“Kingdom of God: Great Light/Paul’s Announcement of It”

Our text tonight is taken from 2 Cor 4:6: ‘For it is the God Who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ Who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’

In the growing revelation of Himself and His will, God sought to give Light to life, a light that shines even more brightly than the sun.

Being God, the ‘Fountain of Life’, He sought to give meaning to His own people.

The heart of man was to be opened to a deep mystic union with God, Who has and is Life in itself.

He must yield to something higher, something more secure, than his own ‘self’.

He must yield to a lifeline of the spirit in communion and unbroken fellowship with God to satisfy his spiritual hunger.  

It was Paul whose eyes were opened to the prospect of that actually taking place.

He discovered that one ‘Thing’ that was higher, that was more secure, that ended the ‘hiddenness’ of God to man. 

But - the breakthrough into Paul’s life was not before he caused many to suffer needlessly from his insanity of defending God in his self-appointed role of ‘judge, jury, and executioner’.  

Turn to Acts 26:9-11 with me - Acts 26:9-11.

Paul thought he was called to ‘do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth...

Many of the saints did I shut up in prison...and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.

And I punished them often...compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities...’.

What kind of a mindset about God did Paul have?

How really illumined was Paul during those times?

In the first place, he thought he knew all there was to know about God.

And - without realizing it, he was in chaotic darkness himself in which he had no light to understand his own actions nor the power to solve his own problems.

He was demanding absolute submission to his ideas about God, yet incapable of and refusing to accept corrections about Him. 

I wonder what Paul thought when, one day, later on, he faced the same intense threat of cruelty, scourging, and death with which he had threatened the Christians of his day. (Acts 2:22-34)

But - thankfully - at that point in his life, Paul was seeing things very differently.

He had renounced his disgraceful, shameful hidden things.

He put away his craftiness and cruelty in dealing with the people of God.

He had laid aside his own version of ‘God’s ways’ among the children of men.

And he no longer adulterated and falsified God’s self- revelation in Christ.

He was clearly seeing the ‘light’ of the Gospel of Christ. 

He found himself having entered into a deep covenant relationship with God through the Person of God’s Son.

How did he come to this place?

Listen to what he personally learned straight from the heart of God in 2 Cor 4:6.

‘For it is God Who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ Who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’

He was given the insight to look straight into the face of the risen Christ.

That light of the face of Jesus shone into Paul’s life.  

The risen Christ, as the unique Son of God, bore the very likeness, the very visible expression of the divine splendor and nature.

So great was that light that it reminded Paul of God’s act of creation when He said: ‘Let there be light’, in Gen 1:3.

The glory of it so blinded Paul that it took three days before he could see again. (Acts 9:9)  

This was more than a physical light. It was more than just a physical occurrence.

Although it affected his physical being, even to the point of not eating and drinking, the light so saturated his life, it - in actuality - became a spiritual presence and power to Paul.

And that gave him a knowledge of God and a knowledge of His saving power.

It gave him an understanding, a perception and experience of spiritual reality and relationship that was veiled up to this point in his life.

It was clear.

It was certain.

It was spiritual sight that Paul had never known before.

And, this was in spite of the fact that he was well versed in the Old Testament writings and he was a member of the coveted and prestigious Sanhedrin Council, as well. 

But he described and recognized this Light as ‘...the inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in...’ Christ. (Acts 26:18)

And ‘That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.’ (v 23) 

The Jews, as a nation, thought it was so incredible for God to have a Son Who He sent as the ‘hope’ of the promise God had made to the ‘fathers’, (Acts 26:6) and to raise Him from the dead.

The one fundamental emphasis by the Old Testament writers was about the ruling activity of God.

His Sovereign action was the focus of their writings.

But they had difficulty accepting the manifestation of His Sovereign power as an actual fact in their present time.

Yet God did it! He sent His Great Light as promised! 

So was it such an impossible thing for God to also change a man like Saul into a ‘Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ’?

It was God’s Light, God’s creative Word, that burst through Paul’s darkness and reduced his chaos to order.

It brought new life to birth within him.

It is a vivid picture of the difference Christ makes: for the light was that of the glory of Sovereign God in the face of Jesus, the Christ, Paul’s ‘Messiah’.

Christ lifted his veil of darkness. It broke the darkness of his selfish and stubborn pride. 

Sin that had hidden God from him was moved out of the way.

When he looked into the face of the risen Christ, the gulf of separation between himself and God was gone. 

What did he see in the face of Christ? 

Let us read the Scripture again - 2 Cor 4:6.

‘...For it is the God Who said, ‘Let light shine of out darkness,’ Who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.’

First, he saw ‘...it is God Who...’, ‘...it was God Who...’.

It was God Who is the Father of Lights!

It was God Who is the Source of all light!

It was God Who is the One in Whom there was no darkness at all!

It was God Who was the one Whose very crown of revelation is Light!

Paul saw it was this God Who took the initiative to send the Great Light of His Son! 

His light came and what a spiritual Gift to man it was!

In the Light of that Gift, man was able to see a whole new Life.

In that Light, all light of reason in human nature was given the resource to see the truth which is its light.

Where other eyes would see only darkness, a man would have the Gift of seeing the Light, of seeing the Life, of seeing the ‘King in His beauty’. 

It certainly was not anything Paul had done or said that set this great plan of the Gift of Light to the world into motion!

God ‘gave’ by His own initiative so that those who grope in the perplexities of life could see the truth and walk at liberty in the light. 

It was His idea to bridge the gap!

Men need not feel hidden from God any longer!

And, then, secondly, Paul saw God, not only having taken the initiative, but he saw God having acted creatively.

And how did He act creatively?

Look again: ‘He gave light of the knowledge of His own
glory in the face of Jesus Christ.’

A whole new universe of God’s glories that personally affected a man within the confines of man’s own heart  opened up when a man looked into the face of His Son!

The full knowledge of His glory was never truly seen by His own people.

But Paul could now see how a veil was over the truth of Christ as it was revealed in the Old Testament writings.

When men read it without the light of Christ, it was not understood as God meant it to be understood.

The Isa 53:5 prophecy of the suffering Servant who was ‘wounded for our transgression and bruised for our iniquities’ never was understood until Jesus came as the suffering Savior.

The importance of the old covenant was not understood until the new covenant came into being.

The law was not understood until it was seen as being fulfilled by the law of life which Christ revealed. 

Only as men saw in the Old Testament writings the record of God’s growing revelation of Himself and His will for men that came in Christ, the Great Light, was it understood! 

So just as God created light for the universe, so He created light in the face of Christ to behold His glory in its fullness.

And how did it change the heart of man?

There was a ‘new creation’ that came into being by God acting creatively in every man who opens to it. (2 Cor 5:17)

Paul was living proof of that, even as he preached it.

Man could be bound so closely to Christ in vital union with Him that he can be radically transformed into a new being.

The full force of this truth is often missed.

A new thing happens when the soul comes to the Light of Christ that has never opened to him before and the change starts.

Now - there are those who are not always aware of a change having taken place within when the Light opens the way.

There are those who have no special emotional reaction at the time.

Sometimes, there are those who have not made a clear break with the ‘old man’ to see themselves as a ‘new creation’. 

But - no matter when they do become aware of it - we can be sure it is the action of God that has brought that man into the Light.

For - when God acts, the effect of His action is always  creative!

To realize this truth and to identify the experience with the light of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ will bring man to the recognition of God’s actual presence in his life.

And he will ‘behold Christ’, as Paul did. 

Not under the same circumstances, of course.

But he will see how the veil of his blindness is lifted as he looks into the face of Jesus.

It is the ‘beholding Christ’ that is the key here!

His power to open blind eyes is exactly there - in the Light of His face!

It is His Light that has the power to awaken and to increase the capacity to ‘see’.

But - sad to say - the more a man refuses to ‘behold Christ’, the more hardened his heart grows.

The eye is blinded all the more by its refusal to see.

And the heart is hardened all the more by truth which it refuses to face.  

But - ‘behold Christ’ and a man will see how Christ kindles insight and quickens conscience.
 
‘Behold Christ’ and it is His light that satisfies all longings and desires of a man’s spiritual hunger.

‘Behold Christ’ and it is His Light that feeds the mind with the truth of a revelation of Himself and of God.

‘Behold Christ’ and His Light will supply all that is needed to build up the human spirit.

‘All this is from God, Who through Christ, reconciled us to Himself and gave us His Son.’ (2 Cor 5:18)  

He is the ‘Miracle’ of spiritual Light! 

If this were not so, He would not be our ‘personal’ Savior, for there would be no Light to our spiritual darkness.

‘For’ - ‘it is the God Who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ Who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’  

His Great Light is here! It is available to ‘whosoever will’!

May we learn to walk in it every moment of every day of our lives!

Amen.  

Let us pray.