“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
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”If you think of ten thousand things that are good and worth having, what is it that makes them so but the God in them? That the loveliness of the world has its origin in the making will of God, would not content me; I say, the very loveliness of it is the loveliness of God, for its loveliness is his own lovely thought, and must be a revelation of that which dwells and moves in himself. Nor is this all: my interest in its loveliness would vanish, I should feel that the soul was out of it, if you could persuade me that God had ceased to care for the daisy, and now cared for something else instead. The faces of some flowers lead me back to the heart of God; and, as his child, I hope I feel, in my lowly degree, what he felt when, brooding over them, he said, ‘They are good;’ that is, ‘They are what I mean.’ If everything were thus seen in its derivation from God, then the inheritance of the saints, whatever the form of their possession, would be seen to be light. All things are God’s, not as being in his power—that of course—but as coming from him. The darkness itself becomes light around him when we think that verily he hath created the darkness, for there could have been no darkness but for the light. Without God there would not even have been nothing; there would not have existed the idea of nothing, any more than any reality of nothing, but that he exists and called something into being. There is no word to represent that which is not God, no word for the where without God in it; for it is not, could not be. So I think we may say that the inheritance of the saints is the share each has in the Light.”
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Commentary
by Jolyn Canty
“So I think we may say that the inheritance of the saints is the share each has in the light.”
God created light and darkness. He created all things; nothing has been created, but by the creative force that starts with Him.
Light makes vision possible and affords illumination. All of life depends on light, even colors depend on light. Light uncovers and reveals; it is epiphany. In literary terms, an epiphany is that moment in the story when a character acquires realization, awareness or a feeling of knowledge after which events are viewed through the prism of a new light revealed in the story. He is our epiphany; He is our light.
We need not live in darkness. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all {1 John 1:5}. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it {John 1:5}.
When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus as he ministered to the woman caught in adultery, Jesus told them “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” {John 8:12} Our inheritance, the inheritance of those who confess Christ as Lord and Savior, is to be children of God. It is our opportunity to walk with Him and to enjoy the eternal life that He purchased for us on the cross. He is the light, and faith in Him is our share of that light.
“But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another’s – not the Shadow’s. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!”
--Lilith