The Source of All Spiritual Light
—First of a trilogy
In this lesson, and the next two, we will be thinking about light —not physical light but spiritual light and darkness.
Looking down from a hill upon a town at dusk, you see it bathed in light, but from many light sources, not one. Or at a boat harbor you will see many lights shining from the boats and jetties and their reflections twinkling in the rippled water, combining with many lights along the shore
Some folk think that spiritual light is like that. There are many lights, each a little different, but each genuine and each making its contribution to the enlightenment of the world. You can have your favourite light but you acknowledge the other lights as well. Is that the way of true spiritual light? Are there many sources of spiritual light, or only one?
God alone gives light. Paul prayed for his dear friends that "the Father of glory may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling..." (Ephesians 1:16-19).
1 The Source is Not Self
Paul did not think that he and his friends had light within themselves and of themselves. Rather, their spiritual light came from the “Father of glory”.
John makes the same point when he says that the Word "was the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world" (John 1:4-5,9). Man is not born with inherent light, but must be enlightened from a source outside himself.
2 The Source is Not Other Creatures
Other created beings likewise have no light within themselves.
Jesus mentioned the angels of little children. He said, "their angels continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 18:10).
These angels beheld not their own light, but the glory of God. When angels turned away from God, they found themselves in darkness (Jude 1:6, 2Peter 2:4).
"The angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, the Lord has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day" (Jude 1:6).
"God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to chains of darkness reserved for judgment" (2Peter 2:4).
3 The Source is God
No one is a light of themselves, but everyone's light comes from God without variation.
"God is light and there is no darkness in him at all" (1John 1:5). God is "the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (James 1:17-18).
God "alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light" (1Timothy 6:16). There is no other true light. If we have true light, it comes from God alone.