ARE YOU PUTTING OUT THE LIGHT?
By W. S. Chapman
W. S. CHAPMAN.
(Cleveland, Ohio.) The law is the character of God thought out and arranged in words. Therefore Christ, manifesting the character of God in words, becomes the word of God. The word of God lived out in the life of Christ (John 1 : 14) becomes the light of the world. Verse 4. “No other light ever has shone, or ever will shine, upon fallen man, save that which emanates from Christ.”—“Mount of Blessing,” page 61. This light was the law of God made comprehensible to sinners. “His mission was to ‘magnify the law and make it honorable.’ He was to show the spiritual nature of the law, to present its far-reaching principles, and to make plain its eternal obligation.”—Id., page 72.227 Now, God being love, the thoughts of God are all love. Love being the life of God, the thoughts of God must be life. As love is the life of God, and life is power, the love of God must be the power of God. The thoughts of God being love, and love being the life of God, and the life of God being the power of God, therefore the thoughts of God are the power of God. As the law of God is the thought of God, the law contains the power of God; hence, the law of God, which is the life of God, which is the love of God, thought out, is life to all coming under its influence. As the gospel is the law of God unfolded to sinners, it contains the life of God, the love of God, and the power of God unto salvation to sinners. 2 Cor. 5 : 19. Therefore the law of God in Christ became the gospel, or the power of God unto salvation, revealed to sinners. As the law of God in Christ was the gospel and light of the world, so the law of God in the disciples is the light of the world (Heb. 8 : 9, 10); and as the law of God in Christ was the gospel and the only light of the world, therefore the law of God in his disciples is now the gospel, and the only light the world has, or ever will have. So we read: “While our Saviour is the great source of illumination, forget not, O Christian, that he is revealed through humanity. . . . Every individual disciple of the Master is Heaven’s appointed channel for the revelation of God to men.”—“Mount of Blessing,” page 62. “It was by receiving of his life that his disciples could become light-bearers. The life of Christ in the soul, his love revealed in the character, could make them the light of the world.”—Id., page 61. As the law of God is the love of God thought out; as the covenant of God (Heb. 8 : 9, 10) is to plant his thoughts in human minds; as the love of God in the mind (Phil. 2 : 5) is the gospel; and as the gospel is the light, and only light of the world; therefore only those having the mind of Christ, having the law and the love of God in the heart, keeping all the commandments of God, can be the light of the world, revealing the true gospel. Now what does God tell his people?—“Because Christ’s self-sacrificing love is not interwoven in the life practices, the church is weak where it should be strong. By its own course it has put out its light, and robbed millions of the gospel of Christ.” What is the light thus lost?—Knowledge of the will of God. “He that hath my commandments” means he that hath light upon what constitutes the commandments of God, and will not disobey his commandments, although it might seem an advantage to do so.” Have we the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus? Are we the custodians of the gospel, or have we put out our light? Does the angel still continue to pour the golden oil into the bowl, that it may flow through the golden pipes into the lamps to lighten the world, or are we a people that has put out its light, and sits in darkness? “When warnings come no more to the people of God, when tender admonitions from the Spirit of God are silent, when the candle of heavenly illumination shines no longer upon their pathway, they will be left to kindle their own fire, and to walk in the sparks of their own kindling.”