Let Your Light Shine

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Matt. 5:16)

Why is it so commonly assumed that the light Jesus speaks about here is the same as the good works that are done?

The light enables seeing. The things to be seen are the good works. Until the light shines the good works are in shadow and darkness, and their form and reality are not truly perceived. What is it that is mistaken about these works, whilst darkness prevails? It is the origin of the works that is not clear.

Until the light shines, the person seeing the works in the shadows assumes that works arise from the human do-er. That is the normal assumption of self-justifying humanity: "Our good deeds arise from ourselves. We are not really rightly judged by God."

When the light shines, suddenly something very shocking is exposed. There is no one who does good, no not one. No one is good but God alone. All that is true and good is wrought in God. I of myself am an unprofitable servant.

The light is not the works. They cannot light themselves. The light is the gospel. The works do not give light to the gospel; the gospel gives light to the works.

Without the light of the gospel, what is done is inherently misinterpreted. The best man in the world, who went about doing good and healing and releasing men and women, was crucified as a sinner by the "righteous" who judged him. Without the clarifying light of the gospel, good works will be misinterpreted as bad.

The good works we are to do must be good not in unenlightened eyes but good in God's eyes, who alone is good. Every person, since our fateful upward Fall, thinks he or she knows what is good, what is evil. But if the light within us is darkness, what then? What God calls good, rebellious humanity calls bad, inhuman, degrading, repressive. But what if our seeing were blinded, lit not by light but darkness?

Let your light shine: proclaim the gospel. Only this gospel brings reconciliation to the Father, and so enables true seeing from His side and in His light.