Light, Natural and Spiritual

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Genesis 1:5

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The Holy Ghost mysteriously quickens the dead heart, excites emotions, longings, desires.

I. DIVINE FIAT: God said, Let there be light, and there was light. The Lord Himself needed no light to enable Him to discern His creatures. He looked upon the darkness, and resolved that He would transform its shapeless chaos into a fair and lovely world.

1. We shall observe that the work of grace by which light enters the soul is a needful work. God's plan for the sustaining of vegetable and animal life, rendered light necessary. Light is essential to life. It is light which first shows us our lost estate; for we know nothing of it naturally. This causes pain and anguish of heart; but that pain and anguish are necessary, in order to bring us to lay hold on Jesus Christ, whom the light next displays to us. No man ever knows Christ till the light of God shines on the cross.

2. Next observe it was a very early work. Light was created on the first day, not on the third, fourth, or sixth, but on the first day; and one of the first operations of the Spirit of God in a man's heart is to give light enough to see his lost estate, and to perceive that he cannot save himself from it but must look elsewhere.

3. It is well for us to remember that light giving is a Divine work. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

4. This Divine work is wrought by the Word. God did not sit in solemn silence and create the light, but He spake. He said, "Light be," and light was. So the way in which we receive light is by the Word of God. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Christ Himself is the essential Word, and the preaching of Christ Jesus is the operative Word. We receive Christ actually when God's power goes with God's Word — then have we light. Hence the necessity of continually preaching the Word of God.

5. While light was conferred in connection with the mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit, it was unaided by the darkness itself. How could darkness assist to make itself light? Nay, the darkness never did become light. It had to give place to light, but darkness could not help God. The power which saves a sinner is not the power of man.

6. As this light was unassisted by darkness, so was it also unsolicited. There came no voice out of that thick darkness, "Oh God, enlighten us"; there was no cry of prayer. The first work of grace in the heart does not begin with man's desire, but with God's implanting the desire.

7. This light came instantaneously.

8. As it is instantaneous, so it is irresistible. Darkness must give place when God speaks.

II. DIVINE OBSERVATION. "And God saw the light." Does He not see everything? Yes, beloved, He does; but this does not refer to the general perception of God of all His works, but is a something special. "God saw the light" — He looked at it with complacency, gazed upon it with pleasure. A father looks upon a crowd of boys in a school and sees them all, but there is one boy whom he sees very differently from all the rest: he watches him with care: it is his own child, and his eye is specially there. Though you have come here sighing and groaning because of inbred sin, yet the Lord sees what is good in you, for He has put it there. Satan can see the light and he tries to quench it: God sees it and preserves it. The Lord watches you, and He sees the light. He has His eye always fixed upon the work of grace that is in your soul.

III. DIVINE APPROBATION. "God saw the light, that it was good." Light is good in all respects.

1. The natural light is good. Solomon says, "It is a pleasant thing to behold the sun"; but you did not want Solomon to inform you upon that point. Any blind man who will tell you the tale of his sorrows will be quite philosopher enough to convince you that light is good.

2. Gospel light is good. "Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see." You only need to travel into heathen lands, and witness the superstition and cruelty of the dark places of the earth, to understand that gospel light is good.

3. As for spiritual light, those that have received it long for more of it, that they may see yet more and more the glory of heaven's essential light! O God, Thou art of good the unmeasured Sea; Thou art of light both Soul, and Source, and Centre.

(1) It must be good from its source. The light emanates from God, in whom is no darkness at all, and, as it comes absolutely and directly from Him, it must be good.

(2) It is good, again, when we consider its likeness. Light is like to God. It is a thing so spiritual, so utterly to be ungrasped by the hand of flesh, that it has often been selected as the very type of God. Ignatius used to call himself, Theophorus, or the God bearer. The title might seem eccentric, but the fact is true of all the saints — they bear God about with them. God dwelleth in His saints as in a temple.

(3) It is good, also, in its effect. It is good for a man to know his danger — it makes him start from it. It is good for him to know the evil of his sin — it makes him avoid it, and repent of it.

(4) It is good, moreover, because it glorifies God. Where were God's glory in the outward universe without light? Could we gaze upon the landscape? Spiritual light shows us our emptiness, our poverty, our wretchedness, but it reveals in blessed contrast His fulness, His riches, His freeness of grace. The more light in the soul, the more gratitude to God.

(5) Let me say of the work of God in the soul as compared to light, that it is good in the widest possible sense. The new nature which God puts in us never sins: it cannot sin, because it is born of God. "What!" say you, "does a Christian never sin?" Not with the new nature; the new nature never sins: the old nature sins. It is the darkness which is dark: the light is not darkness; the light is always light.

IV. DIVINE SEPARATION. It appears that though God made light there was still darkness in the world: "And God divided the light from the darkness." Beloved, the moment you become a Christian, you will begin to fight. You will be easy and comfortable enough, as long as you are a sinner, but as soon as you become a Christian, you will have no more rest.

1. One part of the Divine work in the soul of man is to make a separation in the man himself. Do you feel an inward contention and war going on? Permit me to put these two verses together — "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." How can these two things be consistent? Ask the spiritual man: he will tell you, "The Lord divideth between light and darkness."

2. Whereas there is a division within the Christian, there is certain to be a division without. So soon as ever the Lord gives to any believer light, he begins to separate himself from the darkness. He separates himself from the world's religion, finds out where Christ is preached, and goes there. Then as to society, the dead, carnal religionist can get on very well in ordinary society, but it is not so when he has light. I cannot go to light company, wasting the evening, showing off my fine clothes, and talking frivolity and nonsense.

V. DIVINE NOMINATION. Things must have names; Adam named the beasts, but God Himself named the day and the night. "And God called the light day, and the darkness called He night." It is a very blessed work of grace to teach us to call things by their right names. The spiritual aspirations of God's people never can be evil. Carnal reason calls them folly, but the Lord would have us call them good.

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