Allegory of the Cave-Turn and Face the Light

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” Isaiah 9

Those who lived in darkness might also be rendered those who live in the interior of the earth, death or deep shadow. It is also likened to one who lives in obscurity.

It’s all about trust

And if we think about it trust is something we do every day. We trust that our brakes will work in our cars or that the food we buy at the store is safe. We trust our lives to complete strangers every day. We trust that our banker will correctly take care of our money or that our doctor will prescribe us the right medication. Trust is not really something that just comes to us it is something that we choose to do.

Many of you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ to be your Savior. At that moment of giving your life to Him you made a one-time decision to turn your life over to Him; and He unlocked the chains of darkness and began to bring you into His glorious light. That walk toward the light is the beginning of throwing away your understanding and choosing to look to Jesus and acknowledge His ways – His reality.

Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Turning to the light may not be easy but we can choose to do it

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave can be found in Book VII of his best-known work, The Republic. This is a lengthy fictional dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon that discusses the nature of knowledge and looking at reality. In it an image is given to us of a people who are imprisoned in a cave; chained facing a wall and locked into this position so that they cannot move their head to see what is behind them. There is a fire behind them and a raised walkway that passes in front of the fire so that there are reflections of shadows projected on the wall as things pass in front of a the fire behind them. Soon they begin to consign forms to these shadows and embrace them as reality. These prisoners have never known anything else. And even the sounds that are made from these forms are believed to be coming from the shadows on the wall, and there is no understanding of where the noise being made really comes from. Their perception is all based on the shadows.

According to Plato, these shadows are their reality. His point in this is that the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not his reality at all, and he knows he has been freed from the shadows and able to see what is in the light. But, at first, when one is freed and compelled suddenly to look towards the light, it is painful to see and the bright glare still renders him helpless to see what is real- even though he is no longer in the shadows of the cave. But by and by those shadows of past fade and the glare of the light is not so overwhelming. Soon he will be able to see clearly the people or the trees or the movement of animals - not as shadows but as reality.

So it is with our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ

He walked into our caves and freed us from bondage. He began walking us toward his light and showing us truth. For some the cave experience was long and hard and perhaps some grew accustomed to the shadows and their false reality. Many times people who live among dark shadows begin to embrace the lies of that darkness as truth. What are some of those shadows?

© Carol Hudler, July 2009

Anger, hurt, fear - These and much more hinder us from seeing the truth. When our focus is on these shadows we cannot see the truth. Even though these distortions may seem like our reality they are only shadows of things we noticed when in bondage to the darkness of the cave. Once we have walked in the light we cannot go back to the cave experience, where shadows cast by sin paraded between us and the fire of the Holy Spirit and kept us from seeing the truth.

Christ has come and has brought us into the light and in doing this He has exposed anger, abuse, fear, hurt and all those things that still try to lie to us and tell us we cannot walk in the light. We no longer walk in the shadows we have been translated in his glorious light and can now see things in proper perspective. The shadows are no longer reality-they no longer rule our lives – Christ does. The light of Christ has dawned in our lives and we must walk in it. When we allow the shadows of darkness to imprison us, our the voice of truth seems muddled and the truth of Christ distorted. Dear Friend, Walk in the Light of Christ! Let there be no.more.shadows in your life. Trust Jesus - you are a child of the Light.

"Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." Ephes 5:8