by Father Ioan Buga 

Light is everywhere in the universe. It carries information from the inner and outer worlds yet light is a perplexing phenomenon when we try to understand it. Many scientists have spent their lifetime trying to develop consistent physical, biological, chemical and mathematical explanations for light only to realize and conclude that light has no parts, extension, form nor can it be subdivided.

Civilizations have always spoken about light with great beauty and most nations have glorified it. The cult of the Sun-gods is essential in the life of ancient eastern nations. The Egyptian God Ra, the Semitic Bel, the Iranian Ahura-Mazda, the Olimpian Zeus, Goddess Isis, God Mithra or the Dacian Zamolxis are only the main deities in the rich pantheon of the ancient solar cult. Platon considers the supreme good to be the light. In the Gnostic texts it symbolizes the superior cosmic spheres, where the purified initiated soul should reach.

The light is the most subtle of the substances and it unites so intimately with the other elements of the world that her presence is obvious everywhere. The pleasant smell of the flowers and their endless colours, the fruit fragrance and their sweetness result from the meeting between light and the other terrestrial elements. For the physical world, light is the condition of life.

Christian symbolism of light in the New Testament
 

With the birth of Christ, the Truth had taken a body, it had become life. The Christian was sharing the blood of Truth (John 6:55) and the light of Life (John 1: 9). The difference is fundamental, it is ontological. The sky had moved on Earth and the beings living on Earth had become sons of God and their home was in Heavens. Here, the central idea of theology of light is that “God is light” (1 John 1:5) and, out of love for man, He sends to the world His Son, which is “the exact representation of His being” and “the radiance of God’s glory” (Hebrews 1:3), in order to be “the light of the world” (John 8:12) and to make those who become the children of light and grace witness the glory of the Father (Ephesians 5:8).

In the New Testament we often find words that express light, radiance, glory, clarity, etc., and they encompass certain aspects of the action of cleansing, enlightenment and godliness of the Christian through the saving grace. In the writings of the Saint John the Evangelist, we find direct wording related to God as light or to Jesus Christ as light of the world (1 John 1:5; John 8:12).

Speaking about light, Christian theologians have always seen in it an attribute of godliness, together with truth, Love, Consciousness or wisdom – attributes of godliness in Itself or in relation with the world. Nevertheless, they underlined, whenever they had the chance, as it is seen in the writings of Dionisie Pseudo-Areopagit, that to man God’s being remains absolutely transcendent and unknown, although this knowledge of Him remains a permanent target of the Christian soul (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

“God is the light” and “The Father of the Heavenly Lights” (1John 1:5; James 1:16-17).
The most often references to the light, under all its aspects, and the most direct expression that characterizes God as light are found at Saint Evangelist John who, at his turn, heard them from Jesus himself: “And this is the message we heard from Him and we tell it to you: that God is light and no darkness is into Him”. (John 1:5)

Nevertheless, the expression “God is light” does not define God’s nature but, together with other characterizations of the same evangelist: “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16) and “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), it shows what God is for man.

For the Christian, God is the light not only due to His holiness, wisdom, kindness and love, but also because He is the creator of light, both physical as well as spiritual – meaning human reason or mind. Wisdom of divine light will be reflected also in the man made in the likeness of God. This is the characteristic item of the human creature in relation with the rest of the visible creation.

Jesus, the light of the world

Saint John is the Evangelist who also speaks in particular about Jesus as light. In the prologue of the 4th gospel we have a true Genesis of the New Testament, showing the birth of the Eternal Word from the Father and the creation of all that is by this Word, which was to embody from the Holly Virgin. (John 1:14).

Lord Jesus Christ is witnessed by Saint John the Baptizer as the true and saving light; he was sent especially by God in order to witness about the light, by the river Jordan (John 1:6-8); he is also witnessed by the holy Apostles, who took to “the ends of the earth” the message of the Light they saw and to which they stayed near (1 John 1:1, 5); he witnesses Himself as being the “Light of the world” (John 8:12), in a very significant moment of His activity, when he stops the killing with stones of the sinful woman. (John 8:11). He was fulfilling the law, he was spiritualizing it, he was implementing the law of mercy and of Christian love instead of the bloodshed sacrifice for sinning (Mathew 9:13). In this high point of fulfilling the law he appears as “the light of the world” and as “the sun of justice” that “lights all men who come to this world” (John 1:9).
The full witnessing about the Light is done with the two great theophanies in the New Testament – the one on Baptism and the other one on Transfiguration, when the Three from the Holy Trinity show themselves in the equal radiance of godliness and truth (Matthew 3:13,16; Mark 1:10; Luke 9:29-36, Acts 3:22-23). The two theophanies are closely connected to the kenotic aspect of the embodiment of the Son of God: through the light on the Tabor, the unrevealed face of Christ’s mystery was lit. This witnessing of the Father and of the Holy Spirit about the Word was necessary, as “though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him”. (John 1:10-11).

The light and the glory showed at the Baptism and Transfiguration were to guide the Apostles through the deep and struggling night of the Gethsemane towards the “day of the Lord” (Revelation 1:10), when the light shone into the darkness, the century of resurrection and the gates of the “kingdom of heaven” opened. Saint Luke tells us explicitly that Moses and Elijah, who showed themselves in the moment of the Transfiguration, were talking with Jesus about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem.

The transfiguration is among the first two announcements that Jesus Christ makes to the Apostles about his Passions (Mathew 16:21; 17:22-23), in order to outline the significance of the light of God on mount Tabor in the plan of salvation, realized by the Son of God. And as he had taken “the face of a slave” and he was going to suffer the most humiliating death, the Lord assured some of his disciples that “face without beauty”, as Isaiah said (Isaiah 53:2), encompassed within “the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being” (Hebrews 1:3). Through the transfiguration, He revealed a little bit, according to His will, the mystery of His godliness and He showed to the initiates the God that was in Him. The light on Tabor is a preview of the following era of resurrection, when “the righteous will shine like the sun” in the kingdom of God and they will wear shining bright white cloths, like the ones on Tabor, the cloths of purity and holiness. And they will find joy forever looking at God’s face and “they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 22:5)

Lord Jesus’s entire life was light, as He Himself assures us, saying: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:5) He was the light for the blind ones, whom he healed from physical blindness, opening in the same time the eyes of their souls so that they can see in Jesus Christ the Son of God, as the man born blind, healed by Jesus, confesses: “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing” (John 9:33) He was the light through His teachings, which, as Saint John the Evangelist assures us, is a message about the light of God (John 1:5), which the Apostles took to the “ends of the earth”, as the word says: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47).

The light of Christ does not end not even in death, it just “hides under the earth”, descending all the way down to hell. This reminds us of Saint Paul saying: “What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.” (Ephesians 4:9-10)

The eschatological aspect of light
 
Another aspect of the notion of light, extremely important and frequent in the New Testament and in the entire Holy Scripture is that of its antinomical representation; the same radiance, for some it is enlightenment and for others it is darkness or fire.

We find an eloquent example of this double representation in the Old Testament: “So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days.  No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.” (Exodus 10:22-23)

Commenting this passage, Saint Grigore of Nisa says that the physical light was the same for the Egyptians and for the Israelites; the difference was of a moral nature. The Egyptians could not participate in the light because of their sinful life and because they were against the will of God. We find the same idea in Isaiah, where the one who does good can always enjoy the light, while the bad one lives in a continuous confusion and darkness (Isaiah 58:10; 59:8-10).
 
In the New Testament, this differentiation between the sinners and the righteous is projected on the transcendental background of the next life. The Lord’s coming into the glory will determine the state of light or darkness for people, according to the good or the bad they did. (Matthew 25:1-13) “The day of the Lord – says Apostle Paul – comes like a thief in the night”, but only for those who walk in the night of sin and crime (1 Thessalonians 5:2,7). For the sons of the light and of the day, the arrival of God will not be “like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5).

For some, the same radiance will be joy and light, and for others, devouring fire or complete darkness (Mathew 8:12; 22:13). This reveals two clear truths of the Christian religion:
1) Hell and evil in general do not have ontological existence, but they appear as a lack of good, as an impossibility of the sinner to participate to happiness and light (Luke 16:26). The Saviour’s descent to hell proves that God is “all in all”, lighting and inviting inside of Him all existence. The man is free to answer or not to this call and he is responsible of the situation he creates by his participation or non-participation in the divine light (John 1:10)

2) The fact of seeing God, the glory of His return, that will bring eternal happiness to the good ones and endless torture to the bad ones proves us that happiness is not about seeing the divine light and unhappiness does not mean not seeing this radiance. This problem of eternal happiness and unhappiness is at the moral level, at the consciousness level, instead of the physical one. This is what will make some to participate to the light, “to come and share the master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:21), and it will make the bad ones run away from the light, so that their deeds are not revealed (John 3:19).
 
Exterior, cold sight, mechanical knowledge and moral without love do not bring happiness and fulfilment, do not fill up the void that threatens the soul of the one who is not filled with love for the others and for God. As the one who walks through darkness finds no use in carrying blown out lamps, however many and beautiful they are, in the same way the one who seems to have all the virtues, yet he does not have light from the Holy Spirit, he cannot see how his deeds are. Saint Paul says: “If man had all the gifts and all the knowledge and faith that can move mountains, but has not love, he is nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2).

Where there is love, the light and grace come to fill the being with the feeling of divine fulfilment and happiness, with the eternal meaning of existence.

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