We Cannot Exist Without Light

Since the dawn of creation, man has tried to live without God. In Romans 3:10, Paul quotes the Psalmist (Psalm 14 & 53) and writes:

As it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.

Seeing that God is Light (1 John 1:5) and we were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), we know that it’s absolutely impossible to live without Light. Likely ignited by Blaise Pascal, many people describe our being as having a God-shaped hole (or vacuum) that cannot be filled without God, and that is true. But it’s actually much more extravagant than that; we literally cannot live without Light.

As much as God is plainly obvious, He has both mysteriously and majestically required us to have faith that, (a) He is who He says He is (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and (b) that He’s done what He says He’s done.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:3)

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV)

For [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So [people] are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

That is all to say—as much as God has made himself evident through the entire universe, He asks the question, “Do you believe in [me]?” (John 9:35). If you affirm his Light, you have life. If you deny his Light, you will simply get what you’ve asked for when your time on earth is done: the absence of Light, which is darkness (Luke 13:27-28). It really is that simple, and it really is what mankind has asked for since the beginning of time: the opportunity to either affirm or deny the Light.

As one considers the decision to accept, decline, or ignore (which is to decline) the Light, consider some of the aspects and parallels of visible light as it relates to the energy from the sun—which, as we discussed earlier on, is but a tiny fraction of light on the spectrum in comparison to invisible light.

1. Without absorbing enough light, one becomes unhealthy. (Think Vitamin D)
2. Without light, there is disease.
3. Without light, we can’t survive.

Perhaps a more mathematical way to state this is:  physical light (visible light) ∥ (is parallel to) spiritual Light (invisible light)

Visible

And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:16-18)

Invisible

God will bring this about in his own time. He is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal power. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:15-16, CSB)

As we discussed in Time is Only Relevant to its Observer, the sun exists now, but in Eternity, God will be our Light (Revelation 22:5). Oh, what a glorious (unending) day that will be!

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 Corinthians 4:6)