Such is the general conception of the first paragraph of this chapter. The individual expressions need not detain us long. The woman's raiment of light has been already spoken of. Passing therefore from that, it need occasion no surprise that He who is Himself the Giver of light should be represented as the _Son_ of light. God "is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."[288] Jesus, as the Son of God, is thus also the Son of light. No doubt the conception is continued even after we behold the woman in her actual, not her ideal, state. Jesus is still her Son.[289] Yet there is a true sense in which we may describe our Lord not only as the Foundation, but also as the Son, of the Church. He is "the First-born among many brethren,"[290] the elder Brother in a common Father's house. He is begotten by the power of the Holy Spirit[291]; and they that believe in His name are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."[292] So close indeed in the teaching of St. John is the identification of Christ and His people, that whatever is said of Him may be said of them, and what is said of them may be said of Him. Human thought and language fail to do justice to a relation so profound and mysterious. But it is everywhere the teaching of the beloved disciple--in his Gospel, in his Epistles, in his Revelation--although the Church may not fully understand it until she has lived herself more into it than she has done. Her "life" will then bring her "light."[293]