It is a great thing to have grace and truth together. If truth had come without grace, we could not have borne it a moment. Man is a sinner utterly unfit for heaven; but it is immense comfort that grace and truth have come together. God's two essential names are Light and Love. If we had not love with light, it would have condemned us; but we have perfect light in presence of perfect love. Our comfort is that light does come and reveal everything. Being in God's very nature, we cannot separate the two things, light and love. Just the same things appear in the details of the Christian's life.
In many instances in Scripture we see how light penetrates; but there is an attractive power along with it. There is never real working in man's soul without attractive power. The Christian stands "accepted in the beloved," but the light of God comes in on all his ways. Take the prodigal—the light shines in and shows that he is a lost sinner, but there is attractive power too—"I will arise and go to my father." Take the woman that was a sinner—there was a sense of sinfulness because light comes in, but the measure in which light shone into her soul cannot be separated from the love that came with it. Take Peter falling at Jesus' feet and saying at the same time, "Depart from me." Wherever the blessed God reveals Himself to our souls, nothing is left in the dark. If anything is not completely revealed, it may come out in the day of judgment; but all is revealed. We have a perfect revelation of God as light and as love, and both are working in the soul.
If you have an idea of God's love without the conscience being reached, it may pass away as the morning dew. It is a blessed thing that we are brought to God, and that everything is fully out. The blessed Lord bore our sins; there was full light and full love at the cross. There are two parts in the gospel: one is the revelation of God, and the other is the work done by the Lord as Man for us on the cross. First, we find the revelation of God Himself, then the work of the Lord.