Faith

Merciful Light

by Terry Barlow
01/09/13
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Worse than the fear of the dark can be the fear of the light, the fear of the light that exposes, the fear of the light of judgement. The fear of the dark can grow up and mature into a terror of the light. Upon closer examination the two may be related. It's not so much the dark but what the dark contains and conceals that sometimes can raise such fear. When the light of judgement arrives nothing remains covered or concealed any longer. If we don't face that judgement with assurance of mercy then we have good cause for fear. When Jesus Christ became sin for us so that we could become his righteousness that sin was "killed" as it was judged at the cross. He could do no sin and we could do no righteusness: what a perfect match! Apart from him we can do nothing, but joined to him we can do all things! Then why is sin still around? It was killed in the sense that it was dealt a mortal blow, God inflicted a fatal wound upon sin. It is bleeding to death. It is even literally upon its death bed, summoning its last energies and rearing up its ugly head and shaking its grimey fist in God's face, even as dictator Joe Stalin is said to have done in his hospital room before dying. And because sin was dealt this fatal blow, so was death that follows from sin (since the soul that sins shall die.) Death is slowly and surely dying from its mortal wound inflicted at the cross, whence flows our mercy and our assurance of it if we will only appropriate it (access and receive it as our own) by the Spirit of God while there is still time.