Lesson 21: Practical Because Revealed to All Who Desire to Know It
“[Jesus is] the true light, which gives light to everyone…” John 1:9
In Jesus’ perfect life God revealed His Will for every human being. It was not the life of an angel visitor. Its glory lay in the fact of its humanness, and that fact brings it within the realm of the possible to every son and daughter of the human race.
The Will has been revealed constantly and immediately to all who desire to know it. The work of the Holy Spirit is that of indicating to man the intention and purpose of God for him. This may also be said: The Holy Spirit is to "take what is [Christ’s] and declare it to [us]" (John 16:14) and this is far more than explaining the facts about Him. It is the showing to individual souls the way Christ would think, or act, or speak. Jesus was, and is, the "Light” (John 1:9, above), and thus He is eternally the revelation of God’s Will to men.
It does not necessarily follow that when the light falls on man that he understands the source of the light. The light is the first fact; the understanding follows. The little child may play with the golden sunshine, and yet have no knowledge of the sun. That will come in the process of the years. Let any person, if it be possible, go back in life to that moment when the conscience first detected the difference between right and wrong. That shining of the light of right was the outshining of the glory of Christ's perfection upon the spirit and the resulting revelation of the Will of God.
All this was not then understood, but enough was understood to make man responsible. If in that moment the right was chosen, Christ was obeyed, and the Will of God was done. If the wrong was chosen, the light was insulted, and the government of God rebelled against.
God reveals His Will to man, and man chooses between obedience and disobedience. The measure and clearness of personal revelation depends upon this act of obedience. To obedient souls the light becomes perpetually brighter, for he who is willing to "do God’s Will knows whether the teaching is from God" (John 7:17). To those who disobey, the light dies away, until they stumble in darkness, and they believe God’s Will cannot be known; but the truth is, that having "loved the darkness rather than the light," they have become blind (John 3:19).
To the new-born soul the Will of God is revealed again, not as a perfect and final program of life, but in a claim requiring immediate obedience, and then by successive revelations concerning the pathway of life. So that a man may say, as he steps out upon his new life, "One step I see before me, is all I need to see."
When Saul of Tarsus recognized Jesus Christ, he was not told that he was to become the apostle to the Gentiles. Jesus said to him, "Rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do" (Acts 9:6). Taking one step, another was revealed; and so on, until at last he said, "I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7) and he passed to the place of perfect light and perfect life.
Let's reflect on, even memorize: “[Jesus is] the true light, which gives light to everyone…” ‒ John 1:9
Lesson 21: Practical Because Revealed to All Who Desire to Know It Print
Modified on: Sun, 13 Dec, 2020 at 7:04 PM
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