The Work of Light

Light is an essential element of life. It allows us to see, it guides our path at night when there's no moonlight; even if we don't always understand how or why things work the way they do in nature - which only God knows - we can't live without it, because He created everything with His divine light shining through!

5 The news that we have learned from him, and which we proclaim to you, is that God is light, and in him is no darkness. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and yet walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1 John 1:5-10).

This passage contains two important recommendations, but it's the first that interests us here. It invites us to walk in the light if we are in communion with God. In this recommendation too, the Lord blesses us by revealing one of the secrets of his Word. What are works of light?

First of all, we know that God is light (verse 5), opposed to darkness (Satan). In fact, the two are incompatible. And if Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12), then to speak of the work of light is to speak of the work of Jesus Christ, or of God himself. But what is God's work? In other words, the work of God or the work of light is to believe in Him whom He has sent (John 6:29). This is essential. Faith in Christ includes all that is described in Ephesians 5:8-14 as a life of light: a life of kindness, justice and truth, etc. You can't be in Christ without living all this; but Christ also accomplishes this for His own.

Judgment will depend on who has believed in the name of Jesus Christ. Man cannot live without stumbling, but he is justified by his faith in Jesus Christ, in whom his life is hidden (John 3:16, 18; Romans 1:16-17).