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Philippians 1:1

No Title Necessary

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 18, 2023

Paul was a visionary leader who led visionary followers to become visionary leaders. Every biography and encyclopedia article about Paul will celebrate his remarkable leadership abilities. What was his secret? He followed the master’s example. In the opening address to his letter to the Philippians, Paul identifies himself and Timothy in Philippians 1:1 as “servants of Christ Jesus.” Many preachers and commentators fly past these words suggesting that they are just the formal way Paul used in the “from” line of his letters. I think they are worth a little thought. He didn’t identify himself as an elder, deacon, pastor, evangelist, or as an apostle, but he was truly all of these things. He preferred the title “servant.”

Much of the Leadership literature today speaks about “Servant Leadership.” In the 1980s, the term began to show up pretty regularly in a lot of secular literature on the subject of leadership as well. But it has proven to be an extremely difficult concept to bring into the corporate world. It’s even more difficult in the church. Religious organizations apply titles of honor to their leaders, such as Father, Priest, Pastor, Minister, Doctor, and Reverend, to name those that immediately come to mind. We often dress them in special garments that set them apart from others. But Paul would have none of that. Paul’s normal address of himself was simply “Paul.” He often added “a servant of Christ Jesus.” Paul once had all the titles and honors of a Religious leader who could trace his lineage back to Benjamin. But once he encountered the living Christ, he counted all his titles as “rubbish.” He hung all his credentials and accomplishment on that rack as well. In Philippians 3, he listed all his credentials and then said in verse 8, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish….” Instead of titles and honors, at every possible point, Paul pointed away from himself toward Jesus Christ. That is the essence of servant leadership.

Jesus is the supreme example, and until one becomes a follower and servant of Jesus, one will never be able to follow the example that is displayed in such a humble act as foot-washing. Liefeld argues, “First, one must come to the cross of Jesus where his love, forgiveness, and servanthood were supremely displayed. It is the cross of Christ and the subsequent bestowal of the Holy Spirit that are going to reveal to the disciples the secret of servant leadership. The pre-requisite for understanding and practicing servant-leadership is the acknowledgment of Jesus’ death and resurrection.” After He washed his disciples’ feet, he called them, and He calls us to do the same thing, i.e., serve each other with humility. Jesus calls us all to follow Him. He calls us all to be a servant leaders. No degree is required! No office is necessary!

 

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Ephesians 1:4, Various

God’s Sovereign Choice

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 17, 2023

Paul was an Old Testament scholar. When we read his letters, we must remember that and always look for allusions to them. This is important when we read the passages that deal with God’s choice of His people Israel. The basis of God’s sovereign choice of Israel had nothing to do with the “quality” or “quantity” of the nation itself but was based solely on God’s love. God explains his choice in Deuteronomy 7:6-8. He says, “The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.  It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.” Having this in mind, Paul then writes to Ephesians and in Ephesians 1:4 says, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

I don’t understand the ideas of God’s foreknowledge and election of the people of Israel over the other nations of the world or his chosen individual believers over others in the world. The history of Christianity is full of discussions, arguments, and wars over the understanding of this issue. I don’t mind the discussions, and I’ve had my share of arguments, but I really don’t like the wars! Yet, we can’t overlook the phrase that explains God’s choice was made “before the foundation of the world.” The Handbook for Translators explains, “The temporal clause ‘before the foundation of the world’ indicates that God’s decision was made in eternity, before time and creation. The word ‘foundation’ depicts the creation of the world in terms of a building. The meaning of the temporal clause is expressed simply by before the world was made or ‘before God created the world.’” [1] There were several things that are said to have taken place before the foundation of the world.  In John 17:24, The father Loved the Son before the world was created. The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, according to Revelation 13:8. 1 Peter 1:20 says that Christ the Lamb was foreknown before the foundation of the world. John 17:5 speaks of the Glory that Jesus had with the Father before the foundation of the world. God’s action of “choosing” took place before time began. Titus 1:2 tells us that our hope of eternal life as Christians rests upon a promise God made before the world began. Our names have been recorded in the book of life before the foundation of the world as well.

“The choosing was wholly of God, an act of the Divine mind. The ‘elect’ are such because of the grace of God. If one gives great amounts to feed the poor or to ransom hostages, he has the undoubted right of selecting his own beneficiaries as he determines best. Alfred Nobel (1833–96), a Swedish chemist and inventor, was the inventor of dynamite. Concerned about the potential uses of the explosives he had invented, he established a fund to provide awards, called Nobel prizes, in five fields. He specified the fields (peace, chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature) and the judges in each category. An athlete, for example, is not even in the competition for a prize. Nobel made his choices, and it is not our prerogative to criticize or object.  In like fashion, God, out of His infinitely greater resources, arranged in His own eternal purpose for the salvation of man. He chose the realm in which and the means by which this is to be accomplished. God’s choice of Israel provides a basis for understanding His election of those in Christ today. His election of Israel was not because they were great or righteous, but because of His love (Deuteronomy 7:7; 9:5; 14:2). One may object that God should have chosen the Egyptians, or the Moabites, or the Edomites, but such is not within our prerogative.”[2]

[1] Bratcher, Robert G., and Eugene Albert Nida. 1993. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. UBS Handbook Series. New York: United Bible Societies.

[2] Jenkins, Ferrell. 1987. “Election.” Edited by Brent Lewis. Christianity Magazine, 1987.

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Galatians 1:3, 2 Peter 1:1-2

Gracious Living

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 16, 2023

In Galatians 1:3, Paul begins his address to the Galatians who have wandered away from the truth by saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Putting it first makes it the emphatic subject: “Grace.” He’s commending God’s grace and Jesus’ grace to his readers who are being beguiled by legalists who are commending law to them. Imagine them greeting the Galatians from their gospel (which is not a gospel at all). It would say “Law to you.” It argues that God and Jesus send us law to live by through which we can win God’s favor and acceptance. The phrase might be “Law to you, and strife, or stress, or anxiety, from God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ.” Relating to God on the basis of law is a relationship that is unsettling, uncertain, and unloving. I’ve known married couples that relate to each other on the basis of law rather than love. It feeds a miserable life. Nothing is more unsettling in life than having to deal with others on the basis of law. That is the call of the government, of course. But for us to deal with all of our relationships on the basis of having to have everything fair and equitable is to live our lives with a continual balancing routine. It’s a life that always puts ourselves first in our relationships and goes against Jesus’ instructions to love others.

Paul wants the Galatians from the very beginning of his letter to them to consider the difference between what is being offered by the legalists and what he has preached to them about what is being offered from God through Jesus Christ. With Grace comes peace from God. Peter begins his second letter with an even stronger greeting regarding grace and peace. It took Peter some time to comprehend the extent of God’s grace with which He would deal with sinners. But once he got it, grace and peace became the central theme of Peter’s life as well. He writes in 2 Peter 1:1-2, “Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” His opening greeting acknowledges that our righteousness is that of “our God and of Jesus our Lord.” It’s not a righteousness earned through obedience to a law. He calls for it to be multiplied! The more we get to know Christ, grace increases exponentially.

People don’t need law. People need God’s grace and peace. Most people are well aware of their failures and shortcomings, even if they are unwilling to admit it. They know they need help. I’ve heard people say they don’t want grace. They want justice. If God gave us justice, as we deserve, we would need “to go shopping for a flame retardant suit.” What we want and need from God is grace and mercy. God extends his gracious hand to the whole world from the cross of Calvary. God is so rich in mercy that he saves us by His grace. God loves everyone. He extends a gracious, merciful hand to everyone. He wants no one to perish or none to be fearful of perishing. Through Christ Jesus, we find God’s grace, and it gives us peace with God. Law brings stress and anxiety. Grace brings eternal life, an abundant life. Gracious living means treating people better than they deserve to be treated.  We do this because that is how God deals with us. One can never live graciously with others unless they recognize their own sinfulness. Receiving God’s grace enables us to extend that grace to others. It’s like love. The Bible teaches us that we can only love God when we recognize and accept His love for us. You can’t give others something you do not have. In Christ, we have God’s demonstrated love while we were sinners. God’s love is moved by His grace. You can’t give love if you don’t have it. You can’t be gracious if you have not received God’s grace. They go hand in hand.

 

 

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2 Corinthians 1:3, Various

Father of Mercy & Mother of Comfort

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 15, 2023

There have been attempts to understand God the Father as being quite different from God the Son. The God of the Old Testament is a vengeful God. Jesus is the loving and forgiving God. But Paul and the other New Testament writers don’t see it that way at all. After his usual greeting to the Corinthians in his second letter to them, Paul adds his understanding of the God of the Old Testament. 2 Corinthian 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.”

In Psalm 86:5, the writer says he is “Abounding in mercy.” Paul is not telling the Corinthians anything new but is reminding them that the Father-God of the Old Testament is the same Father-God of Jesus Christ. God explains his mercy to his people in the Old Testament in several places. It is seen in his actions towards his creation and his people throughout Genesis. In Exodus, this truth is proclaimed. In Exodus 34:6-7 we read, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” But, as Pink says, “the title “Father of Mercies” conveys more than the idea that He is our most merciful Father. It also connotes that these mercies issue from His very nature and that they are, therefore, both His offspring and His delights.” Just as Satan is the “Father of lies,” God is the “Father of Mercies.” It has its origin in Him. Pink goes on to suggest that there are three reasons Paul calls Him the “Father of mercies.” First, He sent Jesus to take the penalty for our sins. Second, as Micah 7:18 tells us, mercy is one of the things he “delights” in as a father delights in a son. Third, Paul wants the sinful Corinthians to realize that God has not and will not abandon them even in their sin.[1]

He’s not only the God of mercies but also the God of all comfort. As God gives Isaiah instructions regarding his prophecy, he tells him, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” That the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of all comfort was a radical statement, and it still is in some ways. As Pink points out, “None of the false gods of heathendom have such a quality ascribed to them; rather, they are represented as being cruel and ferocious. Consequently, they are regarded, even by their worshipers, as objects of dread. But how different is the Lord God.” If God is a Father with respect to His mercy, he is a mother with respect to His comfort. Isaiah 66:13 tells us, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

One website explains, “Of course, the fullest expression of the mercy of God is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the compassion of God incarnate. But the New Testament does not represent a departure from the Old Testament at this point, but rather the arrival of its fullest expectation.”[2] I know someone who likes to say, “God loves us because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.” I tried to correct him, but he keeps saying it that way. Jesus’ death for us on the cross is not the cause of God’s love for us but the result of God’s love. Romans 5:8 tells us that “God demonstrated his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

[1] Pink, Arthur Walkington. 2005. Gleanings from Paul Studies in the Prayers of the Apostle. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

[2] https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/old-testament-god-compassion-and-mercy

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1 Corinthians 1:3

Grace and Peace

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 14, 2023

Paul addresses the “saints” who are residing in Corinth. He begins his letter by informing them that they were called by God and set apart for the Gospel. The next verse, 1 Corinthians 1:3, tells his readers what comes from being God’s special people, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Handbook for Translators suggests that this verse might better be presented as a prayer that Paul prays for his readers. It might go something like this, “May God be kind and generous toward you, May God show his goodness, or May God give you what you need.” Grace in Greek is related to the word for “greeting” that was commonly used at the beginning of Greek letters. Peace was similarly used in Jewish letters.

In the Christian context, however, both words have more significance. The Handbook goes on and says, “In the language of the early Christians, to pray that someone might receive grace was more than an ordinary greeting. Grace, depending on the context, can have any one of three meanings: (a) God’s generosity in giving his love to people who do not deserve it, (b) the total sum of God’s gifts considered as a whole, or (c) individual gifts. In this verse, meaning (b) is the most likely.” In western civilization, the word “grace” has lost much of its meaning in both the believing and non-believing population. Repeated sayings degenerate into the sheer convention and don’t carry the intended weight. Thus, the English “Good-bye” originates from the early form “God be wy you,” “God buy’ye” as a contraction of “God be with ye.” Paul doesn’t want the Greek greeting or the Hebrew greeting to be familiar to the readers of his epistles. Hence, he expands these two greetings by adding, “from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” “And peace for Christians, as in the Old Testament, was more than the absence of war or a peaceful feeling that an individual might have inside himself. Christians understood these terms as related to the nature of God. Grace and peace, therefore, overlap in meaning, both with one another and also with ‘righteousness,’ which Today’s English Version often translates as ‘being right with God.’ Peace in the New Testament refers to a total state of well-being or good spiritual health that God gives to a person.”[1]

The Pillar commentary explains “Grace and Peace” this way, “The two words sum up beautifully Paul’s gospel, drawing attention to God’s beneficence and bounty, grace, the cause of salvation, and the well-being and welfare of those who are saved, peace, the outcome of salvation. As Fee observes, ‘the one flows out of the other.’ When one Christian wishes grace and peace to another, he prays that he may apprehend more fully the grace of God in which he already stands and the peace he already enjoys. Grace and peace are Paul’s shorthand for the eschatological benefits we have received in Christ.”[2] Another commentator puts it this way, “Grace signifies the free favor, mercy, and compassion of God, by which he freely pardons sins without our contribution of good works, accepts us ungrateful sinners, and proclaims us righteous and heirs of eternal life. Peace signifies spiritual and physical blessings; certainly, it includes the gift of the Holy Spirit, peace of conscience, renewed righteousness and life, gladness in God, and the inheritance of eternal life. Further, it includes protection, sustenance, guidance, consolation, and every good thing that we need, both in this present life and in the life to come.”[3]

[1] Ellingworth, Paul, Howard Hatton, and Paul Ellingworth. 1995. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. UBS Handbook Series. New York: United Bible Societies.

[2] Ciampa, Roy E., and Brian S. Rosner. 2010. The First Letter to the Corinthians. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

[3] Manetsch, Scott M., Timothy George, and David W. McNutt, eds. 2017. 1 Corinthians: New Testament. Vol. IXa. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

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Romans 1:4

Jesus is Lord!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 13, 2023

Paul informed his readers right from the beginning that the Old Testament carried the overarching theme of the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah came in the person of Jesus Christ, just as the Gospels document. He begins the book of Romans with that assertion in Romans 1:2-3. The Gospel of God was about Jesus, who “was promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.” Now that Messiah had come, Paul goes on in verse 4 and points out an essential doctrine of Christianity. He writes, “…and (Jesus) was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead….” God proved the identity and character of Jesus through the resurrection.

 After Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, the movement begun by Jesus of Nazareth was over. The fishermen went back to their occupations. The two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus discussed the action in the past tense because, to them, it was over. The women went to the tomb to embalm Jesus’ dead body. You embalm bodies to preserve them for as long as possible in the grave. To them, Jesus’ life was over. But they found an empty tomb! The resurrection changed everything. The church did not begin during Jesus’ life or at his crucifixion. The resurrection started the church that has remained in existence for well over 2000 years and will continue until Christ returns.  It began over the evidence and unwavering confidence in the resurrection. It’s the key doctrine of Christianity. Without it, nothing matters. Paul tells us what it would be like in his first letter to the Corinthians if it were not true. If there is no resurrection, then Christianity is false. According to Paul, if Christ were not raised, then Christian preaching is false and useless because the object of the faith, Christ, is not whom He said He was. If the resurrection is not true, there is no forgiveness of sins, the Apostles are liars for testifying to something that didn’t happen, and those who died believing held on to their faith for no reason. Further, without the Resurrection, it is clear that there is no point for Christianity to exist. “However,” as one blogger explains, “we know that the resurrection of Jesus is true because it was attested to by hundreds of eyewitnesses, and the empty tomb in which He was buried provides irrefutable proof that He is the Saviour of the world.”[1]

There is no escaping this truth. It is the resurrection that sets him apart and authenticates his claim to deity. The claims made in His teaching would seem ridiculous if the resurrection is not true. His miracles of healing, forgiving, and raising the dead would be some kind of “slight of hand” trick. He would remain in history a pitiful figure of a deluded individual remembered only as a Jewish moralist who had some incredibly inflated ideas about His identity. However, if Christ did indeed rise from the dead, then his teachings are vindicated, his miracles are divine, and He has proven himself to be the one and only Son of God with power, as Paul writes. C. S. Lewis wrote: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.” Mounce closes his comments on this verse by saying, “Verse 4 ends with a clear declaration that this Son of God is none other than ‘Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, God’s anointed Redeemer. He is also ‘our Lord.’ He is our master; we are his subjects.”[2]

[1] https://www.cru.org/sg/en/stories/sharing-the-gospel/the-importance-of-the-resurrection.html

[2] Mounce, Robert H. 1995. Romans. Vol. 27. The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

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Acts 1:6-7, Various

Minding our own business!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 12, 2023

Jesus had directed his disciples to return to Jerusalem, where they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which would empower them to be the light of the world. They were to be his “witnesses.” The charge was to let God’s light seen in Jesus Christ shine in and through the lives of every generation of believers until Jesus shall return. The disciples must have thought that with Christ’s resurrection, there would immediately be the fulfillment of all that they expected from the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. They did not seem to understand that the only coming of the Lord in an immediate way would be as they exposed him to the world through their lives and testimonies. In Acts 1:6-7 they ask, “So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.’”

Throughout history, there have been those who have professed to know the timing of the coming of the “end of days” or the return of the Lord. These predictions have been based on some personal ideas, some mathematical calculations, or some individual intuition. There are way too many to post in this article, but As early as the first century, Jewish scholars were predicting the end of the world and the Lord’s return. In 365 A.D., Hilary of Poitiers preached that the Lord would return that year. Martine of Tours said it would surely be before 400 A.D. One theologian calculated that the Lord’s return would be around 500 A.D based on the dimensions of Noah’s Ark. Gregory of Tours, a French bishop, estimated the end would occur between 799 and 806. Many said the Lord would return at the end of the first millennium, 1000 A.D. Pope Innocent III predicted that the world would end 666 years after the rise of Islam in 618 A.D. Hans Hut,  a German Anabaptist, got real specific and said the Lord would return on May 27, 1528. Even Christopher Columbus, in his “Book of Prophecies,” said the world would end during the year 1501. Based on some calculations from the book of Revelation, John Napier argued that the world would end in 1688. When that failed to materialize, he recalculated and said it would be in 1700. Let me skip dozens of others and come to Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who predicted 1914 but revised the date several times when nothing materialized. There have many, many others.

It seems Georg Hegel was right when he said that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. The world is still ignoring Jesus’ words to his disciples. According to Wikipedia, “Polls conducted in 2012 across 20 countries found over 14% of people believe the world will end in their lifetime, with percentages ranging from 6% of people in France to 22% in the US and Turkey. In the UK in 2015, 23% of the general public believed the apocalypse was likely to occur in their lifetime.” Now get this: “Between one and three percent of people from both countries  (The United States and England) said ta zombie or alien invasion would cause the apocalypse”[1] If we trust the Bible, we would never have these kinds of fears or predictions. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” There are some things God doesn’t intend for us to know. Man has arrogantly thought he could figure out God’s ways and timing with his meager mind. We must focus on the calling to shine the light of Christ in our lives and words in whatever period we find ourselves. That’s what he’s called us to do. Don’t worry about the future; that’s not ours to know. It’s not for us to understand the times and seasons.

 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

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John 1:4-5, Various

The Light of Men!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
May 11, 2023

The opening passage in the Bible speaks to us of the formlessness and void that existed before God’s creative energy was released when He spoke the word. He said, “Let there be light.” It seems the earth was either shrouded in darkness as originally created, or some event took place that made it that way. There are long discussions on which it might be. But whichever, the text tells us that “darkness was over the face of the deep.”  Darkness is the absence of light. Into that murky beginning, the Word came, ‘Let there be light! And there was light. Light secured victory over darkness. It wasn’t the light from the sun because that won’t be created until the fourth day. It was a different source of light. It’s God’s light, the light of Christ. It’s the light that dispels darkness. It dispels the emptiness in the world as well as the meaninglessness of life. The victory was a complete one. John 1:4-5 puts it this way, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John is also going to tell us that the light was the “word.” The word was at the beginning with God, and then the word became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul comments on this idea in 2 Corinthians 4:6. He writes, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” There is meaninglessness and emptiness in our lives without God. Jesus came to bring real life to us and to dispel the darkness.

It is God’s word that brings forth all life in the world, and it’s God’s word that brings real life to mankind. His word is Jesus Christ. It’s God’s greatest expression of His love for us. John will later affirm that when he says, “For God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” Paul is on the same page as John again, and he captures that idea in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Back in the 60s, there was a popular song with a call to “Put a little love in your heart.” Paul says, “God hath shined in our hearts.” Smith explains, “This God-shine in the heart brings with it a double revelation. It shows by way of contrast how dark the heart by nature was and how hopeless it was for it in itself to create such a soul-satisfying light. It is also a revelation of the character and presence of God in the heart. This is not so much a light created by God as it is the light of the presence of God in the heart. Into every dark crevice of the soul, this shining has come. It is the nature of light to cast its influence over everything that is anywhere within its reach. In shining into the heart, this light enters into every act and deed of life, into every thought and feeling and motive of the soul’s activities. God hath shined His light, and wisdom has come to take the place of our darkness and ignorance.”[1]

The light of Christ that shines in our hearts not only brings us knowledge of God’s existence but also an understanding of God’s immense love for us as demonstrated in Christ. It reveals God’s glory as Christ Himself did throughout His life and on the mount of transfiguration. The darkness, sin, is always at war with the light of the truth of Jesus Christ. But we know who will win that battle. John will tell us later in his Gospel that some love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil and don’t want to give them up. Paul again agrees with John. He tells us that the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. The Word who shone in creation also shines in the new creation to give light and life.”[2]

[1] Smith, James, and Robert Lee. 1971. Handfuls on Purpose for Christian Workers and Bible Students, Series I–XIII. Five-volume edition. Vol. 7. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

[2] Letham, Robert. 2013. The Message of the Person of Christ: The Word Made Flesh. Edited by Derek Tidball. The Bible Speaks Today: Bible Themes Series. Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press.

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