“The Conversationalist” Sermon Series
When Jesus Speaks Through Parables
“I Am the Light of the World”
John 8:12-30
Introduction
“Why does it take so long to adapt to darkness, you may ask. That is because when you switch off the lights, the first thing that happens to your eyes is that your pupil gets bigger or dilates to let in more light. But this light is not enough to see in the dark. So, the chemical rhodopsin in your rods splits into a few other chemicals and sends a message to the optic nerve, allowing your eyes to process even the faintest of light. The problem is that the chemical rhodopsin isn’t produced in darkness. And therefore, it takes 20-30 minutes for your eye to recombine those chemicals again for proper vision.
Now, if a pirate was fighting on the upper deck in the sunlight, then had to continue the fight under in the lower deck where it is usually pretty dark, it could take too long for their eyes to adjust, allowing him to see. Now, here comes the science behind using an eyepatch. The eyepatch used to help in preparing one eye to see in the dark, so when they would go to the lower deck pirates could swap the eye patch from one eye to the other and see with the eye that has already adjusted to dim light. This would help them to instantly see in the dark.”[1]
When you have been in the sunlight it’s hard to see in the dark, and when you have been in the dark, it is hard to see in the light. Jesus calls us to make a decision to choose one or the other.
Prayer
Jesus States “I am the Light of the World” (vv. 12-20)
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
In John’s gospel Jesus has seven “I am” statements; so far we have seen that Jesus is the Bread of Life, the True Vine, the Good Shepherd, and here the Light of the World. In this passage, there are two ceremonies featured each day of the Festival of Tabernacles, the water ceremony each morning and the light ceremony each evening. This passage is dealing with how Jesus is fulfilling the second of these two ceremonies.[2]
“At dusk, the priests would light four huge lamps in the court of women in the temple, high enough that they had to climb ladders to light them. At the top of each light stand had four golden bowls filled with oil, with the worn-out undergarments of the priests used for wicks. This took place on the temple mount, the highest point in Jerusalem, and it was said that Jerusalem was lit by these lamps.”[3]
(v. 12) “I am the light of the world,” He spoke these words while standing in the temple treasury where the offering was collected; he was standing beneath these golden bowls as he spoke. “The lamps were intended to remind worshippers of God’s leading the people of Israel through the wilderness at night by a pillar of fire.”[4]
By Jesus saying, “I am the Light of the world,” he is saying that as God led the people in the wilderness, now He as God would lead the people (as the light) in a new way.
This was a role reserved for God alone.
In the OT the presence of God was symbolized in the Shekinah, the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day (Exodus 13:21-22; Ps. 78:14), and God’s salvation is pictured as light in Psalm 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” God’s people were delivered by the pillar of fire, and Jesus here promises the greater deliverance to eternal life by following him as the light of God.
Zechariah 14:6-7 talks about the lighting ceremony, “On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. 7 And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.” Jesus is saying that he is bringing a new light from God not only for the Jews but for the entire world. When a person puts their faith in Jesus the darkness of sin and death will recede and disappear.[5]
“Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” – Those who follow Jesus will not lose their way, but will have light to show them the way. Another way to look at this is, Christ will always bring light into the believer’s life and never at any time permit darkness to overwhelm her. Christ will always be present: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;” (Psalm 23:4).
Pharisee Argument #1 Where Are Your Witnesses?
13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” 14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. 16 Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.
The Pharisees, one of Jesus’ most fierce opponents, brings up a legal issue. Deuteronomy 19:15 demanded that two or three witnesses validate any legal claim, “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” These religious leaders are saying that Jesus is saying these things of himself (self-witness), but there are no witnesses to support his argument.
(v. 14) Jesus responds by saying, “my testimony is true, for I know where I came from (descended from heaven) and where I am going (ascending back to heaven),” The Pharisees don’t know of his origin or his final destination.
John 1:1-5, 14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, . . . (v. 14) And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
“Obviously, they accepted that statement but refused to hear the other four witnesses he called to testify at that point (John the Baptist, his works, the Father, and Scripture; 5:33-47).[6] It was pointless to argue with these self-righteous men. The Pharisees had the information in front of them, they saw the miracles, and knew of the fulfilled prophecy, they heard Jesus’ teachings – but they intentionally rejected all of it because of how it would change their lives if they became his follower.
While Jesus is the light, a person can close themselves off from that light.
Romans 1:18, 21 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. . . For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
(v. 15) Jesus says, “I judge no one,” – Jesus did not come to judge the world, but to save sinners. John 3:17 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” However, Jesus’ presence does force people to make a decision of faith.
“As the light of the world, he exposes all that belongs to the darkness of this world,[7] “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, Eph. 5:13.” What do we do when light has shown upon our darkness? It is not judgement of sin, but an invitation to have a relationship with God.
17 In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. 18 I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
The religious leaders had an interpretation of the Bible, and Jesus is saying that The Trinity’s (specifically the Father and Son) is the most trustworthy (accurate testimony) possible. Because Jesus is God (perfect), He bears witness about himself. He also says that God the Father bears witness that Jesus is who He says he is.
Pharisee Argument #2 Where Is Your Father?
19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
Jesus has gotten this question before, but even the disciples (specifically Philip, John 14:8) don’t understand that Jesus’ origin is heaven, that He is God, etc. Jesus repeatedly says that the only way to know God is through Him, and since the Pharisees don’t know Jesus, they can’t know the Father.
For the Jewish people, this is their identity; “They are the covenant people and the God of the OT is their God. Jesus’ point is that a new covenant has arrived, and God now is known in and through his ‘one and only’ Son (1:14, 18; 3:16).
Without Light There is Death (vv. 21-24)
21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
(v. 22) “So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above.” – It was a common Jewish belief that is a person committed suicide then they could not “pay with his life for the shedding of his blood (Gen. 9:5), that person was bound to spend the life hereafter in a state of damnation.”[8] Jesus is not going below, he is going above – it is these men who reject Jesus who think they are going up because of their self-righteous behavior, who are going down.
Jesus then tells the group that He is going away (to be with the Father, heaven) and they cannot come. They can’t go where Jesus is going because they are going to (v. 21) or “you will die in your sin,” and again in (v. 24) “I told you that you would die in your sins,” They cannot go to heaven, because they are still in sin – how do they then deal with their sin problem? Jesus says, “unless you believe that I am he,”
In v. 12 Jesus said that He was, “the light of life.” A person must believe that Jesus gives a person eternal life, for apart from Him a person will “die in their sin” eternally separated from God. A person cannot have a saving relationship with Jesus, by faith without also understanding who He is. “Unless we believe that He is more than man we can never trust Him with that faith that is a saving faith.”[9]
“To die in your sins means to die with the burden of one’s own sin and its penalty enforced by a righteous God, Romans 6:23 ‘For the wages of sin is death.’”[10] Our physical death separates the body and the spirit; spiritual death separates the spirit from God.
In verse 21 the word sin is singular, and in 24 it is plural sins. They have various sins (their trying to kill Jesus, their stealing property from widows, becoming rich from the temple treasury, etc.) but there is one sin above them all that will leave them with no way to be rid of their sin – they do not believe in Him.
Jesus very clearly states that to live in heaven has to come through a faith in Him as God, and to not do so leaves one dead in their sins, eternally separated from God. To reject the light of God leaves you in eternal darkness and there is no escape.
But notice that they are focused on the idea of Jesus committing suicide and completely ignore Jesus saying they would “die in their sin.” “The ‘natural man’ is usually more given to curiosity and speculation than to repentance and transformation.”[11] The religious leaders like to take Jesus’ words and go off on tangents instead of dealing with the real issues of life. Our sin against God is one of life’s major issues.
Don’t Wait Until It is Too Late (vv. 25-30)
25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” 27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. 29 And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” 30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
(v. 25) “So they said to him, “Who are you?” – He has already told them again, and again, and again. “Jesus’ constant concern is to make them recognize that he comes from God and works in harmony with the Father.”[12] So Jesus turns to his coming death.
(v. 28) “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he” – Jesus is saying that when He is and has been crucified, then people would know that He is the Son of Man. Matthew 27: 51-54 “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
John said earlier in John 3:14-16 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, (Numbers 21:9) so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus knows what kind of death he will experience, He knows he will be betrayed, and He does this all of His own choice. He has the authority (given to Him by the Father) to lay down his life, and to take it up again (John 10:18).[13] Jesus also tells them ahead of time, “He has not left me alone” – Even when Jesus is hanging on the cross, when everything looks its worse, God the Father would be with Him.
(v. 26) “I declare to the world what I have heard from him” – Jesus’ mission is to provide salvation for the world, and so He declares what God the Father has told Him to say.
(v. 30) “As he was saying these things, many believed in him” – We aren’t told who the “many” were, but there would have been bystanders, maybe some of those that were arguing with Jesus, but as Jesus explained how He was the “light of the world,” people began to realize how they were “in sin,” and how only Jesus could save them from their sin.
“One inescapable truth jumps at us from these verses: the heresy that everyone will be saved some day denies the clear teaching of the Bible. There will be no escape for those that refuse the gospel.”[14]
____________________________
[1] https://htschool.hindustantimes.com/editorsdesk/knowledge-vine/ever-wondered-why-pirates-wore-eyepatches
[2] Grant Osborne, John Verse by Verse (Bellingham, Washington, Lexham Publishing, 2018) 208.
[3] Osborne, 209.
[4] Gerald L. Borchert, The New American Commentary, John 1-11 (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman & Holman Publishing, 1996) 296.
[5] John 1:5; 3:19-20; 12:35-36, 46 Osborne, 210.
[6] Borchert, 296.
[7] George Buttrick, Commentary Editor, The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 8 (Nashville, Tennessee; Abingdon Press, 1952) 596.
[8] Borchert, 300.
[9] Leon Morris, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, Michigan; WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981) 447.
[10] Kenneth O. Gangel, Holman New Testament Commentary, John (Nashville, Tennessee; Holman Reference, 2000) 163.
[11] George Allen Turner and Julius R. Mantey, The Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, Michigan; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964) 194.
[12] George Allen Turner and Julius R. Mantey, 195.
[13] “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”
[14] Gangel, 162.
