In John’s Gospel, right at the very beginning, he makes a very important statement. He wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.”
John led up to that profound statement by talking about, “In the beginning.” Of course, “the beginning” was whatever one calls “The Creation,” where even “The Big Bang” requires someone to “light the fuse” – God. Therefore, John talked about the “Word” (Logos) in “the beginning,” when the “Word” existed “with God,” so the “Word” was God.
God is the Word (capitalized for importance).
We define “word” (in one way) as, “ A command or direction; an order.” As such, “Logos” means, “A creative power of God, as His ability to communicate,” such that all God’s creatures can be “in touch with the Father.”
For simplicity’s sake, think of the “Word” as the “Plan” of God. The plan is to first create and then send a “light” that reveals “the Word.” Now, you have to understand that a light revealing “the Word” is not a transmission of physical light. The Sun is a physical ball of matter that emits light waves. The light of the “Plan” is spiritual, but the “Plan” had God call for the existence of matter as step one: space stuff, and our planet’s stuff.
Thus, we read in Genesis 1:2, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (NIV) Then, in verse 3-5 is written, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” (NIV)
That was physical light, not the light of the Word. The Plan called for the stuff that could generate physical light.
So, you have to see the Plan’s order was: 1 (1:1) God created the physical Universe (as a metaphor for the spiritual greatness of God); 2. All was dark in that physical Universe (no Big Bang that involved light first); 3. God created physical light by igniting our Sun (the only light of importance to the matter that would become Earth); 4. The Sun lit up the half of our rotating rock (day) while the side that was away from those physical rays stayed dark (night); and 5. As long as there was physical light in the created Universe, then God was pleased with the first day of the Creation.
Step one of the “Plan” had been commanded.
In that history lesson, you have to understand that darkness came first (the absence of physical light). Only after darkness was created could light have an effect of removing darkness. BUT, physical light does not enlighten the darkness of empty space, nor does it brighten the face that is not in the light’s direct path. Light does not make it a point of wasting itself in a search for darkness. Light illuminates matter that is exposed to the light’s source.
The metaphor of the Creation is the duality of God: All or nothing; Light or darkness; Spiritual or physical; the Word or ignorance; the Plan or chance; and on and on go the examples of that duality.
Now, with that realized, you need to underscore the part of the history lesson that says God commanded light and there came light (and God said light was good). Darkness was named “night,” but it was not called “good.” Darkness comes before the light, just as evil comes before righteousness.
Skipping over John 1:2 for a moment, look at how John wrote in verses 3 and 4, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life,and that life was the light of all mankind.” This is the physical creation of everything, where every thing made comes by God’s will. Everything that has life gets its life from God. “Life [is] the light of all mankind.” This “light of life” is spiritual, because “in him was life” and God is Spiritual, not physical. Thus the spiritual that is life in living creatures is a soul.
The soul is an inner fire that burns eternally, regardless of whether it is day or night. It is the light that inspires our bodies to act physically: conscious functions and subconscious functions. Still, that light is not “the Word.” It is the light that is capable of discerning dualities: up and down; inside and outside; right and wrong; good and evil; on and on go the examples.
When John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it,” he meant that living human beings – even though they ALL have the light of life (a soul) – that “light shines in the darkness” of a fleshy body AND “the darkness has not understood [the light of life]” – its own soul. Man is born into darkness first, so Man does not understand it has a soul. That is because understanding is a brain function, rather than a heart function. That metaphor there is the duality of thinking versus feeling.
Man can reason: “I see no soul, therefore it does not exist.” Man reasons because Man lives first in darkness, searching for a light of awareness about things seen and unseen.
This means that no proof of a soul (the light of life) will ever be seen and understood, because the soul is a light that shines in the darkness. It is just like the light of the sun that is between the sun and the day side of the earth. I shines in darkness and the darkness has not understood it, because darkness lacks the substance to reflect upon the light of the sun.
Still, we know the soul exists (us of faith), and even though we struggle to give reasons (understanding) for why we believe a soul is there, we do not expect to ever be able to show someone a soul and say, “See?!?! I told you it was here!”
Now that faith in a soul and belief in God is the light of the Word. It is another light of which John wrote, which was another step of the Plan, known by God in the beginning.
That light was reflected in Jesus Christ; but as much as Jesus reflected the light of the Word, the Word was, is, and always will be God. God sent Jesus as part of “the Plan,” which was to shine the light of the Word upon souls (the lights of life), whose lives dwelled in darkness. Jesus came to show us how to face God (have the substance of character) and reflect the light of truth just like he did.
Now you have to understand that the darkness in which a soul lives has nothing to do with the physical light of day or its absence at night. A soul lives in the darkness of a fleshy body, where sin is like the vacuum of space and cannot understand the light of the Word. The lures of sin keep Man so preoccupied with physical delights that Man does not know how to face God. Many have no clue that it should face God, because they are a version of man that is barely above animals, behaving naturally in unnatural ways. Some have seen flashes of truth and know God calls to them, but they fear exposure in that light. They hide from subconscious guilt.
Adam was created on the Holy Day, as the seed from which all holy men would come. Another step in the Plan. Adam was the first Man who would shine the light of the Word upon animal-men. The Old Testament is the story of the vine of truth that Adam became the root for, from which all the the Patriarchs, Moses, David and the prophets became the fruit. The New Testament focuses wholly on the light of Christ – the Word, the Plan. Thus, Jesus walked among two kinds of men in Judea and Galilee: the Gentiles who did not know how to face God, and the Jews who feared doing do. Yet another duality.
In this regard, when John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it,” this says there are only two kinds of spiritual people: saints and sinners. Those who reflect the presence of the light of the Word are Saints and those who reflect the absence of light of the Word are sinners. That reflects the duality of the brothers Cain and Abel. Cain became the holy man who would guide Man away from the light of the Word. Abel reflects reincarnation (as he was reborn as Seth), beginning that lineage of the holy men who would lead others into the light of truth.
This light and darkness duality does not allow for a gray zone; but you have to look at the “twilight zone” that religions, such as Judaism, have created. The religions sit in places where it is not wholly dark, but very little light shines through. Islam, Hinduism and Judaism are guided by the waxing and waning phases of the moon – a body that lives in darkness and is always changing, in regard to how much physical light it reflects. Those religions point to the light of the Word, yet they bless those who still hide in darkness.
The many denominations of the Christian religion are not immune to this failure, making them descendants of Cain, rather than Seth. Jesus is the truth of Christianity. Only Apostles of Christ are Christians, making ALL Christians Saints, with ALL Saints being reborn as Jesus. Only God creates the Apostles of Christ and a church is ONLY a gathering of Apostles, for the purpose of leading others to likewise become Apostles. When a “church” condones gray over light, it enslaves people to darkness, simply by not shining the light of the Word into others.
To grasp that twilight zone, hear the words of Jesus (as dictated Spiritually to John many years later), when John was inspired to write the prophecy entitled The Apocalypse of John of Patmos. Jesus said to the Christian church of those in Laodicea, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (The Revelation 3:15-16, NIV) Please read “cold” and “hot” as a duality, interchangeable with such examples as “evil” and “good,” or “dark” and “light.”
It reflects the “one foot in with the other foot out” of a fence sitter, as one who is not facing the light of the Word. It is an institution of false prophecy that does not reflect the light of God, like how Jesus showed one to do. So, twilight zone members are not truly Christians, because true Christians are ONLY Saints. No sinners or “grays” allowed.
The promise is that God created the darkness first, as part of “the Plan.” You cannot know the beauty of God’s light that removes all the darkness of sin from you, unless you know the darkness of sin first. Neither Adam nor Eve were ready to become priests of light in a world of darkness, until they had known the darkness of sin. Because you have sinned, you can turn and face the light and be saved. You know the difference between good and evil. That is why Saints have taken up where Jesus left off (as Jesus reborn within the Saints). It is so the light of the Word will shine in the darkness.
But, God gave us each a soul to use as we wish. There is a light of life given to all flesh and we all know the axiom: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. If you want to waste your soul in the filth of sin, by all means … go ahead. If it makes you feel better gathering with other lukewarm sinners, so a group hug and pretend blessings make it easier to return into the shadows of evil, then do that too.
Just know this … if you don’t face God and reflect that spiritual light, you will not be understood by God as worthy of heaven. You will never know what you are missing, until you lose the physical wrapping around your soul (the light of life) and have to face the light of God, with all that darkness absorbed by your body understood. Some call that the scales of justice, where the darkness is placed on one dish and the light on the other.
Because there will never be proof of a soul, people gleefully sell them for a moment of physical pleasure, calling that the “good life.” We can believe Jesus when he said such foolishness means those who sell their souls will suffer an eternity of punishment (a fire you cannot understand either). Fruitless branches get tossed into the fire.
Believe it … or not.
The light of the Word is God. Darkness cannot exist with God. Darkness is the absence of God.
The light of the Word shone through Jesus Christ, the earthly Son of God, whose soul was surrounded by flesh, but the light of God within kept that physical matter pure. The light of Word is thus the Holy Spirit, which was passed by God through His Son, so others could be also become pure. One must receive the Holy Spirit through one’s future actions.
The light of the Word removes the sins of darkness from the soul, so the soul can return and be with God. The light of the Word prevents the soul from any bodily temptations to sin again. The Holy Spirit allows the soul to transcend from the material realm of darkness, so it is constantly lit by the light of the word. Resurrection is the elevation of one’s soul from the darkness of mortal death, to eternal life as an angel of God.
Anyone who preaches that sins are forgiven, without passing on the light of the Word so that one’s soul can know the true meaning of that forgiveness … that one preaches from the light of day, hiding a darkness that cannot be willed away.