Augustine and First John (3)

 

            “What is the main point that you are hearing [in 1 John 1:5]? What is the result of your hearing [how are you responding]? Pay attention to your response…What is it that God wants to teach us?...It is that ‘God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.’

 

            “Perhaps we shall [learn] to be near this light, which is far beyond all the earthly lights which this Light created, so that by this Light we might be enlightened; because in and of ourselves we are darkness…

 

            “Who is the one who is enlightened by this Light? It is the person who, because of this Light, sees himself living in darkness because of his sins, and wants to escape the darkness and draw near to the Light. We read in the Psalms [Psalm 34:5], ‘They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.’

 

            “You will not be ashamed by this Light, if, when it reveals your real self to you, that you stink of sin, and that your own stink of sin [and your own ugliness in sin] is more than you can bear, that it also reveals its own beauty to you. This is what God desires to teach us in this passage.”

 

            God shows us ourselves so that He may deliver us from ourselves to Himself. This is true as we are coming to the Light, Jesus Christ, and it is true as we live in the Light, Jesus Christ. God does not just show us ourselves and the darkness within us; He also shows us Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, so that we may live in His Light. We cannot be delivered from darkness without seeing the Light that draws us from darkness.

 

            Paul writes (Colossians 1:13 - 14), “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

 

            Augustine begins the above quote by asking, “What’s the main point? What is the result of your hearing [how are you responding]?” In our previous post Augustine was saying that if all we do is repeat the Gospel story over and over without understanding the purpose and message of the story, that we are just playing mind games. Here he is asking, “What’s the main point? Are you responding in obedience to the main point?”

 

     Preaching and teaching without a call to obedience to God and His Word is not Biblical preaching and teaching – Jesus Christ is Lord, and our lives are to be a continuous loving and obedient response to His lordship.

 

      Elsewhere in this section of the homily, Augustine points out that there are various kinds of light – the sun, the moon, even a candle, but that the Light of God surpasses them all just as the Maker surpasses all the things which He has made. In Revelation Chapter 21, we see that in the New Jerusalem there is no sun or moon, for there is no need for them, “for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.”  

 

             When we come to see Christ, the Light of God, we begin to understand that all lesser lights are at best refractions of the True Light; at worst they are deceptions. As Paul tells us, “…even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” While God can certainly use lesser lights to draw us to the True Light, and while we should be aware of Satanic lights; we can also face the temptation of substituting lesser lights for the Light of Jesus Christ in the way we live and see life. These lesser lights can take many forms, including moralism, doctrinal distinctives, political affiliations, nationalism, self-help frameworks of life, methods of worship – we can only have one center of gravity, only one heartbeat, only one love of loves, passions of passions, and light that surpasses all other lights. Is this light, by which we live, the Light of the world?

            

Augustine quotes Psalm 34:5, “They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed,” and then says, “You will not be ashamed by this Light…”

 

Jesus says (John 9:39), “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be blind.”

 

The world system, including its religious systems, thinks that it is smart. Yet its supposed evolutionary smartness is leading it ever deeper into the abyss of darkness. We are taught to deny sin, to deny guilt, to suppress inclinations for repentance; and sadly we see this functionally, if not overtly, in much of the professing – church. Much of the professing – church has capitulated to the social sciences, to using the Bible as a therapy manual, and with “outreach” now just another word for marketing.

 

Yet Paul writes, “…God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that no man may boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:27 – 29).  

 

The Light that Jesus promises us, His very self, is to be our Way of Life – it draws us to Him in repentance, and continues draw us ever deeper into Him as we live in relationship with Him. Jesus says (John 8:12), “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Note the words, “he who follows Me,” this is a way of life, the way of following Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our framework, He is our center of gravity, He is our North Star, He is our Beginning and our Goal – the fulfillment of all of our desire. Solomon writes (Prov. 4:18), “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.”

 

Augustine tells us that we will not be ashamed when we look to this Light. Psalm 34:5 speaks of a radiance we have when we behold God, and that our “faces will never be ashamed.” Consider what this means, what this looks like. If our faces will never be ashamed we can behold the Face of God in Jesus Christ; we need not avoid eye contact, we need not divert our gaze, we need not look downward at the ground – we can behold the Beauty and Glory of our Lord Jesus Christ Face to face – we are free from guilt, free from slavery to sin and death, free from fear – we are embraced and loved by Jesus Christ – living in His glorious Light of Life!

 

 The stink of sin and death, and all of their graveclothes, have been done away and we are new creatures radiating the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:14 – 21).