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I. THE THINGS SPOKEN OF IN THE TEXT, LIGHT AND DARKNESS. To each of these terms there are different significations. There is what we term natural light; there are also mental and moral light (the illumination of the understanding and of the heart); there are also providential, spiritual, and eternal light: each of these has its opposite state of darkness. It is true that our text speaks only of light natural; yet, as the works of God in nature are often typical of His works of grace, we may follow the example of Scripture, and in tracing out the truths it teaches, may endeavour to prove, that in the whole economy of nature, providence, and grace, it is the practice and prerogative of God to divide the light from the darkness. Is it darkness with any of the Lord's people present? Are His dealings mysterious? Are their state and prospects full of gloom and obscurity? Child of sorrow, strive to bow with submission to the will of your Heavenly Father. "Let patience have her perfect work." "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." "Why art thou cast down, oh my soul! and why art thou disquieted within me?" "Hope in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him who is the health of thy countenance." "At evening time it shall be light." Yes, then, when you are expecting the darkness to increase — when the sun of enjoyment seems to have set forever, — then, "at evening time it shall be light." "Who is among you that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of His servant: that walketh in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." "Unto the upright there ariseth light in darkness." There are also spiritual and eternal lights, with their opposite states of darkness. "With Thee is the fountain of life," said the sacred writer, and "in Thy light shall we see light." While we are in the darkness of natural corruption and alienation from God, we know nothing aright, nothing of the evils of sin, nothing of the astonishing love of Jesus, we have no just conceptions of the amazing and stupendous work of redemption, or of the work of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man. But when in infinite compassion Jehovah enlightens the understanding and touches the heart, we see and feel the reality and vast importance of eternal things — we see at what an awful distance sin has placed us from a God of spotless purity — we feel how deeply we are steeped in the poison and pollution of iniquity — we adore the infinite wisdom manifested in the plan of redemption, that stupendous plan, which while it redeems, pardons, and sanctifies the sinner, satisfies also the high claims of Divine justice, magnifies the Divine perfections, and brings "Glory to God in the highest."

II. We have now to consider WHAT MAY BE AFFIRMED CONCERNING THE OBJECTS HERE SET BEFORE US: GOD DIVIDES THE LIGHT FROM THE DARKNESS. He is accomplishing this upon earth by a mysterious but infinitely wise process. Much light and darkness dwells in the minds of individuals — in the various religious sects throughout the land, and among the different nations of the world. Whatever true light is in the world, it is of God. He is its Author. By nature all are under the dominion of the prince of darkness, and are enslaved by Him. But a stronger than he comes upon him, and delivers the captive from the dark dungeons of iniquity. Jesus came to be a light to them that sit in darkness; He sends His Spirit with His Word to subdue the rebellious heart, to awaken the insensible heart — to pour the light of celestial day upon the benighted spirit — to show the sinner to himself, and to reveal the saving mercy, of God in Christ — to reveal the dangers that lie in his pathway to eternity — to give him right views of every essential truth connected with salvation and eternal life — to teach him everything it is requisite he should know and experience ere he can inhabit the realms of light above — in short, to separate the light from the darkness. Hitherto the very light had been darkness; there had been light in the intellect perhaps, but darkness in the soul (for in many an unrenewed character the one is strangely mixed with the other). There may even possibly exist a theoretic knowledge of Divine things where blackest crimes dwell in the heart and are perpetrated in the life. But where Jesus shines forth in mercy — where the Holy Spirit exerts His power, the light is separated from the darkness: there is no longer that heterogeneous mixture of knowledge and sin, of Divine truth in the intellect and sin in the life, which formerly existed. Jehovah has wrought His wondrous work, has divided the light from the darkness, has separated the sinner from his sins, "and behold all things become new." To conclude: The day of final separation is hastening on, then, forever and at once, God will divide "the light from the darkness," truth from error, holiness from iniquity, the righteous from the wicked. Truth and righteousness shall dwell in heaven, error and iniquity shall sink to hell. The wicked will then be all darkness, the righteous will then be all light.

(W. Burgess.)

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KJV: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

WEB: God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.