God divided the light from the darkness. He so put them (continued)
us that this is a world of mixtures and changes. In heaven there is perfect and perpetual light, and no darkness at all; in hell, utter darkness and no gleam of light. In that world betwixt these two there is a great gulf fixed, but in this world they are counter-changed, and we pass daily from one to the other. This is so that we might learn to expect the like vicissitudes in the providence of God, peace and trouble, joy and sorrow, and may set the one over against the other, and accommodate ourselves to both as we do to the light and darkness, bidding both welcome, and making the best of both.
3. THE PROMISE OF THE LIGHT The coming of the Messiah was throughout the history of the people of God anticipated as the coming of light. "I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles"' (Isa. xlix. 6). Many great and mighty nations, by the Gospel of Christ, shall be brought to the knowledge and worship of the true God. Hence Simeon learned to call Christ a Light to lighten the Gentiles (Luke ii. 32); and St. Paul's exposition (cf. Isa. xlix. 6) is what we ought to abide by, and it serves for a key to the context (Acts xiii. 47).
"Therefore," says he, 'we turn to the Gentiles'', to preach the Gospel to them, because so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles." Christ is given for a light to all those to whom He is given for salvation. It is in darkness that men perish; Christ enlightens men's eyes, and so makes them holy and happy.
4. THE CLoupEpD LIGHT
The conflict between light and darkness is the normal figure by which to portray the war between God and Satan, good and evil. It is a strange use of the figure light which meets us in Zechariah xiv. 6: "The light shall not be clear nor dark, not day nor night"', but "'at evening time it shall be light". Some refer this to all the time from hence to the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish Church had neither perfect peace nor constant trouble, but a cloudy day, neither rain nor sunshine. But it may be taken more generally as designed to represent the method God usually takes in the administration of the kingdom both of providence and grace.
Here is an idea of the usual course and tenor of God's dispensations. The day of His grace and the day of His providence