is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.”7 Now Christ is “the true light [who] … was coming into the world”.8 Therefore, if we expose ourselves deeply and humbly to the power of God’s Word, he will come to us as both rain and sword, as both principle of new life and fruition and as scalpel in the hand of a surgeon who must painfully cut if he is to heal. Only after it has inflicted pain can God’s Word console. In Scripture, what we could call