I Am The Light Of The World – Light In The Darkness – John 9 - Part 1 Series

I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD – LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS – JOHN 9 - PART 1

THE INTRODUCTION:

The very first mention for “I am the light of the world” is this one – {{John 8 v 12 Again therefore Jesus spoke to them saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”}} This statement followed the incident of the woman taken in adultery, and may or may not have happened at the same time. I think it happened later on somewhere, but the statement resulted in a nasty confrontation with the Pharisees where they got abusive and vile, and tried to stone Jesus, and that takes up all the rest of chapter 8.

The nastiness of the old sinful nature was always residing with the Pharisees, but those who observe will notice that the present world is becoming now more abusive, dark and confrontational. The predictions of the end of the Church age that Paul gave Timothy are well and truly here. The cancel culture says if you don't agree with me/us we will cancel you out. The Pharisees owned the cancel culture.

The occasion of this wonderful I AM in chapter 9, was the miraculous granting of sight to a man who had never had sight, and it occupies the whole of chapter 9 of John’s Gospel. Here was a man who had never seen the light, for his experience had always been blackness. It would seem from verse 3, where Jesus explained the reason why that man had been born blind, was that the man was ordained by God to be blind, for an everlasting revelation of the power of God. {{John 9 v 3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him.”}} In verse 4 we have a very special twist – {{“We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day. Night is coming when no man can work.”}}

The Lord would work in the light of the day with the man’s darkness, so that the night of his darkness would become like the light of the day. There is not the build up to this “I AM” like others have, but the Lord’s declaration of Himself comes very quickly. He then said, John {{9 v 5 “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”}} (The word “while” has the sense of “when”. It did not mean that Jesus was the Light of the World just for the years He lived here. His presence is still in the world through the Holy Spirit. The definite article is not in the original. Westcott says, "Christ is 'light to the world,' as well as 'the one Light of the world.'). The man went in his darkness to the pool of Siloam and washed and left that pool with the perfect light of the salvation of God. O, yes, we know he was saved as a careful examination of the rest of the chapter will show. The Lord does not speak again from verse 6 until He again meets the man in verse 35.

A casual reading of this story could easily pass over the great importance of the Lord’s “I AM”. “I am the light of the world.” What I would like to do, is examine the subject of light, especially in regard to the Lord so we may understand His great “I AM” better. Firstly, though, I want to look at the condition of man in regard to light and darkness, for those two words are constantly used in scripture.

MAN’S NATURAL STATE:

(a). We go right back to Genesis for the first mention of light and it is in these verses – {{Genesis 1 v 2 and the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Gen 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.}} Some people, especially those who subscribe to Answers in Genesis or Creation Ministries, will disagree with my understanding here, but God does not create with darkness. God is light. I believe this state of affairs came about because of a judgement on the whole earth, and Genesis 1 is the re-ordering of an empty earth, shrouded in darkness.

“Formless and void”, or “without form and void” in both Genesis and Jeremiah 4 verse 23, and from Isaiah for that matter, comes from the Hebrew tôhû va-bhôhû, and is untranslatable. In order to convey its meaning, translations and commentators have used the following expressions – “without form and void, without order and beauty, without furniture and use, waste and void, emptiness, vacancy, barrenness, formless, lifeless mass, desolate, confusion and desolation.” Those expressions are not of joy but of gloominess and disaster, and do not describe the pristine creation of God.