Unbearable Light
W.F. Adeney Job 37:21 And now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds: but the wind passes, and cleans them. When clouds are cleared from the face of the sun we cannot bear to look up at the splendour of unveiled light. This is the case even in our thick and humid atmosphere; but it is much more so in the East, where the sun shines in its terrible strength. The unbearable light is a type of the majesty of God. I. GOD VEILS HIS GLORY IN CLOUDS. The day often beans with clouds about the sun. Then we can look at the splendour of the dawn, because the ever-shifting panorama of crimson and gold that heralds in the day is visible to us in colours that our eyes can endure to look at. God begins the education of his children in a light that is tempered to suit their feeble vision. But a common mistake is to forget that God is condescending to our weakness, and to limit our conception of God to the measured revelation. Thus we form partial and human ideas of God. If his cloud is thick and dark we do not see his glorious light, and then we accuse him of the darkness, and narrow and unjust thoughts of God spring up in our hearts. Difficulties in nature and providence trouble us. Vexations thoughts about the apparent imperfection of God's works fill our minds with doubt. And all the while the simple truth is that God is merciful and considerate, veiling himself in clouds for the very purpose of sparing us. II. GOD'S UNVEILED GLORY WOULD BE AN UNBEARABLE LIGHT. This we commonly say and instinctively feel. Let us now ask how it should be so. 1. Ignorance is dazzled by absolute knowledge. The beginner is not helped, he is only perplexed, when he is favoured with the most advanced thoughts of the ripe scholar. If all God's truth were suddenly flashed out to us it would be incomprehensible and overwhelming. 2. Sin shrinks from perfect holiness. The centre of God's eternal light is his purity. In our sin we cannot bear to look upon this. 3. Finite life cannot endure the fulness of infinite life. Our sympathies endeavour to respond to the appeals that draw them out. But when those appeals are infinite, our own life is swallowed up in the response. If we entered fully into the life of God, our life would be extinguished as the light of the stars is quenched in that of the sun. III. GOD EDUCATES US BY GRADUALLY UNVEILING HIS GLORY. The clouds are rolled back by degrees. Twilight is a merciful gift of providence, tempering the first approach of the light, and saving us from the shook of the sudden exchange of night for day. God's education of his people is gradual. 1. Revelation is progressive. Adam could not endure the light which Christ brought. Early ages were trained by degrees to fit them for the growing light of God's truth. We have not reached all knowledge. Christ has many things to tell us, but we cannot bear them now (John 16:12). "God has yet more light and truth to break forth from his Word." 2. Individual lives are prepared for growing light. We cannot endure on earth the glory that shall be revealed in heaven. Our early Christian experience is not capable of receiving all that God wishes to reveal to us; therefore he rolls back the clouds by slow degrees, preparing for the great apocalypse. "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12). - W.F.A. Parallel Verses KJV: And now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds: but the wind passeth, and cleanseth them. WEB: Now men don't see the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passes, and clears them.