Christ the Light: Five Marks of Divine Illumination

"As long as I am in the world I am the Light of the world" (John 9:5). The Word visited men before the Incarnation through nature and conscience, came fully at the Incarnation, and still comes through the Spirit who interprets His name (John 14:25; 16:13). Saint John discerns no distinction in essence among these three forms of revelation—all flow from the same harmonious plan of Elohim.

Christ resembles light in five particulars. First, light is primum visibile, the first object of sight; Christ is primum intelligibile, the first intelligible reality—"God over all, blessed forever." Second, light reveals all things by itself; so Christ illuminates the elect world of His Church (Ephesians 5:13-14). Third, few understand what light truly is (Job 38:19); equally, "who shall declare" Christ's generation (Isaiah 53:8)? Fourth, light remains pure though it visits impure places; Christ communed with sinners yet remained "separate from sinners" in moral immunity (Hebrews 7:26). Fifth, the sun's light neither diminishes nor divides when beheld by many nations simultaneously; the righteousness of this Sun of Righteousness is wholly conferred upon each believer without loss to itself or to Him.

Yet man possesses no independent light. Understanding outward revelation depends upon the abiding of the Divine Word within (John 5:37). Love conditions illumination (John 14:22). Christ's purpose was that believers become sons of light and possess the light of life (John 8:12).