THE RADIANCY OF THE GLAD TIDINGS
John A Brown
John 1: 4, 5, 9, 10
2 Corinthians 4: 6
Luke 22: 52, 53; 23: 44-47; 24: 1-6 (to “risen”)
Colossians 1: 12-14
The scripture that has been on my heart as thinking of this gospel meeting is this one in 2 Corinthians 4, "that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts”. There was a time about three hundred years ago when people made advances in logic and science, which was called the Enlightenment. But there has been an incomparably greater enlightenment, not involving physical or intellectual light, but moral light, and it shone, as we sang,
When Christ, the holy Child, was born
(Hymn 366).
For four thousand years of recorded Biblical history, mankind, with certain exceptions, were in darkness. Perhaps for aeons of time before that there was darkness. It says in verse 2 of Genesis 1 that “darkness was on the face of the deep”. That was not how God had created this world, but it says there that “the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep”. That was because disruption had come into the universe even before man was in it. We read in Isaiah of Lucifer falling from heaven, chap 14: 12. In all his pride, that enemy of God, Satan, came into the universe; somehow the perfect heavens and earth that God had created (Gen 1: 1) was spoiled, and the result was darkness. But God acted in recovery from verse 3. The first thing He said was, “Let there be light”, and there has been light, physical light, ever since. Then God created man in whom He could have pleasure, with whom He could commune, but Satan came in again to disrupt that; man was disobedient, and the result was moral darkness. Man as a sinner had to flee from the face of God. Oh, what darkness there was, but as we sang,
See mercy, mercy from on high,
Descend to rebels doomed to die.
What darkness there was for ‘rebels doomed to die’, but then
’Tis mercy free ….
What good news it is that there is light of divine mercy shining from heaven, and no one can stop it. Satan cannot stop it; the efforts of man cannot stop it. Indeed, I would say that, in the history of the church, the harder the enemy has tried to stop it, the brighter it has shone. We know that from church history, because when the suffering and opposition were greatest, that light shone brighter, and there was a testimony in that to the message of the gospel.
John speaks in his gospel about this light coming into the world, and it was in a Person. It is not a philosophical or theological idea, but it shone and shines in Jesus, the One who was and is the Word; “the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. What glory came into this world and shone here when Jesus came into this world: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. We know from the footnote that that can be turned round and that can equally mean that ‘the light of men was the life’, and the impression that I have is to speak about light as something which is shining from the heart of God. He desires that it might shine in our hearts, in our affections. Everyone in this room has heard the gospel many times. I do not know how many times I have heard it, maybe three thousand times. Some of the younger ones here will have heard it hundreds of times. But it is light, shining into hearts, and it shines tonight in all its radiance. There is a blessed attractiveness about the simplicity of these first verses in John’s gospel. There is a profundity about them, but there is a simplicity; “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. That light is shining tonight. It is shining in China, it is shining in Islamic countries and it is shining in this dark country. I do not suppose there has been a darker scene morally in this country for hundreds of years. People talk about the post-Christian era, but the light is still shining. No one can stop it because it comes from the heart of God, and it is shining tonight. I trust it has shone and is shining still into every heart in this room.
So “the light appears in darkness” and then, “The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man”. That is an interesting word, and similar in meaning to the effect of the shining garments of these men in the tomb about whom we read. The footnote says, ‘Or ‘is light to every man.’ Not ‘enlightens,’ but ‘sheds its light upon’’. It is shining upon persons, and the glorious message of the gospel is shining upon persons today. It is a dark scene, but the presentation of Jesus as the Light of the world is shining today, and every minute of every day, and the question for each one of us is, ‘Am I aware of its shining into my heart?’. It is not just knowing about its terms, because we have all here in this room been coming to gospel meetings like this all our lives. We know the terms of the gospel, and that in itself can become a barrier to allowing the light to shine into our hearts. We can know the truth of the gospel, and we need to, but the gospel is a radiance. It is the idea of radiation that has its source in the heart of God, in the heart of a God who is love in His nature, and that radiation is emanating, spreading, shining. It is shining on this dark world, and nobody can stop it. Satan cannot stop it; men cannot stop it. Communism tried for seventy years to stop it in Russia, and it could not, because the gospel light kept on shining; what an effect it had even there. Today, the enemy would use secularism and materialism, as well as persecution, to stop that radiancy shining into hearts. But nobody can stop it because it is shining from the heart of God, and He desires that it might shine into our hearts, into every heart. It would affect them, it would change them. What I desire for myself and for each one of us here and, indeed, for every soul that hears the gospel tonight, is that the radiancy of the glad tidings might change us, have an effect on us, and warm our hearts, perhaps in a fresh way in which it has not before.
It “lightens every man”. It shines upon them and, as our scripture in 2 Corinthians says, “it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine”. That would be a reference to Genesis 1 because that is what happened - by faith we believe that that actually happened then. Into that darkness, there came light, but it is a moral matter “that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts”. I trust that it has shone into every heart here, and if it has not, that is why we are here tonight. The preacher cannot assume anything. We have heard of persons who had been attending the gospel for years, and then suddenly this light shone into their minds and hearts, they realised that what they were going on with was just in terms, and their heart was warmed towards Christ. This blessed Jesus is the Light of the world, and God is appealing that there might be an answer in every one of our hearts.
We will come back to “the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God”, but I wanted to speak first of how much the Lord Jesus suffered that this light should shine. It says very affectingly in the first section that we read in Luke 22 that Jesus spoke to those who were the representatives of the Jewish religious order of that time. It was not the rabble to whom He spoke, saying, “this is your hour and the power of darkness”; it was to “the chief priests and captains of the temple and the elders”. The light that Moses had been given by God should have been in the hearts of these persons; they should have recognised that this Man, Jesus, was their Messiah but instead they rejected His teaching again and again. Read Matthew’s gospel, and what a story it is of the utter rejection of Jesus by those who should have known better. What darkness! Here was the Light of the world standing before them, and He said to them, “this is your hour and the power of darkness”. How Jesus felt that. How He felt the opposition of these religious people. The first time He preached, they “wondered at the words of grace” (Luke 4: 22), and then they took Him to the brow of the hill and would have thrown Him over the cliff (v 29) because they hated what He was saying. “This is your hour and the power of darkness”. How Jesus felt that, the opposition of these religious leaders. Another verse in John 1 says, “He came to his own, and his own received him not” (v 11); they rejected Him. “This is your hour and the power of darkness”;I do not want to be imaginative, but I am sure that Jesus said that in sorrow. It was not just a rebuff to them; He was not just saying, ‘Well, you do whatever you want’. He said, “in the temple ye did not stretch out your hands against me; but this is your hour and the power of darkness”. What sorrow He felt. Oh, if there is anyone here in whom anything like that is found in your heart, and I say that as knowing my own heart, may the radiancy, may the light that is shining from heaven, the love of God expressed in a blessed Man who went into that darkness for me, affect us! May it change us. May it warm our hearts and may there be something “shining forth”, as 2 Corinthians 4: 12 says.
In a sense, Jesus could have walked away from this scene in the garden; He could have destroyed these people. The light that was in Him was greater than the darkness that was against Him, but He submitted Himself, and allowed Himself to be laid hold of. It says that in the next verse, “And having laid hold on him, they led him away”. One of the gospels says that they “bound him”, John 18: 12. Think of the Lord of glory, this blessed One, allowing Himself to be bound with cords and led to the house of the high priest for a mockery of a trial. He was tried; He was condemned to death; and again it was the religious leaders of the day who cried out to Pilate, “Crucify, crucify him”, John 19: 6. It was not only the common rabble. It was the Jews who did that. How Jesus must have felt it! Everything that is recorded in Luke’s gospel as being said by them was heard by Jesus. He was there and He heard it. How much He suffered. The Psalms and the Old Testament prophets are full of references which show us very clearly what it meant for Jesus, the sinless One, the One through whom the light of God was expressed, to be rejected by His own to whom He came, and what He felt about it. What a sorrow it was.
Then He was taken to “the place which is called Skull”, and hung on a cross. It says in verse 32, “Now two others also, malefactors, were led with him to be put to death”. The Lord of life was to be put to death, but what a wonderful thing it was that the light of mercy shone there at the cross. Jesus says in verse 34, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. What a gleam of radiance that was in that dark scene at Calvary; the crowd surrounding the cross, the Roman soldiers crucifying Him, and yet He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.
By the sixth hour, the Saviour had been hanging there for three hours, suffering, the nails through His hands and feet. He had suffered in His spirit as He listened to the taunts of the Jews; He had suffered physically as He was struck by the Roman soldiers, and as He was nailed to that cross; He suffered in His spirit as He hung there listening to the jeers of the people whom He had come to save. They said in mockery, “He is King of Israel; let him descend now from the cross, and we will believe on Him”, Matt 27: 42. Jesus hung there and heard that. Oh what darkness!
But then it says that “the sun was darkened”; now there was a darkness that could not be compared with anything else in its intensity. It was incomparably darker, this darkness that came over the whole land from the sixth until the ninth hour. This was not the darkness of sin; this was not the darkness of rejection. God drew a veil over the sufferings of His precious Son. He had hung there on that cross for three hours listening to these jeers, and then the sun was darkened. There was darkness for three hours and in that darkness, I can say that He bore my sins in His body on that cross. I thank God that I can say that; I could not stand here and speak as I am doing unless I knew that He did that for me. Can you say, ‘He did it for me’? Not that you have heard it said so often that you know the words, but do you know in your heart that He did that for you? It is a personal transaction. I have heard of a person who had listened to the gospel for sixty years, and had been breaking bread for most of that time, but then they came to it in a gospel preaching that they did not have this transaction with a living Saviour. The light had not shone in and had this effect. Here is Jesus in the darkness, and all the time that had led up to this, He had been in the perfection and the comfort of communion with His Father, but now God forsook Him. “My God”, Jesus cried at the end of these three hours, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. He cried these words, these words from Psalm 22: 1, in the darkness.
At the ninth hour “the veil of the temple rent in the midst”. During these three hours, Jesus bore the sins of every single person who has ever believed, who has put their trust and faith in Him. Their sins, my sins, were borne in the body of this blessed One, the Sin-offering. Oh what it cost Him! But now He can cry with a loud voice, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit”. He says, “Father” again. There was still much to be done vicariously. He was buried vicariously for us. His resurrection was for us too - it says, “raised for our justification” (Rom 4: 25) - but the judgment of sin, the whole question of sin and sins, was addressed there in the darkness. Oh what it was for Jesus to bear it there. We will never understand it, but what He accomplished there on that cross was not only for my blessing, and, I trust, for yours, but for the glory of God eternally. All that God is, a God who is light and love and all these other things, was fully expressed there at the cross as nowhere else. Oh, dear brethren, let us be freshly affected by what it cost Jesus to go that way so that we might be able to say, ‘My sins were taken away there’:
And brighter still in splendour shone
When Jesus, dying, cried, ‘Tis done!
There was an effect immediately; I marvel at it. The centurion who was in charge of these Roman soldiers who had crucified Christ was affected by what he saw and heard there. We know from Mark’s gospel that he said, “Truly this man was Son of God”, chap 15: 39. What a testimony that was to the radiancy shining out from God into the heart of that hard centurion. We do not know anything about him, but Luke records him saying, “In very deed this man was just”. What grace it was that the light could shine into the hard heart of that centurion, and there was an answer in these words.
There was an answer too for these dear women who went early in the morning. “And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre”. There was witness to the fact that Jesus had overcome the power of death. We were speaking this morning after the Lord’s supper about the way in which, when Jesus went into death, He broke its power. In the type, as soon as the priests’ feet touched the Jordan, the waters of Jordan went away backwards. Death could not stand in the presence of the Saviour. He went into death as a Conqueror and He broke its power, and now there was a witness. Our hymn says,
Complete in power when He arose
And burst the bands of all His foes.
What a thing it was that these women went into the tomb where Jesus had been lying. It says that “they had entered”. It would be a dark place; there would be very little light in it. The stone had been rolled away so maybe there was a little light coming through the entrance, but it was a hollowed-out tomb. I have seen photographs of these ancient tombs with shelves at the side where the bodies were laid. It is dark. And these women went into that darkness because they loved the Lord Jesus. They wanted to know what had happened to Him. Was His body there? Then, “two men suddenly stood by them in shining raiment”, and again that word is ‘lightens’, the same word that is used in John 1. The tomb would be filled with light. These two men were standing there beside them “in shining raiment”, and they say, “Why seek ye the living one among the dead? He is not here, but is risen”. What a wonderful light that is, the light of the risen Saviour, the living Saviour! What a marvellous message it is! Light shines from heaven, and it is light that testifies to the fact that Jesus is alive, and He is available to every man and woman and child in this world.
I trust that everyone here is in the good of His death, the shedding of His precious blood, that blood shed for remission of sins. I thank God often when I kneel down in His presence that I do not need even to think about my sins, awful as they have been, because they are all washed away in the precious blood of my Saviour. He was dead when that soldier came and, in an act of callous and careless brutality, plunged his spear into the side of the Saviour, the dead Christ, and “there came out blood and water”, John 19: 34. It is a wonderful thing to know for ourselves the light that shines and the preciousness of what God has done in Jesus. I can say from experience that sin is darkness. As you get away from God, or if you do not know what it is to have salvation in the Person of Christ, it is darkness, and you flounder around in it. There is no knowing where you are going when it is dark, but the light of who Jesus is and what He can do for you is shining tonight. May every soul here know that radiancy shining into our hearts!
Jesus says in John’s gospel, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”, chap 3: 35. The verse we read in Colossians 1 speaks of “the Son of his love: in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”. We can present this as God’s proposal in the street preaching, although we could not assume that people who were passing all have redemption, or have the forgiveness of sins. I trust I can say here, “in whom we have redemption”. I trust this light has shone into every heart here down to the youngest boy and girl in the room tonight. “In whom we have redemption”: there is no doubt about it; there is no wondering whether it will be all right with you. A recent conversation with a dear brother on the Continent reminded me of the blessedness of being able to say - and I will make it personal - ‘in whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of my sins’. What a wonderful thing it is to be sure! Many dear believers believe that they cannot be sure that they have salvation until they get to the judgment seat, and then they will find out which way it will go. That is a terrible doctrine. There is no doubting the love of God. The security of salvation through faith in Jesus, the light of that which shines into your heart, is not a flickering light. It is not one that may come and go. You get it in your heart; your heart responds to it; and you can be certain not only of your eternal destiny but of your blessing every day of your life until the Lord comes.
Well, how blessed it is: “giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light”. In a sense that is what we have been doing this weekend, enjoying “the portion”, sharing it together, “the portion of the saints in light”. Our blessed Saviour God, who is our Father, has “delivered us from the authority of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love”. In that kingdom the light is always shining, the light of the love of God, the light of what we have been enjoying this weekend, the light of what we participated in this morning. It is a wonderful thing that this light is beaming. The apostle Paul uses that word “radiancy”, 2 Cor 4: 4. It is a wonderful matter to experience; it is not a mere doctrine although there is truth connected with the gospel; and it is certainly not an idea or a philosophy or a theory. That radiance is shining out tonight and it is in the Person of Jesus. May that light shine into every heart. May it warm every heart, and may there be an answer to it for the shining forth of something in our hearts in witness and testimony to the One who is the source of it, the One, our Lord Jesus Christ, who went into that darkness that we might be in the light.
May it be so for His Name’s sake.
Grimsby
9th June 2019