Sermon series: AN EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

JESUS CHRIST, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
or
THE LIGHT MOST MEN FAILED TO RECOGNIZE

John 8:12-20
"Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."
The Pharisees therefore said to Him, "You bear witness of Yourself: Your witness is not true."
Jesus answered and said to them, "Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I came from and where I am going.
"You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.
"And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me.
"It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.
"I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me."
Then they said to Him, "Where is Your Father? Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also."
These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not come."

Message:
In no other chapter of the Bible does Jesus Christ make so many declarations about Himself. Here He asserts His divine identity through a series of "I am" statements:
..."I am the light of the world" (8:12)
..."I am not alone" (8:16)
..."I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me" (8:18)
..."I am from above" (8:23)
..."I am not of this world" (8:23)
..."I am He [the Christ]" (8:24,28)
..."I AM" (8:58)
Chapters 7 and 8 record the dialogues that Jesus had with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. As part of the ritual during this feast, water was poured over a rock in commemoration of the water supply that had gushed from the rock in the wilderness (Numbers 20:8-10).
The huge lamps in the Court of Women in the temple were lit in commemoration of the pillar of fire that led the Israelites in their wilderness journey.
After the interruption by the Pharisees who brought the woman to Him, Jesus turned again to teach the multitudes. He declared, "I am the light of the world." This discourse was within earshot of His enemies. He still sat in the court of the woman, sometimes called the Treasury. This court was a thoroughfare to that of the Israelites on a different level fifteen step above it.
Christ has the day before applied to Himself one of the miracles of the Exodus, that of the water poured out in libations. To give water to drink was a common phrase for teaching and explaining the Law. Now, He applies to Himself the type of the fiery pillar. The great golden candelabra were close beside Him, fifty cubits high and sumptuously gilded. Every night these lights were lit and shed their soft light all

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over the city. Here, the people joined in festive dances to the sound of the flutes and other music and the Levites chanted the Songs of Degrees. Such a scene had been acted, doubtless, the night before and was fresh in their memories.
THIS GLORIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT WAS COUPLED WITH A PROMISE, "WHOEVER FOLLOWS ME WILL NEVER WALK IN DARKNESS, BUT WILL HAVE THE LIGHT OF LIFE." He had said but yesterday that He was the water of life, satisfying the individual need of every soul coming to Him; now He declares He is the Light of the world, shedding forth His benefits for the whole race, like the lights in the Temple--types of the pillar of fire which led Israel through the desert ways by night, or the glorious sun now rising over the Mount of Olives.
John the Baptist had called Jesus "the true light." The Psalmist called God, "his light." Isaiah spoke of the Messiah as the everlasting light. The Light was a Jewish title of the Messiah. Jesus here claims to be the light of the whole race, Jew and Gentile, a claim which startled the Pharisees, and raised within them a spirit of fierce antagonism. His claim was that of being the light which springs from the fountain of life and produces life. Whoever should follow Him would not walk in the darkness of ignorance, sin, and spiritual death.
I’ve suggested that Jesus was standing by the four great torches in the Treasury when He made this pronouncement. At the top of these golden candelabra were great bowls holding sixty-five liters of oil. There was a ladder for each candelabrum, and in the evening, young, healthy priests would carry the oil up to the top, where they would light the protruding wicks. The great flames that leapt out of these torches illumined the whole temple and much of Jerusalem. It was spectacular! These great torches symbolized the SHEKINAH GLORY. Christ was saying in effect. "Do you remember the pillar that came between you and the Egyptians near the Red Sea, the pillar that protected you and led you on your wanderings in the wilderness? I am the Light of the world. I am identified with that SHEKINAH GLORY." What a statement! At the very least Jesus was claiming to be God.
His conscious identification with the pillar of fire reveals something about His incarnation. Within the cloud that led Israel through the wilderness, there was always a heart of fire that shone forth at night but was sheathed by day. When our Lord came, He sheathed His glory in flesh so we could look upon Him. Time and time again God is called light in the Old Testament.
Jesus was not only saying He is the Light of the world, but that the benefits and comforts that came with the cloud in the wilderness came from Him! What a precious wonderful truth! He is saying, "I was the One who protected you. I guided you through the wilderness. It was I who enveloped the tabernacle. It was I who came into the temple of Solomon and filled it with such glory that the priests could not serve. I am the SHEKINAH GLORY. Such was the claim He made for Himself!
The Gospel of John begins: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:1 -4)

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The LIGHT that Jesus brings is the LIGHT which puts chaos to flight. In the creation story God moved upon the dark, formless chaos which was before the world began and said: "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3). The new-created LIGHT of God routed the empty chaos into which it came. So Jesus is the LIGHT WHICH SHINES IN THE DARKNESS (1:5). He is the one person who can save life from becoming a chaos. Left to ourselves we are at the mercy of our passions and our fears.
The LIGHT which Jesus brings is a revealing LIGHT. It is the condemnation of men that they loved the darkness rather than the LIGHT; and they did so because their deeds were evil; and they hated the LIGHT lest their deeds should be exposed (3:9). The LIGHT which Jesus brings is something which shows things as they are. It strips away the disguises and the concealments; it shows things in all their nakedness; it shows them in their true character and their true values.
The LIGHT which Jesus brings is a guiding LIGHT. If a man does not possess that LIGHT he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going (12:36). When a man receives that LIGHT and believes in it, he walks no more in darkness.
When Jesus comes into life the time of guessing and of groping is ended, the time of doubt and uncertainty and vacillation is gone. The path that was dark becomes light; the decision that was wrapped in a night of uncertainty is illumined. Without Jesus we are like men groping on an unknown road in a black-out. With Him the way is clear.
Jesus is the LIGHT OF THE WORLD. To the ignorant He proclaims wisdom; to the impure, holiness; to those in sadness, gladness. Moreover, to those who by sovereign grace are drawn to the light and follow its guidance He not only proclaims but actually imparts these blessings.
HE THAT FOLLOWETH ME SHALL NOT WALK IN DARKNESS, BUT SHALL HAVE THE LIGHT OF LIFE. In these words, Christ defined the state of the natural man. The unregenerate have "light": they are capable of weighing moral issues; they have a conscience which either "accuses or excuses them" (Rom. 2:15), and they have the capacity to recognize the innumerable evidences which testify to the existence and natural attributes of the great Creator (Rom. 1:19); so that "they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). BUT THE SPIRITUAL LIGHT THEY DO NOT HAVE. Consequently, though they are endowed with intelligence and moral discernment, spiritually they are in darkness. And it was because of this that the Saviour said, "He that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." THE LIGHT OF LIFE means two things. The Greek can mean either the light which issues from the source of life or the light which gives life. In this passage it means both. Jesus is the very light of God come among men; and He is the light which gives men life.
Just as the flower can never blossom when it never sees the sunlight, so our lives can never flower with the grace and beauty they ought to have until they are irradiated with the light of the presence of Christ. In this passage Jesus talks of following Himself. We often speak of following Jesus; we often urge men to do so. What do we mean? The Greek for TO FOLLOW has five different but closely connected meanings.
(1) It is often used of a soldier following his captain. The Christian is the soldier whose commander is Christ.
(2) It is often used of a slave accompanying his master. The Christian is the slave whose joy it is always to serve Christ.

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(3) It is often used of accepting a wise counselor’s opinion. The Christian is the person who guides his life and conduct by the counsel of Christ.
(4) It is often used of giving obedience to the laws of a city or a state. The Christian, being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, accepts the law of the kingdom and of Christ as the law which governs his life.
(5) It is often used of following a teacher's line of argument, or of following the gist of someone's speech. The Christian is a person who has understood the meaning of the teaching of Christ. He has not listened in dull incomprehension or with slack inattention. He takes the message into his mind and understands, receives the words into his memory and remembers, and hides them in his heart and obeys.
To be a follower of Christ is to give oneself body, soul, and spirit into the obedience of the Master; and to enter upon that following is to walk in the light. To follow Christ is to commit ourselves unreservedly to Him as our only Lord and Savior in doctrine and conduct. Just as the cloud led Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, so the Lord Jesus leads the believer from this world to heaven. And to the one who really follows Christ the promise is, he shall not, like those all around him, walk in darkness.
LIGHT in Scripture, is sometimes the emblem of true knowledge, true holiness, true happiness; while DARKNESS is the figure for ignorance and error, guilt and depravity, privation and misery. Because the believer follows the One who is LIGHT, he does not grope his way in doubt and uncertainty, but he sees where he is going, and not only so, he enjoys the light of God's countenance.
THE PHARISEES THEREFORE SAID TO HIM, "YOU BEAR WITNESS OF YOURSELF: YOUR WITNESS IS NOT TRUE. Jesus has made His claim to be the LIGHT OF THE WORLD...and the scribes and Pharisees reacted with hostility. His claim was that He was the Messiah! And even more, He claimed to do the work that only God could do. The word LIGHT was specially associated in Jewish thought and language with God. "The Lord is my LIGHT" (Psalm 27:1). "The Lord will be your everlasting LIGHT" (Isaiah 60:19). "By his LIGHT, I walked through darkness" (Job 29:3). "When I sit in darkness the Lord will be a LIGHT to me" (Micah 7:8). When Jesus claimed to be the LIGHT of the world, he was making a claim than which none could possibly be higher.
Jesus' opponents are not listening, or if they are hearing the words they are not taking notice of what they mean. They do not concern themselves with light and darkness; indeed, these two great concepts are not mentioned again in the rest of the chapter. Instead the Pharisees turn immediately to the question of the rules of evidence. They said that Jesus is not to be believed because He is talking about Himself. Of course, when a man talks about himself, his detractors will always think that he has a bias and that what he says must be weighed carefully. But these Pharisees go further than that. They simply reject Jesus' whole testimony because it come from Him personally. "Your testimony is not true," they say. By "true" they seem to mean "valid"; it is testimony that does not conform to the rules and therefore is not to be accepted. Their point is that self-testimony is not valid testimony and cannot be accepted when anyone is trying to establish a point in a court of law.

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Jesus answered that His own witness was enough. He was so conscious of His own authority that no other witness was necessary. Jesus points out that He is qualified to talk about Himself whereas they are not. Jesus is aware of His heavenly origin and destiny, but these Pharisees know neither.
The testimony of Jesus is grounded in His unity with the Father, from whom His revelation is derived. In answering the charge that His testimony concerning Himself was invalid, Jesus makes three points, the first being that in terms of the kind of matter to which He is testifying, only a person with a superior source of knowledge can qualify, and that He and only He possesses such knowledge. In His own words the reply was, "Even if I testify on My own behalf, My testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I came from and where I am going."
Second, Jesus defended His right to give testimony about God and man on the basis that His testimony is impartial. This is what He means in verses 15 and 16, where He says, "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right." The human standards in this verse stand for all that is human in man as opposed to that which is of God; it involves the limitations of being human. Jesus declares that His judgment is not limited as theirs is, moreover it is also sinless. For being of "human standards" is biblical language also implies being sinful; and this, too, Jesus is denying. He is the sinless One. So the distortions of sin do not enter to invalidate His testimony. Thirdly, the Lord Jesus Christ also pointed out, as He had done earlier in His ministry, that in the final analysis His testimony did not stand alone but actually was supported by the Word of God the Father, thereby satisfying the rabbinical requirement that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word should be established.
Jesus did not disagree with the Jewish requirement for two witnesses. He simply replied that His testimony was true even if no one else bore witness, but there was another one bearing witness——His Father! The Father who sent Jesus was with Jesus, so that the Son was not alone. Because they did not know Jesus' divine origin and considered Him to be no more than a pretender to the messiahship from Galilee (that is, they judged Him according to human standards), they were unenlightened. They did not understand that the Father and Son lived in each other (in what theologians call co-inherence) and were with one another. Therefore, even though the Son came from the Father and was sent to earth by the Father, He was not separate from the Father: The Father who sent the Son came with Him and provided testimony for Him! John 14, verses 9 through 11 state: "...He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves."
Verse 18 of our text reads: "I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me." How the Father bore witness to the Son was before us in the

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fifth chapter of this Gospel. He bore witness to Him in the prophecies of the Old Testament, which were now so gloriously fulfilled in His character, teaching, actions, and even in His very rejection by men. The Father had borne witness to the Son through the testimony of His servant, John the Baptist. He had borne witness to Him at the Jordan, on the occasion of His baptism. Thus by the principles of their own law these Pharisees were condemned; Two wit nesses established the truth, but here were two Witnesses, the Father and the Son, and yet they rejected the truth!
It was not, as some have taught, that Christ was here appealing to the law in order to vindicate Himself. His manifest purpose was to condemn them, and that is why He says, "your law" rather than "the law."
"Then said they unto Him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know Me, nor My Father: if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also" (8:19). How the Light revealed the hidden things of darkness! Christ had appealed to the testimony of the Father, but so obtuse were these Pharisees, they asked, "Where is Thy Father?" In our Lord's answer to them we are shown once more how that none can know the Father save through and by the Son. As He declared on another occasion, "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matt. 11:27). "Where is Thy Father?" In raising the question the Pharisees are assuming a formal legal position; if a person appeals to the testimony of a witness, that person should be able to produce the witness!
Again, therefore, they are presenting a demand for legitimation and an indirect challenge: if the Father is going to be your witness, bring Him forward! Jesus' reply is direct and radical. It is not a simple misunderstanding needing to be cleared up that is at issue. What prevents them from accepting Jesus' word as true and legally valid is that they know neither Me nor my Father. For John, "knowing God" was a key theme of Jesus' ministry. Understanding the nature of God is not something we can do on our own. Each individual must be given the ability to recognize Jesus and God. Once given, we must grow in our knowledge of God by knowing Christ better and better.
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IS NOT INNATE.
John 1:5 "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
John 1:10 "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him."
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD COMES TO US THROUGH CHRIST.
John 7:28-29 "Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, "You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me."
John 8:19 "Then they said to Him, "Where is your Father? Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also."
KNOWING THE FATHER THROUGH THE SON WAS THE END RESULT OF JESUS' MISSION ON EARTH.
John 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:6 " I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world."