The power of darkness is always lurking, haunting, tempting. But we
always have hope if we look to the light: “Walk while you have the light, lest
darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is
going. . . . While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be the
children of light. (John 12:35, 36)
We also have the warning: “Unless truth is lighted up by good, or unless
faith is lighted up by kindness, there is nothing but darkness.” (Arcana Coelestia
4844.4)
The Lord came on earth to preserve our freedom – ultimately our freedom
to choose to be with Him or against Him, to choose heaven or hell, light or
darkness. Think about how these words in John apply to each of us:
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone
that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be
reproved. But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made
manifest, that they are wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)
And after Jesus had forgiven the woman taken in adultery, He said to the
scribes and Pharisees who had tried to trap Him: “I am the light of the world;
he that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
(Ibid. 8:12)
As with the Lord’s first coming as “the light of the world,” so with His
second coming as the Spirit of Truth – first as prophecy in John, then from
John on the Isle of Patmos in Revelation:
“In the beginning was the Word. . . . In Him was life, and the life was the
light of men. And the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended
it not.” (John 1:1-4,5)
John was sent by the Lord “to bear witness of the light, that all men through
him might believe. That was the true light, which lights every man that comes
into the world.” (Ibid. 1:7-9)
And then we get the triumphant vision of the new light of revelation and
of the Holy City New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven:
“And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb
are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon,
to shine on it: for the glory of the Lord did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it.”
(Revelation 21:22-24)
“And there shall be no light there: and they need no candle, neither light
of the sun; for the Lord gives them light.” (Ibid. 22:5)
Almost at this end of this vision for the New Church comes the inspiring
image: “I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star.”
(Ibid. 22:16) We are told in Apocalypse Revealed 954 that “the bright and
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