THE MESSAGE OF HIS LIGHT: SALVATION

Saturday 16 November

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 (NKJV)

The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. John 1:4 (NLT)

Out of all the things Apostle John could have communicated about Christ, he tells us ultimately what God has said about Himself and what He wants us to know. Notice this isn’t just a message from God it is THE message of God. Why is it so important for us to understand and what are the full ramifications of this message? Let’s find out.

To answer this we need to go back to the beginning. The book of Genesis provides us with an amazing insight into this message. The first three verses tell us:

‘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 the Spirit of God moved upon the waters. And God said let there be light and there was light.’

Most folks believe that this is the beginning of creation but is it? No. It is before the creation of the physical and material world. Let me prove it to you.

In Genesis 1:1, The heaven and earth is referring to the spiritual and physical element of the man in Christ. So this was happening spiritually not physically. How can we prove it? Verse 2 says ‘the earth was formless and void’ tohu bohu in the Hebrew, which means nothing nothing. Empty. Non-existent.

Then it goes on to say that ‘darkness was upon the face of the deep’. Again darkness here was not physical darkness but spiritual darkness because the physical and material earth was not formed yet. Next it says ‘the Spirit of God moved over the waters’. Again they were not physical waters because the earth had not yet been created.

Next it says ‘God said let there be light’. Remember at this point there was no heaven and no earth. It was nothing nothing. This raises the question; was the light spiritual or physical? This thought should answer it. The sun moon and stars were made to give light and they were not created until day four of the six days of creation. So therefore the light had to have been spiritual.

The first 3 verses of Genesis are actually the plan of redemption that God put in place before the foundation of the earth.

What does this have to do with what John told us was ‘the message’. To understand God is light we need to know what the darkness represents.

Apostle Paul sheds some light on the matter when he says in 2 Corinthians 4:6 ‘For it is the God who commanded light to 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.’

The darkness represents the heart of man without Christ. So when God said ‘let there be light’ He was referring to the light of salvation in the hearts of men.

David said ‘the Lord is my light and my salvation’. So we can see that the spiritual light that shined in our hearts is salvation. So this light is salvation. Instead of let there be light or light be it could easily read let there be salvation or salvation be.

Think about John 1:4 that talking about Jesus says ‘In Him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot not overcome it.’

This light that is salvation is the eternal life of God. It is this eternal life of God that is the light of God which is salvation. When this light salvation shines in the hearts of the man without Christ, darkness gives way to light. Darkness by definition is the absence of light. How do we eliminate darkness? Turn on the light.

Salvation is everything that Christ died to bring you into and everything that He made you and everything that He has given you pertaining to life and godliness. Understand this. Everything that is consistent with salvation is light and everything that is inconsistent with salvation is the absence of light, or darkness.

If light is life, then darkness is death.If light is health, then darkness is sickness. If light is prosperity, then darkness is poverty.

God is light. He is salvation. He is eternal life. Now you are beginning to see why this is ‘THE message’ This truth is what we heard from Him in Jesus Christ and what He wanted us to know about Him.

Recall the words of Jesus in John 8:12, the same Jesus that declared ‘let there be light’ says “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life”.

APPLICATION

Study Genesis 1:1-3 and see God’s salvation plan in Christ set in place before time and creation as we were chosen in Christ before the world began (Ephesians 1:4).