Heir of All Things

Segment transcript on Jesus as the Radiance of God;

In the Bible, glory is associated a lot with light. God is glorious. ‘He dwells in unapproachable light.’ God is brilliant light. And what this text is saying is that God, who is light, projects light. God is glorious and his glory is radiant. God is light and that light shines. And what the author is saying is, ‘God in himself is light but the shining of the light is the Son’, (S-O- N, the Son of God). And what he is arguing here is this: the Father is the source of light; the Son, we’re told, is light in himself; but you cannot separate the light from the shining, from the out- shining. You can’t do it. You can say, ‘Well, I’m going to switch off the light and still have the out-shining. I’ll switch off the torch [flashlight], but I’ll still have the beam.’ You can’t do that. You go and experiment tonight. It won’t work. Because light shines. And so what the illustration is teaching us is this – that though you can distinguish between the light and the shining, they are one. That’s what it is saying. The light and the shining are one. “You notice that he is not saying that the Son reflects the glory of God; he’s not saying the Son is illuminated by the glory of God like [by] a spotlight. No, no. He is the shining forth of the glory of God.” “If you think about the radiance, the out-shining, it invariably makes you think of its source, the light. And then if you want to investigate the light, the source, you cannot do that without following the outshining of the light, and seeing its radiance.” “The radiance is always considered with the glory that is its source, the