Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Light is invisible. You only know light is there at all when it strikes an object. Space is completely empty. There is nothing there to catch the light from the sun, until it reaches the moon. Actually space is full of light but it looks dark. This universe is full of God. He is the Father of lights, and all light comes from Him. But millions walk in profound darkness. How can that be? How can people walk in spiritual darkness when the whole universe is steeped in the light of God?
These people cannot see the light of invisible things, until somebody else catches it and it reflects it. The sun’s rays would not be seen on earth but they radiate the molecules of the atmosphere, the dust and moisture. The sun fills millions of miles with light, and there is no trace of it until it is reflected. The moon sails in invisible sunlight, and passes on enough light for us to find our way.
1 Timothy 1:17 talks about “the King eternal, immortal, invisible.” The light of God is constant, brilliant. It is never intermittent. But who sees it? People walk in darkness. The stark fact is that the only light they will ever see is reflected light. Just as John was a “burning and shining lamp,” a witness to the light, so are believers. We are commanded to “walk in the light” (1 Jn 1:7), for if we don’t there will be no light. The world depends upon light reflectors. If our Gospel is hidden it is hidden to those who are lost. (2 Cor. 4:3-6, NIV).
Perhaps I can point something out here. Paul says in 2 Corinthians that the face of Moses shone with the glory of God, but he veiled his face. The reason he veiled it was not humility; humble as he was. It was because the glory would fade, and he knew it would be a bad thing if the superstitious people of Israel saw the glory disappearing. They would draw wrong conclusions from the diminishing effect. So he veiled his face altogether so that they would not know whether his face was shining or not whenever God gave Him audience.
Paul’s point is that the light of God - His glory - in the Christian age, does not fade. It is permanent. We can have an open face to the world, so that people may see the glory of God in us.
James makes a similar statement. He says, “Every good gift … comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17, NKJ). As the NIV puts it, God “does not change like shifting shadows.” The sun causes a shadow as it turns, and the shadow moves. You see that on a sundial, and that is how we know the time. When there is no shadow, the sun is directly overhead at its zenith. In fact, God never casts a shadow at all, because He is always at the zenith. And He never shifts from that perfect position. The light of God is ceaseless, not temporary, and always fully on.
That is the everlasting light we should everlastingly reflect. Our face should not be veiled, as the glory is not passing away. We are being changed “from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18) - more and more glory! Let us continue to reflect the light of God to our neighbors as well as to the nations of the world.
