The Uncreated Light of God has been Seen

Summary

In this conversation, the hosts discuss the transfiguration and its significance. They explore the importance of Jesus' identity and the challenge of waiting and listening to God. They also discuss the tendency to make the faith about ourselves and the need to glorify God. The conversation highlights the active agency of God and the justice of God in the cross and resurrection. The conversation explores the empowering effect of Paul's message and the active agency of Christ in our lives. It challenges the deistic view of God and the tendency towards bibliolatry. The necessity of certainty and the importance of finding God in all readings are discussed. The wisdom of strolling idly and noticing things is highlighted, along with the significance of visual representations of scripture. The conversation also emphasizes being alert to God's presence in different settings and avoiding the correlation as causation fallacy. Finally, the glory and mystery of the Trinity and the manifestation of hidden glory are explored.

Takeaways

• The transfiguration reveals the identity of Jesus as the Son of God and emphasizes the importance of listening to him.

• We should resist the temptation to make the faith about ourselves and instead focus on glorifying God.

• Waiting on God and listening to him in silence is an essential aspect of our relationship with him.

• The justice of God is demonstrated in the cross and resurrection, and we should take sin seriously while embracing the grace of God. Paul's message empowers believers by reminding them of the active agency of Christ in their lives.

• Bibliolatry can lead to a focus on the Bible over Jesus, undermining the true purpose of scripture.

• Finding God in all readings and being open to His presence in various settings can deepen our spiritual understanding.

• The Trinity holds a glory and mystery that is often overlooked or not fully grasped.

• Listening to the word speak and being attentive to its message is a key aspect of faith.

Reflection — Josh Retterer

The last light from the last star will go out, scientists project, between 10 and 100 trillion years from now. Thats a leeway of 90 trillion years, should the Lord tarry.. A trillion is a thousand billion. The universe is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old, by current scientific reckoning. Which is, let’s face it, an incomprehensible number. For a human, it might as well be eternity, except it isn’t. That same dying starlight, matter of fact, all light in the universe, had a beginning. There is no light that exists that didn’t have a start, a genesis. All light was created. That means it is finite. It has a beginning and, no matter how far into the future, an end. 

If all light slowly coming to an end trillions of years from now is mind-blowing, how about something that easily laps even that! Rev. Rutledge tells us in chapter 9 of Epiphany why that famous moment on a mountain, seeing that particular light, was unprecedented. Unprecedented with a capitol “U.” 

“On an unnamed mountaintop, Jesus appears in light so dazzling and unearthly that his garments shone whiter than any white known on earth (Mark 9:3).3 Many attempts to explain the glory of God have been grounded in the idea of uncreated light.4 This important theological concept about God’s being can help us understand the biblical epiphanies. A vital text is Genesis 1:3—God is the sole giver of light, which appears at his mere word of command: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light”—just like that. God spoke light into existence. This is not the original light of his very self, however. It is second-order light that humankind is enabled to see. The light that belongs to God’s self is uncreated, because it precedes creation. This distinction is important, because it preserves God’s aseity (Latin aseitas, “being from itself”5)—a central idea in the Christian tradition about God. That is, it preserves the essential distinction between God’s own being and God’s revelation of himself. John 1:3 (“without him was not anything made that was made”; see also John 1:10) and Hebrews 1:2 establish the Son with language that undergirds the doctrine of Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. He is not only present but acting at the creation. 

There are important distinctions here. The glory of God is not God in himself. Human beings in our present sinful and limited condition are not able to see God directly.6 God’s glory is the radiance emanating from him. The light that belongs to him has to be mediated to us.”

This leads us to an incredibly dramatic moment in the life of Jesus, something that had never happened before. Ever. 

“Wonder of all wonders, this strongly emphasized Old Testament theme, “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18), is precisely the grounding for the fourth evangelist’s declaration that an ultimate epiphaneia has taken place. Because “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” everything has changed. Now, “we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14). As Jesus himself will say a few chapters later, “He who sees me sees him who sent me” (John 12:45).”

The uncreated light of God has been seen. Nothing has been the same since. Now, the Light will never end, and we will always see.