THERE is a well-known saying that we never miss the water until the well runs dry. This saying has many applications and, in these days of the “blackout,” light is more to most of us than it used to be. Light is God’s creation and like all His works animate and inanimate, small and great, very wonderful. Scientists have never been able to tell us what light really is—they have told us many wonderful things about it but not what it is. At one time the Newtonian Corpuscular theory was in vogue. This gave way to the Wave theory and this in turn, in modern times, to what may be termed a combination of the two theories. One thing, however, is certain, viz., that He who has said: “Let there be light and there was light” knows not only all about light but what it is. Dr. Love, the great evangelical preacher, of Glasgow, has some sublime and beautiful thoughts on Gen. i. 3,* when he introduces the subject by saying: “Let me think of the situation of this globe, when it was first brought out of nothing. God Himself declares what the situation was: ‘I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it’ (Job xxxviii. 9). The introduction of light into being is sublimely set forth. ‘God said, Let light be; and light was’† (Gen. i. 3). Out of nothing God brought forth this wonderful creature, to be an emblem of His own pure and incomprehensible essence—’This is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is LIGHT’ (I. John i. 5). Man’s deep ignorance of this substance is challenged by God—’Where is the way where light dwelleth?’ ‘By what way is the light parted’ (Job xxxviii. 19, 24). The Creator specially exercised His power over light in one of His wonders in Egypt. ‘The Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt three days . . . but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings’ (Exod. x. 21-23). And, again, at the crucifixion of Jesus; ‘Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour’ (Matt. xxvii. 45). The organs by which light is perceived, are equally wonderful with itself. The unity of the immense system of the material universe, which is within the reach of our vision, appears in this—that this same glorious substance exists in all regions. The light which comes to us, from the immeasurably and inconceivably remote fixed stars, is to all appearance the same substance that comes to us from the sun” (Memorials, I. 80).
*Dr. Duncan is reported to have said: “Though I didn’t care for Dr. Love for anything else—and I care for him a great deal more—I should like him for getting into raptures about Light, and its being first seen by the angels.”
†Literal translation.
For our great purpose we must now come down from the heights as we make reference to some lessons learned through the “black-out.” The first is the extreme difficulty of keeping the light within from shining out. Ordinary materials proved useless and frequent inspections brought disappointment. Now, if this can be said of artificial light how much more is it true when God causes His light to shine within that it cannot be hid. Some of the Lord’s people at the beginning of their Christian career tried to hide the light but it could not be hid and though they were not seeing it themselves it was shining out and proclaiming to others they were the children of light. Again, if it is a difficult problem to keep the light from shining out it is no less a difficult problem from keeping it shining in. The morning light will find out every little chink and shine into the room which during the darkness seemed proof against any light. Is it not so when God sends His light to shine into the dark places of the soul where He intends to dwell that nothing can keep out that light.
If space permitted much might be said of Him who is the Light of the World—the true Light—piercing the gloom and darkness of the grave right over to the other side as no other light has ever done or can do. We will content ourselves, however, on this subject with a quotation from Dr. Hugh Martin. “When the man of science,” he writes,” desires to entrance his audience, he takes a portion of the humblest of substances, the base and blackened charcoal, a splinter of a brand from the burning; and manipulating with his tiny wires the force which roars in the thunder and flashes in the lightning, he makes to play on that valueless, unsightly substance two streams of influence from opposing poles of the hidden power; till soon a silvery gleam gathers on its humble surface, and gradually the brightest light that philosophy and art can generate shines out with dazzling splendour, paling the ineffectual fires of the lamps that until now had irradiated the assembly . . . . When the living God, in a dark world rushing on to outer darkness, resolved to give a ‘bright and morning star,’—a ‘Sun of Righteousness,’ the strongest and sweetest light that men or angels could see, He took the base and dishonourable tree of Calvary; and on the humble person of His Beloved, there made sin for us, He caused two mighty streams of influence unseen;—two streams of influence wide as the poles asunder;—the one, of avenging justice as it slew the sacrifice;—the other, of redeeming love providing it. And as they met and blended into one there blazed forth on that dishonourable wood ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,’ while the sun in the heavens grew pale, and the angels veiled their faces with their wings. For three days and three nights the eyes of men were holden that they could not see it. But the resurrection morn tore away all veils for ever, and the dis-eclipsed sign of the prophet Jonah shone out resistless—outshining all other signs and lights; the very presence chamber of the King eternal affording now no glory more brilliant; for the Lamb is the Light thereof” (The Prophet Jonah, pp. 279, 280).