. But when you realize I am talking about 1 John 1:5 and the statement: “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” … then you realize the topic is pretty heavy and “light” refers to the character and attributes of God Himself.  Okay, now that I’ve established how clever I am with words (go ahead and roll your eyes) we can move on …

I was able to share in the sermon several passages of Scripture that use the metaphor of light to refer to the things of God and what pleases Him. So many of these metaphors are based on the essential qualities of light which are so beneficial to us and brought out in Genesis 1 where God creates light first and shows that He is the source and controller of it. Indeed, God Himself uses real light and darkness in real-time events of history to create metaphors of His own. Consider the ninth plague of darkness against the Egyptians (Exodus 10:21-29), where God controls the light and darkness for three days while the Egyptians experience the curse of God in the dark and the Israelites share His blessing in the light. It is no mistake either that in the tenth and final plague of chapter 11 that God chooses to send His destroyer against the firstborn of Egypt at midnight (11:4; 12:29). Night and darkness are often metaphors for death and destruction in the Bible. The Israelites conduct a night vigil, eating their Passover Lamb and awaiting their deliverance from slavery that morning will bring. And we can also look at Moses in Exodus 34:29-35, coming down the mountain after his most intimate session with the Lord and His face was literally glowing with light. God had shared His glory with Moses in a visible way and that glory was a source of fear for the people, so Moses had to hide his face with a veil. Paul uses this story to remark to the Corinthians how wonderful it is that those of us who believe in Christ and share His gospel are radiant with Christ’s glory to those who need Him. “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Well, this will be too long if I keep going like this. You could write a book on every instance in the Bible where the metaphor of light is used. Instead let me list a few metaphors for light in the Bible and give you a few verses to study on your own time. Believe me, it is worth it. Your knowledge of God and His things will grow and every time you come across “light” or “darkness”, “day” or “night” in the Bible, it will cause you to pause and consider our God who is light. As you go through this list, you will probably notice that each passage in its context will offer a different angle on the use of light and there is plenty of crossover between these categories. Here we go then …

Light as Truth (or the revelation of God, His knowledge and His wisdom)

• Job 28 uses the illustration of a miner of gold or silver who does certain things to find veins of precious metal deep in the earth where it is dark. He is illustrating the search for God’s wisdom. Verses 10-11 notes how he cuts through rock and dams up streams “so that he may bring to light what is hidden.” Light is a revealer. God’s truth reveals for us what life is about and how to walk wisely.
• Job 12 is also a discourse from Job to his friends about wisdom. In verse 22 he says, “[God] reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deepest darkness to light.” Light brings understanding to the mysteries of God.
• Psalm 43:3 – The psalmist asks God to “Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me.”
• In Proverbs 6, starting in verse 20, the father exhorts his son to hold on to the commands of his father and the teaching of his mother.  V. 23 “For a command is a lamp, teaching is a light, and corrective discipline is the way to life.” This is similar to a well-known verse from Psalm 119 “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (v. 105).
• Isaiah cries out to Israel in 2:5 “House of Jacob, come and walk in the light of the Lord!” A clarion call to come to the truth of God’s word and live by that truth.
• Isaiah 9:2 says that “the people waking in darkness have seen a great light and those living in the shadowland of death a light has dawned” and it goes on to describe the son who is born to them that will lead them to salvation (v. 6). This is quoted in Matthew 4:16 to describe Jesus’ ministry beginning in Galilee – a ministry of revealing God and His kingdom to man.
• In Luke 2:28-32, Simeon lifts up the baby Jesus in his arms and praises God saying “… My eyes have seen your salvation … a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory to your people Israel.”
• Jesus calls Himself “the light of the world” three times in the Gospel of John (8:12; 9:5; 12:46; and John 1:4-9 calls Him the true light) and you can argue that it means a myriad of different things. But it at least means that Jesus came to bring the truth about the Father to Israel and the world.
• See also Isa. 42:6; 49:6; 51:4; 59:9; Acts 26:23; Rom. 2:19; Col. 1:12-13 (?); 1 Thess. 5:4-5; 1 Pet. 2:9

Light as Life (physical, eternal, resurrection)

• In Job 3, we see a man stunned with grief and wishing he had never been born. In v. 16, he wishes he had been stillborn, “like an infant who never sees the light.” In v. 20, he asks a question in common Hebrew poetical parallelism “Why is light given to a man to the one in misery and life to the bitter soul?” Life and light are connected through that parallel thought. See also v. 23.
• Job’s friend Bildad tells him that the wicked will perish and will be “thrust from light into darkness” (18:18).
• Elihu tells Job (probably on behalf of God) that God is the kind of God who forgives sin and can bring back the soul from the pit and “light it up with light” – a possible reference to resurrection (33:27-30; See also Ps. 56:13)
• Ps. 36:9 says that God is the fountain of life “and in His light we have light.”
• John 1:4 says that life was with the preincarnate Christ, “and that life was the light of men.”
• See also Ps. 49:16-19;

Light as Goodness (or Holiness, Righteousness and Purity, and Darkness as Evil)

• Eph. 5:6-14 encourages us to walk as children of the light and then tells us that the fruit of the light is goodness, righteousness and truth. It describes the disobedience of some as darkness and that light exposes such things.
• Job 24:14-17 states that criminals and evildoers plan their deeds at night and perform them in the darkness.
• Consider the parallelism of Job 30:26: “When I looked for good, then evil came to me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.”
• In Psalm 4:6, the psalmist hears people crying out, “Who will show us any good?” And so He cries to God: “Lift up the light of your face on us O Lord.
• Romans 13:11-14 says we should put off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
• See also Isa. 45:7; Col. 1:9-13 (?); 1 John 2:8-11 (also a metaphor of truth).

Light as Hope & Joy and Darkness as Despair: Ps. 88:18; 139:11; Isa. 5:30; Jer. 25:10; Lam. 3:2;  

Light as God’s favor or blessing and Darkness as His judgment: Num. 6:24-26; Ps. 44:3; Amos 5:18-20; James 1:17

Light as strength or salvation: Ps. 27:1; 38:10

There are many more. I hope you will grab a concordance, your Bible and a notebook and start looking at this wonderful theme of the Scriptures. There is much to learn about our God in order to walk in His footsteps.