EVERLASTING LIGHT

The ancient prophet announced:
"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (Isaiah 9:2)
And when that light arrived...it was Jesus!
"When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 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).
"This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5).
"For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).

I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD!
When Jesus made this great claim He was in the Temple during a very moving celebration festival called the Festival of Tabernacles. On the evening of its first day there was a ceremony called The Illumination of the Temple. It took place in the Court of the Women. The court was surrounded with deep galleries, erected to hold the spectators. In the center, four great candelabra were prepared. When the dark came the four candelabra were lit and, it was said, they sent such a blaze of light throughout Jerusalem that every courtyard was lit up with their brilliance.
Then all night long, until cock-crow the next morning, the greatest and the wisest and the holiest men in Israel danced before the Lord and sang psalms of joy and praise while the people watched. Jesus is saying: "You have seen the blaze of the Temple illuminations piercing the darkness of the night...I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, and, for the man who follows Me there will be light, not only for one exciting night, but for all the pathway of life. The light in the Temple is a brilliant light, but in the end it flickers and dies. I am the Light which last for ever!"
When Jesus made His claim to be the Light of the World the scribes and Pharisees reacted with hostility. That claim would sound even more astonishing to them than to us. To them it would sound like a claim—as indeed it was—to be the Messiah, and even more, to do the work that only God could do.
The word LIGHT was especially 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). The Rabbis declared that the name of the Messiah was LIGHT. When Jesus claimed to be the LIGHT OF THE WORLD, He was making

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Two)

a claim than which none could possibly be higher. The Jews insisted that a statement such as Jesus made could not be regarded as accurate because it was backed by insufficient witness, for Jewish law stated that any statement must be founded on the evidence of two witnesses before it could be regarded as true. But for Jesus, His witness was enough, for He was so aware of His closeness to God that He needed no other authority for His claims.
I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD! What a claim!
The opposite of light is darkness. Psalm 82:5 says: "They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken." "But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble." (Proverbs. 4:19). "So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows." (Isaiah 59:9). "Therefore their path will become slippery; they will be banished to darkness and there they will fall." (Jeremiah 23:12). "Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead" (Isaiah 59:10). "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 2:4).
"They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts" (Ephesians 4:18). "But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness." (Matthew 6:23)
Because man made the choice to disobey God in the garden, his intellect has become blunted and blinded to spiritual truth and he walks in darkness. God created man perfect, endowed him with amazing faculties, made him lord of creation and of the universe; and yet we see something so entirely different. Why the difference? What has happened is that man sinned, disobeyed God, and he fell. And the Fall has had the most disastrous consequences upon man and upon his whole life and living; and of all its terrible effects the most disastrous and devastating is upon the mind of man. It has darkened his understanding and blinded his spiritual eyes.
There is no word that the Bible uses more frequently with respect to the man who is not a Christian than the word FOOL. The sinner is just a fool! A fool is a foolish man, a man who lacks understanding, a man who does a thing because he does not know better; he blunders into something without thinking at all. It is the fool who has said in his heart, "There is no God." Of course! It is because he has not got understanding. Listen to Paul: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Three)

that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools." (Romans 1:18-22).
As we have noted, Paul uses another word when He describes the spiritual state of the unbeliever...it is DARKNESS. At the very beginning of the gospel we are told that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled a prophecy spoken by Isaiah—"The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light" (Matthew 4:16; Isaiah 9:2).
Picture the human race sitting in darkness; it has been trying to find a way out but it cannot, and at last it has sat down in utter hopelessness and helplessly in darkness and despair! It sinks into cynicism—'the people that sat in darkness'— no light, no knowledge! At last, men see a great light, for the Light of the World appeared in the person of Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ, the glorious gospel of forgiveness and love and grace has come! Think of the Apostle's constant and familiar comparisons and contrasts. In writing to believers he says, "Look here, you should not be living a life like the blinded Gentile any longer; you are no longer of the night, you are children of the day! you are no longer in darkness, you belong to the light! Children of darkness and children of light! night and day! "This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:5-7).
Listen to our blessed Lord Himself putting it in these words; "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).
The trouble, He says, is loving the darkness rather than the light. And then again, it is not surprising that the Apostle Paul should use these terms, because of what we read concerning his call on the road to Damascus. The Lord told him that He was calling him to be a witness both to the people and to the Gentiles, and with his particular commission, "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light" (Acts 26:18).
It is the business of preaching, it is the whole gospel of evangelism, that men's eyes should be opened; not that they should be entertained, or made to laugh or to weep, but to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and to knowledge. Remember the words of Jesus..."I am the Light of the world; he that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).
The word for FOLLOW in this text in John 8:12 is an interesting word. It has five different but closely connected meanings. (1) It is often used of a soldier following his captain. On the long route marches, into battle, in campaigns in strange lands, the soldier

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Four)

follows wherever the captain may lead. The Christian is the soldier whose commander is Christ.
(2) The word for FOLLOW is often used of a slave accompanying his master. (3) The word is used also in the accepting a wise counselor’s opinion, (4) or in giving obedience to the laws of a city or a state. Lastly (5), it is frequently used of following a teacher's line of argument, or of following the gist of someone's speech.
So, 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. When we walk alone we are bound to stumble and grope, for so many of life's problems are beyond our solution. To follow the LIGHT OF THE WORLD is to walk in safety through life and afterwards to enter into eternal glory!
John wrote: "In Him was life and the life was the light men."
In a great piece of music the composer often begins by stating the themes which he is going to elaborate in the course of the musical composition. That is what John does in the opening of his gospel. LIFE and LIGHT are two of the great basic words on which he builds his gospel. The Gospel of John begins and ends with LIFE! At the very beginning we read that in Jesus was LIFE; and at the very end we read that John's aim in writing the gospel was that men might "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have LIFE in His name." (John 20:31). The word LIFE is continually on the lips of Jesus. It is His wistful regret that men will come to Him that they might have LIFE (5:40). It is His claim that He came that men might have LIFE and that they might have it abundantly (10:10).
Life is the opposite of destruction, condemnation and death. God sent His Son that the man who believes should not perish but have eternal life (3:16). The person who hears and believes has eternal life and will not come into judgment. Those to whom Jesus gives life will never perish (10:28). The man who lives a Christless life exists, but he does not know what life is. Jesus is the one person who can make life worth living, and in whose company death is only the prelude to fuller life.
We enter into this LIFE by believing in Jesus Christ.
Question! What does it mean to believe?
We must be convinced that Jesus is really and truly the Son of God. We must, must make up our mind about Him.
To believe in Jesus means to take Jesus at His word, to accept His commandments as absolutely binding, to believe without question that what He says is true.
The second word which states the theme of John's gospel is LIGHT. This word occurs twenty-one times in this gospel of belief. Jesus is the light of men.
We have noted that twice Jesus calls Himself the LIGHT OF THE WORLD (8:12; 9:5). This LIGHT can be in men (11:10), so that they can become children of the LIGHT (12:36).
The LIGHT 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-

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Five)

created light of God routed the empty chaos into which it came. So Jesus is the LIGHT which shines in the darkness, for He is the one person who can save life from becoming a chaos.
When Jesus dawns upon life, LIGHT comes! One of the oldest fears in the world is the fear of the dark. Paul writes to the church at Colosse: "For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God: strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the LIGHT. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love" (Colossians 1:9-13).
The LIGHT which Jesus brings is a revealing LIGHT. It is the condemnation of men that they loved darkness rather than the light; and they did so because their deeds were evil; they hated the light lest their deeds should be exposed. 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.
We never see ourselves until we see ourselves through the eyes of Jesus.
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. When a man receives that LIGHT and believes in it, he walks no more in darkness (12:46). "I have come as a LIGHT into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness."
When Jesus comes into the life the time of guessing and 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 black-out, but with Jesus the way is clear!
"Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not wither he goeth" (John 12:35).
"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy; but now have obtained mercy." (1 Peter 2:9-10).
"Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you; because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth" (1 John. 2:8).
I believe that John 1:5 is one of the most profound

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Six)

statements concerning the power of light. "AND THE LIGHT SHINES IN DARKNESS, AND THE DARKNESS DID NOT PUT IT OUT." To John, there was a darkness in the world that was as real as the LIGHT. The darkness is hostile to the LIGHT, but however hard the darkness tries, it cannot extinguish the LIGHT!
It may well be that in John's mind there is a borrowed thought here. John, as we know, was prepared to go out and take new ideas, if by so doing he could present and commend the Christian message to men. For example, he uses Greek concepts of the LOGOS to introduce Christ to the Greek speaking world of his day. Here, he eludes to the great Persian religion of Zorastrianism which at this time had a very great influence on men's thoughts. It taught that there were two great opposing powers in the universe, the god of the light and the god of the dark, Ahriman and Ormuzd. This whole universe was a battle-ground in the eternal, cosmic conflict between the light and the dark; and all that mattered in life was the side a man chose.
So John is saying; "Into this world there comes Jesus, the light of the world; there is a darkness which would seek to eliminate Him, to banish Him from life, to extinguish Him. But there is a power in Jesus that is undefeatable. The darkness can hate Him, but it can never get rid of Him." NOT ALL THE DARKNESS IN THE WORLD CAN EXTINGUISH THE LITTLEST FLAME! The unconquerable light will in the end defeat the hostile dark. Satan did his best to put out that LIGHT! The religious leaders hated Him, continually sought to trap Him, and finally nail Him to the cross. They placed His body in the grave, but the grave could not hold Him. On the third day, He rose in triumph and defeated His foes! The LIGHT was still shinning! The early disciples took up the torch and proclaimed the gospel far and wide, and the LIGHT continues to shine. Men have sought to extinguish the flames by trying to destroy the Bible, but the LIGHT is still ablaze...for the Bible is still the world's best selling religious book.
Some years ago, I visited Red Square in Moscow. Right in the path of those Communists that said there was no God was a church with dozens of crosses...a church right in Red Square that they had to pass every day on their way to their office! For seventy years, they sought to extinguish that light by killing Christians by the millions, but the church and the crosses still stood in their path! They never put out that LIGHT and today...their religion of atheism has bowed to the power of the cross and the LIGHT is shinning bright and clear in that nation that once sought to extinguish it!
AND THE LIGHT SHINES IN DARKNESS, AND THE DARKNESS DID NOT PUT IT OUT.
The darkness stands for the natural sphere of all those who hate the good. It is men whose deeds are evil who fear the light. The man who has something to hide loves the dark; but it is impossible to hide anything from God. His searchlight sweeps the shadows and illuminates the skulking evils of the world.
There are certain passages where the darkness seems to stand for ignorance, especially for that willful ignorance which refuses the light of Jesus Christ.

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Seven)

Jesus says: "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness." He says to His disciples that the light will be with them only for so short a time; let them walk in it; if they do not, the darkness comes and a man who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. To John the Christless life was life in the dark. The darkness stands for life without Christ, and especially for that which has turned its back on Christ.
Concerning this passage in John 1:5, the word that John uses for PUT OUT has three different meanings.
(1) It can mean that the darkness never understood the light. There is a sense in which the man of the world simply cannot understand the demands of Christ and the way Christ offers him. To him it seems sheer foolishness. A man cannot understand Christ until he first submits to him. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2: "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. For the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:7-15).
The second meaning to the word used for PUT OUT can mean that darkness never overcame the light. The word can mean to pursue until one overtakes and so lays hold on and overcomes. This could mean that the darkness of the world had done everything possible to eliminate Jesus Christ, even to crucify Him, but it could never destroy Him. I have used this meaning in my explanation earlier in this lesson.
The meaning to the word used for PUT OUT can be used of extinguishing a fire or flame. Although men did all they could to obscure and extinguish the light of God in Christ, they could not quench it. In every generation the light of Christ still shines in spite of the efforts of men to extinguish the flame!
For our closing thoughts, let's return to the verses in the beginning of John's gospel again.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Eight)

He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God" (John 1:6-13).
Note verse 9; "He was the real light, who, in His coming into the world gives light to every man." In this verse John uses a very significant word to describe Jesus. He says that Jesus was the REAL LIGHT. In Greek there are two words which are very much alike. The Authorized Version and the Revised Standard use the word TRUE to translate both of them; but they have different shades of meaning. One word means TRUE as opposed to FALSE; the other word means REAL or GENUINE as opposed to UNREAL.
So what John is saying is that Jesus is the REAL LIGHT come to illumine men. Before Jesus came there were other lights which men followed. Listen to Gamaliel's advice when the Pharisees sought to kill the disciples for their preaching. "Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while.
And he said to them: "Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing.
After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing." (Acts 5:33-38).
John says that Jesus, by His coming into the world, brought the real light to men...he was not a fake. His coming was like a blaze of light. It was like the coming of the dawn. Yes, there are still partial lights; and there are still the false light; and men still follow them. Jesus is the only genuine light, the real light to guide men on their way to heaven's gate!
When Jesus, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, came, He dissipated the shadows of DOUBT. Until He came men could only guess about God. "It is difficult to find out about God," said one of the Greeks, "and when you have found out about Him it is impossible to tell anyone else about Him." To the pagan, God either dwelt in the shadows that no man can penetrate or in the light that no man can approach. But when Jesus came men saw full-displayed what God is like. Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." (John 14:7).
When Jesus, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, came...His coming dissipated the darkness of death! By His life, His death, His Resurrection showed that death was only the way to a larger life... to an eternal home with God. Because of Jesus, the bitterness of death is passed for every believer who has placed their trust in Him!