Wednesday: A Shadow Proves the Sunshine

"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” John 3:19-21

Many people wonder why in fact there is evil in this world. I mean if God says he loves the world (Jn. 3:16) then why does our world consist of war, violence and hatred? Why is there poverty and sickness?

These are all great questions and it something that you should not be content not knowing the answer to because God has revealed the answer to us in His word. Yes, there are many things that are unanswered and God has done that for reasons that we don't know, it may be to build unity, but all we know is that there are some aspects of God that we will never understand on earth because a finite mind cannot grasp the infinite God. Our heads would explode! However, we are to search and understand the answers in which God has revealed to us, these things that are critical to understanding God meaningfully even though we will never understand God exhaustively.

That being said, the fact is that darkness exists because of sin. Sin exists because of the fall of man in the garden, therefore we are  all born with a sinful nature. However, it is not completely Adam's fault that you sin! We sin on our own, by our own choice because that is all we know coming into this world. Sin is as natural to us as breathing, yet no one forces you to breathe. It's the same with sin. Sin is developed from desire and results in death (James 1:15). So we see that all of humanity lives in sin and the world is in darkness. But what makes sin, sin? I mean why are the things that we call sin wrong? The only way something can ever be wrong is when it does not meet a set standard in which make something right. If a 60% is the standard to pass a class then anything short of that is wrong or a fail. If 4 is the correct answer for 2+2 then anything else is wrong! God has set in place a standard in which is perfect and anything short of that is wrong or sin. When Jesus came to earth in the form of flesh He lived a perfect life living up to God's standard and provided a way for us as sinful creatures to be made righteous and be approved by God's standard. He died on the cross.

Now when John, in the above verse, writes about the light has come into the world he is talking about Jesus who is perfect (light) and stepping into a world of darkness (sin and death). When a light shines it always casts a shadow somewhere. The fact that there is evil in our world shows that there is a standard of some kind that makes evil, evil. John writes that people loved the darkness and turned away from the light. Darkness is the absence of light meaning that darkness hates the light because it with light it ceases to exist, therefore anyone in darkness turns from the light because they naturally hate the light because it would expose them. However, anyone who comes to the knowledge to truth and does what is right, John says that he comes into the light because he has been exposed in his darkness.

What I am getting at is that there will always be an opposition to the light, when a light is shining there is dark somewhere and there is always a shadow somewhere because the light exposes the darkness and creates a distinctive line between what is dark and what is light. When God created the heavens and the earth there was darkness over everything and that's all there was, but as soon as God created light there was a very clear difference between light and darkness. In the same way when Jesus came to the earth in light He made very clear what was right and wrong because in His perfect light He exposed the darkness and made clear that everything that was not in the light was wrong. Whenever a shadow is cast it is because it is the opposition of the light in which is shining, not creating the shadow but the shadow is the result of the light. When the sun shines on one side of a house on the opposite side there is a shadow because the darkness cannot coexist with light so it hide behind that which the light cannot reach. The sun doesn't create this shadow, the sun creates the light, but the shadow exists because of the light proving that there is a light shining. The fact that there is evil in this world proves the fact that there is truth that also exists.

A shadow proves the sunshine.