“A refreshing light” by Stephen Charnock

“The evangelical discovery of God by Christ is clearer. The brightness of the day dispelled the shadows of the night, and dispersed the clouds wherewith the sun was masked.

As the fulness of the Godhead dwelt personally in Christ, so the fulness of the divine perfections sparkled in the actions and sufferings of Christ. The Deity shines out in a clear luster, which was seen before only in the dusty clouds of creatures and ceremonies.

In nature, we see God as it were like the sun in a picture; in the law, as the sun in a cloud; in Christ, we see Him in His beams, He being ‘the brightness of his glory, and the exact image of his person,’ Heb. 1:3: as the rays of the sun, being the production of the sun, cause us by their lustre to see and understand more of the beauty and brightness of the sun; and the stamp upon the wax informs us what is upon the seal.

We see what an infinite fountain of good God is, and what a dreadful thing sin is, which is a separation from him; as by the beams of the sun we understand the beauty of light, and the horror of darkness. Though it be not discerned in its glory through a mist of vapours, yet it may be known to be risen, and some effects of it are sensible to us.

So it was in the creation and the law; but in Christ those vapours are dissolved, the clouds dispersed, and God appears in the sweetness and beauty of His nature, as a refreshing light.

The creatures tell us that there is a God, and Christ tells who and what that God is.”

–Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse on the Knowledge of God in Christ,” The Works of Stephen Charnock, Volume 4 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1865/2010), 4: 125.