"I AM the Light of the World" -Jesus in John 8
Hey guys! How’s it going? I’ve had such a fun few weeks being back with you all. If we haven’t met yet, I’m Leah. I work here at CSF doing discipleship, social media, and this—teaching you all. It’s genuinely such a gift to get to be here with you all the time, hanging out and getting to share about Jesus.
And I’m lucky that Bowling Green isn’t too far from my parents’ house, so I got to see my mom for her birthday a couple weeks ago. I spent the day with her helping her with some tasks she had, and we chatted, ya know. She told me about this time that we went camping when I was a kid. We were at Lake Barkley or something like that, so we had to boat out to our campsite in our little yellow boat that I called Bumblebee. Maybe everybody called it that, but I was four, so it felt special to me. And because I was four when this story took place, I don’t remember much of this trip, and definitely not this part of the story. But anyway, we had to boat to our campsite. It was like a 30 minute boat ride from the dock where we had parked our cars. But when we were there, my family realized that we forgot some stuff, so they needed to run to the store.
So my mom, my grandpa, my grandpa’s friends Ed and Eddie (not kidding) got into Bumblebee and went back. They got what they needed, but by the time they were back at the dock, it was getting close to dark, and something about Bumblebee… her lights didn't work. So they were booking it through Lake Barkley. Now grandpa and Ed and Eddie had cracked open a couple of cold ones, and they pointed my mom, the driver, in the wrong direction, and when they arrived at “our camp” … well, it wasn’t our camp. The sun was already set, and the light was fading so fast, they pulled out their emergency lanterns and tried to navigate the dark waters with these tiny, dim lights. They went slowly, so they didn’t crash, and it only got darker.
Sometimes they would catch sight of some fires from other campsites, but get this. Before they left, my dad had put up some string lights around our campsite, you know, for vibes. So my mom was looking and looking for these string lights. She knew that these campfires weren’t ours.
Grandpa and his friends were not helpful in her endeavor and kept insisting on wrong turns.They were out on the lake in Bumblebee for HOURS. But eventually, way off in the distance, there was a well-lit campsite on top of a hill with little lines of light surrounding a roaring bonfire. My mom knew this was the place to go, knew that the rest of the family and our friends were there. So she turned the boat in that direction and went with confidence. They docked and made it in safely, and finally they were back where they belonged.
Pretty crazy story, right? When I heard this story, I was like, “dang, what was little Leah up to when her mom was missing?” But when I really started to think about it, I realized it was a pretty good allegory for the story of the Bible. It doesn’t follow perfectly, but it’s interesting.
So, tonight, I’m going to continue our series on the seven “I AM” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. We’re on the second one. Last week, Nate talked about Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life,” saying that whatever it is that we want and think we need to not die, Jesus claims to be that. Jesus claims to be the better fulfillment of that. Only when we let Jesus in as fully and practically as we know how will we get to experience the eternal life that He promises. This week, we’re going forward a couple of chapters to talk about, “I am the light of the world” and what He means by that. Let’s read it in John 8:12.
12 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.”
So let’s get into it.
If I were to turn the lights off in this room, it would be dark. Not like pitch black because we have windows and there’s a street light outside, but it’d be pretty hard to see, especially in some corners. But if we turn the lights back on, it would reveal that this room is full of chairs, there’s a stage with some stuff on it, all of us are in here. What we couldn’t see in the dark, the light reveals.
I did a lot of studying in preparation for this talk—maybe too much because my first draft of this talk was so long. You’re welcome for not telling you everything I’ve been learning. But I found in Scripture that light is a theme throughout the stories of the Bible, coming up again and again and again.
The theme of light literally starts on page one. Genesis 1:1-4 says,
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. 3 And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
We could spend all night right here, but I won’t. This is dad putting up lights at the campsite. There was darkness, and God said let’s add some light. And then He made stuff to fill the light—He made land and separated it from the water, He made the sun and the moon, He made plants and animals, and finally, He made humans. And He made them in His image, which means He made them like Himself, with similar characteristics and qualities and similar purposes.
God’s design was that humanity would be His special creation, that humans would be His ambassadors or priests between God and the rest of the world. That they would reveal God’s will for the earth and carry it out.
Once more: God’s design for humanity was that humans would reveal God and His will for the earth and carry it out.
But we know how the story goes: there was one rule for humans to be with God in this new place He created, and the humans broke it. They couldn’t carry out their purpose. So God cast them out. (In my metaphor, this is where everyone leaves the campsite.) Suddenly there is a different kind of darkness in the world, the darkness of sin and death. Darkness that can hurt them, that hides God from them.
Fast forward a few generations, and we have this guy Abram who finds favor in God’s sight. And God says this to him in Genesis 12:1-3:
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
After this Abram–who is renamed Abraham–has a kid who has a kid who has a lot of kids who have a lot of kids, etc, until they are a great nation. This great nation is called Israel, and they go through a lot of stuff, like slavery in Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, battles for a land that God promised them, bad kings, military occupations, exiles, and a bunch of other stuff in between. Throughout their history, they held onto this promise from God for Abraham about being a blessing to the nations, and a prophet named Isaiah heard this from God:
Isaiah 42:6
6 “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations,
What does that mean? God basically told Abraham that He would bless the world through him and his lineage. But why did Isaiah call that a light?
Well, similar to how turning the lights on in a room reveals what’s in the room, similar to how the string lights my dad put up at the campsite revealed which camp was the right one, God is saying here that Abraham and the people that would come after him would reveal God’s blessing to the nations, would reveal God.
To reveal means to make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others. So God’s people, who are called the Israelites in the Bible, are supposed to make God known to others, to the rest of the world. Show that there is hope, there is a light in the darkness of sin and death. How? By being different, by being who God designed them to be, by being like God—holy like God is holy. And it wasn’t a secret of how to do that; God laid it out for them pretty clearly in the Law.
If you know the rest of the story, you know that the Israelites did a pretty bad job most of the time with this calling. They sinned, they disobeyed God, they worshipped other gods, and they pretty much looked like the rest of the world sometimes. These are the fires from other campsites that turned them in the wrong direction. God got mad at them a lot, but He sent prophets (lanterns) to warn them and to call them back to their image-bearing purpose, which is to reveal Him.
But God’s not dumb; He knew it would be impossible for them to ever be holy like He is, to truly reveal Him to the world, on their own. So He promised to send them someone who would make a way. Someone who would deliver them from the darkness of sin and death. And they waited with hopeful expectation for that person, that messiah, to come. Just like Mom knew there were string lights at our campsite.
That’s the short version of the context surrounding this “I AM” statement of Jesus. To be a light to the nations, the Israelites were supposed to be like God, follow the Law perfectly, and ask for forgiveness when they couldn’t (which was a lot), revealing the way humans were designed to be, revealing God’s will for humanity and the world. And they waited for the One who would do it right.
So then this guy Jesus rocks up to the scene. He’s doing and saying some pretty crazy things. He heals people, feeds people miraculously, claims that we have to eat his flesh (weird). And then we get to chapter 8 in the Gospel of John. It’s pretty long, so we’re only going to look at certain verses and skip quite a bit, but I encourage you to read the whole chapter on your own time. It’s full of really interesting stuff. So let’s begin. Verses one and two for context, then we’ll start in verse 12.
1 Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. [...] 12 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.” 13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
Pause: We’ve talked about “bearing witness” before, but I’ll remind you. To bear witness means to provide evidence that something is real or true. You could say that it means to make known what is real and true. Sounds kind of similar to revealing something, if you ask me. So the Pharisees are saying that Jesus’s statement about Himself can’t be true because it’s about Himself and I guess He’s biased. We’ll read on to what Jesus responds:
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. 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.”
So Jesus says that, first of all, He is telling the truth—how would they even know?—and also that according to their own law, two witnesses is enough proof of truth. He says that He bears witness, and His Father bears witness. On this side of the cross, it’s obvious that Jesus is talking about God the Father. But it’s less clear to His hearers at the time. So they ask him:
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.
This part is really important. This is the entire point for tonight, so lock in. Jesus says, “if you knew me, you would know my Father also.” This is a big claim here. And it’s the same claim He made when He said “I Am the light of the world.” He’s claiming to be the One. The One that God promised the Israelites, who would deliver them from darkness, who would make a way for them to fulfill God’s design for them, by fulfilling it Himself. And what were the Israelites supposed to do? They were supposed to reveal God, to make him known to the world, to be a light. And Jesus said, “I AM that light! I’m the One who reveals the Father, who reveals God, so if you knew Me, you’d know God, too!”
But Jesus goes on; there’s more to it than that apparently. Verse 23:
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.” 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.
Unlike last week, when the teaching was really hard and many left Jesus, this part of the teaching seems to be palatable to those who heard it. He’s basically saying, “I’m the one you’ve been waiting for. I’m the one who will save you. God sent me to you, and I’m telling the truth about God.” And many people believed Him! But of course, that’s not where Jesus leaves it. He goes on:
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
First of all, they were literally slaves in Egypt—that’s like the main part of their history—but go off, I guess.
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.
So now, Jesus is making a different claim. He’s claiming here that not only is He the One who would make a way for the Israelites to fulfill their purpose—their image-bearer role of revealing God—but that they got just about everything wrong up to that point if they didn’t recognize Him. Why? He says He’s God’s Son! “If you knew God, you’d know Me, and vice versa, because I’m the One who reveals Him properly.” If they had been doing what they were called to do—revealing God to the nations—they would see that Jesus is from God. He goes on to say for the next few verses that their father is the devil, a liar, they only believe lies, so they don’t believe Him because He’s telling the truth. It’s really crazy stuff. They argue a bit about this, and they get even angrier. It comes to a head in verse 53 and following:
53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” 54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ 55 But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Why did this make them so angry, angry enough to try to stone Him? We can make sense of this if we remember all the way back to Moses when he asked God who He was. Exodus 3:13-15 says:
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”
When Moses asked God what His name was, God said YHWH, which we translate to I Am. God’s name is “I AM.” So when Jesus says, “before Abraham was, I am,” it’s a direct claim that He is God Himself. Only God could perfectly reveal Himself.
At first, the people were pleased to hear what Jesus said, that He was the One they were waiting for. But then He said something that sounded to them a little bit like blasphemy, claiming to be God, and they were ready to stone Him. So they still didn’t understand what Jesus was telling them. Throughout the rest of His ministry, He keeps telling people who He is and what He’s doing, as we’ll look at through the rest of this series. And most of the time, they don’t get it. They didn’t understand what Jesus was doing, and they didn’t fully understand what He meant. And they killed Him. Crucified Him, hung Him on a cross to suffer the most painful death. But the darkness of death had no hold on Him, and on the third day, He was raised to life again, proving that He is who He said He is, defeating the darkness of sin and death so we could be who God made us to be, His image-bearers.
So what then? What do we do with this? Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus reveals the Father, reveals God. Jesus is God. He has made a way. What do we do with that?
Jesus says to us in Matthew 5:
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Wait a minute. I’m the light of the world? You’re the light of the world? I thought Jesus was the light of the world?
Yes, yes, and yes. These are not contradictory statements. They are continuations. In the same way that God promised Abraham to bless the world through him, He will bless the world through us, His church. If we’re the light of the world, we’re tasked with revealing God to the world. Making Him known.
How do we do that? It’s no secret that this world is full of darkness and sin and death. How can we be a light here? How can we reveal God?
Well, first, how can you reveal what you don’t know? Jesus said in this passage we looked at tonight,
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Dig into His word! See what He says about Himself. See what He says the will of God is. See what He’s done for you and how much He loves you and His creation. And I don’t just mean the New Testament; I mean the whole of Scripture. It says in Hebrews 1:3,
3 He [Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,
Jesus is exactly who God is because He is God. After He was crucified and rose from the dead, He was walking with two guys and they were talking and asking Him questions about Scripture and about Jesus who had died (they didn’t know they were talking to Him, who was alive again), and it says in Luke 24:27,
27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
If you want to know God, if you want to understand the God of the Old Testament, interpret Him through the lens of Jesus and all He says because everything points to Him. And when God is revealed to us, we can more accurately reveal Him to others. Are you abiding in the Word? Do you know the truth? Have you allowed the truth about God and Jesus to transform you into a light?
Similarly, how can we be lights who reveal God to others if we are hiding our light under a basket? A “basket” could be a contradictory lifestyle to what Jesus calls us to live. It could be a specific sin. It could just be you being too afraid to share Jesus with others for fear of rejection or whatever. It wouldn’t make sense for my dad to have put up string lights at the campsite and then not turn them on, or to cover each of the bulbs in paper to smother the light. How would my mom have found where she was going then? What’s your basket? What is obscuring your light? And how can you better be a shining beacon on a hill pointing people to Jesus? What’s holding you back?
Light reveals what was once hidden in darkness.
Jesus reveals God the Father to us.
We reveal Jesus to the world.
This is the will of the Lord.
