“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt 6:22-23, NKJ)
When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about rebirth and the kingdom of God, He made this crucially important statement in John 3:3: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Rebirth opens your spiritual eyes and only then are you capable as a spiritual person to see the kingdom of God. This wonderful event is also symbolised in the golden candlestick. 2 Cor 4:6 explains it like this: “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” If this happens then, like Balaam, your “eyes are opened” (Num 24:3). Like Job (42:5), you can say: “I have heard of You by the hearing if the ear, but now my eye sees You.”
Although the Lamb must be your lamp (Rev 21:23), it often happens that in many “sons of light” (Luke 16:8) the light in them is darkness (Luke 11:35), in other words their spiritual eyes are covered. There are many reasons for this. The most important of these is that the spiritual person is like a piece of phosphor that only acquires light if he bathes in the Light of Jesus, the Light of the world (John 8:12). “In Your light we see light” (Ps 36:9). If you do not, on a daily basis, “for a time … rejoice in His light” (John 5:35), and “look unto Jesus” (Heb 12:2), then a veil of darkness will put you back into darkness, into the shadow of death (Matt 4:16). Thus: Practice His Presence!
Another important reason why your lamp may be burnt out is that you do not fully walk in the truth and that you do not bring your wrong deeds into the light so that the light can expose them (John 3:20-21; Is 10:17). To walk in the light is also a condition for believers to be able to have fellowship with each other (1 John 1:7).
With the golden lampstand in your tabernacle Jesus testifies over you in John 12:46: “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.” Remember: your lamp must be shining to be able to enter with the Bridegroom into His glory. The other born again virgins whose lamps were not burning (Matt 25:1-13) could not enter.
- Sela: Phosphor relates to the morning star (Collins; Webster). What does this mean in terms of Rev 2:28 and 22:16 and Is 14:12?
- Read: Ex 16; Ps 66; Rom 8
- Memorise: Rom 8:14, 19 and 28.
