Light

Matthew 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.2 - The Sermon on the Mount, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

We are the light of the world; we are not to hide this light; we are to shine it such that men see our good works in order to glorify God.

Lloyd-Jones describes this statement by Jesus as one of the most extraordinary statements about a Christian ever made.  Consider to whom He was speaking and the setting in which He spoke: commoners, subject people in a small corner of an empire.  Simple and unimportant people – and such as these were the light of the world.

Consider the time in which He spoke these words.  Men knew Plato, Aristotle, all of the classical giants in philosophy and science.  Wisdom seemingly so valuable that it would spawn what is known in the West as the Renaissance 1,500 years later.  But men such as these were not the light.

MHA: The theme of light is one of the central themes of Jesus’ preaching as transmitted in the Gospel of John.

In the several Johannine writings, the term light is often applied to God.  Jesus tells Nicodemus that He is the light that has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light.  Jesus taught often using the image of a lamp.  The woman lights a lamp to search the room for the lost coin.  The ten virgins took lamps to meet the bridegroom.

What does this suggest?  First of all, that the world is in darkness, and remains in darkness without light – this light.  Yet man looks everywhere else for light.  Lloyd-Jones offers a view of what the world describes as “enlightenment” …

DMLJ: …one of its favourite phrases, particularly since the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries… 

Regarded by many in the West as a great turning point, a watershed, a dividing line in the narrative of history.  The birth of our modern civilization.  This evolved into the period we know formally as the Enlightenment, which, as every Christian must understand, was the beginning of a real attack on the authority of the Bible.

DMLJ: Our knowledge has been a knowledge of things, mechanical things, scientific things, a knowledge of life in a more or less purely biological or mechanical sense.

It is this turning of which men will say is the light of the world – and it is described just as this.  No more divine revelation; man’s knowledge will enlighten.  One cannot dispute the many valuable advances since this time.  Yet, at the same time, one cannot deny the harms – visible even to Lloyd-Jones more than sixty years ago; undeniable by us today.

DMLJ: But our knowledge of the real factors that make life life, has not increased at all.

It has not only not increased, it has absolutely decreased.  We have labeled this today “the meaning crisis,” and it is manifest in the vacuity of life, the suicides, the depression, the alcoholism, the homelessness, the focus on trivialities as the highest good (based on the amount of time spent on such things).

It takes real light, not the superficial light brought on by material possessions and progress, to make visible the real factors that make life life.  Mechanical and scientific knowledge cannot offer anything regarding being and existence – what it means to be a human being made in God’s image.

As the Enlightenment has reached its heights by focusing on one aspect of knowledge, the world has grown ever darker.  We have evermore knowledge of the physical world, and we have lost all knowledge regarding what to do with this.  Gaining more such knowledge will do nothing to remind us again of what it means to be, to exist.

And, according to this statement by Jesus, it isn’t just that the world is in darkness.  He says there is only one way out:

DMLJ: He goes so far as to say that nobody but a Christian can give any helpful advice, knowledge, or instruction with respect to it.

All the great thinkers of the West are baffled by this problem. 

DMLJ: This is because their controlling theory was that all man needed was more knowledge.

But Jesus tells us that it is ordinary people – ordinary Christian people – that have the answer, that can shed the light.  He is not speaking to those in power, to those considered by the world as wise.  He is speaking to common people.

This light that is the common Christian is the light that Jesus describes of Himself.  “Ye are the light of the world”; “I am the light of the world.”  The light is the same; the source of the light is the same.  We are the light because of our relationship to Jesus and His light.  It isn’t just that we have received light; we are light.  We are partakers of the divine nature.

When our light shines before men, it is seen through our good works – works that distinguish the Christian from the non-Christian.  In rabbinical literature it is understood as requirements from God that go beyond the prescribed law.

MHA: It includes but is not limited to works of love and mercy; all the qualities enumerated in the Beatitudes are meant to be demonstrated in concrete good works.

We understand this by how often the same phrase, “good works,” is used in other New Testament sources.  The apostle Peter writes of good works “which they [the evildoers] shall behold.”  In Hebrews, we are told to consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. 

John Chrysostom offers:

For God will have us profitable not to ourselves alone, but to all our neighbors as well.

Per Metropolitan Hilarion, a further deciphering of these good works will be offered by Jesus in the later parts of this Sermon: refraining from anger, preserving chastity and marital fidelity, refraining from swearing oaths, etc..  All culminating in the Golden Rule: to treat others as we would want to be treated.

Lloyd-Jones describes this light.  The word “candle” is used in the King James.  Virtually every other translation uses the word “lamp.”  Metropolitan Hilarion offers that the translators of the King James chose “candle,” although there is a different word for candle in the Greek.  “Lamp” certainly paints the picture much better than “candle”:

MHA: … before the lamp was lit, it was necessary to endure that there was oil in it and adjust the wick.

The oil must constantly be replenished; the Christian replenishes the lamp of his oil through prayer – regular communication with God.  Remember the ten virgins?  The foolish ones brought no oil with them, and their lamps went out; the wise ones brought extra oil, replenishing their oil as necessary.

As to the wick, it must regularly be trimmed.  Lloyd-Jones offers that we do this by revisiting, every day, the Beatitudes: reminding ourselves that we are to be poor in spirit, merciful, meek, etc.  We are to live accordingly, every day.  This is also a reminder that the Lord did not make the statements in this Sermon in a random order: living the Beatitudes is necessary to then be salt and light.

We are to live in such a way that it is a problem for the non-Christian to see us this way – to see just how different we are.  Further, we are to live this way in such a way such that when men see our good works, it glorifies God, not us.

Conclusion

DMLJ: There is obviously no light at all in this world apart from the light that is provided by Christian people and the Christian faith.

MHA: …we note that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is not calling his disciples to become the salt of the earth and the light of the world; rather, he is saying that they are already these things.

We are meant to be such – both regarding salt and regarding light.  The business of salt is to be salt; the business of light is to be light.  It is essential to our existence, to who we are as Christians.  It would be ridiculous for a Christian to not be such.  In other words, such a Christian would be absolutely useless: a salt without saltiness; a light that shed no light.

DMLJ: According to our Lord’s argument, that is the truth concerning the Christian.  As I understand it, and it seems to me an inevitable piece of logic and interpretation, there is nothing in God’s universe that is so utterly useless as a merely formal Christian.

Per Lloyd-Jones, the formal Christian knows enough about Christianity to spoil the world for him. But he doesn’t know enough to do anything positive about it.  He knows enough to spoil everything else, but not enough to bring any real joy or happiness – to himself or to others. 

DMLJ: I think such people are the most pathetic people in the world.  Our Lord certainly says they are the most useless people in the world.