THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR
"I Am the Light of the World”
Rev.
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prca.orgDear radio friends,
In
John 8:12
Jesus
said, “I am the light of the world: he
that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but
shall have the light of life.”
It is somewhat
difficult to determine the exact context of our Lord’s words and thoughts. We could see that His words there in
John 8:12,
“I am the light of the world,” is a fitting summary of the incident of
the woman who was taken in adultery and in the filth of her sin. That is what is recorded in
John 8:1-11.
She had walked in darkness and the Lord had
shined the light of repentance and pardon into her soul. He had said to her, “Go, and sin no
more.” What a fitting conclusion Jesus
brings to that event by saying, “I am the light of the world. I have shined upon you the light of repentance. He that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness. Go, and
sin no more.”
It is certainly
true that repentance is the work of Jesus Christ as the light of God. When convicted of our sin and brought to
repentance and changed, then we shall follow Him and walk not in the darkness
of sin but in the light of life.
I think, however, that the Lord’s words in
John 8:12,
“I am the light of the world,” are to be
seen in a larger context than simply the woman who was taken in adultery. Jesus was in
There were two
things that were celebrated in connection with the Feast of the
Tabernacles. There was a pouring out of
water, reminding them of the water that came to them out of the rock to give
them water in the wilderness. And each
evening there was the lighting of candles.
Giant candles in the courtyard of the temple reminded them of how God
had led them by a pillar of fire in the wilderness to teach them that God was
their light.
So, in
John 7:37,
during the Feast of the Tabernacles, that great day, Jesus stood up and cried,
“If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and
drink.” He was the fulfillment of that
aspect of the Feast of the Tabernacles, pointing to the water that came out of
the rock. And now, in our text, He says again (we read in
John 8:12),
“Then spake Jesus again
unto them,…I am the light of the world. Those lights and candles commemorated at the
Feast of Tabernacles—I am the fulfillment of that.” Jesus proclaims that He is the only light,
the only light of lights, that only through Him can we be taken into fellowship
with God and live in the light of God’s face.
“I am the light of
the world,” said Jesus. Every discerning
Jew at the Feast of the Tabernacles would have known that Jesus was announcing
that He was the Messiah and that He was the very Son of God. “I am the light of the world.” Repeatedly in the Old Testament the
prophecies had identified the coming Messiah, the Christ, as the light.
Isaiah 9:2,
“The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light.”
Isaiah 60:1-3,
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of
the Lord is risen upon
thee.” By proclaiming Himself the light
of the world, Jesus was announcing Himself to the Jews and to us as the
promised Messiah, sent of the Father, according to His promise to bring
salvation. And He was also proclaiming
Himself to be God. Think of what He was
saying. In the context, again, of the
Feast of the Tabernacles, when that light reminded them of the pillar of fire
by night,
Specifically, what
does that mean about Jesus?
First of all, it
means holiness. Jesus reveals the
sinless purity of God and the holiness of the mighty. In
Isaiah 6:1-3
we are told that the angels
stand before God and God’s light shines forth.
And they cry out, “Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty.” When Jesus calls Himself the light of the
world, He means that He is the light that reveals the holiness of God. He (Jesus) stands before men and He says,
“God is holy.” That is what Jesus
says. Never does Jesus say, “Sin doesn’t
matter. Sin is unimportant.” But Jesus always comes to us and declares
“God is spotlessly pure. And that is why
I have come. Because His spotless holiness
requires that a payment be made for your sins.” As the light of the world, Jesus is
proclaiming that God is a holy God.
Secondly, He is
proclaiming that He is filled with wisdom and knowledge. That is true in our own language. You say, “Shed some light on this for me. I don’t understand.” Or you say, “That little girl is
bright.” So Jesus Christ, as the light,
is the One who alone can give the knowledge of God. We read in
II Corinthians 4:6,
“For God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” As the light, He is the One who gives us to
know God. As the light, He alone can
give us to know God, to learn of who God is.
The God of holiness? Yes. But the God also of grace and mercy. Learn about God. Learn of God’s wisdom and grace. How?
Only through Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world.
Thirdly, Jesus is
proclaiming that He is life. He is
proclaiming that He is holy; that He is the wisdom of God; and He is life. For we know from the creation that there can
be no life without light. Even
twenty-seven thousand feet deep down in the marina trench in the ocean, there
is life—fish and different types of life.
But take away the sun, and there can be no life at all. So God, in the beginning, on the first day,
said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, for there is no life in
darkness. Jesus, as the light, is the
source of life. He alone can bring us to
life, to God.
Finally, as the
light, Jesus is proclaiming Himself to be the glory of God. In Him is all the glory of God. Jesus is holy.
Jesus is wise. Jesus is
life. And Jesus is glorious. All the truth and all the reality of God shines out of Jesus.
God’s glory is the outshining. It
is the emitting of who He is. He is
glorious. Jesus says, “Look at Me. I am the shining of the glory of God
Himself. I am the shining of the glory
of God’s grace—that He gives His own Son that sinners
might live with Him.” Jesus is saying to
them, “Don’t think of that candle that they have lit in the temple
courtyard. But think of Me. I am the
light. I am holy, wise, life, and the
glory of God.”
“I am the light of
the world.” He means to say that He is
the only saving light. In all the world. In every race and in every culture and in every place on the earth. He is not just light to the Jews who lived at
that time in
That is, perhaps,
offensive. And, in fact, we might say
that all of the I Am’s of Jesus are offensive to
man. When He says, “I am the bread, I
alone can satisfy”; when He says, “I am the Good shepherd, I alone can save”;
when He says, “I am the light”; when He goes on to say, “I am the way, the
truth, and the life”—all of these I Am’s are
offensive to the pride of man. We would
say, “You are the light? What do you
mean? We are enlightened. We are enlightened sexually today. We are enlightened in our technology. We are enlightened in our science. We are so knowledgeable. Look at us!
We are light.” But Jesus says,
“No, apart from Me, you are darkness. There is only darkness in the world, fallen
away from God, rejecting the true God, living apart from God, serving
sin—thick, thick darkness. But I am the
light, the only light.”
The light of the
world that shines upon you is the grace, the renewing grace, of God. You come to Jesus and embrace Him as the life
and the glory and the truth of God and find knowledge and peace of your soul in
Jesus—to do that means that He opened your blind eyes to see, and flooded your
soul with the light, driving away the darkness of the guilt of your sin and the
power of evil. That is how He saved
you. You were blind. When one is blind, light can be all around
him, shining even into his face, but he doesn’t see it. As blind men we could stand on a sunny beach
in all its brightness, and all would yet be
darkness. No, our eyes must be
opened. We must have the ability to
see. Jesus must impart the ability to
see. He is the light of the world. He does that by imparting to you the
knowledge of your darkness and your sin, and then the holiness and the glory of
God and the grace of God and the cross of Jesus Christ and the payment of your
sin and hope of life eternal. In that
way, by grace, He is your light. He is
your light when He shines upon you His grace.
As the light of the
world, Jesus shines by dazzling grace into the hearts of God’s children
throughout the whole world. And we
see. What do we see? We see, first, our sin—my sin in such a way
that I could never see it apart from Jesus.
Apart from Jesus I would never go to the heart of it—the pride, the
anger, the enmity, the contempt of God.
Oh, many a man will
confess a mistake or two. He will
confess sin, especially when he is caught.
He will say, “I made a bad decision.
I made a mistake. I even hurt
others. There is something missing in my
life. I need to change.” But now hear a Christian as he confesses his sin (
Ps. 51):
“Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy
sight.” We see the mountain of iniquity
within our hearts, the pride, the corruption, the evil of our heart. As the light, Jesus gives us to see both the
misery of our sin and the marvelous grace of God—the grace of the holy
and the wise God who has given His Son Jesus Christ to remove that awful, awful
guilt of sin and to deliver us from that awful, awful bondage to sin and to
bring us humbly and obediently before the throne of God, there to bow and to
confess that He is God, the only God, the true God who alone can give light and
hope and life to my soul. He is light to
us.
He is not light to
all. As the light of the world, Jesus
does expose, Jesus does condemn, Jesus does stand
before men and say, “You cannot save yourself.
You are hopeless of yourself. No
matter what you do, there is no inherent goodness in you. You are in darkness. I am the light of the world, not you.” As that light, He exposes,
convicts. But apart from grace, one
responds to Jesus as the light with anger and says, “Who are you to tell me
that I am in darkness?”
Jesus Christ is the
light shining, by the grace of God, into this world, enlightening all of His
children and bringing them to know and to see God and His matchless grace. Is He light to you? Have you come to the light? Do you run from the light when you see your
sins and your unworthiness? Do not run. Do not flee.
Rather, “He that followeth me shall not walk
in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” said Jesus. The light of Jesus Christ attracts and draws
us closer to Him. When He shines within
our hearts we draw closer to God in the knowledge of the love of God. When the light shines into our hearts, let us
not deny it. Let us not try to change
what it shows. But let us confess, by
the grace of God, our sins. Let us not
try to cover up what the light of Jesus reveals about ourselves. Let us not try to pull a blanket of silence
over our sins or to hide them under the pillow of our excuses. But let us bring those sins that are revealed
by the light of Jesus and confess them—not pointing at others—but confess them
to God.
And follow
Jesus. To follow Jesus is to obey
Jesus. It means that it is your greatest
desire that you will be pleasing to Him at all times and will be as His loving
servant. You will want the light of God
to shine upon you and to show you the way every day in everything that you
do. You will confess that, apart from Jesus,
there is only darkness and despair and sorrow.
But with Jesus is fullness of life and joy. And then, said Jesus, “You will not walk in
darkness, but you shall walk in the light of life.”
When one walks in
darkness, he lives a life apart from God, apart from the acknowledging of
God. And in that way of rejecting God,
in that way of rejecting Jesus Christ, that darkness deepens until finally one
will walk into the darkness of hell, into the eternal night of death, eternal
death—the deep, the unbearable bleakness of the pit of hell prepared for all
those who reject the living and the true God and His Son Jesus Christ and walk
the eternal walk of darkness.
When Jesus says to
follow Him, that is the call. Embrace Him.
By a true and living faith we see, through faith, His light. Place your trust in Him and in Him alone. Follow the light of the world, the light that
shone in Bethlehem; the light that grew stronger as He went to the cross; the
light that was blinding upon the cross of Jesus Christ when He died to open
eternity for our souls; the light of His resurrection; the light of the Holy
Spirit working now in our hearts that we might believe in Him as our Savior and
our God. Do not walk in darkness. Do not walk in despair. Confess your sins. Follow Jesus, the light of the world!
And follow Him as
He leads safely home through the wilderness of this world, till finally we come
into the light of God, the home of God, where all is light.
Let us pray.
Father, we again
thank Thee for Thy Word and pray for its blessing upon our souls today. We pray that this glorious gospel might be
sounded—that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. Use this Word to convict and to slay the
awful darkness and pride of men and of our own souls. And bring us humbly to the light, so that in
the knowledge of Thee we bow before Thee in Jesus Christ and confess that He
alone is truth, He alone is light, He alone can give us life and the knowledge
of God. And give us that light of Jesus
in all of our darkness, that we might have comfort and peace today. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.