Mr. Minderhoud is a teacher in Covenant Christian High School and a member in Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Walker, Michigan.

On the first day God created light, and in the days to follow, a creation that depended upon that light. As we read throughout the Scriptures, God chose light to be a marvelous tool in the revelation of Himself. One area in which we see the revelation of God through light is in the plant kingdom and the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is that vital process created and maintained by God whereby plants, algae, and some bacteria convert the energy from the sun into chemical energy that is stored as food molecules. Photosynthesis provides food for the plant itself, and by eating plants, animals and humans also use the food made by plants. Therefore, much of life is directly or indirectly dependent upon the production of food by the plants. But without sunlight, photosynthesis cannot occur. The ability to convert energy from the sun into forms usable by all other creatures is a gift given by God only to the plant kingdom. It behooves us to study this earthly picture and consider an aspect of what light reveals to us of things heavenly.

When studying photosynthesis, one’s attention is particularly drawn to deciduous, broad-leaf trees. This is not because they are the major plant form that is involved in photosynthesis. Not at all. Trees, grass, and other common plants contribute only about 10% of all photosynthesis in the world. It is the algae, plankton, and bacteria that contribute the other 90%. Tree leaves are often used in the study of photosynthesis, not because of how much they do, but because they are easily examined, because they are so common in our lives, and particularly because they so readily grasp our attention in their autumn array of colors.

In order for photosynthesis to occur, a plant must have light. Generally, the leaves of deciduous trees contain three major pigments or chemicals that absorb sunlight. They are chlorophyll, carotene, and xanthophylls. Each pigment has a slightly different arrangement of its atoms and will act differently than any other pigment, especially in its ability to absorb light. Here we must note that visible light (white light) is actually composed of many different colors of light (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). Under regular circumstances we do not see the colors. However, if the light passes through a prism or through a raindrop, the individual colors will travel at different velocities, causing the light to “bend” slightly, displaying the different colors of a rainbow. These colors are further observed when this white light hits an object, where some of the colors are either reflected from the object or absorbed by it. For example, a black colored object absorbs all of the colors, reflecting nothing. A green object absorbs all the colors except green. Green light will reflect off the object because the molecules in that object will not allow the green light to pass into it, and our eyes interpret that light as the color green. Thus, when we see a green leaf, we know that that leaf is absorbing all the colors except green.

The pigments mentioned earlier, because of their different molecular composition, will absorb different colors of light. Chlorophyll, found in all plants, and the most abundant pigment in tree leaves, absorbs all the colors except green. Carotene, a major component in carrots, absorbs all the colors except orange. Xanthophylls absorb all the colors except yellow. The more colors of the spectrum absorbed by the leaf, the more efficient the leaf is in the process of photosynthesis. While chlorophyll is reflecting the green light, carotene and xanthophylls are absorbing it. While carotene and xanthophylls are reflecting yellow and orange light, the chlorophyll is absorbing them. Hence, all the colors of the spectrum are used by the leaf. The leaf uses all of these colors of light and the energy from each color, to make sugar and starches as its food source, and consequently for many organisms in creation. All of the light absorbed by the leaf is transformed by a very complicated chemical process involving water and carbon dioxide, where electrons are moving from one molecule to another in hundreds of individual chemical reactions in order to make sugar (glucose) and starches. These in turn become the food for the plant cells allowing them to grow and sustain the plant.

These pigments are found in the tiny cells (chloroplasts) of a plant or a tree leaf, where photosynthesis occurs. These chloroplasts become the vital “factories” that transform sunlight’s energy into energy forms (sugar or starch) that the plant uses to grow and maintain itself, and which is then used by animals and humans that eat the plant or the fruit of the tree. These “factories” are so small that 2000 chloroplasts lined up next to each other would be no wider than a dime. In any given leaf there are thousands and thousands of these “factories” capturing and transforming sunlight into the sugars and starches needed to feed the creation. This fascinating aspect of the creation again humbles us to see how God created all things, including tiny “solar-powered” factories in plants in order to feed many of the organisms within the creation. We see how God, in His infinite wisdom, provides for all creatures, especially the animals and humans, by creating and maintaining the plants, through the process of photosynthesis. “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart” (Ps. 104:14, 15). The plant kingdom was created by God for that specific purpose of serving man, nourishing him with food, that he might glorify His God.

It is these very pigments, which are so important in the process of photosynthesis, that also contribute to the beautiful array of colors we observe in the trees at this time of the year. In autumn, cooler evening and daytime temperatures, along with fewer hours of sunlight, trigger various responses from the tree. The tree will slow the sap supply to the leaves so that the leaves and stem receive less nourishment. Furthermore, the chlorophyll pigments begin to decompose. This green colored pigment slowly “dies,” giving the leaves less and less appearance of green. The other pigments, the carotenes and xanthophylls, do not “die” so quickly, and their colors of orange and yellow begin to dominate in the leaves so that we observe the leaves “changing color.”

The process of photosynthesis demonstrates the truth of Scripture that “light gives life.” Plants live because of sunlight. Often in our daily lives we observe how a plant will seek light, and turn toward the sun. Sunlight enters the plant and causes it to grow and to have physical life. In life, the plant produces its fruit and proffers it to man. In the darkness, a plant will surely die. The same is true for the members of Christ’s vine, His branches. It is Christ, the “true Light” (John 1:9), the “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal. 4:2), that has brought spiritual life to the church. The whole of Scripture testifies to this. We all were once in darkness and dead in our sins. But, by God’s grace, we have been taken out of our sin and misery and have been given life by Him “who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Pet. 2:9). “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2). “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying: I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). “Whereby the dayspring on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sat in darkness” (Luke 1:78, 79). We cannot live apart from the Light. Apart from the Light we experience darkness and death. Only the Light gives us true and everlasting life. Only in the Light do we have and enjoy the life of the covenant—the life of fellowship with God and with His people. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:5). This idea of having covenant fellowship with God only when we are in the Light is really the heart ofPsalm 80. In Psalm 80, Asaph cries to God to visit His vine and to “cause thy face to shine” upon them so that they might be saved. Only in the “face” or in the Light of God do the people of God experience God’s favor and blessing — the essence of true life. “Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved” (Ps. 80:18, 19). Thanks be to God for Christ, the true Light, that gave us life in the way of blessed covenant fellowship and friendship with our God. What an unspeakable gift!

Furthermore, because of the light of Christ in us we live in the light of God’s favor and experience true, spiritual growth. This is often compared to the growth of plants. For not only will plants liveand exist when they are given sunlight, but they will flourish and grow and bring forth good fruit. Our everyday experiences testify that plants bring forth fruit due to sunlight and proper nourishment, and even the Scriptures speak of the “precious fruits brought forth by the sun” (Deut. 33:13). So it is with God’s people. We bring forth good fruit only because of the Light. “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and truth)…and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:8, 9.) The psalmist teaches that this fruit is born because of the work of the Light in us, especially when we are in God’s house. “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing” (Ps. 92:12-14). Matthew 7:17-18 further states that “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit.” The reason that we bring forth good fruit is because we are branches of the true Vine. This true Vine is also the true Light. To abide in the Vine is to walk in the Light. Thus, Scripture teaches us that we are like the trees that grow and have good fruit because of the work of light within them. We have been given life-giving Light, and because of the work of Christ in us we shall prosper and bring forth fruit—good works of thankfulness to our God. Walking in that Light is the means God uses in order for us to experience growth and blessedness.

Apart from light we experience waning and death. The leaves on trees turn color, in part, because of a lack of light. The trees begin to “die,” shown in the color changes and in the falling of the leaves. We too die spiritually without the Light. Just as we flourish like palm trees when we are in the house of our God, nourished and surrounded by the Light, so when we neglect the worship services, the preaching of the gospel, and the diligent study of God’s Word, we slowly pine away and “die” for lack of Light. Weak and miserable will we be apart from the fellowship of our God and His life-giving Word. We, like the plants, need to experience a constant source of Light in order truly to live and flourish. May we by God’s grace find ourselves seeking the Light daily, turning our face to the Sun, that we may grow and be strong in the Lord. May God be gracious to us and continue to give us that Light.

Light brings life. Just as the tree lives because of sunlight, so we have spiritual life because of the true Light. Just as the tree grows, prospers, and brings forth good fruit because of life-giving sunlight, so we grow, prosper, and bring forth good fruit because of the life-giving Light, Jesus Christ. Just as a plant withers and dies without the light, so we too wilt spiritually when we neglect our source of Light and clamor after darkness. May we love to abide in the Light, for it is our life. Praise God for the gift of True Life! May God bless us so that we are conscious of the truths of Scripture that are clearly evident in the speech of God in the plants, and may the beauty of the same remind us of life-giving light. And may it stir in us deep thankfulness and a heartfelt desire to walk in the Light and to flee from all that would keep us from it. And yet, though we see now only in principle, may we long for that day when we shall be with God in heaven, where there will be “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. 22:23).