Fiat lux: the order of God in the salvation of the soul (John Bunyan)

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inkling

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As Moses begins with the creation of the world, so John begins with the gospel of salvation (Gen 1:1; John 1:1)...

‘And God said, Let there be light.’

This is the first thing with which God began the order of the creation; to wit, light, ‘Let there be light’: From which many profitable notes may be gathered, as to the order of God in the salvation of the soul. As,

1. When the Holy Ghost worketh upon us, and in us, in order to a new creation; he first toucheth our understanding, that great peace of the heart, with his spiritual illumination (Matt 4:16). His first word, in order to our conversion, is, Let there be light: light, to see their state by nature; light, to see the fruits and effects of sin; light, to see the truth and worth of the merits of Jesus Christ; light, to see the truth and faithfulness of God, in keeping promise and covenant with them that embrace salvation upon the blessed terms of the gospel of peace (Heb 10:32). Now that this word, Let there be light, was a semblance of the first work of the Holy Ghost upon the heart, compare it with that of Paul to the Corinthians; ‘For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,’ that is, at the beginning of the world, ‘hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor 4:6).​

2. ‘And God said, Let there be light.’ As here, the light of this world; so in conversion, the light of the New Testament of Christ, it comes by the word of God. No word, no light: therefore the apostle saith, He ‘hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel’ (2 Tim 1:10). And therefore Paul saith again, That salvation is manifest through preaching, through the expounding or opening of the word of faith.​
3. ‘And God said, Let there be light; and there was light’: He spake the word, and it was done; all that darkness that before did cover the face of the deep, could not now hinder the being of light. So neither can all the blindness and ignorance that is in the heart of man, hinder the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (Rev 3:7). When it pleaseth God to reveal, it is revealed; when he openeth, none can shut: He said, Let there be light, and there was light.​
And God saw that the light was good. Truly the light is good (saith Solomon) and a pleasant thing it is for the eye to behold the sun. It was good, because it was God’s creature; and so in the work of grace that is wrought in our hearts, that light of the new covenant, it is good, because it is God’s work, the work of his good pleasure (2 Thess 1:11); that good work which he hath not only begun, but promised to fulfil until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil 1:6).

God saw that the light was good. The darkness that before did cover the face of the waters, was not a creature of God, but a privation, or that which was caused by reason that light was not as yet in the world: so sin, that darkness that might be felt, is not the workmanship of God in the soul, but that which is the work of the devil; and that taketh occasion to be, by reason that the true light, as yet, doth not shine in the soul.

‘And God divided the light from the darkness.’ As Paul saith, What communion hath light with darkness? they cannot agree to dwell together (2 Cor 6:14). We see the night still flies before the day, and dareth not come upon us again, but as the light diminisheth and conveyeth itself away. So it is in the new creation; before the light of the glorious gospel of Christ appears, there is night, all night, in the soul (Eph 5:8): but when that indeed doth shine in the soul, then for night there is day in the soul: ‘Ye were darkness [saith Paul] but now are ye light in the Lord’ (v 9): And, ‘The darkness is past [saith John] and the true light now shineth’ (1 John 2:8).


John Bunyan, An Exposition of the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, vol. 2, pp. 418-419.
 
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