Darkness in the Pauline Letters

In my previous post, I began with accusation. Certainly I stand by the words and their tone. The American church’s frequent embrace of nationalism, its celebration of wealth and power, and its deafening silence on the protests of the oppressed in our society, mean that our ability to bear the gospel is in grave danger.

So now I turn to Paul and his use of the words “light” and “darkness.” The Pauline letters [1] use the noun skotos (“darkness”) 10 times and the verb skotizesthai (“to be dark”) twice. Those bare statistics mean that the image is not central to his cluster of theological metaphors, but neither is it peripheral to his thinking. Because of the image’s visceral power over human beings, who naturally fear the dark and seek to eliminate it whenever possible, it offers a powerful way to represent sin, ignorance, and other malign realities. And so the extended Pauline letter collection deploys it occasionally for good purpose.

1 Thessalonians

In his earliest letter, Paul enjoins the young Christians at Thessalonica to live in hopeful expectation of God’s imminent salvation. He writes, “You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness (en skotei) so that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day. We are neither of the night nor of the darkness” (1 Thess. 5:4-5). [2] Paul offers a binary view of life: light and darkness, day and night. But the young Christians must live as befits the light. Their status as children of light, given to them in their baptism, is a call to become something more than a description of inevitable outcomes. They can, in spite of all divine interventions, stray from the light. Yet Paul’s emphasis does not lie on the possibility of failure, but on the possibility of success. Their nature as redeemed persons is to bear light.

He abandons this image for a different one in verses 8-9, hinting at his reflections on Isaiah 59:16-17. There, after recognizing human inability or unwillingness to save their neighbors from oppression, God intervenes as a warrior wearing the accoutrements of battle (the same text lies behind the “armor of God” imagery in Eph. 6, which I will discuss later). The Thessalonians can be garbed with such beautiful defensive weapons as “faithfulness,” [3] “love,” and the “hope of salvation” because God has opted for their salvation (“not put you down for wrath,” as verse 9 says). The call to avoid darkness is the call to live in grateful hope and love for others.

The Corinthian Correspondence

Similarly, to the turbulent Corinthian church (what church isn’t turbulent sometimes?) Paul speaks of light and darkness in terms of God’s saving work. First Corinthians 4:5 speaks of the Lord’s glorious arrival when “he will illuminate the hidden things of darkness.” That imagery has a long prehistory, going back ultimately to Mesopotamian ideas of the secret knowledge available to the gods and those human beings fortunate enough to be trained in the ways of discovering it. Paul’s immediate background, however, must be a text like Dan. 2:47, which speaks of God as the “knower of secret things,” or Isa. 49:10-11’s mention of sealed books and secret knowledge, or even Deut. 29:29’s statement about the secret things belonging to God. For Paul, the day draws near when prophecies of God’s ultimate salvation will come true.

A similar notion appears in two references in 2 Corinthians. In 2 Cor. 4:6, Paul thinks through the implications of the creation story in Gen. 1: “For the God who says, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ is the one who has shone in our hearts toward the illumination of the knowledge of God’s glory, in the face of Christ.” He may also have in mind Isa. 9:1’s announcement that the oppressed people of Israel will soon experience the light of God’s deliverance rather than the darkness of Assyrian occupation. The creative work of God continues in the church’s life as it becomes ever more aware of God’s glory, manifested in the crucified and risen Lord. Because of that growing awareness of the new reality, the struggling Corinthian church may have hope as it joins God’s work.

This idea becomes even clearer in Paul’s plea to avoid mixing faithful living with the immorality practiced by some of their neighbors. [4] He denies that there can be “partnership between righteousness and lawlessness, or commonality between light and darkness.” Again the binary nature of the church’s choice comes out, yet the binarism is not a simple one. Followers of Christ must choose not to embrace darkness. They can measure their success or failure by asking whether their actions comport with righteousness, an attribute of both God and God’s followers. To abandon the pursuit of truth and mercy is to embrace darkness.

In next week’s post, I will continue with Paul’s reflections on light and darkness, with a look at Romans, Colossians, and Ephesians.

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[1] In this brief discussion, I will not enter into the question of which letters were written by Paul and which by his close disciples. Since they all come down to us as “Pauline,” it is enough for us to consider them as a unit, even with their variations.

[2] All translations are mine.

[3] The common translation “faith” may no longer quite capture Paul’s use of the word pistis. It does not mean simply “belief” or “assent.” Rather it reflects the Old Testament’s conception of “faithfulness” or “reliability” (’emunah/’emet in Hebrew).

[4] Paul also knows that many non-believers sought to live good lives, and thinks Christians should honor their lives (see 1 Cor. 5:1 and 14:23).