Amen. If you would please turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 8, beginning at verse 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 the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
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’m going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I am the Father who sent me. In your law, it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
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.”
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 is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your words. We thank you for your declaration and affirmation of truth. We thank you that you are The Great I Am and that your son Jesus came and told us and showed us who you are. We pray this in his name. Amen.
Now, today’s passage follows the story about a woman caught allegedly in adultery; a story which may or may not belong here at this specific place within the evangelist’s narrative. Its presence there casts some doubt and creates a challenge in understanding precisely when this encounter takes place.
Now remember, part of John’s uniqueness is his specific emphasis and his precision concerning the timing and chronology of his narrative. So the particular when of this passage, the message in the longer form of this whole recorded discourse—which will be all of chapter 8—can have differing impacts upon how we understand it.
So when John wrote, “Again Jesus spoke to them,” we now kind of uncertain whether this took place immediately after Jesus dismissed the woman, resuming his teaching and picking up right from where he had left off, or whether this took place later on another and different day, or whether even this actually took place earlier, back on the great day, the last day of the festival.
The principal impact that the “when” effect is in understanding the response of the Pharisees, scribes, and priests—the response of the Jews to Jesus. We will take note of their response periodically as it appears and consider the consequences of the timing’s impact on interpreting it.
But irrespective of the “when,” John does plainly tell us where this happens. During the core, at the end of the first part, writing these words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple. He notes that the backdrop is not simply within the temple courts but noticeably near to the storage place of their religious wealth.
Although it’s not expressly stated here, John is conveying the same message as Matthew and Luke when they quote Jesus’s saying, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
So it’s important for us to recognize that this whole discourse revolves around the idea of right and wrong worship—between the true worship of The Only Living God or idolatry in the false worship of Satan—about where a person’s heart really is.
Now, keeping that context in mind, let’s turn to what Jesus has to say as he makes this his second “I am” declaration.
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.”
Now, I expect that this verse is familiar to most of us just on its own merits, and I would also remind us of its literary importance because it’s the foundation for John’s prologue: “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 was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
See, this verse is the justification for what the Evangelist wrote earlier, and now that we’ve reached this primary source, we can better understand what John meant because this verse prompts us to consider several questions: What is meant by the world (Kosmos)? What is meant by the light (phos)? What is meant by darkness (skotia)?
What does Jesus mean by calling himself the light of the world, and what does Jesus mean by the light of life? Today, when most people hear the word ‘Kosmos,’ they think first of Carl Sagan’s book and miniseries. Next, they might remember that it was the Greek term used for the universe, implying that Kosmos refers to the totality of everything.
But that’s not how John or scripture uses the word. Moses uses it three times where it’s interpreted as the host of Heaven, which means it implies the celestial bodies and spiritual entities that were worshiped by Pagan idolators. Another use found in the Old Testament of scripture is that it is ordinarily used to describe some kind of ornamentation; it’s often beautiful. Matthew uses it in a much more limited sense, though, where ‘Kosmos’ of the world refers to just the Earth itself alone. Likewise, Mark and Luke do.
Meanwhile, Paul, he uses it in both a literal sense and in a spiritual sense similar to John, where John uses it the most frequently—78 times in his gospel, 24 times in his letters, and three times in Revelation. John uses it in a sense that refers to both the physical world that we can see, hear, feel, and smell, as well as the spiritual dominion by Satan on account of our corrupted and sinful nature.
So when John uses ‘Kosmos,’ he means the world and all of its inhabitants that exist in opposition to and in rebellion against the Lord’s sovereignty—the world that ultimately belongs to the devil. He means the world that every Christian once belonged to before the Holy Spirit called us and regenerated us out of it.
Folks, ‘phos’ and ‘skotia’ light and darkness are also used by Jesus here as metaphors representing other absolute binary pairs of opposites—of one absolute and one relative: the complementary pairs of good and evil and life and death. Because darkness is the absence or lack of life, death is the absence or lack of life, evil is the absence or lack of goodness.
Since off-white is by definition not white, there are no positive shades of gray because there can be no partial form of light, life, or goodness, or death. Light is absolute, while dark is relative. If something is not wholly light, then it is relatively dark. If something is not wholly alive, then it must either be dead or dying. And if something is not wholly good, then it is corrupted, wicked, and evil.
Now, although each pair is comprised of opposites, they’re not equal opposites. One part of each pair is perfect and the other is something less than perfect. White is perfectly white, but blackness exists as a spectrum. Light is perfectly light, but darkness exists as a spectrum. To be alive is to be perfectly and wholly alive, yet because of our sin, we all begin dying from the moment of our birth. To be good is to be perfectly good, holy, righteous, and just. To be good is to be God, whereas everything else apart from him is somewhere on the spectrum of wickedness, equally deserving the penalty of death for sin.
So when Jesus and the Evangelist use light and darkness as metaphors, they’re describing the moral quality of good and evil along with their just consequences of life and death. And when Jesus called himself the light of the world, there was only one thing that his Jewish hearers could understand him to mean: he was claiming to be the originating source of life and the moral standard of goodness and righteousness.
He was claiming to be the Lord God, an assertion intensified by his use of the phrase ‘ego eimi,’ which literally translates as ‘I, I am,’ claiming for himself the verbal representation of the divine name given to Moses in Exodus 3:14. When Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and they say to me, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name? What shall I say to them?’” and God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”
You see, we are even more certain and sure that this was a public claim of divinity by Jesus. Because when God commanded Moses regarding the construction of the Tabernacle, he instructed that a golden lampstand be made and placed within the holy place. And God instructed that the lamps on this lampstand were to be kept burning regularly, meaning always and perpetually, because this light was a symbol of God’s perpetual presence.
So by saying, “I am the light of the world,” Jesus identified himself as God’s lampstand, and he also claimed the name of God. And then he claimed to be able to give to his followers the light of life, which is the perfected, eternal, holy, and righteous life that only the Lord God can give.
Therefore, what Jesus just declared was utter, absolute, and total blasphemy if untrue. But blasphemy was not what the Pharisees took issue with. Their problem was Jesus’s self-proclamation, his self-aggrandizement, his self-promotion, his audacity to claim that he had spiritual authority and perhaps even political status without first asking for their permission and approval.
And once you notice this, it is really surprising that they were not concerned actually with the honor or glory of God. Because if they were, then they would have been tearing their clothes and weeping as a sign of mourning. They would have immediately arrested Jesus there on the spot. That would have been the faithful Jewish response to hearing his divine claim.
But instead of being concerned with the substance of what he said, they attacked the credibility of his testimony. So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true,” which suggests to their mind that since Jesus was the one saying this about himself, then it can’t be true.
But that assertion fails the test of logic because Deuteronomy 19:15 says that only on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a charge be established, which has always been interpreted to mean that something is proven or accepted as true so long as there are two or more witnesses or pieces of evidence.
But true truth is not dependent on the amount of witness or the amount of evidence that supports it because truth is absolute. Something is either true or it’s not. So just because Jesus said it, and even if Jesus was the only one saying it at that moment in time, it was not untrue or false; it was just simply unproven but not disproved.
And Jesus answered them, “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 came from or where I’m going.”
See, he asserts the truth about his testimony while he blames their doubt and disbelief on their own spiritual ignorance. But the Pharisees did not recognize this truth about Jesus. They did not understand the truth he proclaimed because they did not rightly understand scripture, and because more importantly, their eyes, hearts, and minds had not yet been opened to the truth by the Holy Spirit and regeneration because they were still walking in darkness. So they could not recognize the source or origin of Jesus’s power.
Next, Jesus repeats and echoes the argument he used back in John 5 concerning his authority to render judgment, saying wherein he said, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it’s not I alone who judge, but I am the Father who sent me. In your law, it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears testimony about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
And we’ll compare that to what Jesus said earlier in John 5 in a moment. But first, we need to consider Jesus’s argument for the truth of his testimony. See, he cites the same statute of Torah that I just did and then announces and identifies his second witness that agrees with his testimony—God the Father.
But remember, “Father” was not considered by first-century Jews as an appropriate address or reference for the Lord, which kind of explains their confusion within their response when they ask Jesus, “Where is your father?”
But regardless, Jesus reminds them that since the testimony of two people is true, by counting his assertion of truthfulness as the first witness and by using the Father’s confirming testimony—meaning the powerful signs and wonders that Jesus had done thus far—the truthfulness of his testimony was proven and believable.
Because scripture never suggests that a person cannot be a witness for themselves. But back to the Pharisees’ actual problem: their failure and inability to judge rightly.
See, Jesus accuses them in contrast to himself, saying, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one,” of judging according to the Greek word “sarx” that we translate as the flesh. Now, whenever we encounter this expression in the New Testament of “sarx,” we usually find it written by the Apostle Paul, and he almost universally uses the term spiritually in reference to our fallen sinful nature rather than in the physical sense of our human form—rather than meaning the meat on our bones.
John uses it similarly to Paul here to mean our sinful human inclination. So Jesus accuses these Pharisees of judging the situation and judging him according to human standards of morality, righteousness, and preference rather than by God’s standard as presented in scripture.
By declaring, “I judge no one,” Jesus was not actually denying him judging, but a denial of him judging according to their same standard. We understand this because he continues saying that “even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge but I am the Father who sent me.”
So Jesus does not contradict what he said in John 5, where he wrote, “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. And for as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the son of man.”
Lastly, where Jesus says, “I can do nothing on my own; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
So remember, especially in matters of morality and righteousness, because we are not Jesus, we do not judge—or at least we should not judge. Instead, it’s scripture, God’s holy word, that actually does the judging because this is the absolute defined standard for right judgment. Scripture is the measure by which all things and all people are judged.
Consider, if you measure the height of a child or if you step on a scale, is it you who judges as you read the height and weight, or are you just simply reading the judgment of the ruler or the scale?
See, you are just merely reporting and observing the judgment that is made by the standard. So what Jesus is really saying about judgment is that neither he nor the Father are making arbitrary on-the-spot snap judgments. Instead, scripture, God’s word, is the judge—the Word who is Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father who is with the Father in the beginning.
And so the standard for judgment was set long, long ago by the Logos, who is Theos. And so the judgment has already been decided.
See, Jesus affirms that he does not judge arbitrarily according to human standards, but that he is simply reporting the judgment of God according to the standard of scripture.
Now just think about that for a moment and think about what that means for us as individuals, as a church, as a culture, as humanity.
Have you ever heard someone say something like, “Only God can judge me”? It is true, but not in the way that many people think. Because God’s decision is not swayed, and he will not be impressed by the good by the things that you do or do not do. God will not weigh your good and bad, looking to see whether you are just a little more good than bad. Your good cannot outweigh your sin because even your best good is still bad.
God the Son, Jesus, will be and is the absolute righteous judge, and we are all judged according to the standard of his eternal and unchanging word. And according to that standard, according to scripture, none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they’ve become worthless; no one does good, not even one.
So apart from God’s justifying grace given by faith in Jesus Christ, no one can or will be declared righteous. God will judge you because he is the only Sovereign Lord, and because he alone has decreed the absolute standard of righteousness, and because he alone has the power, authority, and ability to enforce justice.
So if a person wants to know how they deserve to be judged, then they need to pick this up and read it. If a person wants to know how to avoid being judged as they deserve, then they need to pick this up and read it. But they don’t stop at reading because then they need to do what it commands. They need to repent of their sin, and they need to believe in and trust in Jesus Christ alone. And then they need to live sanctified and holy lives in response to God’s grace.
But finally, in our story, the Pharisees prove their confusion and their lack of understanding about Jesus, about who Jesus really is when they ask him, “Where is your father?” The tone and tenor of their question suggests that they expected him to call up his natural and biological father, as if they expected Jesus to direct them to his adopted father, Joseph of Nazareth, whom they may or may not have known and who may or may not— but probably was—deceased by this point.
Their question prompted Jesus to retort, “You know neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also.”
Because if they were regenerate and if they actually understood and knew who Jesus is—God the Son, the Logos who is Theos and Anthropos—then they would have also understood and known that Jesus’s father is the Lord God Almighty.
But they just did not understand. Their failure and inability to understand colored, corrupted, and tainted all of their judgments. It prevented them from judging rightly, especially about Jesus.
We were, and we are, no different from them unless we are anathan—unless we’ve been born again and are regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit. But not knowing and not understanding is still not a valid excuse for them or us. We all will still be held accountable for our actions and decisions.
While all of that should be very interesting to us, even if John seemed somewhat repetitive reminding everyone about the right standard of judgment and continuing to demonstrate how wrong the Pharisees were about Jesus, both points are closely connected to this new thing that Jesus said.
The way in which he proclaimed his deity: “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
Yet how, why, and does this apply? Ever since time began, there has been a struggle against the sovereign. Scripture tells us that at some point before human history began, Satan and his angels fell into rebellion and evil. Then Satan deceived Eve and led her and Adam into their sinful rebellion against God, corrupting our originally pure human nature.
This conflict between evil against the good—this conflict is between evil against the good. And despite the side of evil often seeming to be stronger, seeming to be more powerful, and seeming to be in ascension, evil has never overcome the good. Never. Even on the cross, when Satan appeared to triumph over God the Son, Jesus only seemed to be overcome because he had chosen to humbly submit himself to suffer as our perfect and righteous substitute.
By proclaiming himself as the light of the world, Jesus invokes this age-old moral and spiritual conflict, identifying himself with the Lord’s holy and perfect moral attribute of absolute good, standing firm against the imperfect, ambiguous, immoral, and relative spectrum of evil.
But how does that help us? The law declares, “You shall therefore keep my statutes and rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord.” So perfect obedience and adherence to God’s holy standard is the only thing that will merit someone eternal life. But unfortunately, however, no one can measure up to that standard, and all of us are therefore judged against and are condemned, except for Jesus.
Like the light, Jesus is perfect and pure—the only human deserving to live. He possesses the light of life, and by choosing to go to the cross and die in the place of those of us deserving to die, he shared his life with us. He brought us into his light and took away the darkness in which we once walked.
So now that we have been redeemed, regenerated, and are brought into the light, in response to the grace of Christ, we may now choose to do the good that we ought, although we often won’t. We may now live righteously and offer mercy to others, although we often won’t. We may now desire to and endeavor to keep God’s commandments, but we often won’t. We may now judge things rightly, and yet still we often won’t.
And when we fail, and when we do not do, our sin will be revealed by his holy light, and we will be convicted by our sin. And we may be assured that when we humble ourselves and pray and seek his face and turn from our wicked ways, Christ will hear in heaven, and he shall forgive us and heal us.
But meanwhile, those clueless Pharisees and all those who do not understand or do not have faith in Christ Jesus, they remain within the darkness of death. They cannot know the light of life, and they will not see the light of life because they do not want to be in the light of life.
Because if people truly understood who Jesus is and what he offers, no reasonable person would choose to not believe and not obey him as they prefer the darkness to the light. Even when we try to bring the light closer to them, they just simply close their eyes tight against it, or they try and flee away from it because they hate its brilliant purifying glare.
So what does this teach us? It teaches us how we may know whether we are walking in the light or walking in the darkness. It teaches us how we may know whether we possess the light of life or if we are doomed to the darkness of death.
It teaches us and reminds us that our only hope for goodness and eternal life is found by living within and united to the light of the world—Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. Amen.