For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
But does anyone deny that the Godhead of the eternal Trinity is to be adored, when the Scriptures also set forth the inexplicable majesty of the divine Trinity, as the apostle says elsewhere: “For the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus?” … Who is it, then, who shined that we might know God in the face of Christ Jesus? For he said: “God shined,” that the glory of God might be known in the face of Jesus Christ. Who else do we think but the Spirit who was made manifest? Or who else is it but the Holy Spirit, to whom the power of the Godhead is referred? For those who exclude the Spirit must introduce another to receive with the Father and the Son the glory of the Godhead. , .
For God . . . hath shined in our hearts. In the account of the creation of the world given in Genesis , light is said to have been created first of all, because light is a quality most splendid, pleasant, gladdening, useful, efficacious, and powerful. Cf. Dionysius (de Divin. Nomin. c. iv.), who enumerates thirty-four properties of light and of fire wonderfully adapted to set forth God and the things belonging to Him. Cf. note to Genesis 1:2.
Hugo (de Sacram. pag. i. c10) and others point out, by way of allegory, that on the first day, when light was created and divided from darkness, the good angels were established in good and the evil in evil, and were separated each from other. What, therefore, was done in the world of sense was an image of what was being done in the unseen world. Nay, S. Augustine frequently maintains that the literal sense is that which refers to the angels.
The Apostle here explains this light tropologically. As God formerly produced light out of darkness, so...
The light to shine out of darkness. He alludes to what is related at the first creation, when God divided the light from darkness. (Genesis i. 4.)
In the face of Christ Jesus, which may signify in the person of Christ, who was the true light enlightening every man, that comes into this world. (John i. 9.) (Witham)
When the apostle said, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts,” he referred to the resurrection. He showed this resurrection to be the exodus from the old state which in the likeness of Sheol incarcerates a person where the light of the gospel will not shine mystically upon him. This breath of life shines through hope in the resurrection. By it the dawning of divine wisdom shines in the heart, so that a person should become new, having nothing of the old.
Do you see how Paul shows the glory of Moses flashing with added luster to those who want to see it? It shines in our hearts, he says, just as it shone on the face of Moses. First he reminds them of what was made at the beginning of creation, and then he shows that this renewed creation is greater.
surpassing glory, I mean that of Moses, he shows it flashing with added lustre ? 'As upon the face of Moses, so also has it shined unto your hearts,' he says. And first, he puts them in mind of what was made in the beginning of the Creation, sensible light and darkness sensible, showing that this creation is greater. And where commanded He light to shine out of darkness? In the beginning and in prelude to the Creation; for, says he, Darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Howbeit then indeed He said, Let it be, and it was: but now He said nothing, but Himself became Light for us. For he said not, 'has also now commanded,' but has Himself shined. Therefore neither do we see sensible objects by the shining of this Light, but God Himself through Christ. Do you see the invariableness in the Trinity? For of the Spirit, he says, But we all with unveiled face reflecting in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same imag...
Now he did not observe how much this clause of the sentence made against him: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to (give) the light of the knowledge (of His glory) in the face of (Jesus) Christ.".
Now, if you will examine the words which precede the passage where mention is made of the outward and the inward man, will you not discover the whole truth, both of the dignity and the hope of the flesh? For, when he speaks of the "light which God hath commanded to shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord in the person of Jesus Christ"
