What is the Speed of Darkness?

John C. Rankin

(February 4, 2013)

Of course darkness has no speed, since it has no atomic existence. It simply eviscerates in the presence of light. At the prior and theological level, we see the proactive power of light in the first words of God in Scripture, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). And in John 1:5, we read, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood (and overcome) it.”

The apostle John is speaking of Jesus as the Light of the world, and in his first epistle, John also says, “For this, the Son of God was made manifest, in order to unbind the works of the devil” (3:8).

Since light is proactive, and darkness is reactive, the way Jesus as the Light destroys the work of the prince of darkness is by letting the light shine. Darkness, by definition, always flees.

The apostle Paul reflect this understanding of light versus darkness, in the ethical realm, in Ephesians 5:11-13: “And do not have fellowship with the fruitless works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is shameful even to speak of what they become in secret. But all things reproved by the light become manifest.”

We do not need to focus on evil in order to overcome it. Live in the light, love God, love our neighbors, and realize that our only warfare is against the devil and his minions in the heavenlies. Then the devil’s work will be destroyed in our midst.

This biblical centrality is at the core of the mission of the TEI. To embrace the power to love hard questions in the presence of skeptics is to also embrace the power to live in the light.

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