God is light and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). We bow before the One who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). He is the perfection of all light.
But, in keeping with our theme in this series, we have skewed views of what perfection is really like. We want, desperately want, sanitized perfection, and we never, ever want anybody to say anything “unworthy” of God, especially not something that is unworthy of God straight out of the Scriptures.
Let’s get some of the pieces on the table first, shall we? And keep in mind that these represent just a fraction of the pieces available.
“Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness” (1 Kings 8:12).
“Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne” (Ps. 97:2).
Moreover, we will not know what it means to walk in the light, delivered from our kind of darkness, until we come to grips with the reality of this ultimate darkness.
If our idea of God’s light is that of sweetness and light, tumbling kittens with a ball of yarn, rainbows and marshmallow clouds, then we are walking in darkness still. But if we allow Scripture to teach us what perfection means, the Lord Himself will light the lamp that we carry.
In doing this, we must be extremely careful to not go beyond what is written (1 Cor. 4:6). The secret things belong to the Lord our God, and the things revealed to us and to our children, that we may keep all the words of this law (Dt. 29:29). Unless invited to do so by the express teaching of the text, we ought never attempt prying into the internal life of the Trinity.
When I was young, I used to wonder why the apostle Paul had to warn the Corinthians in what I considered to be an odd way indeed. “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). I mean, why would a Christian church have to be taught that? Like I said, I used to wonder about that, but no longer. There is a certain kind of theological cleverness (not wisdom), that loves to speculate in ways that reveal the corruptions of the heart. Such a mind establishes one thread of the truth (Gal. 3:13), and then weaves from it an entire garment of blasphemies.
Some Calvinists have done this when they have talked about sin and evil. Virtually all pop evangelicalism does it when they talk about the good. What we need to do is let the Bible teach us, straight up. And when contradictory images hit us, like darkness and light, or war and peace, or wrath and forgiveness, we have to remember that we are worshipping an infinite and triune God of thunder and grace, not some mild god, who looks after his people like a cow looking over a fence.