As a young child growing up in Tucson, one of the special treats at Christmas time was going down to Winterhaven to see all the Christmas decorations and lights that were on display there. And so when we had our own children, one of the traditions that developed in our family is that we would go to Christmas Eve service at church and then afterwards we would drive around and look at Christmas lights.
It seems that the association between Christmas and lights is certainly appropriate. Even in the Biblical accounts that we associate with Christmas, light is a predominant theme. In Luke’s account in chapter 2 we see the angel appear amid the great light of the glory of the Lord. And in Matthew 2, we find that the magi were guided to Jesus by the light of a star, arriving at the house in Bethlehem about two years after He was born.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that as we continue our study of the “logos” from John chapter 1, John also uses light to describe the nature of the “logos”. Once again let’s read our passage out loud together:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1-5, 14 (NIV)
Let’s take a moment to quickly review what we’ve discovered about the “logos” so far:
• He is eternal. He has no beginning or end and He is uncreated.
• He has personality, which means that we can have a relationship with Him.
• He is fully God. He has all the attributes of God
• He is the Creator and His creative process is ongoing
• He is life, and therefore is the source of both our physical and spiritual life.
This morning, we’ll focus on the last part of verse 4 and verse 5:
…and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Just as we saw with “life” last week, the concept of “light” is one that is used frequently by John. He uses the word 24 times in his gospel, including 7 times here in the first chapter. And he uses it another 13 times in his epistles and in Revelation.
When we think of light as it’s used in the Bible, several different ideas come to mind. Light is often associated with illumination and knowledge. In fact, we still use it that way today when we use a light bulb as a symbol of understanding. But I think John has something else in mind here and we can get some insight into that from Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. After Jesus was born, He was taken to the Temple to be presented to the Lord. A man named Simeon was there and he took Jesus in his arms and proclaimed these words:
"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
Luke 2:29-32 (NIV)
In that passage we find that light is very clearly associated with revelation and I think that is exactly the same thought that John is expressing in his gospel when he describes the “logos” as being light.
The “logos” revealing
There are obviously almost unlimited aspects to the revelation of the “logos”, but we’re going to focus on just three of them this morning:
1. The “logos” reveals the true nature of God
Up until the incarnation of the “logos”, man had only an incomplete picture of the nature of God because God had only partially revealed Himself. In the Old Testament we see God appearing before a few people at various times and in various forms, but He never fully reveals Himself. We also see pre-incarnate appearances of the “logos” – for instance I’m convinced that the fourth man in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was Jesus. But again we don’t get a full revelation of God. God the Holy Spirit was present at times as well, but only for a specific time and for a specific purpose. He didn’t dwell permanently in the lives of God’s people.
God also spoke through His servants, the prophets. God gave them the words to speak and He revealed Himself through the words of those prophets. And we know from both the Old Testament and from Romans chapter 1 that God has revealed Himself in His creation, God continually revealed Himself to His people through all of those processes. But that revelation of Himself was still limited.
But when the “logos” became flesh, He was the light that revealed to us the true and complete nature of God. Here is how the writer of Hebrews described that principle:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
Hebrews 1:1, 2 (NIV)
Before the “logos” became flesh, God spoke at many times and in various ways in order to reveal Himself. But no one had ever seen God face to face. But when the “logos” became flesh, men were able to look God in the face and to observe His life and thus to get to know God as the “logos” made Him known. John expounds upon that idea a little later in John 1:
No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
John 1:18 (NIV)
Jesus confirmed this principle Himself when He spoke to His followers just a few hours before He went to the cross:
If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ’Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
John 14:7-11 (NIV)
I don’t know how Jesus could have made it any clearer. He told Philip and His other followers that if they wanted to know God the Father all they had to do was to look at Him because He was in the Father and the Father was in Him. Because they had seen Jesus, they had actually seen the Father because Jesus was the true and complete revelation of God.
Paul describes this principle in His writings by using the word “mystery”. As we saw in our study of Ephesians, he is not using that word in the sense of CSI or an Agatha Christie novel. But he is using it to point out that much about the nature and plans of God could only be known in part until the incarnation of the “logos”. It is only in Jesus that we have the ability to get the whole picture.
Even though the “logos” came to reveal the true nature of God, we still don’t have a complete revelation of God on this side of eternity. Since none of us have actually seen Jesus and even the Scriptures provide us with only a partial picture of His life and ministry, we can’t know Jesus fully and therefore we can’t know God fully. But one day every follower of Jesus will see Him face to face and process of God’s revelation of Himself to us will be complete:
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV)
So we see first that the “logos” is the light that reveals the true nature of God.
2. The “logos” reveals the true nature of man
Years ago a farmer was trying to teach his son the ways of life on a farm. So, he took his son out to the hen house, grabbed a chicken and said, "Son, your Mama wants a chicken for dinner, so you know what we have to do." With that he cut the chicken’s head off, and the chicken began to flop around on the ground. Well, the little boy’s eyes got wide with amazement, and he said, "Daddy, look at that. That there chicken is dead and don’t even know it."
That chicken is the perfect illustration of what every person on this earth was like at one time without the light of the “logos”. We talked about that at some length last week when we looked at the passage from Ephesians 2 that describes how anyone who has not committed his or her life to Jesus is merely a walking corpse. And without the light of the “logos” we would all still be in that condition because we wouldn’t know any better. We would be dead and not even know it.
In his gospel, Matthew quotes from this prophecy of Isaiah and applies it to the ministry of Jesus:
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 (NIV)
Both Matthew and Isaiah equate darkness with spiritual death and make it clear that Jesus, the “logos” Incarnate, came into the world to bring light and illumination so that man could recognize his true condition. John reinforces that idea in the first chapter of his gospel:
The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
John 1:9 (NIV)
There are two critical aspects of John’s words in this verse. First, he writes that the “logos” is the “true light”. I won’t dwell on this point, since we’ve covered it in recent weeks, but we live in a world where people try to find their illumination and revelation from all kinds of sources – from books, TV shows, religious leaders,even Oprah. But the problem with all these other sources is that they are not the true light and they don’t reveal our true nature. Although their so-called “light” takes on many different forms, the basic message is the same – we’re all basically good people who just need to tweak a few things in our lives in order to make them better. But the “logos”, the true light, reveals that we are sinners who are dead and in darkness.
The second point that John makes is that the “logos” gives light to every man. When the “logos” became flesh and lived a sinless life here on this earth, He gave light to all. He gave everyone the opportunity to see just how dead that they were. But not everyone allows that light to shine into their lives so that their true nature can be revealed.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
1 John 1:7, 8 (NIV)
We’ll cover this in more detail in a moment, but this passage promises that if we walk in the light of the “logos” and we allow that light to reveal our true nature and then we respond appropriately, Jesus provides us with the solution to the problem of our darkness.
But what I want us to focus on right now is verse 8. If, when the “logos” illuminates our lives, we fail to recognize and acknowledge our sinfulness, then we are deceiving ourselves.
When we lived in Albuquerque we moved into a new house and on one of the walls in our great room, the drywallers hadn’t done a very good job of taping, sanding and texturing so that when it was light in the room the seams were very visible. And before the builder could come back and remedy the situation we were having a Christmas party at our house. So the night of the party we had really subdued lighting in the house so that the defects wouldn’t be noticeable.
But if all we had done was just take away the light and never had the problems repaired, those defects would have still been there even though they weren’t as noticeable.
Unfortunately, that is what a large portion of our world has chosen to do. The “logos” shines the true light into their lives and reveals their sin and rather than deal with the sin, they choose to just remove or ignore the light. But their real problem, their sin, still exists.
So the “logos” reveals God’s true nature and He reveals man’s true nature. But if his revelation stopped right there we’d all be in trouble because we wouldn’t know how to deal with the darkness in our lives. But fortunately, there is a third aspect of the revelation of the “logos”.
3. The “logos” reveals the solution to man’s darkness
In John 7 and 8, we find a record of Jesus attending the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. This was one of the seven feasts prescribed by God in the Old Testament, but the Talmud gives detailed descriptions of how the Jewish people had significantly added to the festival by the time of Jesus. During the feast, four enormous candelabras, each of them 75 feet tall, were erected in the courtyard of the women in the Temple complex. Each candelabrum held four large bowls that each contained 10 gallons of pure oil. Beginning on the second night of the feast, young men would climb the candelabra with torches and ignite the oil. According to the Talmud, the light was so bright that it illuminated all of Jerusalem.
In the midst of that celebration, Jesus spoke these words:
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 (NIV)
In effect, Jesus was saying to the people, “These candelabra may provide great light for a few nights and light up all of Jerusalem, but I am the everlasting light that provides light for the whole world. My light is never extinguished and if you follow me you will never again walk in darkness.”
Not only is the “logos” the light that reveals the nature of God and the nature of man, He is also the permanent light that provides the means for us to escape from death and darkness and have life and light. And just to make sure that there is no doubt that it is our trust in Jesus that is the means by which we obtain real life, Jesus spoke these words on a later occasion:
Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light…
John 12:36 (NIV)
Jesus could not have made it any clearer. If we want to have life and light then the only way to have that is by trusting in Him. That is the only way to become sons of light.
From what I’ve already shared, many of the implications of the “logos” as the revealer are evident. But let me close by focusing on just two of the most significant ones.
THE “LOGOS” REVEALING - IMPLICATIONS FOR US
1. Each person is accountable to the “logos” for his or her response to what He reveals.
The “logos” did not come to reveal the true nature of God, the true nature of man and the solution to man’s darkness just for our information. The revelation that he provides requires a response from each of us. In fact, Jesus tells us directly that is the purpose of Him coming as light:
I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
John 12:46 (NIV)
The “logos” is the revealer so that we have the opportunity to respond to that revelation. And there are only two possible responses to that revelation:
• We can respond by believing in Jesus and trusting in Him alone as the means by which we move from death to life, from darkness to light, or
• We can respond by pursuing our own means of light and rejecting the true light that can only come from Him who is the true light.
Perhaps there are some of you here this morning who believe that there is a third option. You’ve now been exposed to the revelation that comes through the “logos”, but you’re not quite ready to respond to that revelation right now. You’re “undecided”. But being undecided is really no different than choosing not to trust in Jesus right now. Until you choose to respond positively to the revelation of the “logos” you are in fact dead and in darkness.
If you’re ready to respond to the revelation of the “logos” this morning and believe and trust in Jesus, then there are a couple of ways that we can help you follow through on that decision. You can fill out the flap on the bulletin and check the box that indicates you want to find out more about how to begin a personal relationship with Jesus and then place it in the offering plate in a few minutes. Or you can talk to Pastor Dana or me after the service and we’ll be happy to talk to you in more detail about that decision.
But my sense is that most of us here this morning have already responded positively to the revelation of the “logos”. If you’re one of those people, there is also an important implication for you to consider this morning.
2. Following the example of the “logos” we are to be the Gospel in the flesh
Starting in Genesis, God continually revealed His plans for His people. But as we’ve seen this morning, His gospel could never be understood completely until the “logos” became the Gospel in the flesh.
In His infinite wisdom, God has chosen to continue to communicate His Gospel in the very same way, even though Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father in heaven. God hasn’t changed His methods. He has merely transferred the responsibility of being the Gospel in the flesh from the “logos” to those who have received life and light through His revelation.
In the Sermon on the Mount, long before anyone even recognized that Jesus was in fact the “true light”, He spoke these words:
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)
Even before He had fully revealed Himself as the true light, Jesus wanted His followers to be thinking about how they were to be light in the midst of a dark world. There is no doubt that those who heard those words that day couldn’t begin to fully understand what Jesus meant. But as His ministry progressed and He began to reveal to them that they could only be light by believing in Him because He was the true light, they could begin to see how Jesus was passing the baton to them and exhorting them to be the Gospel in the flesh.
But it is only on the other side of the cross that we can fully understand what Jesus was saying. Perhaps that is why Paul wanted to clarify that principle when he wrote his letter to the Ephesians:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light
Ephesians 5:8 (NIV)
As children of light, we are to live in a way that is consistent with that light so that we can be light in the lives of others.
Ultimately, only God can draw people unto Himself. But He has chosen to do that through the lives of His children. God has created man with a desire to have concrete evidence and proof before we’re willing to make a decision. That’s why the “logos” came in the flesh. And that is why God calls his children to be the Gospel in the flesh in a dark world that needs the light that the “logos” offers.
Who has God brought into your life so that you can live as a child of light and be the Gospel in the flesh in their life?
