I. Christ is the Light of the world because He enables men to see what is in the world.
II. Christ is the Light of the world because He guides men through the world.
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Hb Enables Men to See.
The lights by the altar in the Temple were memorials of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. When, then, Jesus says, " I am the light of the world," He would declare Himself as being in reality, and to every soul of man to the end of time, what that cloud with its heart of fire was in outward seeming to one generation of desert wanderers. Now, the first thing which it was to these was the visible vehicle of the Divine presence. " The Lord went before them in a pillar of a cloud." " The Lord looked through the pillar." " The Lord came down in the cloud, and spake unto him." "The cloud covered the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord appeared." Such is the way in which it is ever spoken of, as being the manifestation to Israel in sensible form of the presence among them of God their King.
1. He enabled men to see God.
(l)'He made clear in His own life and words the Divine idea, as no one had done before, and no one has ever done since. Men had been struggling with this idea from the first efi'orts of religious speculation. It was still unformed and imperfect. Outside of revelation it fluctuated and took many shapes, now presenting itself as a multiplicity of Divine energies, with more or less co- herence ; and now retreating into a vague Absolute or Necessity, encompassing all being, but without thought or love for any. Polytheism more refined or more sensualistic, and Pantheism more or less abstract, divided the thought of the Gentile world. On the other hand, the idea of God had been to the Hebrews one of growing clearness. He was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of Israel, who had given the covenant on Mount Sinai, who Had led their fathers by the way of the wilder- ness into the promised land, a "jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," and yet also " the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin," a holy God, "of purer eyes than to behold evil," even a Father whose pitying mercy way able to measure all the depths
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of our weakness. " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth that we are dust."
This sublime conception of the Hebrew mind was perfected in Christ. Every attribute of spiritual excellence was brought out into clearer distinction, and every element less exalted was enlarged and purified. Hitherto the God of the Hebrews had remained too isolated and apart. With all their growth of religious intelligence — the voice of the Divine always speaking more clearly as we descend the course of their prophetic litera- ture— there still clung certain restrictions to their highest con- ception. Jehovah was their God in some special manner — the "Siver of their Law, the God of their Temple, who was to be worshipped in Jerusalem. They had difficulty in enlarging the Divine idea so as to embrace the human race, in rising above local privilege and natiolEal prerogative to the thought of God as the spiritual Source and Guide of all men alike. Christ fixed for ever this great thought. " God is a Spirit," He said ; " and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." ** Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem," was there any special virtue, so far as the Divine presence was concerned. Thit- presence was universal and universally spiritual, embracing all Hfe, claiming the homage and devotion, the faith and love, of all moral intelligence — the presence of the Father as well as the Sovereign of men.
(2) How did He accomplish this ? By the manifestation of His person even more than by His doctrine, since He said, not " I bring the light and the truth," but " I am the light, and I am the truth." He is the light of the world, because in Him is the glory of God. His words are madness, and something very like blasphemy, unless they are vindicated by the visible indwelling in Him of the present God. The cloud of the humanity, " the veil, that is to say, his flesh," enfolds and tempers; and through its transparent folds it reveals, even while it swathes, the Godhead. Like some fleecy vapour flitting across the sun, and irradiated by its light, it enables our weak eyes to see light, and not darkness, in the else intolerable blaze. Yes! Thou art the light of the world, because in Thee dwelleth "the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Thy servant hath taught us the meaning of Thy words,
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when he said : " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."