GOD ALONE REVEALS

“In Your Light we see Light” Psalm 36:9.

There can only be one source for everything. All that is came from One. No other explanation accounts for there being anything. And if all came from One, then whatever is revealed came from One. Light is the perfect analogy to revelation. It is the perfect analogy to God as well. Nothing shines on light to make it visible. Light is not revealed; it only reveals. Light shines on everything but nothing shines on it. Knowledge is simply the result of light revealing something already there. The Bible says “God is light.” Thus He is the ultimate source of all that is known. That does not mean God reveals everything, any more than light shines on everything. God hides many things by not revealing them. They are out of reach of knowledge because they are not revealed. All things known must therefore be revealed by God. He is the light. Jesus in one of the most remarkable statements ever made claimed that He was “the light of the world” (John 8:12). Either Jesus was a deranged megalomaniac thinking Himself to be the great Revealer, or He was truly God. We know the answer. Jesus came as the true Light to reveal the true Light. Don’t think too long on that, your head will hurt. Light reveals itself, in the same way that Jesus, who is God, reveals the Father, who is God. God revealing God, that is the great mystery of Christianity. Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). The Father and the Son reveal each other. And there the party ends. Outside the triune God there is no revelation. Only when the Son desires to reveal the Father or the Father desires to reveal the Son is anything revealed. The agent of all revelation is the Holy Spirit. The three persons of the sacred trinity reveal each other. All knowledge stems from God being willing to reveal. Otherwise everything is in darkness. When Christ shines on a person that person instantly knows. Knows what? Knows the light. Conversion is simply the light entering the darkness of a human soul and chasing the darkness away. Men cannot conjure up their own light. Darkness has no power to create light. Nor will darkness seek the light. Darkness flees from light; it detests light. If you doubt this then shine a flashlight in a dark room. Where goes the darkness? For anyone to have the light, God must shine the light. Now, when anyone receives the light, he is able to reflect that light, just as a mirror reflects the sun. But the mirror reveals nothing in and of itself. Neither does the man who receives the light reveal anything. All that a man knows is a result of it being revealed to Him. All revelation is the reflected light that comes from God. Christians are nothing more than reflectors. That is why the Psalmist says “in God’s light do we see light.” All that is and all that was and all that will be is known solely through the enlightenment of God. It is in His light that we begin to see the light. Without His light we see nothing and know nothing. The Bible claims that men born into the world possess none of God’s light. They are in total darkness. Darkness is not something; it is nothing. It is a complete ignorance of all that is true, it is a complete absence of life. Nothing about the light can be known in the darkness. This is greatest problem of all time. Yes, men living in darkness can stumble around a bit. Men can know some things from the refracted light of God’s glory. We call that common grace. But men bereft of the true light can know nothing about the Light itself. All men are born blind sinners. They cannot find the light. They have no ability to come to the light. They cannot produce light either. Education, effort, intuition… none of these can conjure up light. The prophet asked, “Can something clean come out of the unclean?” Can light come from darkness? Only when One asks for the light is there any possibility that one will receive it. But even in asking for light one needs to have light. So we are back to the beginning. God must bestow light on whomsoever He will. And in that light a person now sees light and will most certainly come to the Light, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not know the Savior who is the light, may God grant you the light to be able to seek the light.