Tag Archives: Paradise Lost

Revelation: Light Was Conceived In Creation

Revelation 1:12: “… and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”

Jesus Firstborn of Creation

Jesus, the Light of the World, was the Firstborn of Creation, Colossians 1:15. So let us paraphrase the creation story to see the account of when Christ was “Firstborn,” Genesis 1:1-3:

“When God began to create [the duality] heaven and earth, [1] the earth was [materially] formlessness, [spatially wandering, rationally mad, intellectually without order, spiritually and visually totally dark], and [virgin] emptiness. Darkness [was the veil that] covered the surface of the [boundless] chaos.

“And the Spirit, [Breath, Wind], moved, [brooded, trembling with loving affection], proceeded to heal her. [In lifting the veil of darkness from her], God said [of this union]: ‘Let Light begin to be.’ And Light [was conceived in her and thus] began to be.”

From Milton’s Paradise Lost

Of this portion of Genesis Milton writes in Paradise Lost as he addressed Christ:

“Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born Or of the Eternal Coeternal beam,

May I express thee unblam’d? Since God is Light,

And never but in unapproached Light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee

Bright effluence of bright essence increate

Or hear’st thou rather pure ethereal stream,

Whose fountain, who shall tell? before the sun….”[2]

Duality and Unity:

There has been considerable discussion over the supposed duality in Christian religion. Many have declared that the duality did not exist in the Old Testament and that it was totally foreign to the true religion of the Jews. It did not need, however, to be imported as some would have it, from Babylon, or Greece, or Zoroastrianism. Although the duality is not apparent in our English translations, it is apparent in the dual forms of the Biblical Hebrew, even of the first verse of the Bible.

The duality, then, is the source of the possibility of the chaotic conditions of the earth and therefore of evil. It is the reconciliation of earth and heaven and their reunion that brings about the blessings of order and peace. This perfect unity is the source of, as well as the result of, Light. Earth and Heaven are reunited in earth’s conception of Light. In the fullness of time that Light that was conceived in the beginning comes to full maturity in the Perfection of Light, Jesus.

The Prophet Isaiah saw this beautiful truth:

The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name….And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, ….he says: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.'”(Isaiah 49:1b, 5-6. See also Isaiah 44:24.)

The Divine Cycle

God created duality for the sake of the joy of desire-fulfillment. In Unity all is at rest, therefore, the prime move itself was necessarily an act in contrast, apposition, conflict with the Unity of rest. The act constituted duality itself, and was initiated with the intention of creating duality.

The Bible begins with the rest of divine Unity: God. It can only proceed by and because of an act: Creating. The act is first produced by desire, tôhûw ve bôhûw. Desire creates reunion, marechepheth. Reunion, or resolution of the duality produces an offspring, Light. This circular continuum of Unity, Creation, Duality, Desire Fulfillment, Creation, Reunion is repeated infinitely and infinitesimally and each cycle produces its own peculiar radiance which is an appearance of God, a Revelation. The Revelation of Jesus Christ is the perfect fulfillment of the great cycle of cycles resolving all things to the Great Unity of Divine Rest.

Christ As Both Father And Son

As Light, Christ is the “Everlasting Father” of Isaiah 9:6. The Hebrew is ’âbiy-‘âd, translated by Gesinius as “perpetual father.” Since the word ‘âd means “time,” a possible translation would be “Father of Time.” Christ was both Abraham’s progenitor and Seed, as also He was of David. [Note that the Seed is only activated by Light.]

As Abraham’s seed produced the fleshly Israel, and also Christ according to the flesh, so Christ is the progenitor of the spiritual Israel for it is His bloodline that survived the destruction of the Jewish nation, city, and people in the first century AD. No other Jewish or Israeli bloodline or genealogy survived. As Christ raised and ascended and is alive forevermore, He perpetuates the bloodline of Abraham forever and is the source of the Holy Seed that produces the new birth, bringing sons and daughters into the kingdom and producing, perpetuating, and increasing the spiritual Israel, the Church, the Light of the world, Matthew 5:14.

Manifestation: Revealed Light

Revelation means ‘Perfection of Light.’ While God is unapproachable Light, Christ is revealed light. The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, then, is the written manifestation (that which makes manifest is light), of Jesus Christ and shows Him as the “Perfection of Light.”

The purpose of Light, or Revelation, is to show, (cause to see), and this purpose is the one given for the Book in its title sentence: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass.” This is parallel to the passage from 1 Timothy 6:14b-16, “The appearing [Revelation] of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in His, [referring to God’s], times, [in verse 13], He, [God], shall shew [reveal].”

The Firstborn Light Comes to Perfection in Jesus

The Light that God commanded to be conceived or begun in the beginning waxed brighter and brighter throughout the revealed Scriptures until at last, it reached its perfection in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The whole Bible could rightly be named “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” But while this Light was conceived in the Old Testament, it was at that time hidden, but in the incarnation it was revealed, and in the Spirit it is perfected. Taking this title sentence as the key to the interpretation of the Book, we are required to interpret its symbols as symbols of Light.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” LIGHT!

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book, Revelation in Context, available locally at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma or www.Amazon.com, or www.XulonPress.com.
Free downloads are also available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net.