“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life'”. John 8:12
‘I am the light of the world’. John records this exact, seven word, statement of Jesus in two chapters of his gospel account. The first is in the verse of our text, John 8:12, and the second is in the chapter of our main reading today, John 9:5. Last time I did the message, our main reading was John 8, and we considered that weighty declaration of Jesus, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ (John 8:58). That is the final word that Jesus spoke at the end of an argument with those that opposed him.
That recorded conversation starts with the words that we are going to consider today. When Jesus repeats these words in John 9, it is in a slightly different context, and gives us further understanding. It is like a further layer of paint added to the picture that Jesus is painting. It highlights the details. Essentially, in the ‘I am’ statements that John records Jesus saying, the picture being painted is Jesus himself. His statements define who Jesus is, and what his mission was. The theme this week is ‘light’.
I mentioned before that John seems to love the word, ‘life’, because he uses it far more than the other gospel writers. The same can be said about the word, ‘light’. Both words appear in our text. The Bible seems to connect these two words. Matthew, Mark and Luke, in their accounts of the life of Jesus use the word, ‘light’, a combined total of 22 times. John uses it 25 times. Another instance where John uses ‘light’ and ‘life’ is in John 1:4, where John is speaking about the role of Jesus in the creation of the universe. He says, ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.’ We will come back to this later.
Firstly, what did Jesus mean by declaring himself to be, ‘the light of the world’? Well, there are many bible verses that can help our thinking. I have chosen just a few of them. I’ll start with John 12:46, as it is one of my favourites. Here, ‘Jesus cried out’ (v.44), ‘...I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.’ The implication here is that people that don’t believe in Jesus are in darkness. Also, those that do believe, find that light comes into that darkness. Is this a natural phenomenon? I think that we would all agree that it is not. With regards to daytime and night-time, it doesn’t matter whether you are a believer or an unbeliever. When the sun rises in the morning, all people, unless they are visually impaired, experience light. It is daytime. When the sun sets, it is night-time. This doesn’t change when you put your faith in Jesus. If believers go into the woods at 2am, they still need a torch! No, Jesus is talking about a spiritual phenomenon – something that happens, which causes a spiritual, internal change, or what Christians often refer to as ‘conversion.’
Tim dealt with this last week, in his message based on the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is a letter, within our bible. It was written to ‘Hebrews’. These were people who had previously been members of the Jewish religion, but who had converted to Christianity. They were being persecuted by some who had remained Jews, who hated the fact that these believers now saw things in a different ‘light’. Tim quoted Hebrews 10:32, where it says, ‘Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering'. Tim said this, ‘...“receiving the light” sounds like conversion to me – it sounds like being born again.’
The apostle Paul had an amazing conversion. He was literally stopped in his tracks by Jesus (Acts 9). Some years later, Paul was called upon to give an account of that day. He was talking to two powerful men. One was called Festus, and the other was a king, called Agrippa. Paul told them about that incident when Jesus spoke to him from heaven. Jesus told Paul that he had a message that he wanted Paul to deliver to people. He said this, ‘...I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me’ (Acts 26:17-18).
The gospel message, that Paul was to give to people, and that the Church of Jesus Christ is still called upon to bring, is one that can turn people from ‘darkness to light’. And, if Paul’s words are true, then being turned in this way, is the same thing as being turned from ‘the power of Satan to God.’ It is a significant transformation that we are talking about. The apostle Peter writes similar things. In his first letter, Peter contrasted those that did not believe the gospel message, with those that did. He says this of believers, in 1 Peter 2:9, ‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.’
I love chapter 9 of John’s account of the life of Jesus. It is a double illustration of the ability of Jesus to give light. First, he heals a blind man of his natural blindness. This man was unable to see. Jesus performs a miracle. The man, for the first time in his life, now has sight. He can distinguish between darkness and light, and every shade in between. Later in this chapter, there is a second miracle. This man was like all of us at birth. Because sin entered into the world, when we are born, we are blind spiritually. We grow up unable to see the truth that Jesus is the Saviour that all of us need. Jesus heals this man’s spiritual blindness as well. Jesus tells the man that he, Jesus, is the Saviour (‘Son of Man’) who was promised in the Old Testament scriptures. ‘Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshipped him (Jesus)’, (John 9:38).
In the ‘light’ of what Tim was saying last week about the suffering of the Hebrew believers, at the hands of those that appeared to be ‘religious’, it is really interesting to see an identical response by the unbelieving Jews here. They perceive that this healed man is starting to follow Jesus. We read, ‘Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple!”’ (John 9:28). This man had received spiritual life and spiritual light. These people perceived a change in this man and hated him for it. What should our verdict be, as we assess this? Again, we can borrow from John’s words. John 3:19 says this, ‘this is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.’
We may ask the question, ‘what does spiritual mean?’ We understand that spiritual light is different to natural light. We know that this concept of believers being able to see the truth of Jesus, isn’t just a natural thing. It is more than just being able to read the words written on the pages of our Bibles. It is more than being able to understand them. It goes to the very ‘heart’ of who we are. In ancient cultures, the ‘heart’ was considered to be the place where someone’s emotions and affections were. Even now, if a person is said to have ‘a heart’ for something, it means that they are strongly inclined to like or love that thing. They have a real affection for it.
We find this language in the Bible. In 2 Corinthians 4:6, the apostle Paul uses creation to illustrate conversion. We read, ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.’ So, believers in Jesus are given a strong affection for God through Jesus. This is what Paul means when he says, ‘his light shine(s) in our hearts’. When our relationship with God is restored through Jesus, who is the God-light shining in our hearts, we gain an affection for Jehovah God that we never had before. We have a love for Jesus Christ that was previously absent.
This verse in 2 Corinthians is also useful for something else that I want to consider today. Earlier, I mentioned that John speaks about the role of Jesus in creation, at the start of his gospel account. When we read the first chapter of John, combined with the first chapter of Genesis, and 2 Corinthians 4:6, a question arises and an answer is also given. The Old Testament is full of prophecies about the coming of a Saviour. For many years, I have believed that the first of these prophecies is found in Genesis 3, after the fall of man. The first man and woman, Adam and Eve, have disobeyed God, and sin has entered into the world. They were deceived by the words of the devil through a serpent, or snake. God then speaks about the ruin that has now been brought into his creation, but promises a way of saving from this ruin, that would come about through a descendant of Eve.
However, I now wonder if the first prophecy about Jesus is actually earlier. John refers to Jesus as ‘the Word’ at the start of his account. The first three verses of John 1 say this, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.’ Let’s compare this with the book of Genesis. Verses 1-5 read as, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness he called ‘night’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.’
From John’s account, we know that Jesus was instrumental in this creation work. ‘Without him nothing was made.’ So, when Genesis reads, ‘and God said’, and then we hear the first recorded words of our God in creation, we are safe to conclude that Jesus, who John calls, ‘the Word’, is involved in the making of what is made. And what is made? Light - ‘Let there be light’. We are then told that, on that first day of creation, there was evening and morning, and the day was separated from the night. Yes, on the first day. How significant then is what follows three days later? Verses 14-19 of Genesis 1, record the events of the fourth day. On the fourth day, God creates the Sun and the Moon. So, for three days, we have day and night, light shining into darkness, without the, yet to be created, Sun. People use this to criticise the Bible’s account of creation. They view it as a significant oversight. When this was written, I don’t believe it was an oversight. I do believe that it was significant.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:6, is looking back to creation to illustrate a truth about Christian conversion, when he says, ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.’ But should we not also conclude that God, in creation, was pointing forward to Christian conversion, when he made that light shine out of darkness for those first three days? When Jesus says, 'I am the light of the world’, in John 8, he is definitely speaking about something permanent. He says, ‘Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’
This seems to jar somewhat with John 9:5, where Jesus repeats this ‘I am’ statement. Jesus says, ‘While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ This statement appears more limited in its scope. How can this be so? It is explained by its immediate context. Jesus is talking to his disciples, those who believed him and followed him. His previous sentence (v.4) was this, ‘As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.’ So, ‘we’ means Jesus and those who follow him, in this context. He seems to be talking about ‘day’ as being that time while ‘we’ are alive on earth. When he talks about ‘night... when no one can work’, he is talking about death.
So, Jesus is aligning himself with his people. Actually, he is aligning his people with himself. He is saying that the only opportunity we will have to witness to the ‘light’ of our Saviour, is while we are alive. After we die, that opportunity is gone forever. The Lord’s people are called to witness to the ‘light’ that is in Christ Jesus throughout their lives, before the darkness of death sets in. At the start of John’s account (John 1:6-8), he mentions John the Baptist, who heralded, or announced, the coming of the earthly ministry of Jesus. ‘There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.’
This idea of ‘witness’ is also seen in the life of the apostle Paul, and his friend Barnabas, as recorded in Acts 13:47-48. It tells of the way that the Lord had commanded them to witness to non-Jews - ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that youmay bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ How did Paul and Barnabas act as lights? By bringing the message about ‘the light of the world’, which is Jesus. And how encouraging to us is the effect of this preaching? ‘When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.’
This idea of the Lord’s people ‘carrying the torch’, so to speak, is really clear in the words of Jesus in his famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’. In Matthew 5:14-16, we read, ‘You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.’
We may struggle with this. We may think that we are not like John the Baptist, or Paul, or Barnabas, with the great lights that they seemed to have been equipped with, to lead men and women and children out of darkness. But let’s imagine that someone we loved was stuck in a cave. They have no torch, and no hope of getting to the entrance. If we were sent in to rescue them then, of course, we would rather go in with a 10 watt, Cree LED, retina burning, headlamp, but what if we only have a little torch, with an incandescent bulb, from 1983? Would we not go in and lead them to the day-light with the feeble, flickering light that is ours? Of course we would go in. We would use what we had. And that is all that the Lord asks us to do now. Don’t worry about speaking to people with grand, persuasive words that you don’t have in your possession. Speak to them with the weak words that you do have. Because, as sure as night is night, and day is day, there will be those, ‘appointed for eternal life’, that will believe.
So, to finish. Jesus was there, ‘in the beginning’, ‘the Word’, giving light. He was, and still is, ‘the light of the world’. This light continues to be carried into a dark world by the only people who can carry it, the followers of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is an everlasting light. The book of Revelation contains some wonderful images of, ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Revelation 21:1), which are the inheritance of the Lord’s people. At the start of John’s Gospel, he refers to Jesus as ‘the Word’. Near the end of Revelation, he is called ‘the Lamb’, due to his sacrifice to save his people. I want to finish with these words from Revelation 21:22-23, about that place where the Lord’s people are journeying towards. ‘I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.’
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