All the colorful beauty that we see around us is actually in the light! Just so, Jesus is the light.
There is so much more to see in the golden lampstand! The main shaft held its own lamp, but six branches grew out of it, each adding a lamp. God’s people are branches, linked with Christ’s own life. He said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall…have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). The Lord provides four kinds of light. First, there is physical light. “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (Gen 1:3). This light is the secret of growth, the light of generation, as we see in the illustration of the menorah. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn 1:4). Second, there is intellectual light, expressed every time we say, “I see it!” This is revelation. Jesus is called “a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles” (Lk 2:32). “Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Mt 11:27). There is also moral light, the clarity that comes when we obey God’s word. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105). “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place” (2 Pet 1:19). This is sanctification, and “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:7). In other words, our sin will be obvious to us and, by confessing it, we will live in happy fellowship with God. Finally there is the light of glory, whereby the Lord’s character is shown to us, changing us to be like Him. This is transformation, for “God who commanded light to shine out of darkness…has shone 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; also 3:18). Yes, “Truly the light is sweet” (Eccl 11:7)!