Darkness and the Light Part 1 -- By: L. Paul Moore, Jr.

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 106:422 (Apr 1949)
Article: Darkness and the Light Part 1
Author: L. Paul Moore, Jr.


Darkness and the Light
Part 1

L. Paul Moore, Jr.

When Abram returned to his tent near the oaks of Mamre after having delivered his nephew Lot from the hand of Chedorlaomer, Jehovah appeared to him in a vision, saying, “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen 15:1). That was the day on which Jehovah made a covenant with Abram; but when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon him, and a dread, even a great darkness, came over him. And after the sun had gone down, there was all about him a thick darkness; yet he saw out of the midst of this great darkness a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch which passed between the sacrifices he had slaughtered according to the word of the Lord.

The counterpart to this experience is in the heart of every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, when he realizes with dread the blackness of his own soul in its ignorance and self-will, and the grace of God which has made an everlasting covenant under the terms of which he has become a child of God with Christ as the light of his life. We shall therefore trace in the present study the teaching of the Word of God which reveals to us the nature of God as light, and the nature of man as darkness.

God Is Light

The prophet Ezekiel gives us by far the most detailed description of the appearance of God, although we remember the word of John the beloved disciple that “no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). The description given by Ezekiel is a true picture of what

the prophet saw by the river Chebar, when the heavens were opened and he beheld visions of God. In the opening chapter of his prophecy he says: “And I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire infolding itself, and a brightness round about it, and out of the midst thereof as it were glowing metal, out of the midst of the fire…. And above the firmament that was over their [the living creatures’] heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above. And I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it round about, from the appearance of his loins and upward; and from the appearance of his loins and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the like...

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