"I Am the Light of the World"

A guest post by Bill Irby.

Photo by Jana Leu on Unsplash

John 8:12 in the NKJV begins "Then Jesus spoke to them again." The "them" here appears to be people present when the woman taken in adultery was brought before Jesus, less those who left the scene after seeing what Jesus had written on the ground.

The Lord's statement is searingly simple: "I am the light of the world." There are six words in the text; seven in translation. Note that He did not say that He considered Himself to be the light of the world or that people had said that He is the light of the world. Instead He said "I am."

The language of the New Testament, called koine Greek, works a bit differently than does ours. Most of the time, the form of the verb "to be" contains the noun, in this case, the "I" in "I am." In John 8:12 there is an additional "I" for emphasis. It is therefore preferable to read it "I, I am the light of the world."

Had I been present at this scene I might have considered this emphasis on the Person of Jesus challenging. The Pharisees certainly did. They thought they had mastered understanding all spiritual matters. They had not. Jesus had just instructed them, perhaps quite literally on the ground, that consistency in moral matters is important and very hard to maintain.

In these few words Jesus makes a profound claim to be the light of the world. This is not the only place He does so; it is a theme in John. He is correct for many reasons, primarily among them the reality that He was present and instrumental in the creation of physical light. There was no such thing as light as we know it before God said "Let there be light." God created and made physical light; thus He is the source of light. The sun, the moon, the stars and everything upon which their light might reflect were spoken into existence by God.

We do not go far in Scripture before learning that God used the words "light" to stand for good and "darkness" to stand for evil. John makes ample use of this depiction. God had His reasons for doing so, but it seems to me that He chose it because we all understand it. We might not be afraid of the dark, but we know that we are more likely to stub a toe or commit a sin in the dark rather than in the light.

John heard Jesus say, "I am the light of the world," and it must have struck him so that he never forgot it. When he wrote 1 John he included this line: "if we walk in the light as He is in the light." It is no wonder John used this literary formula given his experience with the Lord. Read aloud and listen to 1 John 1:8: "This is the message which we have heard of Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all."

Serious readers of the Bible know all of this, if not in detail, at least in essence. The problem is the question of how we incorporate these concepts, this set of inspired ideas, into our lives in a world that is not inclined to take the Bible seriously.

There is work to do, and it begins within our own minds. It is easy to get so caught up in our day-to-day material lives that we forget that there is a reality beyond and qualitatively different from the physical world. We ought to "get it" because God has placed before us in this life many lessons to teach us that this life is not and cannot be all there is. Illness, war, and evil oppress humanity continually. Since all sin results from bad choices we make we should know that darkness is wrong and light is right. Yet people are likely to choose badly when they think this material life is all there is.

The real spiritual world is not mystical, emotional, or "better felt than told." It is the reality created when a person "walks in the light" of the Holy Spirit-inspired Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Paul taught that love is real in 1 Corinthians 13. So did John in his Gospel and in 1 John. We all know love is real but it cannot be bought by the pound. Love has physical manifestations but love itself is a spiritual set of beliefs and understanding that arises from the teaching of God in His Word.

This set of truths resonates from the Bible, nowhere more intensely than from John. For example, in chapters 3 and 4 Jesus had conversations with two very different people, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Nicodemus was caught in and held back by the idea of physical birth. No one can return to his mother's womb and be born again that way. Everyone knows this. But one can and indeed, must be born again spiritually. The woman at Jacob's well was caught up in thinking about physical water, a substance required for physical life. The Lord taught her that there is spiritual water required for spiritual life. Jesus is this water of life just as He is the light of the world.  John continues in this fashion, revealing the permanence and superiority of the spiritual over the material.

No one can light his physical environment much beyond a limited radius. But the light of Jesus Christ goes wherever His Word has free course. He is the light of the whole world, all the time. He is able to light the world because His is a spiritual light that operates in our spiritual environment, the environment of our minds. His perfect, loving, powerful and humble life (Philippians 2:5-11) is revealed in and from the pages of the Bible.

Our times are perilous. It has always been this way. It always will be. We must learn from it. The great lesson is that our time here is short. As Paul taught our "outward man" perishes. But if we are faithful our "inward" man is renewed (2 Corinthians 4).

How can we do this? Follow the light as desperately as you would follow a light you glimpsed while lost in a dark and foreboding forest. Without the light that is Jesus Christ we will be lost now and forever. We are thankful that He wants us to be saved. The "Light of the World" gave His life for us (John 3:16). Let us walk in His light. 

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I appreciate Bill sharing his thoughts from Scripture with us!

Bill Irby was the full-time preacher for the West Hobbs Street Church of Christ, where I now am blessed to preach. He’s also a great friend, mentor, and neighbor. I’m thankful for his godly influence in the lives of so many people in this world!