Recently, a Bible Survey student asked me why God called out to Adam, 'Where are you?' after the couple ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 'Couldn't He see them in the garden?' My normal response is yes, of course He could—it was a rhetorical question, but then I contemplated whether Adam and Eve shined like the Sun before the Fall—a perfection reflection of God's glory without sin in their lives. Second Corinthians 3:18 seems to suggest that possibility—"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
Perhaps pre-Fall, God could easily see the first couple's sinless reflections of Himself like a bonfire roaring in the darkness; but perhaps post-Fall, instead reflecting only the empty 'glory' of humanity—a physical state that the incarnate Jesus considered to be 'nothing' compared with the glory of Abba Father, as Philippians 2:5-8 describes I—wondrous light was replaced with miserable shadows or perhaps even vacuous transparency—we became “nothing.” We were created in the image of God, we cast off the divine reflection that veiled our temporal nature, and found ourselves only to be fearful and fumbling gods in the murkiness of life—afraid, just afraid.
Wonderfully, though, God provided an eternal pathway of relighting the divine glow through the presence and embrace of His Son. Romans 13:14 states, 'Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.' In full honesty and desperate humility, we can cry out to Him who empowered us before—after all, God was and has always been “El Roi”—the God who sees us, and He loves to offer Himself in way of rescue. We can reject our morbid, dark deification and cleave unto Christ.
Then, clothed with the righteousness of Jesus--the perfect reflection of God, the Father, we can once again shine like a thousand stars for God and others to see on earth and in Heaven. Like Jesus on the high mountain, once again a mirror to God's glory, we can become transfigured, our faces suing like the sun, our clothes white as the light. As the Apostle John confidently asserts, “God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all…But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” What we extinguished, God can rekindle. What we destroyed, God can salvage.
From the beginning of human history, God has cried out to all His children, "Where are you?" Fear and pride can keep us in the lonely blackness, but we can fight against the deathly darkness that leads only to despair. As Phillip said to Nathanael about Jesus so long ago, “Come and see.” That same invitation is still offered today. Come out of your darkness and see the Light of the world.