My daughter asked me to solve a riddle the other day. She said the riddle is this; “As I get older, it gets weaker.” What is it that gets weaker? Well, I told her that from my experience there are a whole lot of things that get weaker as I get older. Some of which I can talk about in public and some perhaps are better kept private. But I told her the answer which I think she wanted, and that was my eyesight. The older I get, the weaker my eyesight becomes.
But as I thought about it later, I remembered learning that it is not that your eyesight necessarily gets weaker, which makes it difficult to read, or see clearly. But as you age, your eyes do not receive light as well. And that I know by experience. I can hardly read with my glasses on when I am inside and don’t have a good light to read by. But on a bright sunny day, I can read outside without my glasses on.
Light then, is a great metaphor for the Christian life. Because as Jesus says in vs.12, He is the Light. And as we receive that Light, we have the clarity to see the truth, and then to follow, or obey the truth. And so we see that this idea of light is a common metaphor in the scriptures, particularly in regards to the Messiah.
John has already introduced this idea in chapter one, in his great opening theological statement. He says in vs.4, speaking of Christ, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” And in vs.9 he says, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”
So as we read, Jesus confirms this idea that He is the Light by saying, “I am the Light of the world.” And so I want to just focus on this one statement today in an effort to glean all that we can from this important principle.
First of all, let’s consider the setting in which Jesus has made this claim. As you will recall, the Feast of Tabernacles is going on during this time. This was a week long celebration in Jerusalem during which everyone would live outdoors in huts that they had constructed out of leafy branches. This was to commemorate the time when the Jews were wandering in the wilderness after God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. It was a time of festivities and song and ceremonies that lasted 8 days.
In particular, there were numerous ceremonies during this feast that occurred in the temple in Jerusalem. One such ceremony we looked at a couple of weeks ago, when the priests poured water from the pool of Siloam into a basin which ran down upon the altar, symbolizing the water which came from the rock during their sojourn. And you will remember that at that time, Jesus stood up in the midst of that ceremony, after the trumpets had sounded and the water was gushing out upon the altar and He cried out with a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
Then the next day, Jesus is teaching again in the temple, early in the morning, and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. We looked at that text last Sunday. In today’s text, it is probably now the evening of that same day. And as it neared dark, the priests would light these great candelabras, raising them up on pedestals and illuminate the temple court. The white marble and gold plated walls of the temple would reflect this light and as the darkness settled down over the city, the temple became a shining beacon seen throughout the city in which people would gather and celebrate the feast. From historical accounts, it was a magnificent sight, and thousands of people would be gathered there in the court celebrating together their deliverance as a nation by God.
Now the significance of lighting the candelabras around the temple was to remind them that during their time of sojourning in the wilderness, God had provided a pillar of smoke to guide them by day, and a pillar of fire to watch over them by night, for all the years that they were in the wilderness.
The account is found in Exodus 13:21-22 “The LORD was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.” And in the next chapter it says, in Exodus 14:19-20 “The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night.”
And then in Numbers 9, I won’t read it due to time limitations, but it says that the cloud covered the tabernacle, and during the evening a pillar of fire over it, so that when it moved, then the camp of the Israelites moved, but when it stayed in place, then the Israelites stayed where they were. The Lord directed their movements by the cloud and by the pillar of fire.
Now that is the historical context of the ceremony for the lighting of the candelabras during the evening. And it was at this point, perhaps at the very moment that the priests lit all the lights and the temple and courtyard were set ablaze by their glory, that Jesus stands up and declares; “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
Now there are a number of things that can be understood from that incredible proclamation. The first thing we should point out is that this is the second “I AM” statement that the Lord makes. He has already said, "I am the bread of life." He will say in chapter 10 that “I AM the Good Shepherd" and that he gives life to the sheep. He will later on say “I AM the door, and that if men enter through him they will have everlasting life. And then He will say “I AM the resurrection and the life.” He will also say “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life." And finally he will say “I AM the true vine.”
All seven of those “I AM” statements would have been recognized by the Jews as a statement of deity. It would remind them of the meeting Moses had with God at the burning bush, and when Moses asked God for His name, He said, “I AM THAT I AM.” What that meant was that God would not allow Moses to put Him in a box. A name in Old Testament times defined you. But God would not allow Himself to be limited to a name. He has many names because it takes many names to speak of the multifaceted nature of God.
There is I think a disturbing trend among Christians today, especially in the music industry, to call God by the name of Love. God is love. But that is not all that God is. And so we do Him a disservice if we limit Him by naming Him according to one characteristic and denying His other attributes. We must recognize and worship God for who He is, and not who we want Him to be.
But among the Jews, they would have recognized that “I AM” was a reference to God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. So it is a reference to deity. It is interesting that the first words recorded in the Bible that God spoke was “let their be light” in Genesis 1:3. It says in Genesis that in the beginning there was darkness, and chaos ruled over the earth. What a picture of the world without God. But then it says the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and God said, “let there be light.” That is a picture of the gospel, is it not? The Light became the light of the world. It’s interesting that before the sun was created, Light was given to the world.
1John 1:5 says that God is light. So in effect, Jesus is declaring Himself as God. He is the Light that existed with God and who was God. He is the source of life which is characterized as light. And He came down to a world in darkness and chaos and brought the light of truth. I don’t think I should have to tell you folks here today that the world is in darkness. The world is an evil place. You only need to pick up a newspaper, or spend a few minutes looking at the news on television or the internet and it becomes apparent that the world is in darkness. Jesus said in John 3:19 that even though Light came into the world, men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
And that illustrates what John was saying in chapter 1 vs.5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Actually the word translated “comprehend” could have two meanings: 1)comprehend as in understanding the Light, or 2) comprehend might be translated as overcome. The darkness could not overcome the Light. In fact, we know that Light has triumphed over darkness. We haven’t yet seen the culmination of that triumph, but the battle has already been won. Darkness may look like it’s winning if you watch the news, but we have seen the headlines of the newspaper of the future. God wins. Darkness loses. In fact, the forces of darkness are already vanquished foes. But we still are called to stand firm and fight the good fight of faith until the Lord comes back.
Also, Jesus is referring to the fact that He was the Light which led the Israelites out of bondage. He was the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and they that followed Him were led out of enslavement in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land.
Now the Messianic metaphor of light is readily apparent in the prophecies, found particularly in Isaiah. In Isaiah 60:1-2 for example, speaking of the coming of the Messiah; "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.” Notice how that prophecy echoes the Genesis account.
And though there are many others, let’s look at Isaiah 9:1-2, which also is quoted from in Matthew 4, “ But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.”
All of these and many more speak of the coming of the Messiah as the appearance of light shining in a dark world. I can’t help but think in this context of the Apostle Paul, who before his conversion was known as Saul, the persecutor of Christians. And the reason that Saul was arresting Christians and even putting them to death was because they taught that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. To him this was blasphemy and worthy of death.
So it’s ironic that when God chose to reveal Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus, He did so as a flash of blinding light. It was a light so bright that Saul became blind for three days. God showed Saul that though he thought that he knew the truth, the fact was that he was spiritually blind. The Lord said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And Saul said, “Who are you Lord?” And the voice out of the light said, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting.”
That conversion really illustrates the principle of the Lord as light. The world is in darkness, the world is blind to the reality of who Jesus is, and what He came to do. But when the light of God shines in our hearts, it illuminates the truth about Christ, that He came to save us from our sins, and it illuminates the depravity of our sins so that we recognize our need of forgiveness and our need of a Savior.
I just want to emphasize that this illumination is a sovereign act of God by which we see the truth and we see our condition. Without God especially shining the light in our heart, we will not be able to recognize the truth, or to know that we need to repent. So there is a need as it was in the beginning, for the Spirit of God to move upon the darkness and void of our souls, and bring light to illuminate the eyes of our heart, so that we might recognize the truth.
So Jesus is the Messianic Light of the world, the very Light of God, sent by God, so that the world might be saved. And then notice the second phrase; “He who follows Me will not walk in darkness.” Now that symbolically was represented by the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire that the Israelites followed as they wandered in the wilderness.
But fortunately, we have a paraphrase of that statement made by Jesus Himself in chapter 12 vs 46: Jesus says, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” So we can understand that Jesus is saying that to believe in Him is to follow Him. You believe that He is the Light of the world, that He was in the beginning with God, and that He was God and all things were made by Him. And if you believe that He came to the world to save the world by His atonement on the cross for our sins, then you simply follow Him, you obey Him, you adhere to Him, you worship Him. You don’t add a little Jesus to an already full agenda. If you really believe He is the source of all life, the source of abundant life, then you forsake all to follow Him. He is the pearl of great price which you will pay anything to have. He is the treasure in a field which finding you sell everything to buy.
It’s like the story of the fountain of youth which Ponce de Leon risked everything to find. If you really found the fountain of youth, then nothing else is important. You move there and live there and drink of it constantly. As Jesus said in chapter 7, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
I think that the problem with most people today is that they don’t really believe that Jesus is the source of life. They may think that Jesus is an important part of life, but not the only source of life. They see Christianity as somewhere on the lower part of the priority list. It’s important, but not as important as my marriage, or my fiancé, or my career, or money, or sports, or whatever. Not really. We say He is, but our lives say otherwise. Unfortunately, we are not fooling God, but only ourselves.
So not only is He the source of life, He is the guide of life. I think to follow Christ means to become a disciple of Christ. The disciples left everything and followed Him. When Jesus asked them if they too would leave Him, when the great crowd had left Him after one of His messages, Peter said, “where are we to go Lord? For you have the words of life.”
Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’” If we truly believe that He is the source of life, then we follow Him so that we may eat of that spiritual food and live. To not follow Him would be to wither away from spiritual hunger. We follow Him because we live by His word. His word feeds us, so that we may grow in maturity to be like Him.
But back to the metaphor of light, we follow Him because as Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” We will walk in the light because we walk according to the word. We follow the light of God’s word, step by step, day by day. This is how the Holy Spirit leads us in the paths of righteousness. This is how we do not walk in darkness. First of all we have the light of the Spirit of God to shine in our hearts. And then we have the light of the word to guide us in the truth.
This is the path of sanctification. Like I have said so many times, as you are obedient to the light God has shown you, He will reveal to you more light. You cannot understand truth and be conformed to the truth, by standing still or sitting in a monastery some where. You comprehend the truth by following, obeying the truth, step by step, each flagstone of your journey another truth of God proven and made manifest by your life, by your discipleship.
I wonder sometimes at so called Christians who I have known for 15 years or so, and they don’t seem to have grown at all. They still hold onto weird prophesies or spiritual fantasies that they held to years before. I wonder why they haven’t grown in their faith. And the answer must be because they have not been obedient to the light God has shown them. They have not allowed the word of God to guide them in the truth. You cannot not grow without discipleship.
The last phrase of Jesus’ statement we have already alluded to, but we will look at it briefly in closing; “But will have the Light of life.” First, as I’ve already pointed out, when you believe in Christ and follow Christ, you receive Christ. Christ is the Light. So when we believe in Him then we have the Light of Christ within us. Then we become lights in the world. As the moon reflects the light of the sun, so we reflect the light of Christ. That’s what Isaiah 60 said, “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” We shine because His Light is in us.
But having that Light in us, and then following the Light, also means that we can see clearly. We can have discernment. We have understanding of the word of God. John 16:13 says, ”But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” And in 1John 4:6 we read, “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” So we do not walk in darkness if in truth the Spirit of Christ lives in us. As we walk in obedience to the truth, He illumines our hearts so that we know the truth and have discernment.
And notice He correlates that the Light is life. “The Light of life.” The word “life” is “zoe" in the Greek. It means animated life, abundant life, the absolute fullness of life. It means eternal life, everlasting life. It doesn’t say you will one day get life, but you will have the Light of life, present tense. Zoe life is a present reality, not just a future one.
Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” I know that a lot of people want to take that statement and run to Macy’s with it. But we should all know that is not the right interpretation of that. What He is promising is abundant life, fruitful life, meaningful life, a blessed life, Those that have been in our Wednesday evening Bible studies know what I am talking about when I speak of the beatific vision. It refers to the ultimate source of blessing, to be in the light of God’s countenance. In that place is fullness of life, for He is the pure source of life, abundant life, even eternal life. And you can have that life now, if you will just receive Him and follow Him.
We sometimes hear someone use the expression, “it was like a light bulb went on” to describe an “a ha” moment. A more sophisticated word is an epiphany, which means a sudden revelation of truth. I wonder if someone here today has perhaps heard the gospel for years, and suddenly today a light has shone upon their hearts. Suddenly they had an epiphany, perhaps like Paul had on the road to Damascus, a realization of who Christ is, and what He came to do, and what our response must be if we are to have the Light of Christ in us.
If that person is you, then I pray that you will accept Him today. As His light has shown in your heart, I trust that the depravity of your heart has been revealed, and you know your need of a Savior, of forgiveness. You can have that forgiveness and know the abundant life that God has provided through Jesus Christ through repentance of your sins and faith in who Christ is. Then simply commit to follow Him, leaving all the darkness of this world behind and simply follow Him, and He will lead you and guide you in the truth.
Let me close with the words of John found in 1John 1:5-7. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
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