The Meaning of "Light" -- Part 2 -- A Burning Shining

In the first article in this series on “light,” we discussed how Jesus saw himself as the “light” (John 8:12), and how he also saw everyone else as the “light” (Matthew 5:14) as well. We then discussed how the Greek concept of “light” differs metaphorically from ours today. The Greek word, phos, (φάος), was a metaphor for “happiness” and “victory,” while our word today has more the sense of light as “knowledge.”

In this article, we explore Jesus’s light further, seeing how it is connected happiness and knowledge and with the meaning of the word “prophets.” This leads us to the verb form of the word “light,” phaino, and what it tells us about the positive and negative aspects of light.

John 5:35

We ended the previous article with this verse about John the Baptist from John 5:35:

King James Versions (KJV): He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.
New Insternational Verrsion (NIV): John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
Listeners Heard: That person there was the lamp, the one burning and shining. You yourselves, however, desired to celebrate for an hour in that light of his.

This verse is interesting for several reasons, starting with the fact that it defines what Jesus sees as the primary qualities of the light. This verse also acts as a bridge between the Greek metaphoric of light as “happiness” and the Hebrew metaphor of light as “knowledge.”

this verse begins with “rejoicing.” It reflects the Greek concept of happiness. We will see it repeated in a verse later in this article. The happiness of light is the happiness of celebrations that go into the night. Cooking fires and lanterns graced all celebrations of the time, especially weddings. The Temple in Jerusalem was lit at night by the sacrificial fires and the sacred menorah. The first celebration of Hanukkah was the lighting of the Temple after its rededication almost two hundred years before Jesus’s ministry.

The Light of the Illuminated

The word translated as “burning” in John 5:35 is kaio, which means "to kindle", "to set on fire", and "to burn." This is the primary characteristic for all “light” that humanity created in the time of Jesus. The sun and stars were considered balls of fire. This fire can light other fires because it creates both light and heat. This heat can be communicated from one type of fuel to another or from one person to another. The second most common word after, phos, used by Jesus to discuss light is lychnos (λύχνος) from the noun lyke, an old Greek word meaning “light,” the forerunner of Latin for light, lux. Lychnos means a "portable light," or "lamp." However, this word is also translated as "light" and “candle” in the KJV. (See John 5:35 above). In a future article, we will discuss how Jesus used the Greek word for “fire” and how it connects with light

Jesus then gives another characteristic of light, a Greek word translated as “shining.” This word is phaino, which means "to shine," "to give light," and "to appear." It is the verb form of phos. However, it is also the root of the Greek prophetes, which means "one who speaks for a god and interprets his will," or "interpreter." It is not really translated in the Bible but adopted from Greek through Latin. The compound verb form, prophao, literally means "to shine from” or “to shine in front of." Its root is  phaino  ("shine”), and its prefix is pros ("from," “in front of”). So light is connected directly to the quality of a prophet. If the word prophetes had been translated “the illuminated,” “light-bringers,” or “the shining ones” would have captured the sense of the word in English.

Prophetesties the idea of “light” more closely with information and its communication. The prophetes passed on divine knowledge. Their ideas are passed down through the years via writings that capture the light or knowledge of the prophets. We know that Jesus compared John the Baptist to the prophets (Matthew 11:9, Luke 7:26), but he also likened his listeners to the prophets at the Sermon of the Mount. In Matthew 5:12, he tells people to celebrate being persecuted :

KJV: Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Listeners Heard: Rejoice and cheer! Because that compensation of yours [is] great in the skies. Because, in this manner, they might hound those illuminated, the ones like you.

In this verse, the preposition translated as "before" the KJV phrase, "which were before you," is pros, the prefix of prophetes. As a preposition, it doesn't mean "before" in time. When referring to time, it means "during" or "at." The most likely meaning of the preposition in this context is "like," comparing qualities. So, "the ones like you" because the prophetes were hounded like Jesus and his followers were.

Notice also that this verse ties the idea of the happiness of “rejoicing and cheering” to the “light.” Two verses after this, in Matthew 5:14, Jesus describes his listeners as “the light of the world.” In other words, he describes everyone as illuminated and potential light bringers.

The Shining Light

It is important to note that the word  phaino  ("shine”) also means “appear.” And the Greek word for “truth” means "reality" as opposed to appearances. So appearances can hide the truth. (See this article on “truth” and thr previous article on “light.”) Jesus regularly used phaino to describe people who want to “shine” in front of others by what we call today “virtue signaling,” by visible fasting (Matthew 6:18), by public prayer (Matthew 6:5), as whited sepluchures (Matthew 23:27), and so on. This idea of a false appearance is also captured by the word, pseudoprophētēs, or “false prophets,” who appear to be wolves in the clothing of sheep.

On the positive side, the same word  phaino  ("shine”) indicates light as a clear signal. In Matthew 24:27:

KJV: For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

The keyword here is  phaino, translated as “shineth,” but notice that what shines here is “lightning” noy light. This word comes from a different Greek root that means “light,”the Greek word that means “star” whose verb form also means “to shine.”

Then we have Matthew 24:30:

KJV: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven:

Here again is  phaino, translated as “appear.” Notice how those reading these translations cannot know that the same Greek verb is used to describe the signal of light. Notice that in both of these verses the light is in the skies. This is a higher, truer light than our fire lamps, laterns, and candles on earth.

Through this verb, phaino, Jesus connects the idea of “light” to the idea of virtue. After saying that people are the “light of the world,” he goes on to say in Matthew 5:16:

KJV: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Listeners Heard: In this manner, it must shine, this light of yours, in front of these people so that they might see the valuable works of yours and they might recognize that Father of yours, the one in the skies.

So “shining” is a good thing when it highlights the coming of Jesus and good works, but it is bad when used for virtue signaling.

Conclusions

So light is the antidote for what is hidden, but this desire to shine can be used to promote appearances over true reality. “Light” is tied to both the divine truth and human falsity. The light of knowledge, what is real, makes us happy. The highest signals, however, are those in the skies.

Next week, we will look at another metaphor, that of fire, that can also be used for good or ill, depending on the motives behind it.