The Light of God in the Sacred Scripture

The Light of God in the Sacred Scripture

by

Rev. David A. Fisher

 
The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen. - Matthew 4:16

 The theme of light permeates the Sacred Scriptures.  For both Judaism and Christianity, the light of God scatters the darkness of sin, and divine light infuses in believers the wisdom of God.  

For Christians in particular, the light of God is understood as the workings of the Son and the Spirit in the world, revealing the Father and his Kingdom of Eternal Light. Jesus Christ is the light of the world, and the Holy Spirit is the light that enlightens the hearts and souls of all believers.  

In many ways the continual theme of light in the Sacred Scriptures reminds us to look beyond the divide of Old Testament and New Testament, and to emphasize the unity of God’s revelation in Sacred Scripture as a whole.  It should not be forgotten that the Scriptures are the Word of God, and Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh.  The Scriptures are about Christ, the Scriptures are the presence of his light, that enters our being through powerful light of the Holy Spirit.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who lived in a land of gloom a light has shone. - Isaiah 9:1    

The Gospel of Matthew and the Book of the Prophet Isaiah illustrate the aforementioned continuity of Sacred Scripture.  While the Scriptures of the Israelites understands primarily the workings of God’s light in respect to their relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Christian (New Testament) epistles and gospels of Sacred Scripture realize that the light of salvation revealed in Jesus Christ, has come to Jew and Gentile alike. 

All the people of God, who have walked in the darkness of sin, now see the light of Christ; the gloom of death has been shattered by the light of the victorious Christ, which has opened the gates of Sheol (shadowy death), for all men and women.  As the Prophet Micah had proclaimed: “Do not gloat over me, my enemy!  Though I have fallen, I will rise.  Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light”(Micah 7:8).

You, Lord, keep my lamp burning: my God turns my darkness into light. - Psalm 18:28

Your word is lamp for my feet, a light on my path - Psalm 119:105

Scripture shows us that the Israelites were often a people on the move.  One of oldest Hebrew statements recorded in Scripture seems to be: (arami oved avi) “my father was a wandering Aramean”(Deuteronomy 26:5).  People who wander down foreign paths, and unknown roads need light.  God’s chosen people found themselves wondering into Egypt, moving to the Land of Canaan, the northern tribes scattered about the Assyrian Empire, the people of Judah dispersed by the Babylonians, and the Romans spreading them around their Empire and beyond, even into the sands of Arabia.  As the Psalmist proclaims, God’s Word was the lamp for their feet and the light of their path. “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple”(Psalm 119:130).

The history of the wanderings of the Hebrew people becomes a poignant image of the Church of Christ; the pilgrim People of God. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”(1 Peter 2:9).

The actual physical pilgrimages of the Hebrew people, become the spiritual pilgrimage of the Church.  In the teachings of Lumen Gentium, from the Second Vatican Council we read: “On earth, still as pilgrims in a strange land, following in trial and oppression the paths he trod, we are associated with his sufferings as the body with its head, suffering with him, that with him we may be glorified (LG 6).”

I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.- Ecclesiastes 2:13 

The Church was born in a world of Jewish scriptural monotheism, Hellenistic/Greek thought, and Roman might and governance.  The majority of the Jewish people did not live in Roman ruled Judea, but ever since the Babylonian Captivity, the majority of Jewish believers had come to live in the diaspora, outside of the ancient homeland.  Hellenism, being Greek cultural patterns, had influenced Judaism by its philosophies and culture as much as any Roman tax collector or regiment of soldiers.  

The Greek virtue of wisdom had become for the Hellenized Jewish thinker the embodiment of God’s truth available to the faithful believer.  Wisdom was light that overcame the darkness of ignorance.  

In the “Parable of the Cave,” found in his great work The Republic, the philosopher Plato had presented knowledge as rising above the shadows of truth in a cave to behold the truth of things in the light of the sun, and for him this was achieved by Socrates.  For the Jewish believer this same concept is found in the story of Jonah: “I called to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried... I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me for ever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God”(Jonah 2:2-9).   

It is not by chance that many Fathers of the Church spoke of the Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as “holy pagans,” for it is often discoverable in human reason what we find as in this instance with the Book of Jonah; an uncovering of typology, a foreshadowing of Gospel Truth, one from Sacred Scripture and one from enlightened human reasoning.  As the apostle James writes: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows”(James1:17).  The same God who enlightens our hearts and souls with faith, enlightens our minds with rational wisdom. 

This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” - Ephesians 5:14

 Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, by his Cross and Resurrection the Light of Life is offered to all.  In Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit that groans within us we are given the light of faith.  Faith teaches us that by the Incarnation of the Son of God, we were created for life eternal, but by his Cross and Resurrection we learn that life is love.  The light of Christ reveals the nature of God, that God is Love. This is why Jesus taught his disciples as he teaches us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

For this is the message of Sacred Scripture: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all”(1 John 1:5).