The notion that salvation is illumination is often criticized for being too intellectualist.  Jaroslav Pelikan sums up the criticisms of Athanasius’ use of this image by saying “the impression was almost unavoidable that the enlightenment given in salvation applied primarily to the mind and the intellect” and his language sometimes appears to support “the charge that he intellectualized faith into a species of knowledge.”

But what if illumination is not about lighting up minds but about lighting the person himself - that is, what if we imagine the believer as the lampstand set aflame, or think about illumination by thinking about Pentecost’s tongues of fire?  Then illumination is not about our minds coming to know something that was obscure, but instead about our persons becoming transparent to the light of God dwelling in us.

Two themes from Athanasius support this: First, the incarnation is about the radiance of the Father entering flesh, not for Himself but for us, so that we can become partakers of the Spirit.  Through the incarnation and the securing of the Spirit, we become filled with the light of God.  Second, a light source is inseparable from its radiance; that applies to the Father and Son, and also applies to the light that dwells in those who have received the Spirit: If the Spirit is in us, we radiate light.  Put it this way: Darkness encloses and separates; in pitch black, I can’t even see my own body, much less someone standing next to me; light not only illumines but unites.  When we receive the light of the Spirit, we radiate that light outward.  The Spirit comes as light to create a community of light, children of light who are reborn by the Father of lights.