In Isaiah 60 the prophet looks forward to the time of Israel’s restoration to their own land after centuries of dispersion and captivity, saying, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee…and the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising (verses 1–3). Israel’s days of oppression and suffering will then be over, and, as blessed of Jehovah, the prophet can add, “The sun shall no more be thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory” (verse 19). Jerusalem will be the favoured and honoured centre of Messiah’s earthly kingdom; He will give light and blessing to His people, and “the knowledge of the Lord” shall fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9).
Isaiah also foretold the coming of the Lord as a light-giver before the setting up of His kingdom, even as it is written, “I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (49:6). This may include what we have already had in Isaiah 60, but it is quoted by the Apostle Paul in Acts 13:47 as having a present application.
It is in the light of the revelation of God in Jesus that the Christian walks, even as the Apostle John writes, “we walk in the light, as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7). We may not always walk according to the light, but every true believer in the Lord Jesus walks in the light of the knowledge of God. For the Christian, “the darkness is past, and the true light now shines,” and this light is in the unveiled face of Jesus. Once the true Light shone in Jesus when on earth; soon it shall shine for Israel in the renewed earth; but now we have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the Son of God in heaven.
The Gospel of John brings the Lord Jesus before us as “The Light of the world” (8:12; 9:5). God’s own Son had come down from heaven that the light of the revelation of God might shine for the blessing of men; and after the Spirit of God introduces the Son in all His glory as the eternal Word, He writes by the pen of His servant John, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men” (1:4).
Jesus, the Son of God, was “In the beginning,” eternal in His being, and yet distinct in Person, for “The Word was with God.” The fulness of Godhead was His, for “The Word was God,” and the distinctness of His Person was not only in time, but in eternity, for “He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2). Moreover, the creation is attributed to the Son, as it is also in Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1. How the Spirit of God delights to safeguard the divine glory of the Son who has become Man.
Only in One so great could the light of the revelation of God shine out, for only God could reveal God, but He had to come into the world as Man to do so. No creature, no matter how exalted, is capable of telling out the deep secrets of God’s heart, or making known what He is in His nature of love; but the Son, in whom there is life inherently, came from heaven to manifest what God is, and to tell out His disposition towards men. No longer need men be in any doubt as to what God is, for in His Son He is perfectly revealed; all that Jesus was, all that He said, and all that He did manifested the nature of God, and what God was in Himself, and His thoughts of men.
This divine light was not for Israel only, but for “men.” As is said in verse 9, “The true Light, coming into the world, is light for every man.” It was like the rising of the sun that brings its light for all. In past dispensations God had specially favoured the nation of Israel, calling them out to be His people on earth, and they will yet be peculiarly favoured in the millennium, as being the nation on earth that will be blessed under the new covenant, and be the divine centre of the Lord’s earthly kingdom. But the coming of “The true Light” could not be restricted to one nation, even though it was in the midst of Israel that it actually shone on earth.
Coming into a world of darkness, where men had not the knowledge of God, the Light did not dispel the darkness, for the “darkness comprehended it not.” When the sun arises each day, the darkness flees, but what is true in nature is not true in things spiritual. The coming of the Son but proved the impossibility of man in his natural condition receiving the knowledge of God. Under law, man had shown that he was incapable of keeping it; he could not have life on that ground; and when Christ came as the Light of life, man clearly showed there was no capacity in him to receive the divine revelation.
It was into the world His hands had made that Jesus came, but the men of this world, His creatures, did not know Him. In coming, He came specially to Israel, for He had special rights there, both in His house and His kingdom, but “His own received Him not.” Israel, more enlightened than the Gentiles, having the oracles of God, and standing in relation to God as His people, had no place in their hearts or in their schemes for the One who had come into the world to make His Father known.
Such is man! Even the most highly favoured, with all the privileges that God showered upon them, demonstrated that it is not in man naturally to receive the things of God, the spiritual things that had come from heaven in the incarnate Son of God. But God had resources to meet this situation, and He had a people prepared of Himself to receive His Son, the true Light, and the blessings He had brought for them.
Those who received the Son, and the light He brought from heaven “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Such had the privilege to take their place as children of God, with all the joy and affection that this brings to the soul. It was not until the light came that revealed God in His nature of love, and in His Name of Father, that it was possible for those born of God to know their relationship to God as His children.
Though the object of the coming of the Son was not to condemn the world, but to bring it salvation, yet the result of the world’s rejection of the Son was its condemnation, even as the Lord said, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:17-19). The same light that revealed God in all His love, revealed man in all the evil of his heart. The presence of the Son exposed all the hatred towards God that was pent up in the human heart.
There was not only the refusal of the light, but hatred of it. The presence of God’s Son discovered those whose deeds were “wrought in God,” but also those whose deeds were evil. Those who came to the light were those in whom God had wrought, and the Son brought to them the eternal life that was with the Father. But it was necessary for the Son to die before they could possess the eternal life that He had manifested: “the Son of Man must be lifted up.” In the gift of His Son, God manifested His great love for the world, for all who believed in Him would not perish, but have the eternal life.
When the Lord came to Sychar’s well, as recorded in chapter 4, it was the sixth hour, about the time when the sun shone in all its warmth and splendour, the light shining in all its brightness. Was it not so in a spiritual way? God is there seen in all the rich grace of His heart in Jesus, bringing living water to a thirsty soul, and telling a poor sinful woman that the Father was seeking worshippers who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.
This stranger did not resent the light shining in to the deepest recesses of her heart, for the light that exposed her in all her sin and need also revealed the heart and mind of God, and the glory of the Person of Jesus, and this divine light did not repel her, it attracted her to the Son of God. God was working with her, else she would have fled when exposed, and hated the light that showed how sinful she was. Her words to the men of Sychar declared the effect of the light on her, “Come, see a Man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
After the searching light of the words of Jesus had exposed the accusers of the wretched sinner in John 8, so that they went out one by one, from the “eldest even unto the last,” and after the Lord had said to the poor woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more;” Jesus spake “again unto them, saying, I am the Light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” To follow Jesus is to walk in the light of the knowledge of God, and this implies that any who do not follow Him are ignorant of God, and have not divine life. These words also implied the condemnation of Israel’s leaders, who gloried in their religious reputation, but were hostile to and haters of the God they professed to serve.
The Lord’s claim to be the Light of the world was the assertion of the greatness of His Person and His mission. Who but the Son of God could make such a claim? And how serious it was for those who refused to acknowledge His claim. In chapter 9, where the Lord opens the eyes of the blind man, He confirms that He is the Light of the world (verse 5), confirming it by restating it, and also by the manifestation of the divine power that opened what had never been seen before. This time, the Lord says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” He was clearly intimating that the time was approaching for His leaving the world.
Blindness was the spiritual state of man as born into this world, and before he could see the light of life his eyes must needs be opened. The Son of God had come both to open blind eyes, and to bring light to men. Without a divine work, the truth of the incarnation indicated in the mud upon the eyes of the blind, left man yet more in the dark than he was before. But where men believed in the Son of God as the Sent One of the Father, their eyes were opened, and they could profit by the light come in Jesus. The Pharisees, who professed to have their eyes opened (verse 41), were spiritually blind, though they knew they were rejecting the Son of God, and their wilful refusal of God’s testimony in Jesus made them the more guilty.
When the Lord spoke of going into Judea again, where Lazarus, the dead man was, His disciples reminded Him that of late the Jews had sought to stone Him. In reply, the Lord tells them that they would not stumble in following Him, for they had light while He was with them. For the Jews, who sought to stone Him, and in whom there was not divine light, there was no divine guidance, but stumbling in the darkness over their Messiah, who because of their rejection of Him had become to Israel a stumbling stone (11:8-10).
In chapter 9 the Lord had indicated that He would leave this world, the Light would not be for ever here; now in chapter 12:36 He says, “While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light.” His departure from the world was near, for He had said in verse 35, “Yet a little while is the light with you.” This chapter gives the Lord’s closing testimony to the world into which He had come as light. Very soon the Light of the world would be gone, and then all hope for the world would be over: a settled darkness would remain upon it until He returned to deal with it in judgment.
It would be different for those who believed in the light; as sons of light they would bask in the radiance of the light, not now shining on earth, but streaming from the face of Christ in glory. Truly the Jews knew not whither they were going in rejecting God’s Son, who, having spoken so faithfully to them “did hide Himself from them.” It was God’s government that now hid the light from Israel, even as the following verses show. In spite of the testimony of the Lord’s many miracles, His people would not have Him, so judicial blindness comes upon them (12:37-41).
As the testimony of the Lord comes to a close He says, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believes in me should not abide in darkness” (12:46). This is the last mention of light in John’s Gospel. The purpose of His coming is recalled; it is not to condemn men, but to enlighten them, but the way into the light was faith in Him. There was no other way into divine blessing. Yet the result of His coming was judgment for those who refused the light, and the word that He spoke would judge them in the last day. What the Father had for those who believed on the Son was eternal life, and this was set forth in what the Father had commanded Him to speak.
Jesus has now nothing more to say to the world, He now speaks with His own of their place with Him before the Father, and of their place before the world in testimony to Him. Darkness had fallen upon the world that the Son of God had come to bless, but which would not have Him; man had been exposed as hating God, and preferring the darkness to the light, and while waiting for the full expression of the world’s hatred in His crucifixion, the terrible nature of man’s heart is seen in Judas who, after receiving the sop of the Lord’s favour, “went immediately out: and it was night” (13:30).
It was all over with man after the flesh. The creator was not wanted by His creatures; the God of Israel has no place with those who professed to be His people; and a disciple, who had tasted of the richest favours of the Son of God, went out to betray his Master to the leaders of the nation. Such is man away from God, but with the light of God brought to him. He is not only in darkness, but he loves the darkness, and hates the light that would have dispelled His ignorance of God. Truly it was night.
In chapter 1, the Light came into the world, shining for every man, like the sun rising above the horizon of man’s darkness is not dispelled. The bright shining of the Light continues to its meridian splendour to illumine the woman of Sychar, and the blind man of Jerusalem, exposing too the hypocrisy of those who brought the poor sinful woman to Him. But in chapter 9 the Lord indicates that the light is departing, saying in chapter 12 it would but remain for a little while. Then at the close of chapter 12 the Lord speaks of light for the last time, and in chapter 13, it is night.
How wonderful to know that although the true Light has gone from this world that it shines in another world, and faith perceives it, and delights in it, so that the path of the believer is illumined by it, and His heart warmed by its heavenly rays.
R. 11.11.66.