Gospel of Light

Light was God’s first touch upon a world in darkness. The inaugural command of the miracle of creation. Light was the eyewitness to everything created after it had filled the entire void of nonexistence, until the finger of God took clay in his hands to fashion the first Adam.

Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the light of the world…” (Mt 5:14). Yet darkness continues to resist the light, infiltrate the light, disguise itself as light. It is incomprehensible that people should prefer darkness to light. Some do so because they do not know the light, others because they deliberately use darkness to hide their sinful acts and ungodly conduct, and most because they still do not know who the light is. And what of the one who knew the light and consciously turned away from it to “enjoy the pleasures” of darkness that a life without God seems to offer?

The package of salvation in Christ also includes failures, frustrations, suffering, and affliction. If someone promises you boundless prosperity and siren songs for your ears when you embrace the gospel, that person does not know the true God. Ah, the glory to come will be far greater than every sorrow, every burden and every despair, because the Light has overcome the world. Jesus is that light: “I, the Light, have come into the world so that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness.” (John 12:46)

When the message of the Light is offered with the anointing of the Spirit, clearly and forcefully, no one can resist rejecting it. We have the authority God has given us in his Son, Christ; we are no longer of the night or of darkness (1 Th 5:5). Now we are light in the Lord, and we must walk as children of light (Eph 5:8). For there should be no greater satisfaction in the hearts of God’s children than announcing the light, proclaiming the light, living the light. “…The one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.” (John 12:35). How can we, as children of light, allow so many people around us to walk in darkness and stumble again and again, engulfed in the darkness of their own lives?

If we do not make God’s love known to the people who live in darkness, that very darkness will swallow them up. The apostle Paul speaks to the Ephesians about the fruit that light produces. “For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth” (Eph 5:9, emphasis mine). That is precisely what the gospel is: it is goodness, and goodness is love, mercy, compassion. It is righteousness: the practice of what is just, of the law of honesty and integrity for the benefit of the human being, even though a sinner; and it is truth, as eternal as God himself.

God’s voice thunders in our conscience. “For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the nations, so that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.’” (Acts 13:47).

May God bless his Word!