Shine

Meditation May 15, 2020

Matt. 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

I need to introduce my thoughts on salt and light by saying that on these verses are my thoughts are musings. That is to say, I have some apprehension of where I think they are leading but I haven't yet managed to bring that into clear focus. Of this much I am convinced: While I am yet unclear on the ultimate meaning, I am convinced that contrary to commonly accepted renderings Jesus' purpose here is not to teach us that believers are to be moral guides for the world showing the world how it should live if it would please God. The point Jesus seems to be making is that as useless as salt that is not salty so also light that doesn't light. Salting and lighting is not being set forth as something we ought to be but as something we either are or are not. In reality, salt that isn't salty and light that doesn't shine are useless absurdities. So also the notion of a believer who does not have the characteristics, all of them, listed in the beatitudes. That is, after all, still the subject. A worldly person and a  merely religious person is simply a clump of dirt and an unlit lamp. I am persuaded that is the point although I don't yet quite know what to make of that.


It should go without saying that we are not “(t)he true light that gives light to light up everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:9) There is but one who can be identified as the true light. However, being in Christ, we are lit up (enlightened) by Him through His indwelling in the Person of the Holy Spirit and thus, we are the light of the world. God has chosen that, through those born from above who put their trust in Christ, He would make known to the world what it is that He has done for man, making of us His workmanship to perform the good works He appointed to believers (Eph. 2:10) one of which is to be the light of the world. If we may be allowed an analogy, we could say as light bulbs do not of themselves produce light but only serve as the means by which energy is converted to light, we are the light bulbs through which the True Light shines.  


Notice Jesus does not say we are “a” light but “the” light. Thus, while God the Holy Spirit may work when and where He will, ordinarily there is no light to the world except that we as believers shine as the light of Christ on a fallen world. One has said, “to put it plainly, if we aren’t shining, Christ isn’t flowing.” If that be the case, if we are not shining, Christ is not in us. There is no feigning to be ‘lit up’ by Christ. We are in Christ or we are not. If we are not in Christ, then in no sense are we light but rather darkness. On the other hand, if we are in Christ, we are shining and can no more choose not to shine that the moon can choose not to reflect the light of the sun.


When God made man, he breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living soul. In a similar manner, when God remakes man, when we become new creations in Christ, he enlightens us and we become shiners. One follows in course as does the other. Jesus does not say, I want you to be the light of the world or You should be the light of the world, or I would like for you to be the light of the world, but you “are” the light of the world.. 

Now, if you are a light, you are going to shine. To think otherwise is an absurdity. Think of the absurdity of trying to hide a city built on the top of a hill. What fool, He might have said, lights a lamp then puts a cover over it so that its light cannot be seen. To do such would be an absurdity. No one lights a lamp except that it may give light. The point of saying you are the light of the world is that you should be evangelists or less so that you should be moral guides but that by exhibiting the characteristics listed in the beatitudes, light, your are a living, walking, talking testimony to the grace of God in Christ, Because your life is so distinctly different from the world they cannot but see that which lights you up is far different from the darkness that, to put it in an absurdity, lights them up..

Therefore, Jesus does not say, you should or I would like for you or I command you “shine your light before men that they may see how they ought to live.” That is the way it is most commonly read or understood. But as it actually reads, Jesus is saying, being shiners (you are not ought to be light) “shine your light before me that they may see  your good works and glorify your Father in the heavens.” The point of our being lights in the world is not, it seems to me, that we may by life and word be preachers of morality and direct the world in the way that it should go but that we may shine forth the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To be light as was to be salt, is to be the character described in the beatitudes, As surely as one is alive into whom God has breathed the breath of life, so surely does one shine into whom Christ has shined. To think otherwise is to suppose you could build a city on a hill and no one would notice.