Intro
The book of John has several words that end up winding their way all the way through both his Gospel and his Epistles. In his Gospel John sets forth the Reformed antithesis with the repeated words “Light” and “Darkness.” St. John, inspired by the Holy Spirit sees men in only on of two camps. They are a people of the light or they are a people belonging to “Darkness.” There is no third category and no tertium quid. If one belongs to darkness they belong to death. If one belongs to the light one belongs to Life.
As we are going to see this is is a theme that develops its way through the book of John.
I.) Light as Promised Re-creation (John 1:4-9)
When we look at Scripture as a whole one of the ways that we break it down is to speak of the Scriptures as God’s story of “Creation-Fall-Redemption and Re-creation.” This promised “Re-creation” is spoken of in Isaiah as connected to Light.
In Isaiah, for example, we can read of Messianic light that is coming that will announce God’s eschatological promised age to come,
Isaiah 60:1-3 Arise, O Jerusalem; be bright, for thy [a]light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2 For behold, darkness shall cover the [b]earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3 And the Gentiles shall walk in [c]thy light, and Kings at the brightness of thy rising up (cmp. Isaiah 42:6-7, 16).
I begin here because this Isaiah passage forces us to begin even earlier for in Isaiah 60 here the way that “light” is mentioned echoes Genesis 1:2-4. When Isaiah says, “darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples” likely is a connection with to Gen. 1
2 … and [e]darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God [g]moved upon the [h]waters.3 Then God said, Let there be light: And there was [i]light. 4 And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated [j]the light from the darkness.”
So Isaiah 60:1-3 is setting forth the coming re-creation and restoration of Israel against the back drop of the initial creation. The re-creation will have light shine upon it just as the initial creation did. When we get to the Gospel of John and when we note the application that the Lord Christ is the light we suspect that He is the Light of which Isaiah wrote. In the Lord Christ the fulfillment of the Isaianic prophecies has come to pass.
John opens up his gospel by saying of Christ, “In Him was life and the life was the light of man.”
We are being told here the long awaited re-creation has come in the Lord Christ. Christ is the light that has come that Isaiah spoke of. In Luke / Acts there is especial application between the Light in Isaiah as applied to the Gentiles but here we see that John opens with Isaiah’s idea the light has come to God’s people.
4 [k]In him [l]was life, and that life was [m]the light of men. 5 [n]And that light shineth in the wilderness, and the darkness [o]comprehendeth it not.6 ¶ [p]There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This same came for a witness, to bear witness of that light, that all men[q]through him might believe. 8 He was not [r]that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. 9 [s]This was [t]that true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
Side-note #1 — Christ as “the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” confirms that all men are culpable. No man has an excuse against God for their rebellion for the true light which lighteth every man has come into the world.
Side-note #2 — When John speaks of the Light (the Lord Christ) having light in Himself this is another claim to deity we find in John. John will quote Jesus later saying that as the Father has life in Himself so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.
II.) Light as that which exposes and condemns (John 3:19f)
John 3:19And this is the condemnation, that that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than that light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every man that evil doeth, hateth the light, neither cometh to light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds might be made manifest, that they are wrought according to God.
Here the Lord Christ sets forth the reason that the world rejects Him. In His arrival the Lord Christ is the light that exposes whether a person is righteous or not. So, this light that comes into the world that bespeaks the restoration and re-creation is an offense and elicits hatred from those who love darkness.
And that is what we see in the ministry of the Lord Christ. He was despised, hated, and rejected by those who hated God.
One Implication
Now in as much as we are reflectors of this light we likewise will be hated by those who doeth evil. Really, in this culture and in these times it really is the case that our expectation should be to be hated by all just the right people. We need to remember that “If the world hates us, we know that it hated Christ before it hated us. If we are of the light we will get the same response as He who is the Light.
As I mentioned at the beginning we should note here in John 3 the interplay with darkness. In John the theme is not only light but darkness. We shall see that as we move through these passages. One of the most interesting ways that John uses the idea of darkness is to note the presence of nighttime. Nicdoemus comes to Jesus, John records, “when it was night,” and in the Judas betrayal. John tells us that Judas goes to betray the Lord Christ and then John adds, almost as an aside, that “it was night.” Judas goes to do his hate work of quenching the light and He does so in the context of darkness (night).
III.) Light as a metaphor for God’s Law-Word (John 8:12)
In Psalm 119 as combined with John 8:12 we notice a connection between the God’s law-word as a light that shines upon one’s path and the Lord Christ. In John 8 the metaphor of a light to illumine a path may well be a connection to Psalm 119. This idea of God’s Law-Word being a light unto our path is taken up by the Lord Christ as he applies it to Himself.
The Psalmist says,
Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a [b]lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.
The Lord Christ can say,
John 8:12 [d]Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am that light of the world: he that followeth me, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have that light of life.
So, we might say here that in this couplet of Psalm 119 and John 8 that the Lord Christ is declaring that He Himself is the incarnation of God’s Law-Word which for the Psalmist was his lamp and light. If we remember that Psalm 119 is all about the delight that the Pslamist finds in God’s laws, precepts, and judgments we would be well served to remember that there is no avoidance of walking in the darkness apart from the Light which is the law and whom also is Christ.
IV.) The Light as connected with the Healing ministry of the Messiah (John 9:4f)
In Isaiah we read of the promised Servant and His work,
Isaiah 42:16 ¶ And I will bring the [s]blind by a way, that they knew not, and lead them by paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them…
In John we see the Lord Christ as the Light that quite literally fulfills all that Isaiah spoke of.
John 9:4 [c]I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is [d]day: the night cometh when no man can work.5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
This passage is in the context of the man born blind. Immediately, after referring to himself as the “light of the world” Jesus heals the blind man. Those present would likely have seen Isaiah’s prophecy playing out before them. Isaiah spoke of a Messiah who would be a light who opens the eyes of the blind and would make the darkness light before them.
The Lord Jesus is the Messiah who is bringing the new creational realities to bear upon the fallen world. In Christ, the age to come has come and in Christ, who is the Light of the World, the age to come is reversing the sin corrupted realities of this present age. The healing of the blind man (living in a world of darkness) is evidence that the re-creation has come in Jesus who is the Messianic light.
V.) Light as our identity (John 12:35)
John 12:35 [n]Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you: walk while ye have that light, lest the darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in the dark, knoweth not whither he goeth.36 While ye have that light, believe in that light, that ye may be the [o]children of the light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and hid himself from them….46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me, should not abide in darkness.
Isaiah 9:2 — The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
As we talked about earlier our connection to Christ is to be so intimate that we take on His character of light.
Conclusion
Really this has been just the briefest of survey of the usage of light in John. There are more connections that we could make. This gives us enough to see that this metaphor that Christ uses has an important background. The theme of “Light” weaves itself all the way from Genesis to the very end of Revelation.
We speak of Christ as “the light” being a metaphor for God’s Truth, God’s presences, God’s recreation, God’s condemnation unto those who hate the light, God’s direction via His Law Word.
We would note again that Light in the OT was spoken of in the context of the Messiah and the promised re-creation. The Messiah has come and, in principle, this present wicked age has been and so is being rolled back.
This is objectively true and does not depend upon how we personally feel about it. The Light has come. We are children of the Light.
We have to live then, as we have been fully declared to be.
