Genesis 1:4

A believer has two principles at work within him. In his natural state, he was subject to one principle only, which was darkness; now light has entered, and the two principles disagree. Mark the apostle Paul’s words in Romans 7:21-23: I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

What causes this state of things? The Lord divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:4). Darkness, by itself, is quiet and undisturbed, but when the Lord sends in light, there is a conflict, for the one is in opposition to the other: a conflict which will never cease until the believer is altogether light in the Lord.

If there is a division within the individual Christian, there is certain to be a division without. As soon as the Lord gives any man light, he separates himself from the darkness around. He secedes from a merely worldly religion of outward ceremonial, for nothing short of the gospel of Christ will now satisfy him. He then withdraws himself from worldly society and frivolous amusements and seeks the company of the saints, for We know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren (1 John 3:14). The light gathers to itself, and the darkness to itself.

What God has divided, let us never try to unite. As Christ went outside the camp, bearing his reproach, so let us come out from the ungodly and be a distinct people. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners (Hebrews 7:26); and, as he was, so we are to be nonconformists to the world, dissenting from all sin, and distinguished from the rest of mankind by our likeness to our Master.