The light that will proceed from the new Jerusalem will be actual light as we know it, I believe. But more importantly, the light will be that of moral behavior. It is moral light that is the primary goal of the Lord God in creating the Christian Church.

Look around you in the world. You will see the abysmal lack of clear moral principles by which people can prosper in the will of God. The Christians are to bear witness by portraying in themselves the moral Nature of God.

The righteousness of Zion and Jerusalem is to shine like the dawn. Obviously this is genuine righteousness produced by the forming of Christ in us. It is not imputed righteousness, an ascribed righteousness, a legal righteousness assigned to us independently of our behavior. If this were the case it would not shine. How can a legally imputed righteousness shine?

The destructive error of Evangelical thinking is that our primary righteousness is that which is ascribed to us based on the merits of Christ, while righteous behavior on our part, although desirable, is not essential to salvation. (I don't think we know what salvation is, to be honest with you.)

The tremendous power of this bias is revealed in a modern translation that inserts the word "imputed" into the above passage so the text reads: "For Zion's sake will I [Isaiah] not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her imputed righteousness and vindication go forth as brightness, and her salvation radiates as does a burning torch. And the nations shall see your righteousness and vindication—your rightness and justice [not your own, but His ascribed to you]—and all kings shall behold your salvation and glory and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name."

This particular edition of the Scriptures is well accepted by Evangelical teachers and pastors. Many parts of the translation are helpful in clarifying some of the obscure passages of the King James Edition. However, in the case of the above passage, the insertion of "imputed" (with no indication that it is not part of the Hebrew text) and "[not your own, but His ascribed to you]" are awesome errors. They warp the meaning of the text until God's plan to bring forth righteousness and praise before the nations is destroyed.

How Satan must chortle gleefully at our naiveté, our immaturity in spiritual warfare. All the New Agers put together could not harm God's plan to the extent the above addition to the Scripture has the potential to do. Yet we are willing to accept such obviously biased scholarship.

We are in a grand mess today in our Evangelical preaching and teaching. We are preaching and teaching error, and Dispensational thinking has done much to strengthen the error. The error is based on the historical slogan "saved by faith alone," leaving the impression that the Divine salvation operates apart from a radical change in our behavior, from a new righteous creation.

To be continued.