“Light and Darkness, Part II”
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 4:24 pm
“Light and Darkness, Part II” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jCnAAeEJSQ
We are continuing in the Series, “Light and Darkness.” This is our Second Installment. Tonight, we will be reviewing and examining verses in Scripture where the words “light” and “darkness” both appear, either separately or in a phrase. They have much to teach us. So let's begin... Tonight, we we focusing in on where those words occur in the Gospel Accounts.
Our first “hit” appears in Matthew 4:16, but we will go back to verse 13 to get a fuller feel for the context in which it occurs: “And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: 14 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up” (Matthew 4:13-16).
Let's begin our examination with Matthew Henry's thoughts on these verses. He writes, “The place where he preached; in Galilee, a remote part of the country, that lay furthest from Jerusalem, as was there looked upon with contempt, as rude and boorish. The inhabitants of that country were reckoned stout men, fit for soldiers, but not polite men, or fit for scholars. Thither Christ went, there he set up the standard of his gospel; and in this, as in other things, he humbled himself. Observe,
1. The particular city he chose for his residence; not Nazareth, where he had been bred up; no, he left Nazareth; particular notice is taken of that. And with good reason did he leave Nazareth; for the men of that city thrust him out from among them. He made them his first, and a very fair, offer of his service, but they rejected him and his doctrine, and were filled with indignation at him and it; and therefore he left Nazareth, and shook off the dust of his feet for a testimony against those there, who would not have him to teach them.
Nazareth was the first place that refused Christ, and was therefore refused by him. Note, It is just with God, to take the gospel and the means of grace from those that slight them, and thrust them away. Christ will not stay long where he is not welcome. Unhappy Nazareth! If thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace, how well had it been for thee! But now they are hid from thine eyes.
But he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which was a city of Galilee, but many miles distant from Nazareth, a great city and of much resort. It is said here to be on the sea coast, not the great sea, but the sea of Tiberias, an inland water, called also the lake of Gennesaret. Close by the falling of Jordan into the sea stood Capernaum, in the tribe of Naphtali, but bordering upon Zebulun; hither Christ came, and here he dwelt.
Some think that his father Joseph had a habitation here, others that he took a house or lodgings at least; and some think it more than probable, that he dwelt in the house of Simon Peter; however, here he fixed not constantly, for he went about doing good;
2. The prophecy that was fulfilled is quoted from Isaiah 9:1-2 but with some variation. The prophet in that place is foretelling a greater darkness of affliction to befall the contemners of Immanuel, than befell the countries there mentioned, either in their first captivity under Benhadad, which was but light, or in their second captivity under the Assyrian, which was much heavier, (as we read in 2 Kings 15:29). This is Isaiah's sense;
but the Scripture has many fulfillings; and the evangelist here takes only the latter clause, which speaks of the return of the light of liberty and prosperity to those countries that had been in the darkness of captivity, and applies it to the appearing of the gospel among them.
The country beyond Jordan is mentioned likewise, for there we sometimes find Christ preaching, and Galilee of the Gentiles, the upper Galilee to which the Gentiles resorted for traffic, and where they were mingled with the Jews; which intimates a kindness in reserve for the poor Gentiles.
When Christ came to Capernaum, the gospel came to all those places round about; such diffusive influences did the Sun of righteousness cast.
Now, concerning the inhabitants of these places, observe, (1.) The posture they were in before the gospel came among them (Matthew 4:16); they were in darkness. Note, Those that are without Christ, are in the dark, nay, they are darkness itself; as the darkness that was upon the face of the deep. Nay, they were in the region and shadow of death; which denotes not only great darkness, as the grave is a land of darkness, but great danger.
A man that is desperately sick, and not likely to recover, is in the valley of the shadow of death, though not quite dead; so the poor people were on the borders of damnation, though not yet damned-dead in law. And, which is worst of all, they were sitting in this condition. Sitting in a continuing posture; where we sit, we mean to stay; they were in the dark, and likely to be so, despairing to find the way out.
And it is a contented posture; they were in the dark, and they loved darkness, they chose it rather than light; they were willingly ignorant. Their condition was sad; it is still the condition of many great and mighty nations, which are to be thought of, and prayed for, with pity. But their condition is more sad, who sit in darkness in the midst of gospel-light.
He that is in the dark because it is night, may be sure that the sun will shortly arise; but he that is in the dark because he is blind, will not so soon have his eyes opened. We have the light, but what will that avail us, if we be not the light in the Lord? (2.) The privilege they enjoyed, when Christ and his gospel came among them; it was as great a reviving as ever light was to a benighted traveller.
Note, When the gospel comes, light comes; when it comes to any place, when it comes to any soul, it makes day there. Light is discovering, it is directing; so is the gospel. It is a great light; denoting the clearness and evidence of gospel-revelations; not like the light of a candle, but the light of the sun when he goes forth in his strength. Great in comparison with the light of the law, the shadows of which were now done away.
It is a great light, for it discovers great things and of vast consequence; it will last long, and spread far. And it is a growing light, intimated in that word, It is sprung up. It was but spring of day with them; now the day dawned, which afterward shone more and more. The gospel-kingdom, like a grain of mustard-seed or the morning light, was small in its beginnings, gradual in its growth, but great in its perfection.
Observe, the light sprang up to them; they did not go to seek it, but were prevented with the blessings of this goodness. It came upon them ere they were aware, at the time appointed, by the disposal of him who commandeth the morning, and causes the day-spring to know its place, that it may take hold of the ends of the earth.”
To this, John Gill adds, “The people which sat in darkness,.... The inhabitants of Galilee, who sat or "walked", as in Isaiah; that is, continued in spiritual darkness, in ignorance, blindness, error, and infidelity, "saw great light"; Christ himself, who came a light into the world; he conversed with them, preached unto them, and opened the eyes of their understandings to behold his glory, and to know him, and salvation by him.
And to them which sat in the region and shadow of death: the same persons who sit in darkness, sit also in the region of death; for such are dead in trespasses and sins: where there is no spiritual light, there is no spiritual life, and such are in danger of the second death; but the happiness of these people was, that to them "light is sprung up", like the rising sun, and this without their asking or seeking for:
Christ, the sun of righteousness, arose upon them, without any desert, desire, or expectation of theirs, with healing in his wings; and cured them of their darkness and deadness, turned them from darkness to light, and caused them to pass from death to life.
"Light" is not only a character under which Christ frequently goes in the New Testament, as we see in John 1:4, but is one of the names by which the Messiah was known under the Old Testament; "and the light dwelleth with him"; this is the king Messiah. The note of R. Sol. Jarchi on these words, "send forth thy light", is, the king Messiah; who is compared to light, according to Psalm 132:17, the days of the Messiah are by them said to "days of light";
and so these Galilaeans found them to be; as all do, to whom the Gospel of Christ comes with power and demonstration of the Spirit. And these days of light first begun in the land of Zabulon which, according to Philo the Jew, was "a symbol of light"; since (adds he) its name signifies the nature of night; but, the night removing, and departing, light necessarily arises.'' As did, in a spiritual sense, here, when Christ the light arose.
(a) Bereshith Rabba, fol. 1. 3. & Echa Rabbati, fol. 50. 2. (b) Baal Hatturim in Gen. fol. 2. 2. (c) De Somniis, p. 1113.”
As we move forward, Jesus said in His Sermon of the Mount in Mathew 6:22-23: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Of this, the Sermon Bible writes, “The idea conveyed by a "single eye" appears to be, from its etymology, threefold. First, it means clear, with no film; secondly, it means in opposition to double, seeing one object at a time; and thirdly, it means concentration, centred upon a focus. These three thoughts mainly go to make up the word "single,"—distinctness, oneness, fixedness.
I. Many things may give a dulness to the moral sight. (1) If it be impaired by disuse—if you do not exercise the spiritual perception which God has given you, by meditation, by prayer, and religious thought—then the perception must grow weak. (2) Things coming in between veil and darken that higher vision. A worldly life is sure to do it. Much care will do it. Luxury will do it. But, still more, any wilful unbelief or any strong prejudice.
II. A clear eye must be often cleared. It is the great secret of a happy, holy life—to have made up your mind, once and for all, to live for one thing—to do what is right, and to live to the glory of God. And then upon that one object you must concentrate yourself. Your whole mind, affections, hopes, interests, must meet there. You converge your eternity upon God.
III. There are two worlds around us—a seen world and an unseen world; and we move equally in the midst of both. And the unseen system is far more beautiful, and far grander, and more important than the system that we see. The seen is mainly the type and the shadow of the unseen. It is the unseen which is the real, for that unseen is for ever and ever. But it is not all of us who see the unseen.
Few of us are seeing the unseen very distinctly, and none of us are seeing it as we might; and the reason is the state of the eye of the soul, which is as really an eye to see the unseen as that natural eye by which you gaze upon a star or by which you admire a flower.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 197.
Our responsibility for the light given us includes two things, distinct in themselves, though closely connected—viz., our responsibility for living and acting according to that light; and our responsibility for having and seeing the light itself—that is, our responsibility for acting consistently with our belief and opinions, and our responsibility for our belief and opinions, for their formation and hold upon our minds. The two run into each other. But I wish at present to keep in view mainly the latter.
I. On the whole, the government of our minds is in our own hands. That great instrument of reason given to us, we can play on it much as we will, well or ill, wisely or foolishly; and the result is the complex fabric of habitual thought, opinion, conviction, faith, on which we have to live. Who can reasonably say that for this we are not responsible? It is, then, a matter of supreme importance how we hear, how we reach our conclusions and build up our beliefs.
We cannot remind ourselves too often or too seriously that the questions which are so freely discussed among us now are questions of life or death to human hope; not in one particular form and under one set of conditions only, but in any form intelligible to our minds. Our time is a time to be watchful over both life and intellect, watchful over the way we handle the grave questions we may be called upon to handle, and over the way in which we prepare ourselves to handle them.
II. A great conflict is going on between Christianity and ideas and beliefs which would destroy or supplant it. We remark on the improved character of the discussion; the times of Voltaire, we observe with satisfaction, are past. But with all the literary power, and all the real and often pathetic earnestness shown in it, there is wanting often an adequate sense of the full issues raised by it, a sense of what in fact depends on it.
If we must lose Christianity, let us be alive to what we are doing, and face with open eyes the consequences. Let us have the seriousness which befits the surrender of such a hope, with which a vanquished state surrenders territory or independence to the necessities of defeat, with which, in the old strife of parties, a beaten statesman surrendered his life and fate to the law. Let us recognize the thinker’s duties, his temptations, and his safeguards.
III. Remember what an element time is in all growth. By simply waiting our horizon widens—widens almost without our knowing it. Those who undertake to woo truth by their own courage must not stumble at her conditions. They must not think it strange if for that Divine Bride they have to serve the seven years, and then the seven years again.
Dean Church, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, Nov. 15th, 1877
Observe:— I. What is here meant by singleness of eye. It is being wholly decided for Christ; that is, having an eye to Christ alone. II. The consequences of having the eye single: (1) there will be light, first of all, in regard to God and His dealings; (2) there is light in regard to our own position and character; (3) there is light in regard to revelation; (4) there is light in regard to our own experience.
W. Park, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 596.
References: Mat_6:22.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 79. Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 335; W. Hubbard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 392; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 186; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical, p. 15; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 259; J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 463.
I. If the light within you be true, if it be your real heart’s desire to see what is right, if your affections are set on those things which are just and pure and lovely, the things heavenly and eternal, then shall your eye be single, and as ye look forth on the world ye shall be able to estimate its treasures at their proper value, for they will have lost to you the glamour and the fascination which they exercise over others.
Their inherent emptiness, their essential vanity, their utter precariousness, their certain brevity will be all naked and open to the clear vision of faith, which sees them in their true character and values them at their proper worth.
II. Consider next the evil eye, as it is produced by the effort to serve both God and mammon. The influence of utter and unmitigated worldliness, when a man gives himself to it heartily and without scruple or drawback; that is, as we have seen, to blind his mind altogether to the higher concerns of the spiritual world.
Therefore he never troubles himself about them; can see no need of them, and no value in them. That is a sad state of darkness; but it is a sort of honest darkness, and is consistent with a certain genuineness of character. But the effort to serve both God and mammon produces a kind of self-deception, which is to my mind greatly more pernicious and worse to overcome than the former.
The thorough worldling knows himself to be so, and his evil eye sees nothing else worth troubling himself about. The other, however, fondly persuades himself that he is not a worldling, that he is, indeed, far superior to the worldling; his evil eye sees, in a measure, what is right and good, but only regards it so far as may be necessary to keep his mind easy in its worldliness. Thus the light which is in him serves more effectually the purpose of darkness.
W. C. Smith, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 224.
Reference: Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 378.”
The illustration of the text has a twofold reference. It bears on what went before, and also on what follows. If we lay up treasures on earth, that will produce an evil eye; if we try to serve God and mammon, that will destroy the single eye. Look at the passage in both these aspects.
I. If the light within you be true, if it be your real heart’s desire to see what is right, if your affections are set on those things which are just and pure and lovely, the things heavenly and eternal, then shall your eye be single, and as ye look forth on the world ye shall be able to estimate its treasures at their proper value, for they will have lost to you the glamour and the fascination which they exercise over others. Their inherent emptiness, their essential vanity, their utter precariousness, their certain brevity will be all naked and open to the clear vision of faith, which sees them in their true character and values them at their proper worth.
II. Consider next the evil eye, as it is produced by the effort to serve both God and mammon. The influence of utter and unmitigated worldliness, when a man gives himself to it heartily and without scruple or drawback; that is, as we have seen, to blind his mind altogether to the higher concerns of the spiritual world. Therefore he never troubles himself about them; can see no need of them, and no value in them. That is a sad state of darkness; but it is a sort of honest darkness, and is consistent with a certain genuineness of character. But the effort to serve both God and mammon produces a kind of self-deception, which is to my mind greatly more pernicious and worse to overcome than the former.
III. The thorough worldling knows himself to be so, and his evil eye sees nothing else worth troubling himself about. The other, however, fondly persuades himself that he is not a worldling, that he is, indeed, far superior to the worldling; his evil eye sees, in a measure, what is right and good, but only regards it so far as may be necessary to keep his mind easy in its worldliness. Thus the light which is in him serves more effectually the purpose of darkness.
W. C. Smith, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 224.
Reference: Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 378.”
I. Conscience is the organ that stands between the intelligence of man and the spiritual world, just as the eye stands between the intelligence of man and the world of physical nature, and brings the two together. It is the opened and unopened window through which flows the glorious knowledge of God and heaven; or outside of which that knowledge waits, as the sun with its glory or the flower with its beauty waits outside the closed eye of a blind or sleeping man.
II. When one declares this, that through the conscience man arrives at the knowledge of unseen things, and conceptions of God and spiritual force and immortality reveal themselves to his intelligence, at once the suggestion comes from some one who is listening, Can we be sure of the reality of what thus seems to be made known? How can we be sure that what the conscience sends in to the understanding are not mere creations of its own?
These are the same questions which have always haunted man’s whole thought about his vision of the world of nature. The questions which haunt the conscience are the same as those which haunt the eye. And as the eye deals with its questions, so will the conscience always deal with its.
III. There is an openness of conscience, a desire and struggle to do right, which is distinctly turned away from God and the world of spiritual things, so that, even if they were there, it would not see them. On the other hand, there is an openness of conscience, a desire and struggle to do right, which is turned towards God and the supernatural, which is expectant of spiritual revelation; and to that conscience the spiritual revelation comes.
IV. We are led thus to that which Jesus teaches in the text—the critical importance of a pure, true conscience, of a steady, self-sacrificing struggle to do right Godward. So only can the channel be kept open through which the knowledge of God, and of the spiritual things which belong to Him, can enter into our souls. As long as man is able to do right Godward, to keep his conscience pure and true and reverent, set upon doing the best things on the highest grounds, he carries with him an eye through which the everlasting light may, and assuredly will, shine into his soul.
Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord, p. 74.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Light and Darkness, Part 2.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on August 28th, 2019
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We are continuing in the Series, “Light and Darkness.” This is our Second Installment. Tonight, we will be reviewing and examining verses in Scripture where the words “light” and “darkness” both appear, either separately or in a phrase. They have much to teach us. So let's begin... Tonight, we we focusing in on where those words occur in the Gospel Accounts.
Our first “hit” appears in Matthew 4:16, but we will go back to verse 13 to get a fuller feel for the context in which it occurs: “And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: 14 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up” (Matthew 4:13-16).
Let's begin our examination with Matthew Henry's thoughts on these verses. He writes, “The place where he preached; in Galilee, a remote part of the country, that lay furthest from Jerusalem, as was there looked upon with contempt, as rude and boorish. The inhabitants of that country were reckoned stout men, fit for soldiers, but not polite men, or fit for scholars. Thither Christ went, there he set up the standard of his gospel; and in this, as in other things, he humbled himself. Observe,
1. The particular city he chose for his residence; not Nazareth, where he had been bred up; no, he left Nazareth; particular notice is taken of that. And with good reason did he leave Nazareth; for the men of that city thrust him out from among them. He made them his first, and a very fair, offer of his service, but they rejected him and his doctrine, and were filled with indignation at him and it; and therefore he left Nazareth, and shook off the dust of his feet for a testimony against those there, who would not have him to teach them.
Nazareth was the first place that refused Christ, and was therefore refused by him. Note, It is just with God, to take the gospel and the means of grace from those that slight them, and thrust them away. Christ will not stay long where he is not welcome. Unhappy Nazareth! If thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace, how well had it been for thee! But now they are hid from thine eyes.
But he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which was a city of Galilee, but many miles distant from Nazareth, a great city and of much resort. It is said here to be on the sea coast, not the great sea, but the sea of Tiberias, an inland water, called also the lake of Gennesaret. Close by the falling of Jordan into the sea stood Capernaum, in the tribe of Naphtali, but bordering upon Zebulun; hither Christ came, and here he dwelt.
Some think that his father Joseph had a habitation here, others that he took a house or lodgings at least; and some think it more than probable, that he dwelt in the house of Simon Peter; however, here he fixed not constantly, for he went about doing good;
2. The prophecy that was fulfilled is quoted from Isaiah 9:1-2 but with some variation. The prophet in that place is foretelling a greater darkness of affliction to befall the contemners of Immanuel, than befell the countries there mentioned, either in their first captivity under Benhadad, which was but light, or in their second captivity under the Assyrian, which was much heavier, (as we read in 2 Kings 15:29). This is Isaiah's sense;
but the Scripture has many fulfillings; and the evangelist here takes only the latter clause, which speaks of the return of the light of liberty and prosperity to those countries that had been in the darkness of captivity, and applies it to the appearing of the gospel among them.
The country beyond Jordan is mentioned likewise, for there we sometimes find Christ preaching, and Galilee of the Gentiles, the upper Galilee to which the Gentiles resorted for traffic, and where they were mingled with the Jews; which intimates a kindness in reserve for the poor Gentiles.
When Christ came to Capernaum, the gospel came to all those places round about; such diffusive influences did the Sun of righteousness cast.
Now, concerning the inhabitants of these places, observe, (1.) The posture they were in before the gospel came among them (Matthew 4:16); they were in darkness. Note, Those that are without Christ, are in the dark, nay, they are darkness itself; as the darkness that was upon the face of the deep. Nay, they were in the region and shadow of death; which denotes not only great darkness, as the grave is a land of darkness, but great danger.
A man that is desperately sick, and not likely to recover, is in the valley of the shadow of death, though not quite dead; so the poor people were on the borders of damnation, though not yet damned-dead in law. And, which is worst of all, they were sitting in this condition. Sitting in a continuing posture; where we sit, we mean to stay; they were in the dark, and likely to be so, despairing to find the way out.
And it is a contented posture; they were in the dark, and they loved darkness, they chose it rather than light; they were willingly ignorant. Their condition was sad; it is still the condition of many great and mighty nations, which are to be thought of, and prayed for, with pity. But their condition is more sad, who sit in darkness in the midst of gospel-light.
He that is in the dark because it is night, may be sure that the sun will shortly arise; but he that is in the dark because he is blind, will not so soon have his eyes opened. We have the light, but what will that avail us, if we be not the light in the Lord? (2.) The privilege they enjoyed, when Christ and his gospel came among them; it was as great a reviving as ever light was to a benighted traveller.
Note, When the gospel comes, light comes; when it comes to any place, when it comes to any soul, it makes day there. Light is discovering, it is directing; so is the gospel. It is a great light; denoting the clearness and evidence of gospel-revelations; not like the light of a candle, but the light of the sun when he goes forth in his strength. Great in comparison with the light of the law, the shadows of which were now done away.
It is a great light, for it discovers great things and of vast consequence; it will last long, and spread far. And it is a growing light, intimated in that word, It is sprung up. It was but spring of day with them; now the day dawned, which afterward shone more and more. The gospel-kingdom, like a grain of mustard-seed or the morning light, was small in its beginnings, gradual in its growth, but great in its perfection.
Observe, the light sprang up to them; they did not go to seek it, but were prevented with the blessings of this goodness. It came upon them ere they were aware, at the time appointed, by the disposal of him who commandeth the morning, and causes the day-spring to know its place, that it may take hold of the ends of the earth.”
To this, John Gill adds, “The people which sat in darkness,.... The inhabitants of Galilee, who sat or "walked", as in Isaiah; that is, continued in spiritual darkness, in ignorance, blindness, error, and infidelity, "saw great light"; Christ himself, who came a light into the world; he conversed with them, preached unto them, and opened the eyes of their understandings to behold his glory, and to know him, and salvation by him.
And to them which sat in the region and shadow of death: the same persons who sit in darkness, sit also in the region of death; for such are dead in trespasses and sins: where there is no spiritual light, there is no spiritual life, and such are in danger of the second death; but the happiness of these people was, that to them "light is sprung up", like the rising sun, and this without their asking or seeking for:
Christ, the sun of righteousness, arose upon them, without any desert, desire, or expectation of theirs, with healing in his wings; and cured them of their darkness and deadness, turned them from darkness to light, and caused them to pass from death to life.
"Light" is not only a character under which Christ frequently goes in the New Testament, as we see in John 1:4, but is one of the names by which the Messiah was known under the Old Testament; "and the light dwelleth with him"; this is the king Messiah. The note of R. Sol. Jarchi on these words, "send forth thy light", is, the king Messiah; who is compared to light, according to Psalm 132:17, the days of the Messiah are by them said to "days of light";
and so these Galilaeans found them to be; as all do, to whom the Gospel of Christ comes with power and demonstration of the Spirit. And these days of light first begun in the land of Zabulon which, according to Philo the Jew, was "a symbol of light"; since (adds he) its name signifies the nature of night; but, the night removing, and departing, light necessarily arises.'' As did, in a spiritual sense, here, when Christ the light arose.
(a) Bereshith Rabba, fol. 1. 3. & Echa Rabbati, fol. 50. 2. (b) Baal Hatturim in Gen. fol. 2. 2. (c) De Somniis, p. 1113.”
As we move forward, Jesus said in His Sermon of the Mount in Mathew 6:22-23: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Of this, the Sermon Bible writes, “The idea conveyed by a "single eye" appears to be, from its etymology, threefold. First, it means clear, with no film; secondly, it means in opposition to double, seeing one object at a time; and thirdly, it means concentration, centred upon a focus. These three thoughts mainly go to make up the word "single,"—distinctness, oneness, fixedness.
I. Many things may give a dulness to the moral sight. (1) If it be impaired by disuse—if you do not exercise the spiritual perception which God has given you, by meditation, by prayer, and religious thought—then the perception must grow weak. (2) Things coming in between veil and darken that higher vision. A worldly life is sure to do it. Much care will do it. Luxury will do it. But, still more, any wilful unbelief or any strong prejudice.
II. A clear eye must be often cleared. It is the great secret of a happy, holy life—to have made up your mind, once and for all, to live for one thing—to do what is right, and to live to the glory of God. And then upon that one object you must concentrate yourself. Your whole mind, affections, hopes, interests, must meet there. You converge your eternity upon God.
III. There are two worlds around us—a seen world and an unseen world; and we move equally in the midst of both. And the unseen system is far more beautiful, and far grander, and more important than the system that we see. The seen is mainly the type and the shadow of the unseen. It is the unseen which is the real, for that unseen is for ever and ever. But it is not all of us who see the unseen.
Few of us are seeing the unseen very distinctly, and none of us are seeing it as we might; and the reason is the state of the eye of the soul, which is as really an eye to see the unseen as that natural eye by which you gaze upon a star or by which you admire a flower.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 197.
Our responsibility for the light given us includes two things, distinct in themselves, though closely connected—viz., our responsibility for living and acting according to that light; and our responsibility for having and seeing the light itself—that is, our responsibility for acting consistently with our belief and opinions, and our responsibility for our belief and opinions, for their formation and hold upon our minds. The two run into each other. But I wish at present to keep in view mainly the latter.
I. On the whole, the government of our minds is in our own hands. That great instrument of reason given to us, we can play on it much as we will, well or ill, wisely or foolishly; and the result is the complex fabric of habitual thought, opinion, conviction, faith, on which we have to live. Who can reasonably say that for this we are not responsible? It is, then, a matter of supreme importance how we hear, how we reach our conclusions and build up our beliefs.
We cannot remind ourselves too often or too seriously that the questions which are so freely discussed among us now are questions of life or death to human hope; not in one particular form and under one set of conditions only, but in any form intelligible to our minds. Our time is a time to be watchful over both life and intellect, watchful over the way we handle the grave questions we may be called upon to handle, and over the way in which we prepare ourselves to handle them.
II. A great conflict is going on between Christianity and ideas and beliefs which would destroy or supplant it. We remark on the improved character of the discussion; the times of Voltaire, we observe with satisfaction, are past. But with all the literary power, and all the real and often pathetic earnestness shown in it, there is wanting often an adequate sense of the full issues raised by it, a sense of what in fact depends on it.
If we must lose Christianity, let us be alive to what we are doing, and face with open eyes the consequences. Let us have the seriousness which befits the surrender of such a hope, with which a vanquished state surrenders territory or independence to the necessities of defeat, with which, in the old strife of parties, a beaten statesman surrendered his life and fate to the law. Let us recognize the thinker’s duties, his temptations, and his safeguards.
III. Remember what an element time is in all growth. By simply waiting our horizon widens—widens almost without our knowing it. Those who undertake to woo truth by their own courage must not stumble at her conditions. They must not think it strange if for that Divine Bride they have to serve the seven years, and then the seven years again.
Dean Church, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, Nov. 15th, 1877
Observe:— I. What is here meant by singleness of eye. It is being wholly decided for Christ; that is, having an eye to Christ alone. II. The consequences of having the eye single: (1) there will be light, first of all, in regard to God and His dealings; (2) there is light in regard to our own position and character; (3) there is light in regard to revelation; (4) there is light in regard to our own experience.
W. Park, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 596.
References: Mat_6:22.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 79. Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 335; W. Hubbard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 392; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 186; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical, p. 15; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 259; J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 463.
I. If the light within you be true, if it be your real heart’s desire to see what is right, if your affections are set on those things which are just and pure and lovely, the things heavenly and eternal, then shall your eye be single, and as ye look forth on the world ye shall be able to estimate its treasures at their proper value, for they will have lost to you the glamour and the fascination which they exercise over others.
Their inherent emptiness, their essential vanity, their utter precariousness, their certain brevity will be all naked and open to the clear vision of faith, which sees them in their true character and values them at their proper worth.
II. Consider next the evil eye, as it is produced by the effort to serve both God and mammon. The influence of utter and unmitigated worldliness, when a man gives himself to it heartily and without scruple or drawback; that is, as we have seen, to blind his mind altogether to the higher concerns of the spiritual world.
Therefore he never troubles himself about them; can see no need of them, and no value in them. That is a sad state of darkness; but it is a sort of honest darkness, and is consistent with a certain genuineness of character. But the effort to serve both God and mammon produces a kind of self-deception, which is to my mind greatly more pernicious and worse to overcome than the former.
The thorough worldling knows himself to be so, and his evil eye sees nothing else worth troubling himself about. The other, however, fondly persuades himself that he is not a worldling, that he is, indeed, far superior to the worldling; his evil eye sees, in a measure, what is right and good, but only regards it so far as may be necessary to keep his mind easy in its worldliness. Thus the light which is in him serves more effectually the purpose of darkness.
W. C. Smith, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 224.
Reference: Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 378.”
The illustration of the text has a twofold reference. It bears on what went before, and also on what follows. If we lay up treasures on earth, that will produce an evil eye; if we try to serve God and mammon, that will destroy the single eye. Look at the passage in both these aspects.
I. If the light within you be true, if it be your real heart’s desire to see what is right, if your affections are set on those things which are just and pure and lovely, the things heavenly and eternal, then shall your eye be single, and as ye look forth on the world ye shall be able to estimate its treasures at their proper value, for they will have lost to you the glamour and the fascination which they exercise over others. Their inherent emptiness, their essential vanity, their utter precariousness, their certain brevity will be all naked and open to the clear vision of faith, which sees them in their true character and values them at their proper worth.
II. Consider next the evil eye, as it is produced by the effort to serve both God and mammon. The influence of utter and unmitigated worldliness, when a man gives himself to it heartily and without scruple or drawback; that is, as we have seen, to blind his mind altogether to the higher concerns of the spiritual world. Therefore he never troubles himself about them; can see no need of them, and no value in them. That is a sad state of darkness; but it is a sort of honest darkness, and is consistent with a certain genuineness of character. But the effort to serve both God and mammon produces a kind of self-deception, which is to my mind greatly more pernicious and worse to overcome than the former.
III. The thorough worldling knows himself to be so, and his evil eye sees nothing else worth troubling himself about. The other, however, fondly persuades himself that he is not a worldling, that he is, indeed, far superior to the worldling; his evil eye sees, in a measure, what is right and good, but only regards it so far as may be necessary to keep his mind easy in its worldliness. Thus the light which is in him serves more effectually the purpose of darkness.
W. C. Smith, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 224.
Reference: Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 378.”
I. Conscience is the organ that stands between the intelligence of man and the spiritual world, just as the eye stands between the intelligence of man and the world of physical nature, and brings the two together. It is the opened and unopened window through which flows the glorious knowledge of God and heaven; or outside of which that knowledge waits, as the sun with its glory or the flower with its beauty waits outside the closed eye of a blind or sleeping man.
II. When one declares this, that through the conscience man arrives at the knowledge of unseen things, and conceptions of God and spiritual force and immortality reveal themselves to his intelligence, at once the suggestion comes from some one who is listening, Can we be sure of the reality of what thus seems to be made known? How can we be sure that what the conscience sends in to the understanding are not mere creations of its own?
These are the same questions which have always haunted man’s whole thought about his vision of the world of nature. The questions which haunt the conscience are the same as those which haunt the eye. And as the eye deals with its questions, so will the conscience always deal with its.
III. There is an openness of conscience, a desire and struggle to do right, which is distinctly turned away from God and the world of spiritual things, so that, even if they were there, it would not see them. On the other hand, there is an openness of conscience, a desire and struggle to do right, which is turned towards God and the supernatural, which is expectant of spiritual revelation; and to that conscience the spiritual revelation comes.
IV. We are led thus to that which Jesus teaches in the text—the critical importance of a pure, true conscience, of a steady, self-sacrificing struggle to do right Godward. So only can the channel be kept open through which the knowledge of God, and of the spiritual things which belong to Him, can enter into our souls. As long as man is able to do right Godward, to keep his conscience pure and true and reverent, set upon doing the best things on the highest grounds, he carries with him an eye through which the everlasting light may, and assuredly will, shine into his soul.
Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord, p. 74.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Light and Darkness, Part 2.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on August 28th, 2019
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