I didn’t do well in high school science. I nearly failed Biology 11 and thought it best to leave my science career right there. But in the light of what the Bible has to say about a lot of things, I’ve suddenly become very interested in some areas of scientific research.

And this Living Expression is the Light that bursts through gloom—
    the Light that darkness could not diminish!

John 1:5 (TPT)

Most people understand that light is a spectrum. Visible light (what our human eyes can actually process) is a very small part of what makes up the electromagnetic spectrum.

What does this have to do with the Bible, you ask?

Everything.

In the third verse of the entire Bible, God called light into being. He didn’t create the sun or stars or the moon. He simply said, “Let there be light”; and there was light (Genesis 1:3). If we take this literally, that means that light existed in creation before there was any celestial body to create it.

John 1:5 tells us that the Word—the Living Expression, Jesus—is also the Light. So we can suppose then, that when God announced light into creation, Jesus burst forth.

Like vine-dressing in relation to John 15, I’ve learned some really interesting things about light that pertain to John 1. For instance, “It is proposed that all electromagnetism [light—visible and invisible] in the Cosmos is a consequence of sound. Put differently, electromagnetism would not exist without sound.”* Imagine that, something makes a noise and light is the result.

If you stand outside on a clear day and yell, someone a mile away might be able to hear you. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the end of it. It is hypothesized that, while sound waves eventually peter out beyond what is audible to the human ear, the electromagnetic waves created by that sound (an atom bumping into an atom that bumps into an atom…) go on through the atmosphere and into space forever, barring an unexpected meeting with dense matter. Each atom affected holds and transfers all the data from the initial event that caused the sound. So, in effect, every word you speak is truly eternal.

Human beings are frail and temporary, like grass, and the glory of man fleeting like blossoms of the field. The grass dries and withers and the flowers fall off, but the Word of the Lord endures forever! And this is the Word that was announced to you!

1 Peter 1:24-25 (TPT)

God, in His infinite wisdom and grace, created humanity in His image and invited us to participate in a union with Him that allows us not only to speak to Him and have Him respond, but He’s actually allowed us to take on His identity. As Jesus is Light, so we are invited to not just be in His light, but to actually be that light.

There are things on earth and in the atmosphere that affect sound. It can be stopped, but light cannot. We need to think beyond what we can see and hear with our physical senses. We need to learn to see beyond what merely seems to be to what really is. If science can prove that light is a result of sound and that the waves it makes are eternal, what can we learn from Jesus—the Light of the world—living within us and we in Him? If we can learn to truly see Him as Light and learn that our place is in Him and His is in us. Who or what can stop us?

What was made in infinite power could not be unmade by any finite power. It could only be hidden by darkness.

Ted Dekker, The 49th Mystic

The commentary for John 1:5 will soon be available here.

*John Stuart Reid, The Special Relationship between Sound and Light with Implications for Sound and Light Therapy