GOD IS LIGHT by W. S. Adams

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 2, 1901

“GOD IS LIGHT”

By W. S. Adams

W. S. ADAMS (McClure, Mich.)

“God is light.” “I am the light of the world.” To him who recognizes the truthfulness of these two statements it is evident that God is the author of all light, both mental and physical. The Spirit, through John, says of Jesus: “There was the true light; even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.” John 1:9, R. V. While this scripture states that the Spirit of Christ gives to every man an intelligence capable of choosing right or wrong, it also embraces that light which comes to us from the “Father of lights”—the light of day—the light we receive apparently from the sun.

In Genesis, we read that there was light in the earth before the sun had shed its rays upon the earth. This is a statement over which unbelievers make merry and rejoice, as if it were an inconsistency of the word of God, failing to recognize that “God is light.” Gen. 1:1-3 says: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. . . . And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” This light of the first creative day, this light that burst upon that void and formless waste, was none other than the light of that refulgent glory of the Creator of a new heaven and a new earth; for where God is, there must be light; for “in Him is no darkness at all.” So great was this light of His glory, that it could fill and lighten the earth when as yet there was no atmosphere.

On the second day the atmospheric heavens were created. These also were lighted and flooded with that same glory of the supreme God. These heavens were made that the light of the glory of God, through the sun of the fourth day, might be transmitted to the earth, thereby causing all life to continue. This placing of His light shall remain as He gave it while His Spirit, which then moved upon the face of the waters, remains in the earth. When this is removed, then shall be that spiritless condition mentioned in Jer. 4:23-28: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. . . . For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black.” This darkness is the thousand-year period during which Satan wanders up and down over the earth’s broken surface, disconsolate, miserable. This absence of light constitutes in part the bottomless pit. What a punishment for him who was once the “light-bearer, son of the morning”!

God gives to the world His light through the sun, that we may live, and, living, appreciate that “great Source” whence that light comes; that we may see in nature the wonderful works of Him who said, in the beginning, “Let there be light.”

We read, “Light is sown for the righteous.” In the expression, “Ye are the light of the world,” how full the meaning! for as soon as the righteous are gathered from the earth, the whole world will be enveloped in the pall of Egypt.

It is evident that the light in which we live and move, that light which bathes the earth daily with its healing streams, is none other than the reflection of the glory in which God dwells. “I am the Lord, and there is none else. . . . I form the light, and create darkness.” Isa. 45:5-7. “Hearken unto this, . . . stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. Dost thou know when God disposed them, and caused the light of His cloud to shine?” Job 37:14, 15. At Sinai this light of His cloud, this light of the glory of God, was hidden. “He made darkness His secret place” lest the people perish. Man, in his present condition, can not look upon God because of the consuming fire of His presence.

God mercifully gives us His light in such measure as we are able to receive it. In the beginning our first parents lived in an atmosphere of light and glory, of which we are now unable to conceive. As sin has caused our earth to degenerate, so has the light of our heavens been decreased, and so shall it be until “all the bright lights of heaven” are put out. Eze. 32:8. We are placed in this earth, that, by overcoming, we may by and by stand, in our translated bodies, in the full blaze of the glory of God, and behold those “stones of fire” and clouds of His light.

The enormity of Lucifer’s transgression consisted in his desire to ascend above these clouds of God’s glory, and to “sit also upon the mount [the throne of God] of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” He would be like the Most High. From his being “the anointed cherub that covereth,” and walking “up and down in the midst of the stones of fire,” he is to descend to the utmost bounds of darkness, cast out as an abominable branch, to “go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet.”

It is from the throne of God and from God himself that all light emanates. Our sun is but the medium through which this light is conveyed to our solar system. Every sun and every world, no matter how remote, receives its light in the same way and from the same source. The flickering gleam of the most distant star that we may see is but a ray of that light. To all worlds,—universe upon universe, system upon system,—forever and ever, is this same light of the glory of God revealed.

God’s invitations to consider His wondrous works are many. Notice the distribution of evening light in our system of worlds. Mercury, the nearest known world to the sun, has no moon. Venus, that beautiful star of resplendent brightness, has no moon, because of its nearness to the sun. Next, our earth, because of greater distance and need of evening light, has one moon; while Mars, beyond, has two; Jupiter has five; Saturn, 886,065,000 miles from the sun, has nine discovered moons, besides three luminous bands of light encircling it. In these last days, when the message of truth is nearing its close, God would reveal to us through His mighty works some of His majesty, goodness, and love, that we may comprehend Him more perfectly. Oh for that glad day when the saints of earth shall visit those

worlds, and understand His wondrous ways! Truly, as it is written: “Neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

The Bible is the source of our wisdom and knowledge. All who desire truth need not walk in darkness; for as a man reaches out after wisdom, God will surely meet him. God desires us to know of a verity that “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” If the light of His countenance were removed, how soon we should cease to exist! How manifold are His mercies to us every day! It is through the light of the sun that God stores up in the food we eat all the properties our systems require. These blessings are tokens of His love to us; and as we partake of them, we should recognize the source whence they come. In the pure atmosphere of the new earth, when the light is intensified sevenfold, and the night is as the day, man’s food will be correspondingly perfect: all shall be wholly nourishing.

In Job 37:16, 17, God asks Job: “Dost thou know . . . how thy garments are warm?” He would have us know this great truth. He would have us know that because of the treasured sunlight they are comforting. In the beginning, God clothed man with a robe of light, but now we find him not so clothed. When man sinned, his first need was for something to cover and warm him. So God gave him a “coat of skins.” “Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” James 1:17.

The light and heat from the fuel which we burn in our stoves, are simply the bursting out of that light that has come from the throne of God. The light from the lamp or the dynamo is the same. The oil contains those condensed rays of light that the burning blaze gives back to us. As we read or study His word in the evening, we are reading by the reflected light of the great Creator.

In the restoration of all things, the new earth needs not the medium of the sun to transmit light. Then “there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.” Rev. 22: 3-5. “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: . . . and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.” Rev. 21: 23-25.