What does it mean that God is the Father of lights (James 1:17)?

(Vv. 16-18). In contrast with the evil that comes from the flesh, every “good gift” and “every perfect gift” comes from God. The Greek word for “good gift” refers to the giving, the word for “perfect gift” to the thing given. All that is good both in the manner of giving as well as the thing given comes from God. He also is the father of lights. In the physical world it was He who set the “lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.” He also is the source of all spiritual light. No darkness comes from Him. He is not only good and pure light, but all goodness and all light come from Him; and with Him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He does not change with our changing circumstances or our varying moods.

God, then, far from originating temptation is the Source and Giver of every gift that is good and perfect. The Apostle is very emphatic on this point; he would by no means have us err as to it. Verses 16 to 18 are another short paragraph, in which God is presented to us in a very remarkable way. Not only is He the Source of every good and perfect gift but also of all that can be spoken of as light. The light of creation came from Him. Every ray of true light for the heart or conscience or intellect comes from Him. What we really know we know as the result of divine revelation, and He is the "Father" or "Source" of all such light. Man's lights are very uncertain. The light of "science" so-called is very variable. It burns brightly, it dies down, it re-appears, it flares up, it goes out finally extinguished by an oncoming generation which feels sure it knows more than the outgoing generation. With the Father of lights, and hence with all light that really comes from Him, there is no variableness neither shadow of turning. Blessed be God for that!

But God is much more; He is the source of all good. He gives freely and fully to those who were evil and enemies. So we are here told that "every good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." In Him is no darkness at all; in the world it is so dense that, though Christ His Son was here, the true Light, and shining in the darkness, the darkness comprehended it not: so much did moral darkness exceed the natural which is dispelled by natural light. It is humbling that man, with all his boasting, should be proved thus evil. But Christ solved the difficulty, the giver of a life in Himself risen from the dead, after being made sin to annul it righteously. Thus of His will or purpose (for nothing was more remote from man or more opposed to his will) did God beget us.

There is another consideration added, full of comfort. The greater the blessing, the more is the sorrow if it be exposed to loss or change. Now in our relationship with God we are assured that the goodness displayed suffers no diminution, nor eclipse. Even the greater light that rules the day, which men adored early and long, the bright orb of the sun to which they applied the epithet here predicated of our God, is liable to the variations of nature all day long, and is the salient example, in its apparent motions, of shadow that is cast by turning. But it is not so, as here declared, with the Father of lights, Whose unchangeableness is as perfect as His goodness, and His goodness to us who deserved nothing less, still in our weakness, and still in a world of evil.

Now we come to the other side. "Do not err, beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." We have had the evil traced to its source, which is the fallen nature of man, no doubt wrought on by Satan, but without here bringing the enemy before us. We shall find this by and by, in James 4; but here he simply looks on man's nature, and then he raises his eyes to God. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The first point therefore in the mind of the Holy Ghost here is to vindicate God at all cost, and this entirely apart from us. As evil comes from us, so all that is good comes from God; and not only is God the spring of every good — every good giving and every perfect gift being all from God — (the manner of it as well as the thing itself that is given); but, besides, there is no change in God, the creature in its best estate is nothing but change.

It is an urgent matter here that, as beloved brethren, we do not err. On the one side, the temptation to evil proceeds from our own fleshly lusts: on the other side, all that is good and wholesome comes from above, not from ourselves, but is the gracious gift of the Father of lights. Surely this involves every various ray of the spectrum; for every color of the light is a beautiful symbolization of some precious attribute of God and Father, who deals with us in perfection of wisdom and goodness. And in Him is no variableness, but absolute, undeviating consistency; and no shadow of turning, no suggestion of change in His character of pure goodness.

Now we are once more brought back to a realization of how, indeed, God is for us, and who He is that is thus for us. "Every good gift and every perfect gift" comes down from Him, and there is no possibility of change, no shadow of turning, with Him. Nothing that is from Him is other than a good gift if we will only use it and value it as such. He is "the Father of lights," Himself Light; the display of this light is seen in His ways with us — a wondrous spectrum indeed, in which the glory of the light is displayed in its many-colored rays! With these we are familiar as the jewels of the priest's breastplate, the embodiment of the light in those gems upon which the names of the tribes were engravers. We have them again in the jewels of the eternal city, the perfect display of God's attributes upon which all is founded there, and which, therefore, gives indeed an eternal foundation — God displayed in His own nature; — who can change this in any one respect? How blessed to be able in faith to trace Him in this way! — righteousness is now seen, in some sense, as distinct from love, so that we may even in our folly be questioning whether love be in it. But these different rays are but the various display of that which in itself is one — love in light and light in love, never divorced from one another. Can we be even righteous in that in which we show not love? or can that be love which has not righteousness in it? Here is the nature which we have received from "the Father of lights" Himself, for "according to His own will He begat us by the word of truth," and the children manifest the Father. But what, then, must He be in all His dealings with these children that He has begotten? How can there be any contradiction, in any of His ways, to that love in which He has begotten them for Himself? And we are those, the apostle intimates, who are a kind of first-fruits of His creatures — those in whom His creative thought as to man has first come rightly to its bloom and manifestation. How wonderful a being is man in that respect, when we see him in the Man Christ Jesus, and realize this to have been God's thought from the beginning: man, with whom God dwells forever, and in whom the divine heart can find response and hold communion!

Even what the Christian enjoys in the way of divine mercies comes from above. The man of the world may take everything he enjoys in this life from second causes, but the believer takes all from “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). The great lights of heaven may change, the sun, in relation to the earth constantly changing its position, and the moon may have its shadow in turning, but the creator of sun and moon remains the Same; and His gifts to all men in light, food and rain, are good and perfect in relation to the need of man. Christians take all from the hand of God, looking to heaven for the supply of every need, knowing that God ever gives what is good and perfect.

In looking up we shall not be disappointed, for the gifts are good and the giving is perfect; the gift and the giving are one. We have known men who have given gifts, but have done so grudgingly and with such ill grace that the gift has turned to gall; but not thus are these heavenly gifts. With them the giving exceeds in blessedness the gifts themselves, if that is possible. "God … gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not" (v. 5). His manner of giving enhances the blessedness of the gift, and reveals His own perfect graciousness.

And these gifts are not only from above like the sunshine and the rain, so that we look up for them, but they are from the Father of lights; they are personal gifts from a personal God to intelligent persons. And He is the Father of lights. We cannot do without lights, and all lights proceed from God.

But more, with God who is the Father of lights there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning." These, I understand, are astronomical allusions. With the heavenly bodies that give us light, there are parallaxes; they appear to change their position when viewed from different points; they act and react upon one another, and as they turn they cast shadows one on another; hence the eclipses. But with God there is nothing of this kind, with Him there is no "parallax." From whatever point we observe Him He is the same, and nothing that He has created can move Him from His purpose or cast an obscuring shadow upon Him. The works of His hands shall wax old as doth a garment, but He changes not. We turn from all created light to Him as we hasten to the city that has "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Rev. 21:23).

But more, with God who is the Father of lights there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning." These, I understand, are astronomical allusions. With the heavenly bodies that give us light, there are "parallaxes"; they appear to change their position when viewed from different points; they act and react upon one another, and as they turn they cast shadows one on another; hence the eclipses. But with God there is nothing of this kind, with Him there is no "parallax." From whatever point we observe Him He is the same, and nothing that He has created can move Him from His purpose or cast an obscuring shadow upon Him. The works of His hands shall wax old as doth a garment, but He changes not. We turn from all created light to Him as we hasten to the city that has "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Rev. 21:23).