True Light and False Light

True Light and False Light

“Because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.” 1 John 2:8.

As certainly as there is a true light, there is also a false light. The main difference between these two lights is that the true light drives away the darkness, while the false light allows the darkness to remain. The false light wants to possess glory without driving out the darkness. In order to drive away the darkness, you must experience fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. False light wants no part of that.

False light teaches that man was created only to experience pleasure. It makes a person feel in body, soul and spirit as if he has been transported from earth to the heavens, so that he feels free from all tribulations and sufferings—as if the resurrection had already occurred. God in eternity does not suffer; neither does Christ in His glory. They are not tempted, and the false light teaches that we should be like Them in this.

On the other hand, the true light makes you quite aware that your body is on the earth. It teaches us that as long as we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5:6. It also teaches us that we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross and offer our body—not to pleasure, but to the living God as a well-pleasing sacrifice.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12. Jesus said this in the days of His flesh when the light was breaking through and driving darkness out of His body with such powerful judgment that, “He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death.” This is how the true light opened the way through the body of Christ so that we also in our body can give the light and judgment free rein, forcing darkness to depart.

True light has a body that is a sacrifice. False light has a body that enjoys.

False light says that it is saved and spared from all sufferings. This tells us that it is not driving darkness away, but rather living in harmony with darkness. That is why Jesus also said, “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matt. 6:23.

Our earthly body is a part of Christ’s earthly body and must go the way of obedience and suffering if we are to share with Him in His resurrection and be a part of His glorified body. First the natural, then the spiritual; there is an earthly body, and there is a heavenly body.

The Spirit gives light. The Spirit of Christ led Him into death according to the flesh. After the Spirit had completed this work in Christ, God sent the Spirit to earth in order to lead us on the same way.

True light demands sacrifice—water and blood. False light demands pleasure.

The instruction that comes from true light leads to a greater godly fear. The false light is the devil’s lighthouse on the edge of the city of depravity.

People who receive false light become lawless, and their conscience no longer restrains them; they can do whatever they want. Jude said it well when he called them, “spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” Jude 12-13.