The Father of Lights

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. - James 1:16-18


Today I was attempting to access an old online account that I had not updated in years. I knew my user name but could not figure out my password. It was probably one of those passwords that you think is really witty and that you will definitely remember... but then you forget it in a week. Anyway, after trying all of "the six passwords that unlock everything in Matt Bostrom's life," and still not getting in, I shamefully resorted to the "I forgot my password" box. I was led to a personal question prompt that read, "He is the Father of." The box next to that phrase had a blinking cursor that waited impatiently for me to figure out who "he" was and what exactly he had been fathering. I stared at the screen blankly for about 5 seconds before it clicked. He (God) is the Father of Lights! That is one of my all time favorite names of God, and ever since I joined facebook around five years ago, the Father of Lights has been listed as my first interest.

Remembering that name created an itch to dig deeper into the God who is light, and led me to many passages where God presents himself robed in light. Let us scratch the surface...

First let us look at the passage in James. Everything good that we experience, and every promised blessing, is as a beam radiating down from his throne. In him there is no shadow of change, no flicker to disrupt his perfection as it emanates to his children. The fourth question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, "What is God?" The answer to this succinct and overwhelming question is, "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." He is eternally unchanging, Being; from which all else is derived. "[He] is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Tim 6:15-16) Moses asked to be shown the glory of the Lord in Exodus 33, and God replied that it would destroy him. Yet God placed Moses in the cleft of a rock and covered him as his presence passed by and allowed him to glimpse the Lord's back. When Moses returned from the encounter, he had to cover his face when talking to the people, because even though he only saw a poor glimpse of the light of God's glory, his face radiated light so that the Israelites were terrified to look at him.

In the beginning God spoke light into being by the word of his command, and in the same miraculous, authoritative manner calls us into the light of his life. "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." (2 Cor. 4:6) In the same way that God called light out of nothing, he has shown the light of his Gospel into dead hearts and given life through that knowledge of Christ. There is an illumination that takes place at our conversion, an awakening of the heart to the new life in the Spirit. And this is not of our doing, any more than light had a hand in its inception. It is the creative power of God that bursts into the soul of a dead carcass and infuses it with life. Jonathan Edwards called this, "A divine and supernatural light immediately imparted to the soul by the Spirit of God."

I remember as a kid when our church started to use the more modern version of the Apostle's Creed in church. I remember several times after we read the part, "From there he will come to judge the living and the dead." that my Dad would tell me how he wished we still used the old "From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." He really liked the term quick in place of living. I think when I was younger I just thought he was weird and it was strange that Jesus was going to judge fast people... but now I too prefer the original quick.

In Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary the first definition of 'quick' is: "Alive; living; opposed to dead or unanimated; as quick flesh." To quicken is then the verb form, the act of making alive; to endow with life. When looking up these terms I also found that, in medical terms, "The moment of quickening refers to the initial motion of the fetus in the uterus as it is perceived or felt by the pregnant woman. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to 'quicken' means 'to reach the stage of pregnancy at which the child shows signs of life.'"

Here are a few examples of 'quick' and 'quickening' I found when comparing the King James to the ESV:

2 Timothy 4:1
-I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: (ESV)
-I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; (KJV)

Psalm 80:18
-Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name! (ESV)
-So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. (KJV)

John 5:21
-For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (ESV)
-For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. (KJV)

That gives such deeper weight and meaning to Charles Wesley's hymn 'And Can It Be' when he wrote:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

I love this imagery! When we were bound in sin and the natural darkness that made us dead to reality, God looked upon us in mercy. That gaze of the Father of Lights effectually kindled a blaze of glory that made us alive, tore through the bounds that held us, and freed and animated our affections to follow and love him! That is irresistible grace; When a heart is quickened by such light and there is but one path it can tread, and with great joy: the path that leads to the Father of such glory! This path is too straight to branch and curve to the whims of fancy, too narrow for us to haul all of our earthly baggage and not fall away. It is a path that guards and protects the broken, for it is our kingdom and rest. The path is Jesus.

The passage in James which we first looked at tells us that we were brought forth by the Father of lights by the word of truth... and the Word of Truth is the Light: Christ Jesus. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 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 1:1-5) His coming marked the fulfillment of a promise that there is hope for the renewal of creation and a dawning of a kingdom of light. As Isaiah prophesied: "The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned." Jesus came not only to bear the punishment for the sins of his people, but to bring the light of his Father to restore the order and peace of all things. Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12) We have but to follow him.

As easy as that may sound, I still try to run and hide in the darkness. I am still pressed by the need to veil myself to the light. I doubt when I look away from his light and try to find my own way. But thanks be to God that his light always pursues and drives me onward, sustaining me! "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) (Ephesians 2:4-5 KJV) God make us alive with and through Christ, binding us to the light of Christ so that his glory becomes ours by marriage to the light. We are chosen by him, and are made sons and daughters of the Father of lights, we are lights reflecting his glory. "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16) "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9) As children of light we are witnesses in the dark to the wonderful excellencies that he has in store for those who love him. As one candle touches the wick of another and so sets that one aflame, so our lives should rub up against others with the spark of the gospel.

One little candle with one little flame
Appears insignificant, a soul without name.
But one little candle burning out bright
Can pierce through the darkness and turn blindness to sight.

We are a chosen people of God, called out of darkness into hope. Just as the Son of Light came once to purchase our life, so too will he come again to collect what is his. This time it will not be as a lowly babe, but when he returns again he will come with the power and authority of the full glory of God. "And he said to the disciples, "The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, 'Look, there!' or 'Look, here!' Do not go out or follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day." (Luke 17:22-24) Jesus is warning his disciples not to follow counterfeit messiahs, or be sucked into teachings that Christ has already returned in secret... Jesus is saying, "Look, you want to know what to look for when I return? I will fill the sky. Like a perpetual lightening blot that rips through a black night, so I will be in broad daylight. In my glory, all will know that I am Lord, and all will bow in awesome joy or terrible fear at the rumbling of my approach." Our hope and our promise is in his return. And in that final Glory when all wrongs will be destroyed and all will be restored in a new Heavens and Earth, he will dwell with us and be our light. "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day - and there will be no night there. (Rev. 21:22-25)

So Christian, take heart. The darkness you see now will lift, the wrongs that destroy will die in the light of His glory and grace. And even though we wait with longing for the future kingdom, we have a present hope and Guide. Unlike Moses, who had to be hidden and veiled, we have access to the Father of Lights and to the warmth of his smile in Christ. "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." (2 Cor 3:18) We are being transformed; mostly unseen, often painfully, but all for our good. O what joy has been set before us! May we eagerly yearn as we spread the fire of the Gospel! "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning." (Psalm 130:5-6)