For many a childish imagination, physical darkness suggests the lurking possibility of invisible monsters and unseen terrors. One part of growing up is growing out of being afraid of the dark. There is a far more intimidating darkness, however, that should cause even the most mature among us to shudder with dread. I am referring to the black chaos of spiritual corruption and death. One consequence of our first parents’ fall into sin is blindness pertaining to the things of God. By nature, men are born in the dark, ignorant of God and His life-giving holiness. In other words, our native condition is “an estate of sin and misery” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 17).
In Christian worship, we take up arms against this present darkness. Week in and week out, under the banner of Christ our King, we wield the weaponry of heaven: Word, sacraments, and prayer. Most importantly, our churchly gatherings are led by our Captain Himself. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Christ joins and directs us in the spiritual fight of faith.
Thus, many preachers offer an urgent prayer of illumination immediately before the public reading and preaching of God’s Word: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18). The church confesses with the psalmist, “With you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light” (Ps. 36:9).
It is the Spirit who inspired prophets and Apostles to pen the Word by which the Son calls us into His worship, confronts us in our sin, consoles us with His pardoning mercy and grace, and commands us in our mission. The Spirit’s work with the Word, however, was not finished with the close of the biblical canon. The same eternal Spirit who inspired the Holy Scriptures is present and active in our worship today through His ongoing work of illuminating the Word. In the eternal light of God’s Spirit, we behold the revelation of Christ the Son, sent by the Father.
At the heart of worship, needy Christians cry out in the name of Christ for the divine Helper who proceeds from the Father and the Son to apply the work of redemption to God’s people. Though invisible, His work is indispensable. Without the Spirit’s help, the Word is lifeless. Apart from Him and His light, it is a dead letter. John Owen (1616–83) once warned, “He that would utterly separate the Spirit from the word had as good burn his Bible.”1
In the church’s corporate worship and the Christian’s private devotion, Christ is present to His people on earth by His Spirit even while dwelling bodily in heaven. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the divine fulfillment of Christ’s promise never to abandon His disciples. Both statements are true: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20); and “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7).
When the Holy Spirit graces our worship, He comes to guide God’s people in following and exalting Christ. The Spirit that inspired the human writers of God’s Word also illumines it for those who read it in faith. Christ told His disciples:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13–14)
Inseparably united with the Word, the Spirit leads all God’s people to a saving knowledge of the gospel and instructs them in what it means to serve Jesus Christ in the beauty of holiness. Though indwelling sin inhibits even Spirit-filled believers from attaining to perfection in this life, the enlightening and illuminating work of the Spirit is without defect. The spiritual “anointing” that believers receive from Him “is true, and is no lie” (1 John 2:27).
Being entirely spiritual in nature, inspiration and illumination are invisible works. We cannot see them, but we can detect and examine their results. In both, the Holy Spirit works on the hearts, souls, minds, and wills of men as either writers or readers. Just as the Spirit inspired the Word in relation to its writers, He illumines the Word in relation to its readers. Illumination reveals the Word of truth and brings it to life as the Spirit applies it to the heart through the apprehension of the mind.
Commenting on Matthew 20:34, Matthew Henry (1662–1714) poignantly observed, “The best evidence of spiritual illumination is a constant inseparable adherence to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Leader.”2 If Jesus is your Lord and Leader, then His Spirit-illumined Word will be your guide and directive, for it is the charter of your King and the definitive communication of your Commander’s intent.
Call to mind how you have personally experienced the Spirit’s work of illumination by considering the effects of this work. Has your intellectual curiosity about some point of biblical truth led you to a deeper heart transformation as you have studied God’s Word? Conversely, has a pronounced feeling of need impelled you to study some relevant portion of Scripture? When in distress, did you seek refuge in God through prayerful meditation on His Word? Have you grown to love communing with God by reading His Word as you have matured as a Christian?
Whether our understanding of the Word of God advances dramatically in a moment or gradually over long periods of time, it is the Spirit of God that drives the forward movement. B.M. Palmer (1818–1902) described the thrilling experience of instantaneous illumination:
A particular portion of Scripture may have been read a thousand times, with no distinct impression made upon the mind, when, in a given moment, it bursts upon us with a blaze of meaning, filling us with strange comfort and joy. The heart has become suddenly enriched in the new disclosures, so that the happy hour marks for us a special progress in divine knowledge.3
In such instances of illumining grace, the Spirit’s work began long before the lightning bolt of realization strikes our minds.
So we pray for the Spirit’s help in the reading, preaching, and hearing of God’s Word. We pray with faith in the promises of Christ, for His Word stands sure, and His faithfulness has been proven over and over again. We pray in the name of Christ, for He sends the Spirit from the Father, and the Father sends the Spirit in Christ’s name alone. We pray before God’s heavenly throne of grace, for the Spirit is the “great donation” and sublime gift of God to His beloved people who constitute the church as the body of Christ.
We pray for the Holy Spirit, who is both Revealer and Interpreter, with confidence that the Spirit who inspired the words of frail and sinful men in the communication of divine revelation is the same Spirit who indwells the believing heart and makes intelligible the Word for salvation, consolation, hope, and glory.
We pray as we open our Bibles in private devotion and as we stand together in public worship. We read God’s Word by God’s Spirit as members of God’s church. We receive, read, and revel in God’s Word together as His people who are in covenant with Him through Christ.
There is no other way to know Jesus Christ as Savior than by the duplex means of spiritual regeneration and illumination, which are gracious works of the Holy Spirit of God. By the Spirit who testifies the truth, we possess the truth. Therefore,
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Heb. 10:22–23)
Let us heed the Spirit-inspired and Spirit-illumined summons from God, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps. 81:10).
- Works of John Owen, vol. 3, Pneumatologia, or A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (London: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–53), 192.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 5: Matthew to John (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., n.d.), in loc. cit.
- B.M. Palmer, Theology of Prayer (Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1894), 300.