As we shall see in our study of the Book of Exodus, Moses led Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea. It was a rocky road, but eventually they made it out to the backside of the desert, and up to the holy mount. At the top of Sinai, God explained some of His laws, beginning with a summary in the Ten Commandments. For days and days, Moses was in the mount. And down below “the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.” After ten days Israel became nervous, but then there were twenty and thirty days. The people were become more and more nervous and fearful. Finally, “the Lord, gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two table of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” But prior to Moses’ fortieth day on the mount, Israel in fear reverted to their old Egyptian idolatry. Out of gold, their high priest, Aaron, made an image of a calf, and said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” When Moses came down and saw what they had done, he smashed the tablets containing the law.
At that point Moses didn’t know what was coming next, but he wasn’t sure that he would be able to lead Israel. He needed some reassurance from Jehovah about his leadership and Israel’s deliverance. So he pleaded, “Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy ways, that I may know thee… and consider that this nation is thy people.” Lord, “if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” “I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.” And God said, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee…” But, “thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live.”
Why is it that not even God’s greatest servants can look into the face of the Lord and survive? Why is that none of us can safely look at God? Without getting into details, which are far beyond above my pay grade, here is a simple answer: It is because God is immeasurably holy and every man, woman and child on earth are wretchedly sinful. Not only can’t holiness and sin coexist, the greater will destroy the lesser. That is as it has to be. There is a natural spiritual law at play, which not only demands the judgment of sin, but will inevitably accomplish it. Neither Noah, nor Abraham, nor Jacob saw God the Father; they saw “the angel of the Lord,” the preincarnate Son of God.
Now, let’s move from the Old Testament back to the New Testament and the Book of First John. The first chapter of John’s epistle is all about fellowship with God – communion and partnership with God. John says, “That which we (apostles) have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.” “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” However, “if we (or any other man) say that we have fellowship with (God) and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth; But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another…” And here is the essential point within this fellowship: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” If there is the slightest bit of darkness in us, there can be no fellowship with the God who is light. “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live.”
Moses had wanted reassurance for his ministry; he wanted fellowship with Jehovah in his service for the Lord. God said, “Okay, but you must know that no one can look on my full glory and survive. But because I am gracious, I will give you a protected glimpse. I will give you my own specially created goggles through which to see me.” “And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen.” And it was so.
I plan in the next few lessons to deal with how sinners like us can fellowship with the holy God. We will have a message on: “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is no in us.” “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” And we will definitely have a message on: “the blood off Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” But this morning I’d like to focus on John’s declaration: “God is light.” I think it directly relates to what Moses and the Lord were taking about there on Mount Sinai.
God is light: what does that MEAN about GOD?
Here is where I don’t mind telling you I am leaving my comfort zone. I think I know what John is saying, but I’m not sure I know it well enough. There aren’t many scriptures which expound on John’s statement. And I certainly don’t know how to express what I think that I know. Logic tells me to skip this statement and move on, but John is so emphatic I can’t conscientiously do that.
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” This is different from what the Son of God said in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” And John 9:5: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” In John 1, the Holy Spirit said: in the Son is “life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Here in our text, John didn’t say, “God is THE light,” but rather “God IS light.” Whatever this light is, it is a part of Jehovah’s nature to be light. Perhaps we can call it an attribute. It is as though God is made up of some sort of special light, and yet that isn’t really accurate. God is light; He is not a light; He doesn’t simply shine on us through His eternal Son or His created sun. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
There is nothing particularly revealing about the Greek word translated “light.” It is self-illuminating. But while it is translated “light” sixty-eight times, it is also rendered “fire” twice. And that takes us back to Moses on the Mount, and even earlier when he stood before the burning bush. He was commanded to take off his shoes, and he covered his eyes rather than look on the light of God. What if we combine in our minds “light” and “fire?” Can’t we picture a fire-light so intense that it cuts through metal? Aren’t there a growing number of surgeons who use lasers instead of scalpels to cut out malignant flesh?
There are a number of ways in which we could use light to express various aspects of Jehovah. But I fear they fall so far short of the ultimate reality, it is with hesitation that I even mention them. They aren’t necessarily inaccurate, but they fall short.
For example, we might use light to speak of God’s holiness – the Lord is transparently and intensely holy. There is not a shadow of moral darkness with Him. He cannot lie or deceive. God cannot sin in any way. Light is something we think of as pure, and fire is something which purifies. It illuminates. Light enables us to see things that are hidden in the darkness. God the Holy Spirit reveals things to us that can’t be seen with ordinary observation or education. For example, man has been trying for more than a century to guess how our universe came to be. But God shed His light down on the subject, and in that light creation makes perfect sense. And how could we ever know there is absolute forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice of Christ, he didn’t show that to us? Light is important. Ask that African Violet in your living whether or not light is important. It will tell you that without light it wouldn’t survive a week. Light is essential to life. In Christ, who is the light, “we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; For by him were all things created… And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” He is the light of the world; He is the light of life.
Couldn’t we spend an hour in holy conversation discussing light as not just one thing but as a whole spectrum of things? We call those things “colors.” There is no darkness in either God or light. And in one sense all we can see in looking at God is “light.” But the prism of God’s Word separates the reds from the blues and yellows. God is light, and God is love, and God is life. All true, all different, all essential.
Everything about the Lord is holy – His Bible is the holy Word of God. His angels are holy, and sing praise to His holiness – “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” God’s eyes are too holy – too pure to look on evil. God is absolutely holy, which means that His eternal wrath is as holy as His elective love. It is His nature to destroy that unholy thing which looks upon His perfections.
John tells us: “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” He says, “I heard, along with all the other apostles, that God is light. This I DECLARE unto you. This is NOT open to DEBATE.” The Greek word he uses is related to “gospel.” This is the gospel truth, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
Now, someone might say, “All this is very nice, but so what?” God is light. That’s nice. I can live with that. Why should I care whether or not the Lord is one thing or another? Some people have more hair than I have, what has his hair-style got to do with me? That couple has more money than I have, but I am perfectly content with what I have. What has their wealth got to do with me?
What has “GOD IS LIGHT” got to do with ME?
That God is light is vitally important to you, whether you realize it or not. A few minutes ago, during our worship service we read one of the best known verses in all the Bible. “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.” Earlier John told us Christ Jesus “was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Generally speaking humanity is not interested in God or Christ, the light of the world. Three verses after famous John 3:16 Jesus said, “And this is the condemnation that LIGHT is come into the world, and men loved DARKNESS rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
Let’s not forget John’s purpose in writing his first epistle: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have FELLOWSHIP with us: and truly our FELLOWSHIP is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” But, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” And the truth is: we are as much darkness as God is light. Jehovah is as much in the light as He is light. And dark sinful man cannot exist even for a moment in the Light without God’s grace.
Saul, before his name was changed to Paul, was on his way to Damascus to harass, persecute and arrest the Christians in that city. But he was stopped in his tracks and beaten to the ground by God, when “suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.” He cried out, “Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest…” Dark and corrupt Saul was knocked to the dirt by nothing more than the Light – the God who is light. If the Lord had not be merciful to the man at that point, his flesh would have evaporated off his bones and his soul would have been instantly in hell.
That is how and why “God is light” is important to you and me. “Kick off your shoes, Moses, you are on holy ground when you stand in my light.” Moses, I will let you catch a tiny glimpse of my glory, but I’ll have to cover your eyes and surround you with spiritual Kevlar, because without my protection, no man can see me and live.
Ah, but here comes the inexplicable grace of the Lord. Isaiah prophesied of its coming: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined” – Isaiah 9:2. Then John picked up the theme: “In (Christ) was life, and the life with the light of men” – John 1:4. Then he quoted the Lord Jesus, “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not wak in darkness, but shall have the light of life” – the light of life.
In II Corinthians 4 the Apostle Paul was talking about the people who walk in darkness rejecting the light. He said in verse 3 – “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The god of this world – Satan, the Devil – loves for his subjects to be in the dark – blind. He doesn’t want them to see the light of God and Christ who shines through the gospel. But praise the Lord, that in thousands of cases, God commanded the light of the gospel of Christ to shine through the darkness, into the black hole of people’s hearts “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
This, my friend, is the basis and grounds for fellowship with God – light. Only through the light of Christ can sinners like us be fit to stand in the all consuming light of God. I implore you to turn aside and come to the light, covering your eyes and pleading with the Lord to be gracious to you. From his knees, with an inability to see anything else, Saul essentially said, “Lord, what must I do to be saved.” And what did he do? What must we do? He put his faith in the light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ.