From the commencement of man’s dwelling on earth there had ever been divine light to guide him. For Adam, there was the simple divine command, which, to the ruin of the race, was disobeyed. Man’s sin brought in distance from God, and with it a darkness, for Adam did not from then walk in the unclouded knowledge of God. Still, there was light to guide him amidst the darkness; there was the promise of God concerning the Seed of the woman, and the way of approach to God through the death of an innocent victim. It was this light that showed Abel the way to God’s presence, and enabled him to offer a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
Jehovah Himself was the light of David, for he wrote, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear” (Psalm 27:1); and God’s word was ever a lamp and a light for the godly (Psalm 119:105). In times of difficulty, the prophet could call to Israel, “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isa. 2:5), for there was ever light available for those who desired to walk here pleasing to God. Moreover, the same prophet could look forward to the day when Israel would no more be in darkness, for “the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light” (Isa. 60:19-20).
The coming of Messiah would bring “great light” to God’s earthly people (Isa. 9:2), but He would also bring blessing to the nations, even as it is written, “I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6). Matthew 4:16 records the fulfilling of the former prophecy, and the presentation of the Son of God in John’s Gospel as “The Light of the world” (8:12; 9:5), fulfils the second.
For Israel, Jehovah had appeared in a pillar of fire to illumine their way and to guide them, but in the incarnate Son of God the light was not a fire that reminded His people of judgment, but in the life that revealed His nature of love. Prophets had been sent to speak to Israel, but now the Eternal Word became flesh to manifest before men what God is in His nature and in His disposition towards them.
The brilliance of the light that shone could only be judged by the greatness of the Person in whom it shone, for it came in no other than One who in His own Person is God, the originator of all things, and who had life inherently “in Him.” Of no other could these wondrous things be said. In the Son before the eyes of men there was manifested the life that showed them what their God was. God was to be seen in all that the Son was, for the Son was God manifest in the flesh. Divine light had come in Him who was its source, not as it is essentially, for God dwells in unapproachable light whom no man hath seen, nor can see, but veiled in human form, a fashion in which it could be seen and known by men.
Into the darkness of this world the divine light shone, that men might know God as He truly is. There had been light for Abraham and for Israel, but it was not the full, unclouded light of the presence of God dwelling among men. God had spoken to Abraham in angelic guise, and had spoken freely to Moses, but now He was living among men, their God, yet a perfect Man. There was nothing more to be revealed of God than was seen in Jesus. It was not His commandments, not yet His counsels, which were not yet fully disclosed, but it was Himself as One to be seen, heard, contemplated and handled. Nothing can exceed the wonder of this great event, the light shining in the life of the Son of God before the eyes of men in this world.
Light naturally dispels darkness whenever it shines, but it was not so with the moral and spiritual darkness in which man was because of sin and the influence of the powers of darkness. Man’s ignorance of God persisted in spite of the purest light that had come among them, and this revealed the true nature of man’s ignorance of God. Man had no wish to know God, His ignorance was wilful. The God against whom man had sinned, and from whom he was estranged, was a holy God, and the light that revealed God exposed man, and man did not relish the holiness of God, or care to be seen as he truly was in the light that revealed the divine perfections.
John Baptist was sent by God before the true light came as a witness to Him, bearing witness to the Person of Jesus as the Light. It was not to the learned Greeks that John came, who boasted to having the light of human reason and the philosophy that prescribed the way in which men should walk. Nor was it to the rulers of the world, whose might dictated the course of men. It was to Israel that the witness of John was given, the nation favoured with the oracles of God, and who, because of this privilege, should have been waiting to welcome both God’s witness to the Light, and the Light to whom he bare witness.
Yet John’s witness, though given to Israel, was not only for the benefit of Israel, for the One to whom he bare witness brought blessing for all men. It was not enough to belong to Israel to have the blessing brought by the Light. Israel had been highly favoured among the nations, but national blessing was one thing and individual blessing quite another. To benefit from the light brought in the Person of the Son, personal faith was needed. Faith had ever been the principle of individual blessing, even before Israel existed as a nation, for the blessing of Abraham was because he believed God.
The light of which John was a witness did not shine in John. As the Lord said, “He was a burning and a shining light,” as a witness to Him (John 5:35); but he witnessed to the coming of the Son of God, the only One in whom life was to be displayed before men. John was a man highly favoured of God, but the Light was a divine Person who, though Man, was God over all, the creator of all.
Coming into the world, Jesus was the true Light. Divine light was seen without a shadow in Jesus, it was unmixed, pure and undimmed, transparent and perfect. There was nothing in the life of Jesus to give the slightest false impression of God, for He perfectly revealed God as none else could for He was God. In the believer, who has the divine life in the Son, the light shines, for he is “light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:8), but as still having the flesh in him, there is that which is of the flesh which mingles with the light, so that we give a very imperfect presentation, at the best, of what God is. How different it was in Jesus: all was perfection, and the light that shone so perfectly in Him was for every man. It was now possible for man to know what God is in His nature of love.
Israel, as having the oracles of God, was not in the gross darkness in which the heathen lived, and they could look forward to the day spoken of by the prophets when Jehovah would be their everlasting light; but when Jesus came into the world, the true Light, He was such for “every man.” God was no longer confining His activities to the favoured nation of Israel, but dealing with all mankind, and revealing Himself for the blessing of all who had faith in Him. Whatever the disposition of men towards God might be, there was now no doubt as to what God’s disposition to man was, for in His Son He plainly declared what He was in Himself in all the grace and love of His heart.
When Jesus was in the world, the Light was shining in Him here for all to see. He had come into the world His hands had made, yet He was unknown by the men of this world. This clearly revealed the state of the world, and of the men who composed it. The whole system of the world, and of the men who composed it. The whole system of the world, in all its departments, was estranged from God, and the proof is found of their being ignorant of His presence. They were so blind, under the influence of the god of this world, that they could not recognise the creator of the world when He came into their midst. Such is man by nature, the result of sin having entered into this world by his disobedience.
It might be thought that the religious world would have been different, especially as seen in Israel that had been so highly favoured of God with the light of His holy oracles, but the religious world is no different, saving that the stubborn self-will of the creature is the more in evidence by the refusal to receive the Son of God. As Messiah, the Light came to the things that were His, “and His own received Him not” (verse 11). Israel, the people that God had taken up in His goodness, and the remnant that had been brought back to the land to receive Messiah, would not receive Him when He came.
Jesus had rights to assert as the creator of all, and as the Son of David, but He was unknown by the world as creator, and refused by Israel as the heir of David. A usurper was on the throne of David, and men that were estranged from God held the highest places in the system of worship that professed to be loyal to the true God. His Father’s house had been made a house of merchandise, and He refused to take the kingdom from them because it was not Him they desired, only the loaves and fishes that His divine power had provided to meet the needs of the hungry.
In not receiving the Son of God, Israel rejected the light of which He was the Personal expression: they refused the overtures of grace in Him whom they professed to serve. Yet there were those who did receive Him, and in receiving Him they were brought into the knowledge of God revealed in Him, and with this knowledge there was the blessed privilege of taking their place as the children of God. This was something entirely new, for no one until this time had known what it was to have this blessed relationship.
Saints of old were in this relationship as being born of God, but they could not take the place belonging to it until the Son came and made the Father known. With the revelation of the Father in the Person of the Son, the babe in the divine family knows the Father (1 John 2:13), and as having the Holy Spirit can say, “Abba, Father.” Faith in the Name of the Son of God evinced that those who received Him were born of God, and therefore His children.
Natural generation had no place in spiritual things, for the children of God were not born “of blood.” Blood made a great deal of difference under the law, bringing Abraham’s natural line through Israel into a favoured place, from which others were excluded; but God was bringing to light a new generation in which the privileges of nature had no place. Not only in Israel, but among the families of men in this world, among all nations, the blood tie carries with it exclusive privileges. These blood ties belong to nature, and are outside the realm of the divine family that owes its origin to God.
“The will of the flesh” had nothing to do with divine generation, for it does not lie in the nature of man to desire the things of God. No one ever became a child of God because he desired it. The flesh, even when viewed abstractly, that is without the sin that indwells it, lives in an entirely differently realm from the things of the Spirit of God. The desires of Adam innocent never could have brought him into this divine family, much less Adam guilty, for such desires, or the ability to attain to this divine relationship, are altogether outside of the nature that belongs to man in the flesh.
Man has set his heart and mind on great achievements, and has done great things. He has constructed wonderful buildings, instruments and machines, and has, of recent date, set himself to reach the moon. One thing he can never attain is to enter the family of God. Whatever ability and power he may have in the realm of material things, he has none in the realm of spiritual things. Man’s will may dictate, achieve and dominate, as allowed of God, in natural and material things, but it cannot touch what belongs to God’s family.
It is as born of God that we have become the children of God. The natural generation of Adam, of Abraham, of David, or of any other have no place here; nor does any one become a child of God by his own desire or power. God, in His sovereignty brings this generation into being, by His word and His Spirit, as Scripture shows (John 3:3-8; 1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18).
R. 23.7.66.