Understanding Prophetic Day and Night in a Culture

          ”You are the light of the world.” Mt. 5:14

Confusion abounds regarding our role as the “light of the world.” It centers on our misunderstanding of our spiritual identity as “light” (“children of the day”), the relationship of our light in the world relative to the world’s intrinsic spiritual darkness, and the cyclical nature of that relationship (“prophetic day and night”). So let’s go at this as simply as possible.

- “Children of Light”

First, we are God’s light. “You are the light..,” Jesus says. We don’t just “have” the light. We “are” the light. That light is eternal. It stands independently of whatever it shines on. We are as “stars,” the angel tells Daniel (12:3). Jesus says we are “suns” of God (Mt. 13:43). Now the sun is the sun whether or not there is an earth to shine on. It is what it is. Hence we are called “children [sons] of light” (Eph 5:8; I Th. 5:5). Light is intrinsic to our spiritual DNA.

- “Light of the World”

Second, there is Christian cultural “light.” This is the “…light of the world.” It’s the same word (“light”) occupying the same prophetic space in Mt. 5:14. But in reference to the world it has a different meaning. This is “applied light.” The “light of the world” refers not to us as light, but to the illumining effect of our light on human culture. It is our light reflected on the culture. From this we can say that a culture has light. Note the distinction: the culture is not the light. It only has the reflection of our light as we, the light, shine on it. The “…light of the world” refers to the light the world receives (not is) as a result of our shining influence on it.

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The distinction between our essence as “children of light” and our reflective effect as the “light of the world” is unspeakably important yet simple, and is easy to demonstrate in nature. We say the sun is light. But we say the earth has light. The “light of the earth” is a received light from an outside source (the sun). The earth has no light of its own. All light on earth is reflected light.

So it is of the world (culture) impacted by Christian faith. Culture is not the light. Culture only has our light. It only receives and reflects the light that we are in Christ.

Now substitute in the name “America” for “culture” or for “the world.” The same applies. America is not light. America only has light. It only reflects the light that we are in it. So it is utterly erroneous to say “America is the light of the world,” which is to paraphrase the more common statement, “America is a shining city on a hill,” illegitimately lifted from Mt. 5:14. We’ll come back to this later.

- Prophetic Day and Night

Third is the concept of prophetic “day and night.” This just describes the periodic dominance or lack of dominance of Christian influence in a culture. A culture is either dominated by the consciousness of God through Christ or it is not. When a culture is dominated by that consciousness, it is “daytime” in that culture. When a culture is not so dominated, it is “nighttime.”

In prophetic daytime, awareness of Christ may dominate the culture, but it doesn’t mean the culture has become “light.” Cultures are “flesh,” and all flesh is spiritually dark. Cultures cannot “become” light. The open dominance of Christian light on a society doesn’t mean the society has become “saved” or an “expression of the kingdom of God.” This can no more happen than that the earth turns into a star in the daytime. [Note: It’s critical to grasp that the terms world, flesh, culture, society and nationality are all spiritually synonymous. They are intrinsically dark and unredeemable.]
  

Conversely, when it is prophetic nighttime, it doesn’t mean all the believers have left or that a culture has lost all Christian influence. It doesn’t mean this anymore than it means that at night the sun goes out. No. prophetic nighttime just means that as a corporate influence on society, the church’s light is not dominant. Her influence is more like a “night light” amidst the larger spiritual darkness. In prophetic nighttime, the church is oppressed and it is hard to minister in the world. “The night comes when no man can work.”

v    Diurnal Cycle

Inside the prophetic concept of day and night is the idea of “diurnal [daily] cycle.” Just as the earth rotates to enter and exit the sunlight, so culture enters and exits the influence of spiritual light. A cycle develops over generations between cultural dominance and hiddeness of Christian light. When the church’s light rises into a new period of dominance, we refer to it as “spiritual awakening” and “revival.” But whenever our “sun sets” on a culture, we call it “apostasy.”

There are cycles and sub-cycles—greater and lesser cycles—of our spiritual influence on a culture. And the lengths of their periods are not even or exact. Measuring the various lengths of prophetic days and nights is not like counting neat 24 hour periods on a calendar. Keep this in mind as we proceed.

The alternating rising and setting of our light on a society is easily seen in the book of Judges. Judges describes the cyclical rise and decline of God-consciousness in Israel’s society over hundreds of years, and its results. This cycle carries into the period of the kings which saw alternating cultural periods of revival and apostasy.

 

[ Part III ]

Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, RI

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

11/08

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