John 1:4-13 The Light of the World (Rev. Erik Veerman)
John 1:4-13 – The Light of the World
Please turn in your Bibles to John 1:4-13.
We started this new series in the Gospel of John two weeks ago. Remember the 5 “J”s of John. John, the apostle who is the author; Jews who were John’s primary audience; Jerusalem where much of the setting took place; Jesus, of course, the focus of the book; and Jehovah – the emphasis that Jesus is God in the flesh.
Then last week, we jumped in to verses 1-3.
John’s Gospel account doesn’t begin with Jesus' genealogy nor the angels announcing of his coming, nor his birth in a manger. No, rather, John begins much earlier. He goes back to creation itself - the beginning of time. He reveals that Jesus is the very Word of God. He has always been and continues to be God. He is One with the Father and the Spirit. He has always existed. He is Christ, through whom God created all things.
He begins there because he wants his readers to know that Jesus is truly God and creator.
That brings us to verses 4-13. Instead of focusing on Christ's identity, we now learn about his purpose. The Word, who is Christ, is the light of the world. You’ll hear that in our text. As I read, you will also hear a reference to a John. This John is not the Apostle John, but rather John the Baptist. He was sent by God to testify to Christ.
Let’s now come to God’s Word
Reading of John 1:4-13
Prayer
Light is essential for life. I think you would agree with me.Without light, we cannot see. It exposes reality and reveals our surroundings. It purifies and penetrates. Light carries information across galaxies. The light of the sun warms the earth and perks us up. It gives energy to plants and trees. Really countless organisms use light to sustain life.
It’s no wonder that light is used in Scripture to illustrate God and his goodness and purity. And it’s no wonder that darkness, the absence of light, illustrates sin and evil. That’s because we intuitively know what light is. We understand it’s illuminating nature. When it is dark outside and we need to walk or drive somewhere, we know we need light to see where we are going. We understand that evil and unrighteousness often happens in the dark.
Take the Psalms for example. God’s Word is described as being a light to our path. Elsewhere, God is described as being light. In our call to worship, we read that “The Lord is our light and our salvation, whom shall we fear?”
We’re also told in the Psalms that blessed are those that walk in the light of the Lord.
And in them, we’re given the contrast between light and darkness. God’s light dawns in the darkness for the upright.
And that is just the Psalms.
So, when we get to John 1 and we read in these verses about the Word being the light of men and the darkness not overcoming it… and John the Baptist witnessing to Christ’s light, we can understand it. The light of truth and righteousness in contrast to the darkness of sin and evil. We are to see the light of Christ and walk in his light.
By the way, we are still in the opening verses of John’s Gospel. We call this John’s prologue. He's setting the stage by revealing the various themes in his book. And one of those themes is light. It’s actually one of the apostle John’s favorite themes. He speaks of light not just in this book but also his three letter and in the book of Revelation.
In your bulletin on page 4, you’ll see an outlin. We’ll consider 3 things about this light.
#1. The Revealing and Overpowering Light of Christ (verses 4-5)
#2. Witnessing to the Light of Christ (verses 6-8)
And #3. Receiving and Rejecting the Light of Christ (verses 9-13)
1. The Revealing and Overpowering Light of Christ (verses 4-5)
Again, number 1 - the revealing and overpowering light of Christ.
As John continues to reveal who this Word of God is, he says this in verse 4: “in him was life.” Prepositions are important. The preposition used here is “in” and not “through.”
“In him was life.” It’s speaking of Christ’s life. It's not talking about the flesh and blood life of Jesus’ human nature nor is it talking about our life in him. Rather, it’s talking about Jesus’ divine nature. We know that from the next few words. His life was shining forth and was penetrating the darkness. So the life spoken of here is Christ's being and existence as God. Notice it’s the same verb that we considered last week - “was”. It’s imperfect active. Christ’s life always was and continues to be. I like how one commentator described Christ’s life: "[it] refers to the fulness of God's essence, his glorious attributes: holiness, truth, …love, omnipotence, sovereignty. This full, blessed life is said to have been present in the Word and this from all eternity…"
It is that life – the fulness of God in Christ – which is the light of men. And it makes sense. Christ’s righteousness and holiness and truth and love is our light. It is the source of light for all humanity.
I mentioned that this theme is all through this book. Let me highlight three instances.
· In chapter 3, Jesus said, "the light has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than the light because their works are evil." In those verses he goes on to describe what it means to walk in the light.
· In chapter 8, the most famous one, Jesus said, "I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life"
· And in chapter 12, Jesus said, "while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light"
In these different passages, Jesus is calling us to #1 see his light; #2 believe his light and #3 walk in his light.
As we work our way through John, we'll have plenty of time to consider all the aspects of light applied to Jesus, but as an introduction, verses 4-5, give us two of them.
1. First, the light of Christ's life is there for all to see – verse 4. And it emanates from his life. SO, his eternal being and nature are being displayed to us through his light. His goodness and truth and righteousness are there for us to see. And when we see it, God is revealing to us, Christ’s nature. We see him when we see his light. Through his light, God reveals Christ and shows us that we need his light. He is our light… which includes of course, the path we are to walk in his goodness and righteousness and truth. So, his light reveals his life and our need for his light.
2. Second, verse 5, his light reveals darkness. Did you notice in verse 5 that the verb is now present tense. The light, it says, "shines in the darkness." The light of Christ IS revealing unrighteous and evil. That’s what light does - it reveals what is in the dark. By the way, this is another parallel to Genesis. This time John 1 recognizes that creation has been corrupted by evil and sin – that is the darkness mentioned. Elsewhere in John, we read about the "works of darkness." Darkness is that which is opposed to the light of Christ. It’s anything contrary to his light – That would include wickedness and foolishness and unrighteousness. And notice that the darkness has not overcome the light. Other translations use other words there like the darkness has not apprehended the light… or comprehend it or extinguished it. Indeed, darkness cannot put out the light.
I shared this once before, but back when I was in college, I spent several days on a mission trip to Sweden. We were ministering to kids from eastern Europe who had come to a camp. For one of our outings, we went to a very large cave in the area. It was safe. You know, it had railings and the such, and you could go way back into the cave. And so we did, we went as far as we could. And then we all decided to turn off our flashlights. It was dark. I mean like dark dark. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. One of the other leaders had brought a lighter – you know a small butane lighter. And he lit it. That little flame lit up the cave. It was quite amazing how such a small light could illuminate the darkness. We could see one another and we could see the cave around us. And then we read some of the Scriptures about light. I think we read from John 1 – I don’t know for sure, but it makes sense. “In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”
Darkness cannot overcome light. Darkness is, in fact, the absence of light. So, when light is revealed, darkness will be exposed.
And that is what Christ has done. His love and justice and holiness and truth has revealed the darkness – evil and sin. It not only reveals it, but it cannot be overcome by it. It’s really the other way around. The light overcomes the darkness. Christ has triumphed over the darkness. And that triumph has come through the cross and in his resurrection. Evil and sin have been fully exposed. The light of Christ in his life is in the act of overcoming darkness and revealing the path of life and purifying our hearts and minds. And one day soon, evil and sin will be defeated forever when the light of Christ comes to full fruition… when Jesus’ return in Glory for all to see.
Well, there is a lot more to say about light, which we'll get to as we work through John. The summary of point 1 is that Christ’s light reveals his nature, shows us our need, and exposes sin and evil.
2. Witnessing to the Light of Christ (verses 6-8)
Number 2. Witnessing to the light of Christ.
In verses 6 and following, the Apostle John begins to transition from the lofty truths about the Word of God to that Word who has come in human flesh.
We're told of another John, as I mentioned, who was sent to bear witness to the light. Notice that the word "witness" is used three times. His role is to testify to the light.
We call John the Baptist the last Old Testament prophet because he was sent as the final prophet before Christ. John's purpose in being sent was to point to Jesus as the Messiah – the Savior – who was promised to come.
And I want you to notice the contrast in verses 6-8. The contrast is between Christ, the Word of God, and John the Baptist.
· John was not God, but rather, as verse 6 says, he was a man.
· Furthermore, John was not eternal nor do things find their existence in him. Rather, he was sent by God, as it says.
· And as verse 8 puts it, He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light."
· Later in this chapter, John the Baptist himself will say, "I am not the Christ."
It appears from these verses that some were confused about the difference between John the Baptist and Jesus. We’re not told the specifics, but perhaps some saw John and Jesus as equals. Or perhaps there was competition between their respective followers. Maybe some said, "I am a disciple of John" or maybe even, "I was baptized by John." Or, I was baptized by one of Jesus’ disciples. Isn't that human nature? John Calvin is my boy. Oh yeah, well, Charles Spurgeon is mine. Well, neither of them can come close to Augustine or the early church fathers. It’s what we do, isn’t it.
We don’t know what dynamic was at play. But we do know what these verses make absolutely clear. John the Baptist was not the light. Rather, he was a witness to the light. In other words, he was verifying that Jesus was the true light.
By the way, the theme of being a witness runs throughout the book. I did a search on the word "witness" and it is used 27 times in the Gospel of John. The first several are about John the Baptist bearing witness to Christ. But that is not the only witness. God the Father and God the Spirit bear witness to Jesus as the Son. Jesus' works and miracles bear witness that he is Christ. Jesus himself bears witness that he is God the Son. Jesus's disciples bear witness to him as God in the flesh. That will definitely be a theme we come across over and over
In a couple of weeks, we'll come back to John the Baptist. If you scan down to verses 19 and following, you'll see that we're given specifics of how John witnessed to Christ.
But the bigger point is that John the Baptist was not pointing to himself. Rather, he was witnessing to Christ as the light. John was like a mirror, you know. He reflected the light of God and directed people to the source of God’s light. And that source was and in Christ – the light of world.
3. Receiving and Rejecting the Light of Christ (verses 9-13)
Which brings us to #3.
Receiving and rejecting the light of Christ.
A couple of weeks ago, we considered the purpose statement of John's Gospel. That was in chapter 20 verse 31. We read that John wrote these things… do you remember why? so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, we may have life in his name.
In chapter 1, when we get to verses 9-13, it's here that we get the first glimpse of John’s purpose in writing. He wants people to see Jesus for who he is as the light. He wants people to believe. And in these verses, John sets up the major conflict that almost every single chapter confronts. Who will believe?
In verse 10, John writes that the light is in the world, and then he reiterates that the world was made through him.
But then he makes two important statements. #1. End of verse 10 - The world did not know him and #2. Verse 11 - his own people did not receive him. The Jewish people didn’t receive Jesus, even though they had been given the covenants, the law, the prophecies, and the promises. All of those things were witnessing to the light, yet, when the light came, many of the Jewish people did not recognize him.
Yet, he was the very one who created the world and whom they had been waiting for… for centuries. He had come, but they, as it says, received him not.
This is why John is writing. He wants people to see the light and believe. He wants #1 the world to see the light. AND #2 he wants to confront the Jewish people about rejecting the light.
We see that theme throughout the book. John writes that many did receive Jesus, include many of the Jews. In fact, the word “many” is used many times. Let me highlight a few.
· Chapter 2 – "many believed in his name who saw the signs he was doing"
· Chapter 4 – "Many Samaritans believed"
· Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 and Chapter 10 each include the phrase “many believed.”
· Chapter 11 – listen to this one: "many of the Jews who… had seen what he did, believed"
· Chapter 12 – a similar thing – "many on account of [Lazarus – who Jesus had raised] were believing in Jesus." And also in 12, "many of the authorities believed in him"
It's quite pervasive. Yes, many rejected him, and we are going to see that, but many would come to believe. He wanted his readers to know that… because he wanted his readers to likewise believe.
I want to take a brief tangent and talk about application. You know, in the last 2-3 years we have studied Proverbs, 2 Corinthians, and Malachi. Think about the different kinds of life application in each – they are very different.
· In Proverbs, it was about applying the wisdom of God in the rubber-meets-the road decisions of life. How do we follow God’s path?
· 2 Corinthians included many things, but a big one was living with Gospel hope in affliction and pain and conflict.
· Malachi, if you remember, was very different. It dug deep into our heart idols and our worship and our marriages… and it called us to repent.
Isn’t that quite a diversity of life application?
But let me ask, what is the primary application of John? What does John's Gospel emphasize over and over for his readers… including us? The answer is, we’re called to believe.
Yes, we are going to see ways in which our lives do not reflect the light of Christ. But the main application of John is to believe. Believe in Christ. Believe in the Word of God. Believe in his promises. Believe in the Salvation that he offers. Believe in the Father and Spirit and Son as One God. It’s to turn from our unbelief in whatever ways we haven’t believed, and to believe. And that applies to all of us.
As the father who had a child with an unclean spirit said – said to Jesus, "I believe, but help my unbelief." That captures our hearts.
Briefly in closing, verses 12 and 13 reveal the blessing that those who do believe will receive. It says, "…to all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God." New life in him.
There’s a lot in there in that last sentence. I almost shortened our sermon text, again. We don’t have sufficient time today to cover it. However, it’s yet another theme that will come up in the book - being born again and becoming children of God. It’s a big emphasis in chapter 3. So, we’ll get there soon. But the summary is that those who believe in Jesus as the light of the world, will be given new life. Will become God’s children, born anew in him.
So, may we believe in Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. The darkness will not overcome his light. He has come and has offered his life so that we may live. May we believe in his name.