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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 8:12

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Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

12. Then spake Jesus again unto them ] The paragraph Joh 7:53 to Joh 8:11 being omitted, these words must be connected with Joh 7:52. The officers have made their report to the Sanhedrin, leaving Jesus unmolested. After an interval He continues His discourse: again, therefore, Jesus spake unto them, i.e. because the attempt to interfere with Him had failed. How long the interval was we do not know, but probably the evening of the same day.

I am the light of the world ] Once more we have a possible reference to the ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles, somewhat less probable than the other (see on Joh 7:37), but not improbable. Large candelabra were lighted in the Court of the Women on the evening of the first day of the Feast, and these flung their light over the whole city. Authorities differ as to whether this illumination was repeated, but all are agreed that it did not take place on the last evening. Here, therefore, there was once more a gap, which Christ Himself may have designed to fill; and while the multitude were missing the festal light of the great lamps, He declares, ‘I am the Light of the world.’ In the case of the water we know that it was poured on each of the seven days, and that Christ spoke the probable reference to it on the last day of the Feast. But in this case the illumination took place possibly on the first night only, and Christ certainly did not utter this possible reference to it until the last day of the Feast, or perhaps not until the Feast was all over. But the fact that the words were spoken in the Court of the Women (see on Joh 8:20) makes the reference not improbable.

he that followeth me ] This expression also is in favour of the reference. The illumination in the Court of the Women commemorated the pillar of fire which led the Israelites through the wilderness, as the pouring of the water of Siloam commemorated the water flowing from the Rock. ‘The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light ’ (Exo 13:21). So Christ here declares that those who follow Him shall in no wise walk in darkness. The negative is very strong. This use of ‘darkness’ for moral evil is peculiar to S. John: see on Joh 1:5, where (as here) we have light and life ( Joh 8:4) closely connected, while darkness is opposed to both.

shall have the light of life ] Not merely with him but in him, so that he also becomes a source of light. See on Joh 7:38, and comp. ‘Ye are the light of the world,’ Mat 5:14.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Joh 8:12 to Joh 9:41 . Christ the Source of Truth and Light

In Joh 8:12-46 the word ‘true’ occurs six times, the word ‘truth’ seven times.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I am the light of the world – See the notes at Joh 1:4, Joh 1:9.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Joh 8:12-20

Then spake Jesus again unto them

The connection of Christs discourse with the previous incident and the feast

The feast of tabernacles was over.

The water of Siloah was no more poured out by the altar; the golden lights no longer burned in the forecourt of the Temple. But like as Jesus Christ, the True Well of salvation, offered from His inexhaustible spring living water to all who were athirst, so also as the True Light, He shone with a never-dying lustre, in order that He might lead sinners out of the darkness of death into the light of life. What power the perishable, earthly light of the Temple had, how impotent it was to enlighten the hearts of those who participated in the festival, had been exhibited to all in the narrative of this morning. In the midst of the bright shining of the tabernacle lights, that woman was wandering in the darkness of adulterous lust, and her accusers in the darkness of arrogant self-conceit. Not until the light of Jesus broke in upon the womans heart did she become a penitent sinner, or forsake the love of darkness; whilst on the other hand, the Pharisees, when shone upon by the light of the Searcher of hearts, became convicted sinners, and went out because they loved darkness rather than light. And the requirement that the Lord made of the woman upon whom the light of His grace had shone, Go and sin no more, is now included in the word of promise: He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Once upon a time, the people had followed the light of the pillar of fire in the wilderness; and of this they were reminded by the light of the feast of tabernacles. But now many in the wilderness followed that light and yet wandered in darkness, because the light of life was not theirs!–they had it not! How many, too, were there now who rejoiced in the lustre of the tabernacle light, yet were wandering in darkness, because they too had not the light of life! Yes, how many heard the law read aloud in the assembly of the feast of tabernacles, and yet learnt it not (Deu 31:10, etc.), because they would not learn the End of the law, which was Jesus Christ! Thus they were shone upon by the light of Divine revelation, and boasted of being a people of light, and yet remained in darkness. Different is the case with the true followers of the light. Their fellowing consists in faith, and faith makes Christ to dwell in their hearts (Joh 12:36; Joh 12:46;Eph 3:17); and because they then have the light of life, they no longer walk in darkness, neither in the love, nor in the terror of it; they no longer walk in sins, nor in death, no more according to the pleasure, no more in the power of the devil. (R. Besser, D. D.)

I am the Light of the world

The incident

When these words were spoken it was early morning. They had parted last night, after a day of commotion and danger; but at daybreak Jesus was back again in the midst of the people. And early in the morning He came again into the Temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them. We can picture to ourselves the unfolding splendours of the new morning. The eyes of the people gazed as, without wave or sound, as with increasing vigour and unsullied purity, the light streamed in from the east. It disclosed the green fields and well kept vineyards and pleasant groves of the valleys; it lit up the city and its splendid palaces and gorgeous Temple; and it revealed all around them the majestic forms of the mountains. How it gilded everything, and beautified the pinnacles of the Temple, and touched the hills with gold! How it aroused the wicked, who then as now turned night into day, and worked deeds of violence and wrong under cover of black night! How it cleansed the earth, and lifted the thick veil of mist, and drove away the pestilential vapours! Even the beasts, savage and dangerous, who through the night had been seeking and securing their prey, owned its power, and retired from the light into the caves and dens of the earth. All this was present to the thoughts of the people, and standing there in the midst of them Jesus said, This is the emblem of My mission: I am the Light of the world, (C. Vince.)

The force of the allusion

He was seated at that moment in the Treasury–either some special building in the Temple so called, or that part of thecourt of the women which contained the thirteen chests with trumpet-shaped openings, called shopheroth, into which the people, and especially the Pharisees, used to cast their gifts. In this court, and therefore close beside Him, were two gigantic candelabra, fifty cubits high and sumptuously gilded, on the summit of which nightly during the feast of tabernacles, lamps were lit which shed their soft light over all the city. Round these lamps the people, in their joyful enthusiasm, and even the stateliest priests and Pharisees, joined in festal dances; while, to the sound of flutes and other music, the Levites, drawn up in array on the fifteen steps which led up to the court, chanted the beautiful psalms which early received the title of Songs of Degrees. In allusion to these great lamps, on which some circumstance of the moment may have concentrated the attention of the hearers, Christ exclaimed to them, I am the Light of the world. (Archdeacon Patter.)

The Light of the world

Note

I. THE GREAT ASSUMED TRUTH WHICH LIES UNDERNEATH THE WHOLE VERSE is the fall of man. The world is in a state of moral and spiritual darkness. Naturally men know nothing rightly of themselves, God, holiness, or heaven. They need light.

II. THE FULL AND BOLD MANNER OF OUR LORDS DECLARATION. He proclaims Himself to be the Light of the world. None could truly say this but one, who knew that He was very God. No prophet or apostle ever said it.

III. HOW OUR LORD SAYS THAT HE IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. He is not for a few only, but for all mankind. Like the sun He shines for the benefit of all, though all may not value or use His light.

IV. THE MAN TO WHOM THE PROMISE IS MADE. It is to him that followeth Me. To follow a leader, if we are blind, or ignorant, or in the dark, or out of the way, requires trust and confidence. This is just what the Lord Jesus requires of sinners who want to be saved. Let them commit themselves to Christ, and He will lead them safe to heaven. If a man can do nothing for himself, he cannot do better than trust another and follow him.

V. THE THING PROMISED TO HIM WHO FOLLOWS JESUS–deliverance from darkness and possession of light. This is precisely what Christianity brings to a believer. He feels and sees, and has a sense of possessing something he had not before. God shines into his heart and gives light. He is called out of darkness into marvellous light (2Co 4:4-6; 1Pe 2:9). (Bp. Ryle.)

The Light of the world

Christ as Light is

I. WONDROUSLY REVEALING. Light is a revealing element. When the sun goes down and darkness reigns, the whole of the beautiful world is concealed, all on ocean and land is hidden. The sun arises, and all stands forth to view. What does Christ reveal? God, a spiritual universe, a moral government, a future state of retribution, a remedial system by which fallen humanity can be restored to the knowledge, the image, the friendship, and the enjoyment of the eternal Father. Men have appeared here in different ages and regions who have been called lights. Prophets; John the Baptist; the apostles; some of the heathen sages; and many of the modern philosophers and scientists. But Christ is the Light. Other lights are borrowed; He is the original Fountain. Other lights only reveal dimly a few things in some narrow space; He reveals all things fully through all regions of moral being. Other light shone a little, and, like meteors, went out; He burns on forever–the Light of the world.

II. HUMANITY GUIDING. He that followeth Me, etc. The sun may shine in its noontide radiance, and yet men may walk in darkness; they may shut their eyes or keep in cells or caverns. It is so with Christ. Though He is the moral Sun of the world, the millions walk in darkness. Christ is to be followed

1. Doctrinally.

2. Ethically.

3. Spiritually. Men who follow Him thus will always be in the

light.

III. SPIRITUALLY QUICKENING. The natural sun is the fountain of life to the world; his beams quicken all. Christ is the Life of the world. In Him was life. He quickens the intellect, the conscience, the soul. There is no spiritual life apart from Him. Conclusion:–How great the obligation of the world to Christ I What would this earth be without the sun? Its condition would be wretched beyond conception; and yet it would be better off than humanity without Christ. Were all that Christ has been to humanity, and still is, to be withdrawn, into what a Stygian condition it would sink. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift! (Homilist.)

The Light of the world

Light and life are intimately associated. Let there be light was the first creative act–essential for the life that was to follow. How true of the scull A chaos of death and darkness–then the shining of the life-giving Sun of Righteousness.

I. IN WHAT SENSE IS CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

1. The light He communicates is not derived. Christ is not a reflector, but the Spring and Source. None ever taught Him wisdom; eternity did not increase His knowledge, God is Light and Christ is God.

2. He is the Medium through which it is revealed to men. When the world through sin had become exposed to the withdrawal of all heavenly light, then by Christs interposition was a gentle ray preserved. This grew till in His own Person He brought the full and living manifestation of glory.

II. THE CHARACTER OF THE LIGHT.

1. Christ brought into the world knowledge. No small advance had been made in knowledge before Christ came–art, science, and philosophy had flourished. But the knowledge of God and futurity had almost died out. And the advances of the human intellect would seem to have been permitted to prove that men by searching could not find out God.

2. Christ brought into the world holiness. Light and purity, darkness and unholiness are synonymous terms. Ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. The wisdom of the world may exist with the grossest passions, but the Light of the world cleanses as well as instructs.

III. THE RELATION OF THE LIGHT TO THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Following the course of the sun, we cannot but have the light of life. As the flowers, drawn by the attracting power of the suns rays, turn round and follow the great light of day in his course in the heavens, drinking in with avidity every beam, developing new beauties, giving forth fresh odours with every ray of light received, so the Christian, drawn by the magnetic influence of Divine love, living in constant intercourse with the source of all inspiration, following closely the light of truth which radiates from the eternal sun, develops fresh beauties of character, gives forth the sweet perfume of true nobleness of life, adorning the doctrines of Christ the Saviour. (T. Mirams.)

The Light of the world

All that the sun is to the natural world Christ is to the moral and the spiritual. It is not He that is like the sun, but rather the sun that is like Him. Thus understood, the words of the text recall the prophecy The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. What a marvellous assertion it is l In the mouth even of an extraordinary man it would be ridiculous, and no intellectual eminence could redeem it from the charge of vanity. We can save it from the accusation only by regarding it as the utterance of Incarnate Deity. And it is only in the same way that we can harmonize it with those qualities of truthfulness and humility by which at all times the Man Christ Jesus was distinguished. The text suggests

I. THE PURITY OF THE LORDS PERSONAL CHARACTER. A ray of light is the cleanest thing we know, and though it may pass through the most polluted medium, it comes out of it as immaculate as when it entered it. Christ was from the very first a holy thing. There are spots on the sun, but nothing ever appeared to mar the beauty of His holiness, by the constant emanation of His own purity, he kept the evil from approaching Him. Now this purity consisted not so much in the absence of all sin as in the presence of all excellence. Just as the white light of the sun is composed of the seven primary colours, each in its own proportion, and having its own properties, so the holiness of Christ, when analyzed, reveals the presence in its normal degree of each of the virtues. His love contributed warmth, His truth imparts its sharp actinic influence, whereby the correct outlines of all subjects on which He shone were clearly defined! His humility gave its violet beauty to mellow the lustre of His character; His courage lent its yellow tinge to complete the harmony; while His meekness contributed its soft green hue, and His justice brought the fiery red, which burned in His withering denunciation of all hypocrisy and wrong. Peerless as the sun in the firmament shines the character of Jesus Christ. No keen-eyed sceptic has ever been able to detect in it a flaw.

II. THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE REVELATION WHICH HE MADE. His advent chased away darkness, and brought new truths into view. We have been so long accustomed to the lustre of His beams, that it is difficult to estimate how much we owe to Him in this respect, for the things which we now teach to children were far beyond the reach of the educated minds of antiquity.

1. Look at the views which He has given us of God. By that one utterance God is a spirit etc. He threw a flood of light on questions which had puzzled the wisest heathens. That we are not idolators we owe entirely to the light which Christ has shed for us, on the spirituality, omnipresence, supremacy, and fatherhood of God.

2. Look at the matter of atonement, and see what radiance He has cast on that dark subject. When He came into the world, victims were smoking daily upon altars, and everywhere they were at once the expression of a want and confession of a failure. They gave inarticulate witness to the longing of mens souls for acceptance with God, on the ground of expiation, while their continued repetition acknowledged that they who offered them could not rest long in their offering. But Christ offered Himself, and it was at once seen by all who believed on Him, that His sacrifice met the case, for His resurrection demonstrated that it was accepted by God, and so they could rest perfectly content. This accounts for the fact, that wherever Jesus was received sacrifices disappeared.

3. Look how the revelation brought by Christ has illuminated the future life. He has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel. The immortality of the soul was a wish rather than an object of faith among the most of the ancients, and they knew nothing whatever about resurrection. But when Christ rose from the tomb He left its portal open; and when He ascended He took possession of heaven in His peoples name. Absence from the body is now presence with the Lord.

III. THE BENEFICENT INFLUENCES THAT RADIATE FROM CHRIST. There are few natural agents more valuable than the light.

1. It ministers largely to health. Even the plants cannot thrive without the sunshine, and a shrub taken to the bottom of a mine speedily withers; while the very weed that grows in the cave turns ever with a wonderful instinct towards the light. So it is a common aphorism that the sunny side of the street or house is healthier. Christ gives health to the soul by bestowing upon it regeneration, while the influence of His instructions strengthens the intellect, gives sensitiveness to the conscience, stiffens the will, settles and centres the affections, and broadens and deepens the character.

2. It contributes materially to happiness. Everybody knows a difference between a clear and a dull day. The one, as it were, electrifies the system, and we go forth into it with joyous exhilaration; the other is heavy and depressing. We are ill at ease with ourselves and cross with everybody else. So again, we know a difference between day and night. The light has that in it which somehow keeps us up, but darkness has become a common metaphor for heaviness of heart. Now Jesus is the Author of joy. He takes away from us sin which is the source of all sadness. He adds the gladness of fellowship with Himself to all our other delights; and when the joys of earth grow dim, He remains to be to us as full of satisfaction as He was before.

3. It contributes to our safety. Unless we see where we are going we may stumble or fall, to the serious injury of our bodies; and so, especially when the way is rough and dangerous, it is always better to travel in the daytime. In moral things, it is just as essential that we see what we are doing. We must mark the tendencies of things, lest we should take a wrong direction. We must look well to our little steps of daily conduct, lest we should be tripped up, and bring dishonour on our Lord and on ourselves. And for this reason it is of the greatest importance that we keep near to Jesus. Safety lies in walking in His light. It is not earthly philosophy; it is not worldly prudence; it is not caution or canniness that will keep a man secure. All these are in the main but modes of selfishness, and selfishness is always like a mole burrowing in the dark and trapped at last by the higher art of the hunter. But Christs light is love, the love of God and our neighbour.

IV. THE MANNER IN WHICH WE BECOME PARTAKERS OF THE BLESSINGS WHICH CHRIST BRINGS. We are enlightened by opening our eyes to the light. In the morning we raise our blinds, and let in the blessed sunbeams, whereby our hearts are gladdened and our homes are brightened. And in the same way we are to become illuminated by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. We must open our eyes and behold His glory; we must open our intellects to receive His instructions; we must open our hearts to let Him into our affections; we must open our lives to let Him rule over our actions. Here our great duty, as also our great difficulty, is to be simply receptive. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

The Light of the world

Christ was His own great theme. What He said about Himself was very unlike language becoming a wise and humble teacher. This is only reconcileable with our conception of His nature that He is God manifest in the flesh. Are such words as these fit to be spoken by any man conscious of his own imperfections. They assert that Christ is the only source of illumination for the whole world, that following Him is the sure deliverance from error and sin and gives the follower a light which is life. And the world, instead of turning away from such monstrous assumptions, has largely believed them and has not felt them to mar the beauty of meekness, which, by a strange anomaly, this Man says He has.

I. THE SYMBOLISM. What was the meaning of those great lights that went flashing through the warm autumn nights of the feast of tabernacles. All the parts of that feast were intended to recall some feature of the wilderness wanderings; and the lights by the altar were memorials of the pillar of cloud and fire. Jesus, then, declares Himself to be in reality, for all, and forever what that pillar was in outward seeming to one generation.

1. It was the visible vehicle of the Divine presence. It manifested and hid God, and was thus no unworthy symbol of Him who remains after all revelation unrevealed. The fire is ever folded in the cloud, and the thick darkness in which He dwells is but the glorious privacy of perfect light. That pillar, a cloud to shelter from the scorching heat, a fire to cheer in the blackness of night, spread itself above the sanctuary, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle, and when that was replaced by the Temple the cloud filled the house of the Lord, and there, dwelling between the cherubim, types of all creatural life; and above the mercy seat that spoke of pardon, and the ark that held the law; and behind the veil where no feet trod save those of the priest bearing the blood of atonement once a year–shone the light of the visible majesty of present Deity.

2. But centuries had passed since that Light had departed. Shall we not, then, see a deep reference to that awful blank, when Jesus, standing before that shrine which was in a most sad sense empty, pointed to the quenched lamps which commemorated a departed Shekinah, and said, I am the Light of the world. He is that because in Him is the glory of God. The cloud of the humanity the veil, that is to say, His flesh, enfolds and tempers; and through its transparent folds reveals while it swathes the Godhead. Like some fleecy vapour flitting across the sun and irradiated by its light, it enables our weak eyes to see light and not darkness in the else intolerable blaze. The Word was made flesh and dwelt, etc.

II. THE PRIVILEGE AND DUTY.

1. Christ, like that pillar, guides us in our pilgrimage. Num 9:1-23. dwells upon the absolute control of all the marches and halts by the cloud. As long as it lay spread above the tabernacle, there they stayed. Impatient eyes might look and impatient spirits chafe–no matter. And whenever it lifted itself no matter how short had been the halt, footsore the people, or pleasant the resting place–up with the tent pegs immediately, and away. There was the commander of their march–not Moses nor Jethro.

2. We have in Christ a better Guide through worse perplexities than theirs. By His Spirit, example, Word, providence, Jesus is our Guide–gentle, loving, wise, sure. He does not say Go, but Come. I will guide thee with Mine eye–not a blow, but a look of directing love which heartens to and tells duty. We must be near Him to catch it and in sympathy with Him to understand it, and be swift to obey. Our eyes must be ever toward the Lord, or we shall be marching on unwitting that the pillar has spread itself for rest, or dawdling when it has gathered itself up for the march. Do not let impatience lead you to hasty interpretations of His plans before they are fairly evolved. Take care of running before you are sent. But do not let the warmth of the camp fires or the pleasantness of the shady place keep you when the cloud lifts.

3. All true following begins with or rather is faith (chap 12:46). Faith the condition and following the operation and test of faith. None but they who trust follow Him. To follow means the submission of the will, the effort to reproduce His example, the adoption of His command as my law, His fellowship as my icy; and the root of this is coming to Him conscious of darkness and trustful in His light.

III. THE PROMISE. In the measure in which we fulfil the duty the wonderful saying will be verified and understood by us.

1. Shall not walk in darkness refers

(1) to practical life and its perplexities. Nobody who has not tried it would believe how many difficulties are cleared away by the simple act of trying to follow Christ. It is a reluctant will and intrusive likings and dislikings that obscure the way oftener than real obscurity in the way itself. It is seldom impossible to discern the Divine will when we only wish to do it. And if ever it is impossible, that is the cloud resting on the Tabernacle. Be still, wait and watch.

(2) But darkness is the name for the whole condition of the soul averted from God. There is the darkness of ignorance, impurity, sorrow, thickening to a darkness of death. To follow Christ is the true deliverance, and the feeblest beginnings of trust in Him, and the first tottering steps that try to tread in His bring us unto the light.

2. Shall have the light of life, a grander gift–not the light which illuminates the life, but like similar phrases, bread of life, water of life,–light which is life. In Him was life, etc. With Thee is the foundationof life, etc. The pillar remained apart, this Guide dwells in our souls. Conclusion: Christ, like His symbol of old, has a double aspect–darkness for Egypt, light to Israel. Trusted, followed, He is light; neglected, turned from, He is darkness. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Light of the world

(In conjunction with Mat 5:14):–A startling combination! The two ends of a chain of teaching, of which the middle links are supplied by the apostle who speaks of Christ in you, and of the saints as light in the Lord.

I. WHEREIN DOES CHRISTS LIGHT DIFFER FROM OURS?

1. As ordinary white light–the light of the sun–is an exquisite blending of all hues of light, so Christ combines all the varied features of goodness in Himself. He is the Unity of all enlightening, cheering, quickening qualities.

2. But as the light is broken up and reflected, so the scattered rays of goodness are reflected from each disciple in his own character and ministry amongst his fellows.

II. WHEREIN IS OUR REFLECTED LIGHT AS CHRISTS?

1. It may reveal, as He did, the Father.

2. It may guide and cheer, as He did, the sons of men.

3. As His exposed the evil in men, so may ours expose and shame those who come into contact with us.

4. As He, like light, coaxes the plant to thrive, causes mens natures to bloom and bear fruit, so may we develop mens latent capacities for goodness by contact with us.

5. As His light was diffused, so may ours go forth-upon unknown ministries. (W. Hawkins.)

Light for us

I. CHRIST IS THE LIGHT FOR LIFE WHICH GUIDES.

1. Christ is such grading light because He is the Light. Moral guidance shines from Him, because He is the one perfect specimen of moral living.

2. Christ is such a guiding Light because He is a light so placed that all may see it.

II. CHRIST IS THE LIGHT WHICH NOURISHES AND MAKES STRONG THE TRUE LIFE IN EVERY MAN. Christ promises, if He be followed, a man shall have the light of life. Here is a pale leaf. Why is it so pale? It has been denied the sunlight. Put it in the sunlight, and it will grow green and strong. Here is a leaf of noble resolution. But it is very pale and sickly. What will give it strength and colour? Bring it into the shining of Him who is the Light.

III. HOW WE MAY ENTER INTO THIS GUIDANCE AND INVIGORATION. He that followeth Me, etc. Some one has said: Nobody who has not tried it would believe how many difficulties are cleared out of a mans road by the simple act of trying to follow Christ. No doubt there will still remain obscurities enough as to what we ought to do, to call for the best exercise of patient wisdom; but an enormous proportion of them vanish like mist, when the sun looks through, when once we honestly set ourselves to find out where the Light is guiding. It is a reluctant will and intrusive likings and dislikings that obscure the way for us, much oftener then real obscurity in the way itself. It is seldom impossible to discern the Divine wilt, when we only wish to know it that we may do it. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)

Chest the Light of the world

Do you see what I mean? When the sun rose this morning it found the world here. It did not make the world. It did not fling forth on its earliest ray this solid globe, which was not and would not have been but for the suns rising. What did it do? It found the world in darkness, torpid and heavy and asleep; with powers all wrapped up in sluggishness; with life that was hardly better or more alive than death. The sun found this great sleeping world and woke it. It bade it be itself. It quickened every slow and sluggish faculty. It called to the dull streams, and said, Be quick; to the dull birds and bade them sing; to the dull fields and made them grow; to the dull men and bade them talk and think and work. It flashed electric invitation to the whole mass of sleeping power which really was the world, and summoned it to action, It did not make the world. It did not sweep a dead world off and set a live world in its place. It did not start another set of processes unlike those which had been sluggishly moving in the darkness. It poured strength into the essential processes which belonged to the very nature of the earth which it illuminated. It glorified, intensified, fulfilled the earth; so that with the suns work incomplete, with part of the earth illuminated and the rest lying in the darkness still, we can most easily conceive of the dark region looking in its half-life drowsily over to the region which was flooded with light, and saying, There, there is the true earth! That is the real planet. In light and not in darkness the earth truly is itself. That is me parable of the light. And now it seems to me to be of all importance to remember and assert all that to be distinctly a true parable of Christ. He says it is: I am the Light of the world. A thousand things that means. A thousand subtle, mystic miracles of deep and intricate relationship between Christ and humanity must be enfolded in those words; but over and behind and within all other meanings, it means this–the essential richness and possibility of humanity and its essential belonging to Divinity. Christ is unspeakably great and glorious in Himself. The glory which He had with His Father before the world was, of that we can only meditate and wonder; but the glory which He has had since the world was, the glory which He has had in relation to the world, is all bound up with the worlds possibilities, has all consisted in the utterance and revelation and fulfilment of capacities which were in the very nature of the world on which His Light has shone. Do you see what I mean? Christ rises on a soul. Christ rises on the world. I speak in crude and superficial language. For the moment I make no account of the deep and sacred truth–the truth which alone is finally and absolutely true–that Christ has always been with every soul and all the world. I talk in crude and superficial words, and say Christ comes to any soul or to the world. What is it that happens? If the figure of the light is true, Christ when He comes finds the soul or the world really existent, really having within itself its holiest capabilities really moving, though dimly and darkly, in spite of all its hindrances, in its true directions; and what He does for it is to quicken it through and through, to sound the bugle of its true life in its ears, to make it feel the nobleness of movements which have seemed to it ignoble, the hopefulness of impulses which have seemed hopeless, to bid it be itself. The little Lives which do in little ways that which the life of Jesus does completely, the noble characters of which we think we have the right to say that they are the lights of human history, this is true also of them. They reveal and they inspire. The worthless becomes full of worth, the insignificant becomes full of meaning at their touch. They faintly catch the feeble reflection of His life who is the true Light of the world, the real illumination and inspiration of humanity. Let us then leave the figure, and try to grasp the truth in its complete simplicity and see what some of its applications are. The truth is that every higher life to which man comes, and especially the highest life in Christ, is in the true line of mans humanity; there is no transportation to a foreign region. There is the quickening and fulfilling of what man by the very essence of his nature is. The more man becomes irradiated with Divinity, the more, not the less, truly he is man. The fullest Christian experience is simply the fullest life. To enter into it therefore is no wise strange. The wonder and the unnaturalness is that any child of God should live outside of it, and so in all his life should never be himself. And yet how clear the Bible is about it all! How clear Christ is! It is redemption and fulfilment which He comes to bring to man. Those are His words. There is a true humanity which is to be restored, and all whose unattained possibilities are to be filled out. Let us see how all this is true in various applications. Apply it first to the standards of character. We talk of Christian character as if it were some separate and special thing unattempted, unsuggested by the human soul until it became aware of Christ. The Christian graces are nothing but the natural virtues held up into the light of Christ. They are made of the same stuff; they are lifted along the same lines; but they have found their pinnacle. They have caught the illumination which their souls desire. Manliness has not been changed into Godliness; it has fulfilled itself in Godliness. As soon as we understand all this, then what a great clear thing salvation becomes. Does this make smaller or less important that great power of God whereby the human life passes from the old condition to the new–the power of conversion? Certainly not! What task could be more worthy of the Fathers power and love than this assertion and fulfilment of His child? Great is the power of a life which knows that its highest experiences are its truest experiences, that it is most itself when it is at its best. For it each high achievement, each splendid vision, is a sign and token of the whole natures possibility, What a piece of the man was for that shining instant, it is the duty of the whole man to be always. When the hand has once touched the rock the heart cannot be satisfied until the whole frame has been drawn up out of the waves and stands firm on its two feet on the solid stone. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The Light of the world

Christ is this because

I. HE BRINGS GOD NEAR AND MAKES HIM REAL TO MAN. Every scientific discoverer half acknowledges that He interprets the arrangements of a single intelligence. And yet it is easy to leave out of view the higher relations of scientific thinking; to stop with force and law, and not go on to the Agent who is assumed in both. But this Atheism, now so fashionable, brings darkness into the mind. It may not interfere with a limited department of research, but it is always held at the expense of liberal thinking. It may now and then perfect man as an observing machine, but it has never yet brought a ray of light to the intellect or glow to the heart. Christ teaches no science, no philosophy, and yet He is a Light to both, not by what He teaches but by what He is. He simply manifests God as living and personal, and fills the universe to the believing mind and loving soul with a sense of His presence. He not only tells us of a Father in heaven, but says: He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. And thus Christ holds the attention of men in every science to truths concerning God which science assumes and confirms.

II. HE CONFIRMS MANS CONFIDENCE IN MANS POWER TO KNOW THE TRUTH. Christ teaches caution, docility, and a certain quality of self-distrust; but He couples with it the quality of clear and tenacious conviction. He knows nothing of that fashionable scepticism which suggests that knowledge is but uncertain guess work, that thinking is a changing product of a material organization, that the truths of one generation are the dreams of the next. The capacity of man to know the truth, his obligation to defend it, and if need be to die for it is positively enforced by Christ. It is said that Christians are committed to a creed and therefore incapable of new ideas. To one conviction they are committed, viz., that truth is possible and that man is bound to attain it.

III. HE ASSERTS FOR MAN HIS TRUE DIGNITY AND HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. In nothing has Christ wrought so signal a revolution as in this, and that not by teaching a new philosophy, but by living a new life and consecrating that life by His death. He came to save man because man was lost, yet could be exalted to wisdom and holiness, and therein declared the intrinsic worth of the lowliest in the judgment of God. He consorted with publicans and sinners, not because He sympathized with what they were, but because He knew what they might become. Before Christ mans insignificance was contrasted with Natures greatness; or when set in other relations the old thinkers argued the state, the race remains; the individual perishes–let Him go. What is one among so many when God will forget every one of us? Christ has reversed all these estimates. He emphasized each mans personality by recognizing his responsibility. As responsible he is capable of personal rights as the condition of the exercise of his moral freedom, and the development of his character. As such he is king over nature, being made in Gods image. His education is the supreme end for which nature exists and society goes on; and this education is the story of redemption. What we call Christian civilization is either flower or fruit of faiths in respect to mans place in nature and the plan of God. It is proposed to change all this. Man is the product and slave of nature, and at length its victim. Personality and character are poetic abstractions; right and wrong are the outcome of social forces; conscience the reflex of average judgments of our community; the right of the individual nonexistent as against society; our protests against injustice irrational. That this new philosophy must be inhuman in its tendency need not be argued. May God spare us when insane enthusiasts or maddened criminals act it out. After the scenes of horror shall be over and society begin to reorganize itself, Christ will be the light of its schools of thought.

IV. HE IS THE LIGHT OF HUMAN CULTURE IN THAT HE BOTH STIMULATES AND REFINES IT. So far as art and literature are concerned, we may concede that Greece gave to the world the perfection of form; but Christ breathed into those forms a living soul. In manners Christ has done still more. The graces of modem life are the products of the unselfish, sympathizing, forgiving, patient, Son of Man. No sooner is Christ received into any community than the unbought graces of life are a natural consequence. But culture has its dangers. It degenerates as soon as it becomes an end and not a means. It is substituted for duty or made an excuse for sin often with terrific results. Some of its devotees are too dainty in their tastes to do the work of life, and not a few sink into unmanly fastidiousness. Christ reforms these abuses; in His school no man liveth or dieth to Himself, and man is refined by the presence and approval of his Maker.

V. HE MAKES CLEAR AND POSSIBLE TO MAN ANOTHER AND A BETTER LIFE. He has not demonstrated it to reason, but has verified it as a fact Because I live, etc. In former times men were esteemed profound, aspiring, brave and strong according as they reflected about another life. In these, man is counted shallow if he accepts it; sordid if he derives motives from it; cowardly if he cannot brave death without it; and weak if he cannot substitute for it the immortality of his thoughts as repeated in other minds. This seems unnatural and inhuman. It is the cant of a clique to attempt to silence the outcry of every longing of man with the sneer of sentimentalism. All this is a striking proof that the risen and personal Christ is as much needed as ever as the Light of the world. And when science becomes more simple and earnest, and culture more sincere and humane, both will turn to Him.

VI. HE GIVES WORTH AND SIGNIFICANCE TO THE LIFE WORK OF EVERY MAN. There is a strong tendency to depreciate the present life; and if there is no God but nature, and he locked in the bands of fate; if knowledge is guesswork, and man the sport of agencies that feel not, life is at best a dull farce or a weary tragedy, and the sooner the play is over the better. But Christ teaches differently. Under the light which He cast no event is insignificant, no joy empty, no sorrow to be spared. The hopes and regrets, the successes and defeats are all steps of discipline for immortality. To every individual a place in life is assigned, if he will occupy it, and success assured if he will rightly estimate success. Every life which Christ guides by His light, and cheers with His smile, and crowns with His reward is thoroughly worth living for its experience and its rewards. (Noah Porter, LL. D.)

The Light of the world

Compare the impression the text must have produced when first uttered and that which it produces now. In a despised country, among a conquered people, speaking a degenerated language, a humble man from an obscure village, says I am the light, etc., not one more light, but light in the absolute sense. What would a contemporary thinker of Athens or Rome have said? Just what the Pharisees in their language said. Now let 1,800 years pass by. Look at the world, not as Christians, but as impartial witnesses, and you are obliged to acknowledge that the saying which seemed senseless is an historical fact. Jesus is so much the light of the world that outside the regions over which His brightness is shed there is no more progress. Today millions salute Jesus as the Sun of souls, and those who are at one in nothing else are at one in this. In what sense is Jesus what He said, and what is the domain in which He sheds His light?

I. BY LIGHT WE GENERALLY MEAN SCIENTIFIC TRUTH when the word is used in other than a material sense. But one of the most original features of Christs teaching is that He never learnt science nor professed to solve its problems.

1. Christians have been often mistaken here, and the irritation of scientists, when Christians interfere with their demonstrations, is legitimate. They demand independence, and the demand should be conceded. But they must also grant independence in the domain of the moral and religious order which has its own laws and evidences. Christianity is never called upon to anathematize science–rather let it increase under the Divine benediction.

2. But we cannot be mistaken–the whole progress of science has not shed one ray of light on the problem of problems. We are told that we should be indifferent here, and Positivism enjoins humanity to enclose itself between the cradle and the tomb, and know nothing beyond. But it cannot succeed. In our time, when all that can distract, absorb, enchant is multiplied, man doggedly raises the problems of the invisible world. All become acquainted with anguish and need consolation, and ask, therefore, for light.

3. An answer is necessary, and that answer the intellect reduced to its own forces is incapable of finding. With what courage and perseverance it has striven all history attests. Has science ever consoled anyone? When your conscience is troubled will you ask for a philosophical consultation? When you are near a death bed will you call in a savant? This century has made an idol of science with the inevitable result (Psa 115:5-6).

II. HERE CHRIST APPEARS. His light has not been poured on scientific problems–that domain God has left to the intellect–but He has illumined the spiritual world. How? By His teaching? What then does He teach? Himself. He is not so much the Prophet as the Truth; the light bearer as the Light.

1. He has revealed what God is. Not that He delivered discourses about God, or gave metaphysical definitions of God; but He has shown Him to us

– He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father (Heb 1:8; Col 1:15). Moses had revealed the only, the holy, the all-mighty, the just God; Jesus reveals the God who is Love. What could be added to the idea?

2. A new ideal of humanity has appeared in Jesus. He never taught a systematic and scientific morality; but simply replaced the moral world on its right axis–the love of God and the love of man. For the first time was seen in Him a life absolutely fulfilling the moral law–a life in which there is not a word, thought, movement, which is not inspired and filled by the love of God and man. In Him was seen for the first time the admirable assemblage of all the virtues which seem opposed and which ordinarily exclude one another; authority and simplicity, majesty and humility, strength and gentleness, horror of evil, and tender mercy, purity without asceticism, and familiarity without vulgarity, so that, as the diverse colours which the prism decomposes–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet–form the splendid white, to all these diverse traits, which make up the figure of Christ, are blended into so vivid a harmony that it is imprinted on the conscience of humanity forever. In Him is seen man as he ought to be.

3. He has thrown light on the abyss which separates man from God. The more luminous His holiness, the more obvious our imperfection. He makes us discern the evil we have done, and the good we have neglected. Never before Him was our nature so surely judged (Luk 2:35).

4. But the light would leave us without hope, did it not reveal a love in God greater than our revolt, a pardon greater than our iniquity; but the text nowhere is truer than as it falls from the Cross, at whose foot the sinner divines and receives a grace worthy of God, because it secures His justice while revealing His mercy; he there sees sin both judged and remitted. All other religions and philosophies must compound with evil and attenuate it; the religion of the Cross alone dares to see it, because it alone can crush it. (E. Bersier, D. D.)

The Light of the world

In a physical sense this is the sun, and with it Jesus may be compared. The sun is

I. ONE, and throughout the extent of our planetary system, it is the one source of light. Towards it each planet, with its satellites, turns every portion of its surface to receive light. There is but one Saviour–without whom every soul is wrapt in darkness, but from whom all believers obtain all blessings.

II. THE BRIGHTEST LUMINARY. In His splendour the moon and stars pale. Jesus in all things has the preeminence, and is the chiefest among ten thousand. The man of the world walks by taper light; the Christian by sunlight. What are 10,000,000 tapers to the sun?

III. OF PRODIGIOUS MAGNITUDE. Our earth is 25,000 miles round and has a surface of 200,000,000 square miles. But what is it to the sun? about one to a million! The highest mountain bears the proportion to the whole earth of a grain of sand to an 18-in. globe; man less, animals still less. What then the tiny flower and the insects that float in the sunbeam. Yes the light that streams 97,000,000 miles gladdens and enlightens all. But greater still is its Creator–Jesus–who is rich in mercy to all who call upon Him.

IV. EMINENTLY BEAUTIFUL AND BEAUTIFYING. Pure light is proved to consist of seven opposite colours–so in Jesus there is a combination of all excellences. He is all fair. The beauties of the landscape are derived from the sun; the variety of hues that meet the eye are painted by Him. So saints are beautiful through the comeliness that Jesus puts upon them, varying as it does in character, differing as it does in position.

V. MOST BENEFICIAL. Light, heat, and fertility flow from his beams. Blot out the sun and our earth would be destroyed. Without him what would be the blessing of sight? So without Jesus we should have no spiritual knowledge, no happy love to God or man, no fruitfulness. Conclusion

1. We may gather some thoughts of Jesus from the laws of light, or the modes of its operation. Is the sun an unexhaustible fountain of light? In Jesus there is an infinite fulness of grace. Does the light travel with amazing rapidity? How swiftly do the thoughts of Jesus flow out towards His servants–Before they call I will answer. Does light travel only in straight lines? Jesus is a holy Saviour; His eyes look straight before Him in the prosecution of His Fathers purposes. Is the angle of reflection always equal to the angle of incidence? The Christian knows that the light he receives from heaven, he will find it his honour and happiness to reflect on earth. Is light a radiant force, and does a small approximation to its centre bring an increase of influence? So in proportion to our nearness to Christ will be our realization of His grace.

2. Reflect on what is popularly called the rising of the sun. See how he climbs higher and higher. Even so was it with Jesus. Mark the first streak of light in the first promise–broader streaks in those succeeding to Abraham, Jacob–then the types and ceremonies; then the great prophecies, until Christ could proclaim the text. So with the preaching of Christ to nations, and His reception by individuals. (J. M. Randall.)

The Light of the world

Light is

I. REVEALING.

1. Every morning it removes the dark veil from the face of nature, and enables us to go wherever our duty calls us.

2. What blanks there would have been in science, philosophy, and poetry, if there had been no Newton, Bacon, Milton; but what a famine of knowledge there would have been regarding God and man, etc., without the Bible. Other books speak to us on these subjects, but, like the light of every star, their light is borrowed. The Bible has been the means of suggesting more thoughts, and expanding more minds, than all other books combined. The artist, historian, poet, novelist, scientist, traveller, are all indebted to it. Every syllable has been carefully examined, and out of this examination vast libraries have been formed. If all the rays of mental light which have streamed from it could be brought back to it, and if it were to be totally eclipsed, as the sun has been, what would be the condition of the world of mind?

3. To whom are we indebted for the Bible? To Christ! If He had not lived and died the New Testament could not have been written, nor the Old, since the latter is to the former what the germ is to the fruit. He is the Alpha and Omega of its subject matter, and the cause of its existence.

II. MYSTERIOUS.

1. In the morning it appears to come from the east, it travels at the rate of 90,000,000 miles in eight minutes; and in the evening seems to retire in the west. Where does it come from and go to? How shall we account for its inconceivable speed? For thousands of years it has punctually visited our planet; why does it continue as fresh as on the day of its creation? What is it? Newton says that luminous particles actually proceed from the sun; and Huyghens, that the sun only occasions a disturbance of the ether which extends in the same manner as a wave spreads itself on the surface of a lake; but no one can give a thoroughly satisfactory answer. It is a mystery.

2. Christ was human–but He was also Divine; and as we think of Him existing from eternity, as incarnate, as swaying the sceptre of the universe, and upholding all things, the mystery is deep indeed. We are advised to renounce His Divinity as a means of clearing the mystery; but that would only deepen it. A mere boy astonishing learned rabbis, a mere man stepping into the first rank of the worlds teachers, working miracles, penetrating the future, giving away His soul for sinners as willingly as He gave them advice, bursting the barriers of the tomb!–to reject His Divinity is to plunge into Egyptian darkness!

3. What then shall we do? Because of the mystery turn infidels, or stand in suspense–perplexed and miserable? The mystery of light does not disturb our equanimity; we place it among matters which our reason cannot just now grasp. Inasmuch, however, we cannot live without it, we welcome it. In the same way let us do with the mystery of Christ–a human leader, saviour, will not do for us; He must be Divine or we are lost. Let us trust Him and leave the mystery till removed by the perfect light of heaven.

III. FELICITOUS.

1. Who loves the darkness? Not the little child, who fears it. Not the virtuous youth, who, although he may have nothing to do, when evening comes wishes for a light; not the righteous old man. Those only love the darkness whose hearts are set on evil deeds. Truly the light is sweet, etc. In its presence flowers open themselves, landscapes smile, and birds sing.

2. It is thus an emblem of that felicity the blessed God wishes every man to have; but it will never come to us as pleasure comes to the beasts of the field. We must go in quest of it. Whither? To wealth, honour, fame, etc.? These will only disappoint; but if we go to Christ He will give us every element of happiness in abundance–pardon, comfort, strength, heaven.

IV. UNDEFILED.

1. The water as it proceeds from its distant home is clear as crystal, but becomes impure; the snow in a little time becomes mixed with the muddy soil; the winds, pure in their origin, become unwholesome passing through pestiferous regions; but the light–stainless it comes to us, chases away the darkness from St. Giless as freely as from Windsor Palace, enters abodes of sickness as cheerfully as abodes of health, and having brightened and beautified every object pursues its way as pure as when it came.

2. What a true image of Jesus! For twenty-eight years He resided in Nazareth, a place proverbial for wickedness. He was tempted of the devil, and mingled with the most sinful, yet what was the result? The nearer we approach a work of art the less we admire it, and the closer we come to some men the more imperfect they appear; but the more we inspect the character of Jesus the brighter does it shine. He came into the world pure, continued in it pure, and returned pure. This was the testimony of His enemies, His friends, Himself.

3. To resemble Jesus in this is the principal duty of His followers–Ye are the light of the world, Let your light so shine, etc. Were this duty discharged the moral darkness of the world would be swiftly chased away. (A. McAuslane, D. D.)

The relation of the Light of the world to the Incarnation

Light within, by His Godhead enlightening the mind; light without, by His manhood guiding, by miracles, by word, by example. (I. Williams, B. D.)

Moderated light

By this Light the suns light was made; and the Light which made the sun, under which also He made us, was made under the sun for our sake. Do not despise the cloud of the flesh; with that cloud it is covered, not to be obscured, but to be moderated. (Augustine.)

Revelations of light

As dust in a chamber cannot be seen until light is let in, so no man can know himself until this Light reveals him to himself. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)

Light the emblem of gladness

A little child dislikes the darkness instinctively, and at night, as soon as the candle is put out, it hides its head under the bed-clothes, shuts its eyes resolutely, and tries to forget all about the darkness. But when the morning comes the light streams in through the window, the little child awakens, rejoicing that the night has gone. It shakes its little spirit free from fear, and comes out of its sepulchre of clothes; for its heart is full of gladness which the light has brought. Jesus is the Light of the world in this sense also. He came not to condemn but to forgive, and to save those who were lost. And so He brought gladness and peace and great joy into the world. (C. Vines.)

The saving and health-giving influence of light

The inscription on Eddystone lighthouse is, To give light and to save life. This is a motto that also may be used to show the purpose of our Saviour Jesus Christ. He came to give light and to impart life. We erect a lighthouse on rocks that have been proved to be dangerous to life–we put it on the rocks–and, likewise, when souls were wrecked by the corruption of human nature, the Light of the world shone from the human nature of Christ Jesus. His sacred light warns us from the sin and corruption that have been proved to be so fatal to the peace and life of human souls; and, like a lighthouse, it also shows the safe path to the harbour of heaven. God is Light; and the body of Jesus is the lighthouse from which the fulness of the Almighty shone forth on a dying world. The sun is spoken of as an angel with healing in its wings. You may not be aware that persons who live in a room which opens only to the north, are more in danger of sickness than if they lived in a room which faced the opposite point of the compass. Statistics tell us that the unsunned rooms of a barracks or hospital are much less healthful than those parts on which the sun shines through the day. It is said that the absence of the direct rays of the sun increases the mortality twenty percent, as compared with the places on which it shines continually. The sun is our best doctor and sunshine is our cheapest and most efficient physic. Narrow streets, blind alleys, and back slums in which the rays of the sun never shine are a disgrace to our humanity. In such places you see, like as you see in that part of your garden on which the sun does not shine, stunted and diseased human plants. If you give the people wide streets and good houses, and provide three times the number of gaslights at night, you will have a more healthful and a more holy city than we have just now. The sun shines away disease, and a powerful light scares away sin. (W. Birch.)

Light brings power

The day closed with heavy showers. The plants in my garden were beaten down before the pelting storm, and I saw one flower that I had admired for its beauty and loved for its fragrance exposed to the pitiless storm. The flower fell, shut up its petals, drooped its head, and I saw that all its glory was gone. I must wait till next year, I said, before I see that beautiful thing again. And the night passed, and morning came, the sun shone again, and the morning brought strength to the flower. The light looked at it, and the flower looked as the light. There was contact and communion, and power passed into the flower. It held up its head, opened its petals, regained its glory, and seemed fairer than before. I wonder how it took place–this feeble thing coming into contact with the strong thing, and gaining strength! By devout communion and contact a soul gains strength from Christ. I cannot tell how it is that I should be able to receive into my being a power to do and to bear by this communion, but I know that it is a fact. Is there a peril from riches or from trial which you are afraid will endanger your Christian consistency? Seek this communion, and you will receive strength and be able to conquer the peril. (C. Vines.)

The effects of sunlight

In autumnal mornings mists settle over the Connecticut Valley, and lie cold and damp upon the meadows and the hill sides, and it is not till the sun rises and shines down warm upon them that they begin to move; and then there are swayings, and wreathings, and openings, till at length the spirit which has tormented the valley can stay no longer, but rises and disappears in the air. So is it when the Sun of Righteousness shines upon the troubles which brood over our souls. Shining but a little, they only fluctuate; but if the Sun will shine long, they lift themselves and vanish in the unclouded heaven. (H. W. Beecher.)

The light of life

He declares that to all the pilgrim hosts of men, He is what the cloud with its heart of fire was to that race of desert wanderers Exo 13:21 and Num 9:15-23).

I. AS TO ITS NATURE. That fire in the heart of the cloud was prophetic of our Lords Deity, enfolded and enshrined in His humanity.

II. AS TO ITS FUNCTIONS. The work of the fire-cloud was threefold.

1. It led.

The wilderness was a trackless waste to the hosts of Israel, and they were absolutely dependent on the cloud to show their path, and to find out a resting place each night.

2. It shielded.

3. It gave light.

III. AS TO THE CONDITIONS. He that followeth Me We must put Christ first. He must hold the position of Leader and Guide. Which way is He taking? We may generally ascertain this as we endeavour to answer one of the following questions:

1. What is the law of Christ?

2. What is the will of Christ?

3. What would Christ do under the circumstances? If we are not sure, we must wait till we are; but knowing, we must follow at all costs.

We cannot follow Jesus except we leave all–our own judgment and wisdom, our schemes and preferences, our predilections and fancies.

1. Shall not walk in darkness.

2. But shall have the light of life. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

We must not refuse the light

I once happened to be on a visit to a great castle situate on the top of a hill. There was a steep cliff, at the bottom of which was a rapid river. Late one night, there was a person anxious to get home from that castle, in the midst of a thunderstorm. The night was blackness itself. The woman was asked to stop till the storm was over; but she declined: next they begged her to take a lantern, that she might be able to keep upon the road from the castle to her home. She said she did not require a lantern, but could do very well without one. She went. Perhaps she was frightened by the storm (I know not the cause); but in the midst of the darkness she wandered from the path, and fell over the cliff: the next day that swollen river washed to the shore the poor lifeless body of this foolish woman. (Bp. Villiers.)

Rays from the Sun of Righteousness

All the light that comes to us from the sun is made up of the beams, which he is continually pouring forth. When this light is decomposed, it is found to be made up of seven different coloured rays. There are blue, and red, and orange, and yellow, and so on. These rays differ from each other in other things. The red has more heat in it; the yellow is the coldest; and the violet is the quickest in its motion. And if we wish to understand the light, we must find out all we can about the different rays. And so, if we would have a right knowledge of Jesus, we must study the different rays that shine from Him as the Sun of Righteousness. We are dependent on the sun for

I. LIFE. The light of the sun has no power to make dead things alive by shining upon them. Suppose we take a dead body, or plant, and lay it down where the light of the sun can shine on it; the light has no power to give life when it does not exist; but it can help to preserve it. The light of the sun is needed in order to keep everything alive. If the light were taken away, everything would die. And for this reason, Jesus might well say of Himself, I am the Light of the world. He is more necessary for the life of our souls than the light of the sun is for the life of our bodies. The light which shines from Jesus is made up of the truths taught us in the Bible about His character and work. The light which shines from Jesus has the power of giving life to souls that are dead, as well as of keeping them alive when it is given. When ministers preach the gospel, or when Christian people read it, or preach it to others, they are scattering light from Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness. And the light thus scattered has the power of giving life to souls that were dead in sins.

II. GROWTH. If the light were taken away from plants, and they were kept in the dark, they would not grow, Suppose you have a lot of potatoes in your cellar. If there is no window the potatoes will rot. But if there is a window those potatoes will begin to grow over towards the window. As you see them straggling across the cellar floor, it looks as if the potatoes were stretching out their arms towards the light, and begging it to come and help them to grow. And it is the same with the flowers and the trees, and with every other kind of vegetable. Each, in its place, is dependent on the light. None of them can grow without it. Here is an acorn. What a tiny little thing it is! Yet, there is a big oak tree stowed away in this little cup. But, then, that tree can never get out of the acorn and grow up to its proper size without the help of the sunlight. It needs the light to make it begin to grow. Then it springs up a tender little sprouting thing, which an infants foot could crush. But every year it grows higher, and broader, and stronger. And, as it goes on increasing in size and strength, the trunk depends on the branches, and the branches depend on the leaves, and the leaves depend on the sunlight for all they need to make the tree grow. And just in the same way our souls depend for their growth on the light that Jesus gives. A young Christian, just converted, is like an acorn just beginning to grow. A mature Christian, who has reached what the Apostle Paul calls the stature of a perfect man in Christ, is like the tree that has grown up to its full size out of the little acorn. The tree can only grow by the help of the light which the sun gives, and the soul can only grow by the help of the light which Jesus gives.

III. BEAUTY. Light is one of the most beautiful things that God has made, and it makes other things beautiful. All the beauty that we see in the world around us we owe to the light. Suppose you go into a garden full of flowers on a dark night. How many colours will you see among the flowers? Only one. Black. Suppose you go and look at a gallery of beautiful paintings in the dark. How many colours will you see? Only black. Suppose you look at a great mass of clouds in the western sky at the close of the afternoon. They are all of one colour; and this is a dark grey, almost black. There is very little beauty in those clouds. But presently the sun gets behind them. He pours a flood of light over them and through them; and what a change takes place in a moment. What different colours are there! How beautiful they are! And what has made this change? The light has done it. All those beautiful colours are made by the light. And Jesus may well be called the Light of the world on this account. Like the light, He is beautiful in Himself, and He makes others beautiful. Jesus is a glorious sun, and the light that He gives comes to us like sunbeams, that spread brightness and beauty everywhere.

IV. SAFETY. There is danger in darkness. We cannot see the evils that threaten us then, nor how to escape them. It is under the cover of darkness that thieves go forth to rob, and murderers to kill, and all sorts of wicked people to do bad things (Joh 3:20), Our merchants and shopkeepers have found out there is safety in light; and they are putting this knowledge to a good use. When I was a boy, I remember that at night the jewellers stores, and others that had valuable things in them, used to have heavy wooden or iron shutters to the windows; and these would be fastened with locks, or great iron bolts or bars. And all this was done for safety. But now many of those stores have no shutters at all to them; and others only have a thin wire grating over them. But, if you stop and look through one of those windows at night, you will find that the gas is lighted in the store, and kept burning. If a thief should get in there and begin to steal, he would be seen by the watchman, or the people going by. And so the thieves stay away. They are afraid to go into a shop where the gas is burning. This shows us that there is safety in light. And Jesus may well be called the Light of the world, because He brings salvation wherever He comes. And salvation means safety. When we learn to know Him, and trust in Him, we are safe Pro 18:10; Psa 91:4; Mat 23:37). But He does this for all who love Him. When we learn to know Him and trust Him, it is just as if a beam of light had shined down on our path to show us the way to a safe hiding place. (Richard Newton, D. D.)

Light intercepted

What a poor and contemptible light bearer does the sun seem when barely discerned through a fog. Is it any wonder, therefore, that those who behold the Sun of Righteousness only through the mist of prejudice and misrepresentation can discern nothing wonderful either in Himself or in the light wherewith He lightens the world? But we who have seen the Sun on a bright day know that He is, indeed, the Light of the world, and we are not troubled because those deny it who have only seen Him through the mist; nor yet are we disheartened when our own view of Him is partially obscured through a temporary phase of our local atmosphere. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)

He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Strong and full of hope as these words are in the English rendering, the Greek is more emphatic still. The negative is in its strongest form, shall by no means, shall in no wise; possibility is excluded from the thought. God is light, etc. If a man makes a false step in life, it is because he seeks other guides in his own thoughts or in subjection to the thoughts of other men. He that seeks to follow the true Light–to follow, not precede it; to follow always, not only when it coincides with his own will; to follow patiently and trustfully, step by step, wherever it may lead–cannot walk in darkness, for he is never without the presence of theLight. Here, as so often, stress is laid on the certainty and universality of the Divine love on the one side, and the action of the human will on the other.

1. There can be no doubt, shall by no means walk, etc.

2. There can be no limit, he that followeth.

3. There can be no halting, he that followeth. The light ever points the way; it is he who day by day follows it who cannot miss the way. Perception of truth attends its practice. The true journey of this life is here presented as a constant activity; in Joh 7:37 the source of this action is found in a constant receptivity. (Archdeacon Watkins.)

Following Christ

Here is a summary of the Christian life; its rules and its promises; its duties and its joys; its sacrifices and its recompenses. The two great objects of Christs life were salvation and example. Let us consider the latter. Christ the model Man. The way to follow is to have the eye constantly on the pattern, not so much on the copy. Most persons do exactly the reverse. Note that our Lords life was a life of

I. CONCENTRATION. He came for one great end–the glory of God and the good of man–and from that He never turned His eye. It was a life with one grand master idea; and that is what every life requires. Few lives are dedicated to one object which satisfies our aspirations. Give your life a goal, a worthy one, the one Christ had. Without this your life will be weak, desultory, wasted.

II. HUMILITY. From first to last it was a descent–from heaven to the grave–yet all the while it was a constant ascent. The secret of mens want of peace, influence, and power, is that they do not go low enough. Follow Christ in His continual self-abasement.

III. SYMPATHY. This was intense. He threw Himself into every heart, every circumstance. That sympathy was the key of His influence and the basis of His power. Follow that. Live less in your own narrow and selfish circle; go out into the larger sphere of other peoples hearts.

IV. LABOUR. Christ never played with life. From early morning to late evening, in private and public, physically and mentally, Christ worked, not as a duty merely, but as a privilege. None can be said to live indeed who do not work, like Him, for God and man.

V. LOVE. Life and love with Christ were one and the same–from him who lay upon His bosom to His very murderers–all were the objects of His love. What we have to do is to put more love into life, not dreamy love, the love that is only felt, but is silent and inactive, but love that shows and sacrifices itself, in the home, church, business, all life. Conclusion: Wherever two ways meet, and you cannot tell which to take, ask yourself honestly, Which would the Master take? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Following Christ

1. Every promise has its condition. Here light is the promise; following is the condition.

2. The promise exactly meets our need. In every point life wants brightness–more light–the mind clearness, the will definiteness, the pathguidance, the heart joy, the hope vividness.

3. All nature teaches the essential union between light and life. Take away light and all creation pines. Therefore light was the first creation because necessary to all else. And as at the beginning so at the end. No night there.

4. Following Christ gives the light of life. The measure of the light we receive will depend on the nearness of the following. All who follow Christ will catch some rays; but only those who keep very close may claim the promise in its fulness. The secret of this is that Christ Himself, not His doctrines, is the fountain of life and light; and note that the rays which are in Christ attract as much as they emit–draw the follower while they cheer and vivify him–just, in fact, as the sun acts on the tangible system, and is at once its magnet and its light.

5. Remember that there are latent beauties in everything. What they need is some ray to bring out to view the hidden grace and delicate colours. But how does following Christ bring this light to life?

I. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST BRINGS LIGHT TO THE PRACTICAL LIFE. We have but to copy the great Pattern and this alone would make the path so clear that we should never be left in the dark as to what we ought to do.

II. FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST BRINGS LIGHT TO THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. Persons who become more religious become more intelligent. Minds naturally weak and dull are made tolerably clear by the simple power of their piety. It may be through the habit of concentration of thought on the beauty of Christ, through the tendency of the Christian life to disencumber the intellect from the carnal hindrances and obscurity of sin; from the power of Christs Spirit; but in some way the process is sure.

III. LOVING CHRIST BRINGS LIFE TO THE EMOTIONAL LIFE. There is a talent in love, and love to Christ clears it of imperfection and strengthens it. He who follows Christ follows a path which is all love, and this love exercises and refines all the other affections, and directs them towards their true objects.

IV. FAITH IN CHRIST BRINGS LIGHT TO THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. How many real Christians are in darkness because of the imperfection of their faith! This only can bring the consciousness of pardon and acceptance, make hope bright, and kindle joy, and this consciousness, etc., will be in proportion to the quantity and quality of faith.

V. COMPANIONSHIP WITH CHRIST WILL BRING LIGHT TO THE LIFE OF HEAVEN. The Lamb is the light thereof. In Thy light shall we see light. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Walking in the light

Thomas a Kempis, shut in the monastery of St. Agnes, in the fifteenth century, began his immortal treatise On the imitation of Christ with the sentence, He that keepeth My words shall not walk in darkness, saith the Lord. And according to his faith was it unto him. In the superstitious darkness of that day, leading an obscure life, celebrated for his skill and diligence in copying pious books, Kempis did not walk in darkness. His devout book shows that he walked in light; and the Father, who sees in secret, set the candle upon a candlestick, so that the light of the German monks meditations has enlightened the hearts of men in every nation of Christendom unto this day. It was in Bedford gaol, with no hope of release, that John Bunyan drew that noble portrait of the brave Christian, who kept heart in the Shadow of Death, and overthrew Apollyon; and there he had that vision of the Delectable Mountains. No circumstances can darken the soul of him who walks in the light. (Clerical Library.)

Following Christ the path of life

If we will only have patience with Gods leading, He will always show us the way as fast as we are really ready to go on. The trouble with most of us is that we want to see the path through to the end, before We take the first step. We want to know, before we start, how we are to come out. But this is not Gods way for us. A man who is travelling in a dark night on a country road, does not have the whole way lighted at once by the lantern he carries. It shows him only one step; but as be takes that, the lantern is borne forward, and another step is lighted, and then another and another, until in the end the whole has been illumined, and he is safe at his destination. Gods Word, as a guiding light, is a lamp unto our feet, not a sun flooding a hemisphere. In the darkest night it will always show us the next step; then, when we have taken that, it will show us another; and thus on, till it brings us out into the full, clear sunlight of the coming day. We need to learn well the lesson of patience, if we would have God guide us. Many of us cannot wait for Him, but insist in running on faster than He leads, and then we wonder why there is no light on the path, and we complain, and are discouraged because we stumble so often. If we stay back with the lantern, it will be all right with us in our journeying. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)

Perpetual daylight for the Christian

If a man could continually follow the sun, he would be always in broad daylight in every part of the globe. So with Christ and believers. Always following Him they will always have light. (Brentius.)

Christ an unsetting light

It seems to thee, suppose, that thou must follow the sun, and thou also travellest thyself towards the west, whither it also travels; let us see after it has set, if thou wilt not walk in darkness. See, how, although thou art not willing to desert it, yet it will desert thee. But the Lord Jesus is a sun which never sets: if thou wilt not fall off from Him He will not fall off from thee. (Augustine.)

The believers life is a walk

Walking implies activity; but it must be of a continuous kind. Neither this step, nor that, nor the next, can make a walk. We must be moving onward and onward, and remain in that exercise, or we cease from walking. Holy walking includes perseverance in obedience, and continuance in service. Not he that begins, but he that continues is the true Christian; final perseverance enters into the very essence of the believers life: the true pilgrims of Zion go from strength to strength. This suggests that walking implies progress. He that takes one step, and another step, and still stands where he was, has not walked. There is such a thing as the goose step, and I am afraid many Christians are wonderfully familiar with it: they are where they used to be, and are half inclined to congratulate themselves upon that fact, since they might have backslidden. They have not advanced in the heavenly pilgrimage, and how can they be said to walk? My hearer, is your life a walk with God and towards God? If so, our subject has to deal with you. May the Spirit of all grace lead us into the heart of it! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

We must walk in the light

Not only must the light be around us, but in us, before we can be said to live in it and walk in it. A blind man is surrounded by the sunlight as anyone else is, but he does not live in it; he does not walk in it; he cannot enjoy it. Why not? Simply because it is not in him. We must have eyes; and these eyes must be opened to receive the light into the body, so that we may live in it, walk in it, and enjoy it. And in the same way must the eye of faith be opened to receive the heavenly light into the soul before we can even be aware of its presence; and it must be kept open in order that we may walk in the light as He is in the light. Christ must be in us by His Holy Spirit in order that we may live in Him.

We must follow Christ

If a man, whose body was radiant and bright as the sun, were walking through a land of Egyptian darkness, all who followed him would actually walk in the light, and the closer they kept to him the clearer their light would be and the safer their road. He who follows Christ follows one from whom light streams upon the road we are to go–an illuminated man–laying bare its hidden pitfalls–discovering its stumbling stones–showing all its turnings and windings, and enabling us to walk safely, surely, and cheerfully on our way (chap. 8:12).

The safety of light

Our steamer was crossing the Gulf of Mexico and approaching the mouth of the Mississippi river. As the sun went down a cold and furious blast from the north came down suddenly upon us. The darkness became intense. Here and there were shoals and other dangers. Great anxiety prevailed among all on board. Suddenly came a shout from the sailor on the forward, Theres the light. The joyful sound rang through the ship, to the great relief of every passenger. The true position of the steamer was now known. Anxiety was over, and quietness in a sense of safety was restored. We were soon in the quiet waters of the river. (H. B. Hooker.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them] Allowing the story about the woman taken in adultery to be authentic, and to stand here in its proper place, we may consider that our Lord, having begun to teach the people in the temple, was interrupted by the introduction of this woman by the scribes and Pharisees; and now, having dismissed them and the woman also, he resumes his discourse.

I am the light of the world] The fountain whence an intellectual light and spiritual understanding proceed: without me all is darkness, misery, and death. The Divine Being was, by the rabbins denominated, The light of the world. So in Bamidbar Rabba: “The Israelites said to God, O Lord of the universe, thou commandest us to light lamps to thee, yet thou art THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD: and with thee the light dwelleth.” Our Lord, therefore, assumes here a well known character of the Supreme Being; and with this we find the Jews were greatly offended.

Shall not walk in darkness] He shall be saved from ignorance, infidelity, and sin. If he follow me, become my disciple, and believe on my name, he shall have my Spirit to bear witness with his, that he is a child of God. He shall have the light of life-such a light as brings and supports life. The sun, the fountain of light, is also the fountain of life: by his vivifying influences, all things live-neither animal nor vegetative life could exist, were it not for his influence. Jesus, the Sun of righteousness, Mal 4:2, is the fountain of all spiritual and eternal LIFE. His light brings life with it, and they who walk in his light live in his life. This sentiment is beautifully expressed and illustrated in the following inimitable verse (all monosyllables except one word) of that second Spenser, Phineas Fletcher. Speaking of the conversion of a soul to God, he says:-

“New LIGHT new LOVE, new LOVE new LIFE hath bred;

A LIFE that lives by LOVE, and loves by LIGHT:

A LOVE to him, to whom all LOVES are wed;

A LIGHT, to whom the sun is darkest night:

Eye’s LIGHT, heart’s LOVE, soul’s only LIFE he is:

LIFE, soul, love, heart, LIGHT, eye, and all are his:

He eye, LIGHT, heart, LOVE, soul; He all my joy and bliss.”

PURPLE ISLAND, Can. I. v. 7.

Some suppose our Lord alludes to the custom of lighting lamps or torches, on the first day of the feast of tabernacles. But as these words seem to have been spoken the day after that last and great day of the feast, mentioned Joh 7:37, they may rather be considered as referring to the following custom: It has already been observed, that the Jews added a ninth day to this feast, which day they termed, The feast of joy for the law; and on that day they were accustomed to take all the sacred books out of the chest where they had been deposited, and put a lighted candle in their place, in allusion to Pr 6:23: For the commandment is a LAMP (or CANDLE) and the law is life: or to Ps 119:105: Thy word is a LAMP unto my feet, and a LIGHT unto my path. If this custom existed in the time of our Lord, it is most likely that it is to it he here alludes; as it must have happened about the same time in which these words were spoken. See Buxtorf. Synagog. Jud. c. xxi.

As the Messiah was frequently spoken of by the prophets under the emblem of light, see Isa 60:1; Isa 49:6; Isa 9:2, the Pharisees must at once perceive that he intended to recommend himself to the people as the Messiah, when he said, I am the light of the world.

The rabbins think that the Messiah is intended in Ge 1:8, And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. “From this we may learn that the holy and blessed God saw the light of the Messiah and his works before the world was created; and reserved it for the Messiah, and his generation, under the throne of his glory. Satan said to the holy and blessed God, For whom dost thou reserve that light which is under the throne of thy glory? God answered: For him who shall subdue thee, and overwhelm thee with confusion. Satan rejoined, Lord of the universe, show that person to me! God said, Come and see him. When he saw him, he was greatly agitated, and fell upon his face, saying, Truly this is the Messiah, who shall cast me and idolaters into hell.” Yalcut Rubeni, fol. 6. This is a very remarkable saying; and, as it might have existed in the time of our Lord, to it he might have alluded in the verse before us. The thing itself is true: the Messiah is the light of the world, and by him Satan’s empire of idolatry is destroyed in the world, and the kingdom of light and life established. See several similar testimonies in Schoettgen.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I am the light of the world; this is what John the Baptist had said of Christ before, Joh 1:4,5, and what Christ saith of himself afterward, Joh 9:5. It was prophesied of him, that he should be a light to the Gentiles, and Gods salvation to the ends of the earth, Isa 46:6. And old Simeon saith of him, Luk 2:32, that he was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel. Light is a thing glorious in itself, and communicative of itself unto others to guide them. So as Christ is most aptly compared to light, and spoken of under that notion; as for his own innate glory, so for the communicativeness of himself to creatures; which latter appeareth to be chiefly here intended: for he saith, that he who followed him, believing his doctrine, and obeying his precepts, living according to his direction and his example, should not be at a loss how to guide himself, nor remain in the darkness of sin, ignorance, and spiritual death; but should have that light which bringeth life along with it, and is sufficient to guide a man in all the works of a spiritual life, and at last bring him to life eternal.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. I am the light of the worldAsthe former references to water (Joh 4:13;Joh 4:14; Joh 7:37-39)and to bread (Joh 6:35)were occasioned by outward occurrences, so this one to light.In “the treasury” where it was spoken (see on Joh8:20) stood two colossal golden lamp-stands, on which hung amultitude of lamps, lighted after the evening sacrifice (probablyevery evening during the feast of tabernacles), diffusing theirbrilliancy, it is said, over all the city. Around these the peopledanced with great rejoicing. Now, as amidst the festivities of thewater from Siloam Jesus cried, saying, “If any manthirst, let him come unto me and drink,” so now amidst the blazeand the joyousness of this illumination, He proclaims, “I AMTHE LIGHT OF THEWORLD”plainly in the most absolute sense. Forthough He gives His disciples the same title, they are only “lightin the Lord” (Eph 5:8);and though He calls the Baptist “the burning and shining light”(or “lamp” of his day, Joh5:35), yet “he was not that Light, but was sent tobear witness of that Light: that was THETRUE LIGHT which,coming into the world, lighteth every man” (Joh 1:8;Joh 1:9). Under this magnificenttitle Messiah was promised of old (Isa 42:6;Mal 4:2, &c.).

he that followeth measone does a light going before him, and as the Israelites did thepillar of bright cloud in the wilderness.

but shall have the light oflifethe light, as of a new world, a newly awakened spiritualand eternal life.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Then spake Jesus again unto them,…. Syriac fragment of Bishop Usher’s, published by De Dieu, prefaces this verse thus, “when they were gathered together”, Jesus said, c. that is, the Scribes and Pharisees, who went out and returned again or some others of them, who came after this, to whom Christ addressed himself thus:

I am the light of the world; which he might say, on occasion of the rising sun, which was now up, and might shine brightly in their faces; see Joh 8:2; which is , “the light of the world”, as Aben Ezra in Ps 19:8 rightly calls it: thus on occasion of the water in Jacob’s well, he discoursed of living water; and upon the Jews at Capernaum mentioning the manna, he treated at large concerning himself as the bread of life: and he might also make use of this character, and apply it to himself, with a view to some passages in the Old Testament, which speak of him under the metaphor of the sun, as Ps 84:11, and represent him as the light; and the Jews t themselves say, that light is one of the names of the Messiah; and God himself is called by them, the light of the world u: and likewise he may have regard to those pompous titles and characters, which the Jewish doctors assumed arrogantly to themselves, and oppose himself to them; for they not only called Moses their master, , “the light of the world” w, and also the law of Moses x, but their Rabbins and doctors;

[See comments on Mt 5:14]. By the world here is meant, not the whole world, and all the individuals of it; for though Christ, as the Creator of all things, is the light of men, and does lighten every individual man with the light of nature and reason, yet not in a spiritual and saving manner, as is here intended; nor the whole body of the elect of God, though they are sometimes called the world, being the better part of it, and are made light in the Lord, in a special sense; nor the Jews only, and the chosen of God, among them, though Christ was a great light to many of them, that sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death; but the Gentiles are here designed, who were usually called by the Jews, the world; [See comments on Joh 3:16]. And these were in gross darkness before the coming of Christ, about the Divine Being, concerning the object, nature, and manner of worship; the Scriptures, the law, and Gospel; the Messiah, and his office and work; the Spirit of God, and his operations of grace; the resurrection of the dead, and a future state; now Christ came to be a light of the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people Israel: our Lord seems to have respect to the prophecy of him, in Isa 42:6, as well as alludes to the sun in the firmament; whose light is diffused to all the nations of the earth, and not confined to one spot of land only: but since Christ was the minister of the circumcision, and was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, it may be asked, how could he be the light of the Gentiles? to which it may be replied, that he was so by his apostles, who were sent by him with the light of the Gospel, into all the world; and by his Spirit, who enlightens the minds of men, who were darkness itself, with the light of Christ: for he is not only the author and giver of the light of nature to all men, but also of the light of grace to all his chosen ones, Gentiles as well as Jews; who, in his light, see light; see themselves lost and undone, and him to be the only willing, able, suitable, and complete Saviour; and behold wondrous things in the doctrines of the Gospel, and have some glimpse of glory; and he is likewise the author of all the light of glory the saints enjoy in the other world; the Lamb is the light of that state; he is their everlasting light, and their glory; and happy are they who are his followers now:

he that followeth me; not corporeally, but spiritually, by faith; for as believing is expressed by coming to Christ, so by following after him: compare with this, Joh 12:46; and with love and affection to him, the desires of the soul being unto him, and to the remembrance of him; and in the exercise of every grace and discharge of every duty, in imitation of him; and through a variety of sufferings and tribulations, pressing after him as the guide, captain, and forerunner: and such

shall not walk in darkness; in the darkness of unregeneracy, not knowing what they are, and where they are, and whither they are going; for such know they are in the light; and though they were blind, now they see; they know in whom they have believed, and that they are in Christ, in the covenant of grace, and in the love of God, and are going to heaven and eternal happiness; such shall not walk in the darkness of unbelief; but walk by faith on Christ; nor in the darkness of error, but in the truth of the Gospel, and as becomes it; and though they may sometimes walk without the light of God’s countenance, yet light shall arise to them; and such “shall not go into darkness”, as the Ethiopic version renders the words, into outer darkness, or the darkness of eternal death:

but shall have the light of life; the grace of God abiding in them now; which as it is a well of living water, springing up to eternal life, so it is a shining light, which increases to the perfect day: as darkness and death, so light and life go together; grace, which is enlightening, is also quickening and comforting, and issues in eternal light and life; a light that will never be extinguished, and a life that will continue for ever, with never fading joys and pleasures; see Job 33:30.

t Bereshit Rabba, fol. 1. 3. Echa Rabbati, fol. 50. 2. & Jarchi in Psal xliii. 3. u Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 15. fol. 217. 2. w Tzeror Hammor, fol. 114. 3. x T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 4. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Christ’s Discourse with the Pharisees.

12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. 14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. 15 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. 16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. 17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. 18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. 19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. 20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.

The rest of the chapter is taken up with debates between Christ and contradicting sinners, who cavilled at the most gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. It is not certain whether these disputes were the same day that the adulteress was discharged; it is probable they were, for the evangelist mentions no other day, and takes notice (v. 2) how early Christ began that day’s work. Though those Pharisees that accused the woman had absconded, yet there were other Pharisees (v. 13) to confront Christ, who had brass enough in their foreheads to keep them in countenance, though some of their party were put to such a shameful retreat; nay perhaps that made them the more industrious to pick quarrels with him, to retrieve, if possible, the reputation of their baffled party. In these verses we have,

I. A great doctrine laid down, with the application of it.

1. The doctrine is, That Christ is the light of the world (v. 12): Then spoke Jesus again unto them; though he had spoken a great deal to them to little purpose, and what he had said was opposed, yet he spoke again, for he speaketh once, yea, twice. They had turned a deaf ear to what he said, and yet he spoke again to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Note, Jesus Christ is the light of the world. One of the rabbies saith, Light is the name of the Messiah, as it is written, Dan. ii. 22, And light dwelleth with him. God is light, and Christ is the image of the invisible God; God of gods, Light of lights. He was expected to be a light to enlighten the Gentiles (Luke ii. 32), and so the light of the world, and not of the Jewish church only. The visible light of the world is the sun, and Christ is the Sun of righteousness. One sun enlightens the whole world, so does one Christ, and there needs no more. Christ in calling himself the light expresses, (1.) What he is in himself–most excellent and glorious. (2.) What he is to the world–the fountain of light, enlightening every man. What a dungeon would the world be without the sun! So would it be without Christ by whom light came into the world, ch. iii. 19.

2. The inference from this doctrine is, He that followeth me, as a traveller follows the light in a dark night, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If Christ be the light, then, (1.) It is our duty to follow him, to submit ourselves to his guidance, and in every thing take directions from him, in the way that leads to happiness. Many follow false lights–ignes fatui, that lead them to destruction; but Christ is the true light. It is not enough to look at this light, and to gaze upon it, but we must follow it, believe in it, and walk in it, for it is a light to our feet, not our eyes only. (2.) It is the happiness of those who follow Christ that they shall not walk in darkness. They shall not be left destitute of those instructions in the way of truth which are necessary to keep them from destroying error, and those directions in the way of duty which are necessary to keep them from damning sin. They shall have the light of life, that knowledge and enjoyment of God which will be to them the light of spiritual life in this world and of everlasting life in the other world, where there will be no death nor darkness. Follow Christ, and we shall undoubtedly be happy in both worlds. Follow Christ, and we shall follow him to heaven.

II. The objection which the Pharisees made against this doctrine, and it was very trifling and frivolous: Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true, v. 13. In this objection they went upon the suspicion which we commonly have of men’s self-condemnation, which is concluded to be the native language of self-love, such as we are all ready to condemn in others, but few are willing to own in themselves. But in this case the objection was very unjust, for, 1. They made that his crime, and a diminution to the credibility of his doctrine, which in the case of one who introduced a divine revelation was necessary and unavoidable. Did not Moses and all the prophets bear witness of themselves when they avouched themselves to be God’s messengers? Did not the Pharisees ask John Baptist, What sayest thou of thyself? 2. They overlooked the testimony of all the other witnesses, which corroborated the testimony he bore of himself. Had he only borne record of himself, his testimony had indeed been suspicious, and the belief of it might have been suspended; but his doctrine was attested by more than two or three credible witnesses, enough to establish every word of it.

III. Christ’s reply to this objection, v. 14. He does not retort upon them as he might (“You profess yourselves to be devout and good men, but your witness is not true“), but plainly vindicates himself; and, though he had waived his own testimony (ch. v. 31), yet here he abides by it, that it did not derogate from the credibility of his other proofs, but was necessary to show the force of them. He is the light of the world, and it is the property of light to be self-evidencing. First principles prove themselves. He urges three things to prove that his testimony, though of himself, was true and cogent.

1. That he was conscious to himself of his own authority, and abundantly satisfied in himself concerning it. He did not speak as one at uncertainty, nor propose a disputable notion, about which he himself hesitated, but declared a decree, and gave such an account of himself as he would abide by: I know whence I came, and whither I go. He was fully apprised of his own undertaking from first to last; knew whose errand he went upon, and what his success would be. He knew what he was before his manifestation to the world, and what he should be after; that he came from the Father, and was going to him (ch. xvi. 28), came from glory, and was going to glory, (ch. xvii. 5). This is the satisfaction of all good Christians, that though the world know them not, as it knew him not, yet they know whence their spiritual life comes, and whither it tends, and go upon sure grounds.

2. That they are very incompetent judges of him, and of his doctrine, and not to be regarded. (1.) Because they were ignorant, willingly and resolvedly ignorant: You cannot tell whence I came, and whither I go. To what purpose is it to talk with those who know nothing of the matter, nor desire to know? He had told them of his coming from heaven and returning to heaven, but it was foolishness to them, they received it not; it was what the brutish man knows not, Ps. xcii. 6. They took upon them to judge of that which they did not understand, which lay quite out of the road of their acquaintance. Those that despise Christ’s dominions and dignities speak evil of what they know not,Jud 1:8; Jud 1:10. (2.) Because they were partial (v. 15): You judge after the flesh. When fleshly wisdom gives the rule of judgment, and outward appearances only are given in evidence, and the case decided according to them, then men judge after the flesh; and when the consideration of a secular interest turns the scale in judging of spiritual matters, when we judge in favour of that which pleases the carnal mind, and recommends us to a carnal world, we judge after the flesh; and the judgment cannot be right when the rule is wrong. The Jews judged of Christ and his gospel by outward appearances, and, because he appeared so mean, thought it impossible he should be the light of the world; as if the sun under a cloud were no sun. (3.) Because they were unjust and unfair towards him, intimated in this: “I judge no man; I neither make nor meddle with your political affairs, nor does my doctrine or practice at all intrench upon, or interfere with, your civil rights or secular powers.” He thus judged no man. Now, if he did not war after the flesh, it was very unreasonable for them to judge him after the flesh, and to treat him as an offender against the civil government. Or, “I judge no man,” that is, “not now in my first coming, that is deferred till I come again,” ch. iii. 17. Prima dispensatio Christi medicinalis est, non judicialis–The first coming of Christ was for the purpose of administering, not justice, but medicine.

3. That his testimony of himself was sufficiently supported and corroborated by the testimony of his Father with him and for him (v. 16): And yet, if I judge, my judgment is true. He did in his doctrine judge (ch. ix. 39), though not politically. Consider him then,

(1.) As a judge, and his own judgment was valid: “If I judge, I who have authority to execute judgments, I to whom all things are delivered, I who am the Son of God, and have the Spirit of God, if I judge, my judgment is true, of incontestable rectitude and uncontrollable authority, Rom. ii. 2. If I should judge, my judgment must be true, and then you would be condemned; but the judgment-day is not yet come, you are not yet to be condemned, but spared, and therefore now I judge no man;” so Chrysostom. Now that which makes his judgment unexceptionable is, [1.] His Father’s concurrence with him: I am not alone, but I and the Father. He has the Father’s concurring counsels to direct; as he was with the Father before the world in forming the counsels, so the Father was with him in the world in prosecuting and executing those counsels, and never left him inops consilii–without advice, Isa. xi. 2. All the counsels of peace (and of war too) were between them both, Zech. vi. 13. He had also the Father’s concurring power to authorize and confirm what he did; see Psa 89:21; Isa 42:1. He did not act separately, but in his own name and his Father’s, and by the authority aforesaid,Joh 5:17; Joh 14:9; Joh 14:10. [2.] His Father’s commission to him: “It is the Father that sent me.” Note, God will go along with those that he sends; see Exo 3:10; Exo 3:12: Come, and I will send thee, and certainly I will be with thee. Now, if Christ had a commission from the Father, and the Father’s presence with him in all his administrations, no doubt his judgment was true and valid; no exception lay against it, no appeal lay from it.

(2.) Look upon him as a witness, and now he appeared no otherwise (having not as yet taken the throne of judgment), and as such his testimony was true and unexceptionable; this he shows, Joh 8:17; Joh 8:18, where,

[1.] He quotes a maxim of the Jewish law, v. 17. That the testimony of two men is true. Not as if it were always true in itself, for many a time hand has been joined in hand to bear a false testimony, 1 Kings xxi. 10. But it is allowed as sufficient evidence upon which to ground a verdict (verum dictum), and if nothing appear to the contrary it is taken for granted to be true. Reference is here had to that law (Deut. xvii. 6), At the mouth of two witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death. And see Deu 9:15; Num 35:30. It was in favour of life that in capital cases two witnesses wee required, as with us in case of treason. See Heb. vi. 18.

[2.] He applies this to the case in hand (v. 18): I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me bears witness of me. Behold two witnesses! Though in human courts, where two witnesses are required, the criminal or candidate is not admitted to be a witness for himself; yet in a matter purely divine, which can be proved only by a divine testimony, and God himself must be the witness, if the formality of two or three witnesses be insisted on, there can be no other than the eternal Father, the eternal Son of the Father, and the eternal Spirit. Now if the testimony of two distinct persons, that are men, and therefore may deceive or be deceived, is conclusive, much more ought the testimony of the Son of God concerning himself, backed with the testimony of his Father concerning him, to command assent; see 1Jn 5:7; 1Jn 5:9-11. Now this proves not only that the Father and the Son are two distinct persons (for their respective testimonies are here spoken of as the testimonies of two several persons), but that these two are one, not only one in their testimony, but equal in power and glory, and therefore the same in substance. St. Austin here takes occasion to caution his hearers against Sabellianism on the one hand, which confounded the persons in the Godhead, and Arianism on the other, which denied the Godhead of the Son and Spirit. Alius est filius, et alius pater, non tamed aliud, sed hoc ipsum est et pater, et filius, scilicet unus Deus est–The Son is one Person, and the Father is another; they do not, however, constitute two Beings, but the Father is the same Being that the Son is, that is, the only true God. Tract. 36, in Joann. Christ here speaks of himself and the Father as witnesses to the world, giving in evidence to the reason and conscience of the children of men, whom he deals with as men. And these witnesses to the world now will in the great day be witnesses against those that persist in unbelief, and their word will judge men.

This was the sum of the first conference between Christ and these carnal Jews, in the conclusion of which we are told how their tongues were let loose, and their hands tied.

First, How their tongues were let loose (such was the malice of hell) to cavil at his discourse, v. 19. Though in what he said there appeared nothing of human policy or artifice, but a divine security, yet they set themselves to cross questions with him. None so incurably blind as those that resolve they will not see. Observe,

a. How they evaded the conviction with a cavil: Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? They might easily have understood, by the tenour of this and his other discourses, that when he spoke of his Father he meant no other than God himself; yet they pretend to understand him of a common person, and, since he appeals to his testimony, they bid him call his witness, and challenge him, if he can, to produce him: Where is thy Father? Thus, as Christ said of them (v. 15), they judge after the flesh. Perhaps they hereby intend a reflection upon the meanness and obscurity of his family: Where is thy Father, that he should be fit to give evidence in such a case as this? Thus they turned it off with a taunt, when they could not resist the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke.

b. How he evaded the cavil with a further conviction; he did not tell them where his Father was, but charged them with wilful ignorance: “You neither know me nor my Father. It is to no purpose to discourse to you about divine things, who talk of them as blind men do of colours. Poor creatures! you know nothing of the matter.” (a.) He charges them with ignorance of God: “You know not my Father.” In Judah was God known (Ps. lxxvi. 1); they had some knowledge of him as the God that made the world, but their eyes were darkened that they could not see the light of his glory shining in the face of Jesus Christ. The little children of the Christian church know the Father, know him as a Father (1 John ii. 13); but these rulers of the Jews did not, because they would not so know him. (b.) He shows them the true cause of their ignorance of God: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. The reason why men are ignorant of God is because they are unacquainted with Jesus Christ. Did we know Christ, [a.] In knowing him we should know the Father, of whose person he is the express image, ch. xiv. 9. Chrysostom proves hence the Godhead of Christ, and his equality with his Father. We cannot say, “He that knows a man knows an angel,” or, “He that knows a creature knows the Creator;” but he that knows Christ knows the Father. [b.] By him we should be instructed in the knowledge of God, and introduced into an acquaintance with him. If we knew Christ better, we should know the Father better; but, where the Christian religion is slighted and opposed, natural religion will soon be lost and laid aside. Deism makes way for atheism. Those become vain in their imaginations concerning God that will not learn of Christ.

Secondly, See how their hands were tied, though their tongues were thus let loose; such was the power of Heaven to restrain the malice of hell. These words spoke Jesus, these bold words, these words of conviction and reproof, in the treasury, an apartment of the temple, where, to be sure, the chief priests, whose gain was their godliness, were mostly resident, attending the business of the revenue. Christ taught in the temple, sometimes in one part, sometimes in another, as he saw occasion. Now the priests who had so great a concern in the temple, and looked upon it as their demesne, might easily, with the assistance of the janizaries that were at their beck, either have seized him and exposed him to the rage of the mob, and that punishment which they called the beating of the rebels; or, at least, have silenced him, and stopped his mouth there, as Amos, though tolerated in the land of Judah, was forbidden to prophesy in the king’s chapel, Amo 7:12; Amo 7:13. Yet even in the temple, where they had him in their reach, no man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come. See here, 1. The restraint laid upon his persecutors by an invisible power; none of them durst meddle with him. God can set bounds to the wrath of men, as he does to the waves of the sea. Let us not therefore fear danger in the way of duty; for God hath Satan and all his instruments in a chain. 2. The reason of this restraint: His hour was not yet come. The frequent mention of this intimates how much the time of our departure out of the world depends upon the fixed counsel and decree of God. It will come, it is coming; not yet come, but it is at hand. Our enemies cannot hasten it any sooner, nor our friends delay it any longer, than the time appointed of the Father, which is very comfortable to every good man, who can look up and say with pleasure, My times are in thy hands; and better there than in our own. His hour was not yet come, because his work was not done, nor his testimony finished. To all God’s purposes there is a time.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Again therefore ( ). This language fits in better with 7:52 than with 8:11. Just suppose Jesus is in the temple on the following day.

Unto them (). The Pharisees and crowds in the temple after the feast was past.

I am the light of the world ( ). Jesus had called his followers “the light of the world” (Mt 5:14), but that was light reflected from him. Already Jesus (the Logos) had been called the true light of men (John 1:9; John 3:19). The Psalmist calls God his Light (27:1). So Isa 60:19. At the feast of tabernacles in the Court of the Women where Jesus was on this day (8:20) there were brilliant candelabra and there was the memory of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. But with all this background this supreme and exclusive claim of Jesus (repeated in 9:5) to being the light of the whole world (of Gentiles as well as of Jews) startled the Pharisees and challenged their opposition.

Shall have the light of life ( ). The light which springs from and issues in life (Westcott). Cf. John 6:33; John 6:51 about Jesus being the Bread of Life. In this sublime claim we come to a decisive place. It will not do to praise Jesus and deny his deity. Only as the Son of God can we justify and accept this language which otherwise is mere conceit and froth.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

The light of the world [ ] . Not lucnov, a lamp, as John the Baptist (v. 35). Light is another of John’s characteristic terms and ideas, playing a most important part in his writings, as related to the manifestation of Jesus and His work upon men. He comes from God, who is light (1Jo 1:5). “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (i. 4). The Word was among men as light before the incarnation (i. 9; Joh 9:5), and light came with the incarnation (iii. 19 – 21; Joh 8:12; Joh 12:46). Christ is light through the illuminating energy of the Spirit (xiv. 21, 26; Joh 16:13; 1Jo 2:20, 27), which is received through love (xiv. 22, 23). The object of Christ ‘s work is to make men sons of light (xii. 36, 46), and to endow them with the light of life (viii. 12).

In ver. 20, we are told that Jesus spake these words in the Treasury. This was in the Court of the Women, the most public part of the temple. Four golden candelabra stood there, each with four golden bowls, each one filled from a pitcher of oil by a youth of priestly descent. These were lighted on the first night of the Feast of Tabernacles. It is not unlikely that they may have suggested our Lord ‘s figure, but the figure itself was familiar both from prophecy and from tradition. According to tradition, Light was one of the names of the Messiah. See Isa 9:1; Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6; Isa 60:1 – 3; Mal 4:2; Luk 2:32.

Walk in darkness [ ] . This phrase is peculiar to the Gospel and First Epistle.

Shall have [] . Not only shall see it, but shall possess it. Hence Christ ‘s disciples are the light of the world (Mt 5:14). Compare lights, or, properly, luminaries [] a name, applied to believers in Phi 2:15.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD ADDRESS, v. 12-59

1) “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying,” (palin oun autois elalesen ho lesous legon) “Then Jesus spoke to them again saying,” to those in the temple court area who had come to hear Him teach that day, before the woman had been brought before Him and accused of adultery, Joh 8:2-3; Joh 7:37.
2) “I am the light of the world: (ego eimi to phos tou kosmou) “I am (exist as) the light of the world,” Joh 1:4, the world order of things, as prophesied Isa 9:1-2; Isa 42:6-7; and fulfilled Mat 4:12-17; He has brought “life and immortality to light,” 2Ti 1:10. Even to the Gentiles, the whole world, Rom 1:15-16.
3) “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,” (ho akolouthon moi ou me peripatese en te skotia) “The one who follows me will not by any means walk around in the darkness,” in despair, despond, danger, sin, ignorance, and defeat, for where Jesus is there is no darkness even in death’s valley, Psa 23:4.
4) “But shall have the light of life.” (all’ heksei to phos tes zoes) “But in contrast he will have, hold, or possess the light of life,” the influence of the true life, eternal life, Joh 10:10; Joh 10:28, to guide and to help.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

12. I am the light of the world. Those who leave out the former narrative, which relates to the adulteress, (213) connect this discourse of Christ with the sermon which he delivered on the last day of the assembly. It is a beautiful commendation of Christ, when he is called the light of the world; for, since we are all blind by nature, a remedy is offered, by which we may be freed and rescued from darkness and made partakers of the true light Nor is it only to one person or to another that this benefit is offered, for Christ declares that he is the light of the whole world; for by this universal statement he intended to remove the distinction, not only between Jews and Gentiles, but between the learned and ignorant, between persons of distinction and the common people.
But we must first ascertain what necessity there is for seeking this light; for men will never present themselves to Christ to be illuminated, until they have known both that this world is darkness, and that they themselves are altogether blind. Let us therefore know that, when the manner of obtaining this light is pointed out to us in Christ, we are all condemned for blindness, and everything else which we consider to be light is compared to darkness, and to a very dark night. For Christ does not speak of it as what belongs to him in common with others, but claims it as being peculiarly his own. Hence it follows, that out of Christ there is not even a spark of true light There may be some appearance of brightness, but it resembles lightning, which only dazzles the eyes. It must also be observed, that the power and office of illuminating is not confined to the personal presence of Christ; for though he is far removed from us with respect to his body, yet he daily sheds his light upon us, by the doctrine of the Gospel, and by the secret power of his Spirit. Yet we have not a full definition of this light, unless we learn that we are illuminated by the Gospel and by the Spirit of Christ, that we may know that the fountain of all knowledge and wisdom is hidden in him.
He who followeth me. To the doctrine he adds an exhortation, which he immediately afterwards confirms by a promise. For when we learn that all who allow themselves to be governed by Christ are out of danger of going astray, we ought to be excited to follow him, and, indeed, by stretching out his hand — as it were — he draws us to him. We ought also to be powerfully affected by so large and magnificent a promise, that they who shall direct their eyes to Christ are certain that, even in the midst of darkness, they will be preserved from going astray; and that not only for a short period, but until they have finished their course. For that is the meaning of the words used in the future tense, he shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life Such is also the import of this latter clause, in which the perpetuity of life is stated in express terms. We ought not to fear, therefore, lest it leave us in the middle of the journey, for it conducts us even to life The genitive of life, in accordance with the Hebrew idiom, is employed, instead of the adjective, to denote the effect; as if he had said, the life-giving light We need not wonder that such gross darkness of errors and superstitions prevails in the world, in which there are so few that have their eyes fixed on Christ.
(213) “ De la femme adultere.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Text 8:12-20
12
Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
13
The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true.
14
Jesus answered and said unto them, Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye know not whence I come, or whither I go.
15
Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
16
Yea and if I judge, my judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
17
Yea and in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true.
18
I am he that beareth witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.
19
They said therefore unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye know neither me, nor my Father; if ye knew me, ye would know my Father also.
20
These words spake he in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man took him; because his hour was not yet come.
Queries
a.
What is the light of life?
b.
Does Jesus contradict Himself on the matter of judging? (Joh. 8:15-16.)
c.
What is the significance of the mention of the Treasury?
Paraphrase
Again Jesus addressed the people, saying, I am the Light of the world. The man who believes, obeys and follows Me will not wander, being lost in the darkness; but he will possess The Light which is life. At this the Pharisees said to Him, You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is therefore not valid. Jesus replied, My testimony is valid even though I do testify concerning Myself; because I know by direct knowledge where I come from and where I am going. But you are wilfully ignorant of where I came from and where I am going. You are judging me according to your worldly standards for a Messiah. I am not now primarily concerned with judging anyone. Yet even if I am judging, my judgment is true, because I am not alone in my judgment as a mere man but I am One with the Father who sent me. And in your own law, which you as Israelites are sole possessors, it is written, that the testimony of two men is valid. I am bearing witness concerning Myself and my Father who sent me is also bearing witness concerning Me. Then they said to Him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me as the Son of God, you would also know my Father. These words spake Jesus near the Treasury as He taught in the Temple. Yet no one arrested Him, because His hour had not yet come.
Summary
Jesus claims to be the MessiahLight of the world. The Jews reject His testimony. Jesus aduces the Fathers testimony on His behalf.
Comment
Jesus discourse on the Light of the world here naturally connects with the former discourse on the Living Water (Joh. 7:37-52). The significance of His claim to be the Light of the world is related to the ceremony of lighting the great candelabra during the Feast of Tabernacles. Great candelabra with four receptacles for oil were placed in the inner court. The candelabra were so tall that the priests climbed ladders to light the oil, When they were lighted, the priests and the people danced before the Lord with joy. This was in commemoration of the blessing of the pillar of fire which led their fathers in the wilderness, What that pillar of fire was to Israel (leading them through darkness and the wilderness), Jesus is for the whole world. To the ignorant and unbelieving His light brings wisdom and faith; to the persecuted and downtrodden saint His light brings comfort and hope.
There are also the Old Testament prophecies which depict the Messiah as the Light of the World (cf. Isa. 9:1; Isa. 42:6; Isa. 49:6; Isa. 60:3; Mal. 4:2; Luk. 2:32). The Pharisees were well aware of these prophecies and when Jesus claimed to be the Light of the world, they understood Him to be claiming to be the promised Messiah. For a discussion of the relationship between light and life and darkness, see our comments on Joh. 1:4, Vol. I, pp. 23, 24.
To follow Christ means to trust and obey Him. We follow His words (Joh. 10:4) and His example (1Pe. 2:21; Joh. 13:15; Joh. 13:34-35). When we place such complete trust in His Person and His precepts, we possess the Light which not only illuminates our life but is the very source of Life itself.
The Pharisees are alert to the inference that Jesus is claiming deity for Himself. They immediately reject His claims on the basis of insufficient evidence.
His answer (Joh. 8:14) is that His testimony alone ought to be accepted, for in reality He is not alone (Joh. 8:16). But He has come from a realm of existence where they can know nothing except they receive His testimony as true. Barnes illustrates it very well: As they had not seen and known these things, they were not qualified to judge. An ambassador from a foreign court knows the will and purposes of the sovereign who sent him, and is competent to bear witness of it. The court to which he is sent has no way of judging but by his testimony, and he is therefore competent to testify in the case. All that can be demanded is that he give his credentials that he is appointed, and this Jesus had done both by the nature of His doctrine and His miracles. (Barnes Notes on the N.T., Luke & John, p. 226.) Compare also this verse (Joh. 8:14) with Joh. 5:31 (see our notes on Joh. 5:31, Vol. I, pp. 192193).
In Joh. 8:15-16 Jesus goes to the heart of the problem. The Pharisees and the people judged Him after the fleshthat is, they compared His earthly appearance with their ideas of a worldly Messiah. His meekness, poverty and apparent powerlessness did not fulfill their ideal. Theirs was a superficial judgment and one made with minds closed to truth by preconceived ideas (cf. our comments on Joh. 7:24, Vol. II, p. 24). In the Lords emphatic statement, I judge no man, He seems to contradict Himself in Joh. 9:39, For judgment came I into this world . . . But the apparent contradiction vanishes when we understand that His primary purpose for coming into the world (salvation) necessitates self-condemnation upon all who reject Him (the only source of salvation). (See our notes on Joh. 3:17-18, Vol. I, pp. 112113.) Yet even if He does pronounce a judgment (as He apparently did in Mat. 11:20-24 upon the unrepentant cities; upon Jerusalem in Mat. 24:15-28), His judgment is just, valid and certain for He is One with the Father (see notes on Joh. 5:19-23, Vol. I, pp. 184186). What Jesus is saying is that His testimony and judgments are not made by Himself alone as would be the case with any other man, but He and the Father are perfectly unitedtheir words and wills are in complete accord.
This is what He boldly and plainly declares in Joh. 8:17-18. The law to which He refers is in Deu. 17:6. He says your law because the law of Moses was exclusively given to the Jews and these scholars should have interpreted it correctly. They should have accepted this double testimony of Father and Son (for the testimony of the Father concerning the Son, see our comments on Joh. 5:36-38, Vol. I, pp. 196197).
Their question, Where is your father? was undoubtedly couched in sarcasm. He had made it plain enough for them to understand that His Father was the Invisible Jehovah. His answer to them is also very plain and candid. They did not know the Father and therefore they did not know His Son. They did not know the Son and therefore they could not know the Father (cf. Joh. 5:37-43; Joh. 8:47). The only way to know God is to know Jesus Christ (cf. Joh. 1:18; Joh. 14:6-11; Mat. 11:27).
Why would John mention the fact that Jesus was near the Treasury when He uttered these tremendous claims? Because the Temple Treasury was very near the council chambers of the Sanhedrin. It is possible that this group of men, now dedicated to kill Him, could hear Him as He taught. But no one arrested Him because in the Divine scheme of redemption, His hour had not yet come (see our comments on Joh. 7:30, Vol. II, p. 29).
Quiz
1.
How does the discourse on the Light of the World relate to the ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles?
2.
How does the discourse on the Light of the World relate to the Old Testament?
3.
In what two ways should we follow Jesus?
4.
Why should men be expected to accept Jesus witness to Himself?
5.
How were the Pharisees judging Jesus?
6.
Does Jesus contradict Himself in the matter of judging others?
7.
How may we truly know the Father?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

[(2) JESUS IS TRUTH, LIGHT, AND LOVE (cont).
(b)
Jesus is Light (Joh. 8:12 to Joh. 9:41).
()
He declares Himself to be the Light, and appeals to the witness of the Father and of Himself (Joh. 8:12-20).]
(12) Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.Omitting the inserted section, this verse immediately follows Joh. 7:52, but the words mark an interval, after which the discourse is resumed. Jesus had ceased to speak, but now speaks again; and St. John remembers that the words were suggested by some incident which occurred. It was then, or therefore, that He found occasion to utter this truth, because the outer form in which He may clothe it was present to their minds. Once again we shall find this mould, in which the truth shapes itself, in the ritual of the Feast of Tabernacles. On the eve of the Lesser Festival (see Note on Joh. 7:14), and on each of the five nights which followed, there was an illumination in the court of the Temple to celebrate the Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing. Four large golden candelabra shed their light through the whole city. Then there was dancing and singing, and the music of instruments, which was continued through the night, until at daybreak the procession to the Pool of Siloam was formed. Once again, too, the ritual of the Feast of Tabernacles is a memorial of the wilderness life. As the water-drawing was bound up with thoughts of the water given in abundance to those dying of thirst, so this illumination was bound up with thoughts of the pillar of fire which was the guide of those who walked in darkness. And in this case, as in that, it is probably the absence of the incident on the last day of the feast which gives special force to our Lords words. Since the teaching of the last chapter, there had been an interval of, it may be, several hours. We may naturally think that the shades of evening were now drawing on. He is standing in the Treasury near to the court of the women (Note on Joh. 8:20), where for the six nights last past there had been a great light, reminding those who could read its meaning of the greater light which illumined the footsteps of their fathers. On this night the light is not to shine; but the true Light, which was ever in the world, is now in His own Temple, speaking the words of light and life to His own people. There is a Light there whose rays are to illumine, not only the Temple, or Jerusalem, or Juda, or the Dispersion, but the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness.Strong and full of hope as these words are in the English rendering, the Greek is more emphatic still. The negative is in its strongest form, expressing shall by no means, shall in no wise, walk in darkness. The possibility is excluded from the thought. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If a man makes a false step in life, it is because he seeks other guides in his own thoughts or in subjection to the thoughts of other men. He that seeks to follow the true Lightto follow, not precede it; to follow always, not only when it coincides with his own will; to follow patiently and trustfully, step by step, wherever it may leadcannot walk in darkness, for he is never without the presence of the Light. Here, as so often, stress is laid on the certainty and universality of the divine love on the one side, and the action of the human will on the other. There can be no doubt, shall by no means walk in darkness; there can be no limit, he that followeth; there can be no halting, he that followeth. The light ever points the way; it is he who day by day follows it who cannot miss the way. Perception of truth attends its practice. The true journey of this life is here presented as a constant activity; in Joh. 7:37, the source of this action is found in a constant receptivity.
But shall have the light of life.For the thought of light and life in contrast to darkness and death, comp. Note on Joh. 1:5. The sense of the present passage is that he who follows Christ, not only has a light which guides his feet, but that through participation in the Messianic life he actually possesses that light in himself. He is no more dead, but has eternal life. (Comp. Joh. 3:15.) He no more abides in darkness (Joh. 12:46), but the Light which lighteneth every man abideth in him.
This verse is one of the many instances in which our familiar knowledge of the words of Jesus, in some degree, takes from the impression they would leave on us if we heard them for the first time. There is in them the calm assertion of conscious divinity, which in its very simplicity carries its own proof. It needed no formal proof, for He Himself knows it to be true; it needed no formal proof, for those who heard Him felt His words to be divineNever man spake like this Man. He taught them as One having authority, and not as the scribes. (Comp. Joh. 8:28.) The witness to the existence of natural light is the eye formed to receive its rays; the witness to the existence of the Light of the world is the eye of the spirit conscious of a night of darkness, which has passed into the brightness of the presence of the Sun of Righteousness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

83. JESUS’S THIRD DISCOURSE AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES TO THE HOSTILE JEWS, Joh 8:12-59 .

His self-assertion against their unbelief in him as Son of God.

It is divisible into two parts: 1. His self assertion, as Son of God, against Jewish unbelief, Joh 8:13-30. 2. His supreme Lordship, even above Abraham, Joh 8:31-58.
The discourse was delivered on the last great day of the feast, (Joh 7:37,) a few hours probably after the scenes of the previous chapter. The place was the Treasury (Joh 8:20) of the temple.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

12. Light of the world What suggested this topic will appear from the following statement in Stier’s Words of Jesus, vol. v, p. 314.
“There was, originally, on the evening of the second (not the first) day of the feast a peculiar festive illumination observed; according to Maimonides it was repeated on each of the remaining evenings, and the pleasure which the people would take in such things renders his word very probable. In the court of the women, where the treasury (Joh 8:20) was, and so on the spot where the Lord was now speaking, there stood two colossal golden LAMPS, which were ascended by steps; their light, kindled after the evening sacrifice, diffused its brilliance, it was said, over the whole of Jerusalem.
With childlike merriment (Joh 5:35) they held a dance with torches around these luminaries, in which the most reverend men, suppose, the liberal accompaniment of shouting and singing on the part of the people.
“The meaning of this symbolical rite was similar to that of the pouring out of the water, with which the account of that ceremony places it in connection. The people had indeed forgotten its significance; but its meaning was there, and that manifold; it had reference, most obviously, partly to God’s former mercies to Israel, and partly to His merciful designs in the future. The water poured out at the Feast of Tabernacles reminded them of the rock in the wilderness, and the brilliant light reminded them of the pillar of fire which guided them; but even as the water spoke also of the fountain which should pour forth its streams at the Messiah’s coming, so also did the light speak of the promised shining forth of God out of Zion. It is not improbable that there was even a more distinctive reference in the evening illumination to the promise of Zec 14:7; since, in the fourteenth verse of that chapter, that time is specified as the Feast of Tabernacles for all people.
“It was not indeed into the midst of the tumultuous whirl that Jesus sounded forth his testimony I am the true Light! But it is sufficiently obvious, nevertheless, that he does refer to the festival, though past; for the minds of the people were full of the ideas connected with it, long after it was over. Even if the gorgeous illumination occurred on the second day only of the feast, yet an allusion to it would fall in with the people’s thought readily enough; the lamps were not yet removed, and in their near neighbourhood the Lord now spake.”
Certainly it was suitable that the real Light should succeed the symbolical, as the real Sacrifice succeeded the typical.
The lofty strain of self-announcement as the world’s Light, with which the discourse here commences, is forthwith broken off by the malignant interruption. No less than seven such interruptions occur in the discourse, giving it a variety of unexpected turns, and changing, to a great degree, its entire train. In this first half, (Joh 8:12-30,) Jesus asserts his own and his Father’s attestation, Joh 8:14-19; the fatal effect of rejection, Joh 8:21-24; the sure evidence of the attestation, Joh 8:25-29. conversation, (Joh 8:31-40,) and Jesus meets them with a firm reply. Formerly he accepted the human maxim that self-attestation is not to be received as true, and in compliance with the maxim he quoted three witnesses. Now he places himself above the maxim, and gives his own word as authoritative and final. His own I know is ample assurance to the world.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world, he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life”.’
Note that this next section commences with the introductory words, ‘Again Jesus spoke to them’. ‘Spoke to them’ refers to the large crowd in Joh 7:43. The controversy with the Pharisees continues. Here Jesus declares openly, while speaking to the crowds in the Temple treasury (presumably the place where the large trumpet shaped collecting boxes were in the court of the women – v. 20), ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life’. This is His second distinctive ‘I am’ saying, His first having been ‘I am the bread of life’ (Joh 6:35). Here then is the One Who not only feeds the hearts of men but Who also brings the ‘life which is the light of men’ (Joh 1:4), Who is the One Who shines in the darkness (Joh 1:5) and is the true light which lightens every man who is open to receive it (Joh 1:9).
These statements are specifically drawing attention to His uniqueness as God’s revelation and source of life to man, and indicating that He is One Who cannot be ignored. Others would speak of the Scriptures as ‘a light’ (Psa 119:105) to lead men into faith and truth, but He speaks of Himself as the light. It compares with the way He could say ‘but I say to you’ in the Mat 5:22 etc. It was a claim to unique authority.
In the Old Testament God is constantly revealed as the Light (Psa 27:1; Psa 36:9; Isa 2:5; Isa 10:17; Isa 60:1-2; Isa 60:19; Mic 7:8-9), a light of glory which was to shine on His people ( Isa 61:-1-2 ) and in the same way the Servant of God in Isaiah was to be a light to the nations (the world – Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6). Now the world needs to recognise that One has come Who is that Light.
The mention of ‘light’ at this particular feast was especially significant. The feast was seen as a reminder of the journey through the wilderness under Moses, and a great lampstand of fiery flames would be erected in the Temple courtyard and the whole Temple illuminated as a reminder of the pillar of fire that illuminated the way for the people of Israel at the time of their deliverance. The pillar of fire had been Israel’s light on the way to freedom, and it represented God Himself as present with His people. Jesus is now saying, therefore, that He is that light, seeking to lead all men to safety and a new life, and revealing the presence of God with them. Just as Israel of old followed the flame of fire as God led the way, safe and secure because God was with them, so now all who become His people can follow the new manifestation of God, Jesus Christ Himself, the light of the world, the light which springs from His life.
But once the feast was over that lamp would cease to be lighted. The courtyard in the Temple would cease to be brightly illuminated. The people would return to their humdrum lives. That light was temporary. But now Jesus, as the Light of the world, was here and would continue to shine on and within His people, shining ever brighter day by day.
By this He was claiming uniquely to present men with truth and understanding, both about God and about themselves, and to give them a new spiritual life within, by bestowing on them eternal life and shining in their hearts with the truth of God. His own life would act as a light to show men that truth, and along with His teaching would lead them ‘out of darkness into His most marvellous light’ (1Pe 2:9). Furthermore men’s sins would be revealed in that light, and some would turn away from their sins and begin to live lives approved by God (Joh 3:19-21). Thus would they find life through faith in Him.
But His glory would also be revealed though His own life and teaching, so that John could say ‘we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (Joh 1:14). That is why Paul could say, we see ‘the light of the good news of the glory of Christ who is the image of God’ (2Co 4:4). And, as we see this light, it shines in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God Himself in the face of Jesus Christ (2Co 4:6). No one has ever seen God, but the only Son, Who came from intimate closeness with the Father Himself, makes Him known (Joh 1:18). So through Him as the light, God is revealed as never before to those whose eyes are opened (compare Isa 60:1-2; Isa 60:19).
These amazing benefits were and are available to all who follow Him and receive from Him ‘the light of life’ (see Psa 36:9) by responding to His words and receiving the work of the Spirit in their hearts (Joh 6:63). This life illuminates them so that they see His glory and come to know Him for what He is, and gain a new awareness of God. They receive a totally new spiritual and moral outlook as His light shines in their hearts, and ‘they see’. Conversely, those who do not respond fail to see. They continue to walk in darkness.
We are reminded again of those words, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death on them has the light shined’ (Isa 9:2), words which as we have seen are connected with Galilee (Isa 9:1). In the original Greek text Joh 8:12 came directly after Joh 7:52. This was thus Jesus response to the denial of the Pharisees that a prophet could arise out of Galilee. Even Scripture had declared that the light would first shine in Galilee. And He was now here as that light, shining in the land of the shadow of death (or ‘in the deep darkness’).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Chapter 8 Jesus – The Light of the World and the ‘I am’ ( Joh 8:12-59 ).

In this chapter Jesus is revealed as ‘the Light of the World’. This is a reminder of the one spoken of in the words of Isaiah, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who dwell in the land of deep darkness, on them has the light shone’, and significantly Isaiah’s words were spoken concerning Galilee of the nations (Isa 9:2). And this light would be One born to be the coming King (Isa 9:6-7), who was by the time of Jesus seen in Messianic terms. In this regard we should note that the words ‘walk in darkness’ used by Isaiah are echoed here in Joh 8:12. The concept thus has Messianic implications, demonstrating that ‘Jesus is the Christ’ (Joh 20:31). But in Joh 1:1-9 the light has also been shown to be Word Who was God Himself. Thus as the light of the world Jesus is to be seen as both the Messiah and the Son of God, both looked at the heightened level revealed in John’s Gospel.
This statement concerning Jesus as the Light of the World is then followed by discussions in which Jesus reveals more and more of Himself, leading up to His declaration of Himself as the ‘I AM’, with the result that He came under threat of stoning because of His strong claims.
Jesus Is The Light of the World ( Joh 8:12-20 ).

In the original text these verses follow immediately on Joh 7:52. As can be seen the transition is fairly abrupt as the context moves swiftly from the Pharisees discussing Jesus among themselves to them listening to and talking to Jesus. It is, however, also equally abrupt if it follows after Joh 8:11. The proclamation is now of Jesus as the Light of the world, a concept already revealed in the Prologue, and the abrupt opening brings the significance of His words and prepares for what follows. All men recognised the importance of light. While it was dark the world proceeded at slow speed, for until the sun arose the working and worshipping day could not begin, and when the sun set that working day was over, for although in those days artificial light from torches allowed an extension of the day, it was never fully satisfactory. It was the day that was the time for living. And it was the day that allowed men to see where they were going.
At this point we should perhaps consider the fact that Jesus continually likens Himself to those things which are basically essential to man. He has revealed Himself as the bread of life, as man’s basic food and provision (Joh 6:35), He has revealed Himself as the divine spring of living water, that resource which was necessary for all forms of life and brought life to the world (Joh 3:5; Joh 4:10-14; Joh 7:37-38), and now He reveals Himself as the light, that which originally drove back the darkness and was the foundation of creation (Gen 1:2-3), and in the light of which men live their lives and accomplish their major tasks.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus Testifies to the Jewish Leaders Perhaps the most confrontational event in John’s Gospel outside of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ is His debate with the Jewish leaders in the Temple on the day after the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh 8:12-59). In this passage, Jesus Christ declares Himself to be the Light of the World (Joh 8:12), which, according to Joh 8:31-32, is figurative for Jesus enlightening men to an understanding in God’s Word so that they can walk as Jesus walks, in freedom from sin. This declaration by Jesus follows the testimony of His doctrine that He teaches (Joh 7:1-36) and it precedes the miracle of Jesus opening the eyes of the blind man (Joh 9:1-34), which both have relevance to Jesus as the Light of the Word, both in the figurative meaning as the understanding of divine doctrine and in the literally meaning of physical eyesight for the man that was healed.
The claim made by Jesus that He is the Light of the World (Joh 8:12) evokes a challenge by the Jews for Him to prove His testimony (Joh 8:13). Jesus does so using their own Law to offer two witnesses (Deu 19:15), that of Himself and of the Father (Joh 8:14-18). The Jews respond to Jesus by asking Him to identify the Father (Joh 8:19). Jesus responds with the the claim that He came forth from the Father and He is returning to Him (Joh 8:21-27). He offers the Jews proof of this claim by telling them to that the miracle of the Crucifixion and Resurrection will support this claim when Jesus returning to the Father (Joh 8:28-29).
Deu 19:15, “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.”
Jesus continues to teach those who had opened their heart to His words by believing in Him (Joh 8:30). He now explains how they can walk in the revelation of Jesus as the Light of the World, which is by walking in His Word. Those who continue in His Word follow the Father and will have eternal life (Joh 8:31-36), while those who reject this revelation will continue to follow the devil and perish in their sins (Joh 8:37-47). When the Jews rejected this teaching, Jesus responded by revealing His pre-incarnate existence with Abraham (Joh 8:48-58), only to be rejected by them (Joh 8:59).
Joh 8:16 Comments The Jews accused Jesus of have no evidence to support His claim of deity (Joh 8:13). Therefore, based upon the Law (Deu 19:15), the Jews tell Jesus that His testimony lacks credibility. Jesus responds by telling the Jews that His testimony is not alone because God the Father is confirming it. Earlier in Joh 5:19-47, Jesus offered the Jews four testimonies of His deity in addition to Himself, which were the testimonies of John the Baptist, His works, the Father, and the Old Testament Scriptures.
Joh 8:17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.
Joh 8:17 Comments Jesus is referring to Deu 19:15, “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.”
Joh 8:24 Comments Joh 8:24 contains one of the seven (I Am) statements in the Gospel of John that stands without a predicate (Joh 4:26; Joh 6:20; Joh 8:24; Joh 8:28; Joh 8:58; Joh 13:19; Joh 18:5). This statement by Jesus saying, “If you believe not that I am He” encompasses the progressive revelation of Himself as deity, the Son of God.
Joh 8:25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.
Joh 8:26 Comments In Joh 8:26 Jesus Christ tells His disciples that He had many things to speak unto them. This implies that Jesus has been giving them progressive revelation of His divinity throughout His earthly ministry as recorded in John’s Gospel as they were able to receive it. For example, Jesus made only a brief comment about His impending atonement at the wedding of Cana when He reveals that His hour had not yet come (Joh 2:4). He continues to reveal more and more about His divinity to His disciples. He tells them He is has been sent by the Father as the Saviour of the world, justified by the fourfold witness of John the Baptist, God the Father, His works, and the Scriptures, offering Himself as the bread of life, calling men to partake of the Holy Spirit as the Living Water so that He can guide them in life as the Light of the World, while protecting them and leading them as the Good Shepherd, bringing them to the Resurrection of Life.
Joh 8:27 They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
Joh 8:27 Comments The primary emphasis of the Gospel of John is the testimony of God the Father that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Therefore, Jesus makes numerous references to the Father throughout this Gospel.
Joh 8:28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
Joh 8:28 “but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” Comments – Billy Brim said that a woman by the name of Clara Grace, a modern-day prophetess, received a vision from the Lord. In this vision, she saw the Lord Jesus Christ as a young man building his last piece of furniture before entering into the ministry. As He finished His work that day and turned to put up His tools, He looked at Clara Grace. She was then brought within Jesus Christ and received insight into the eighteen silent years of Jesus’ life from the age of twelve until He was baptized by John in the river Jordan. In this vision, Jesus Christ told her that He never laid his head to rest without first meditating about who He was and what He was in God’s divine plan. Billye Brim refers to Deu 6:7 where it tells us to speak and meditate on God’s Word when we lay down and when we awake as an example of how Jesus did the same.
Deu 6:7, “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down , and when thou risest up.”
Billy Brim makes the point that this statement made by Jesus Christ in this verse in Joh 8:28 includes the teachings that the Father taught Him before He entered into the ministry. She gives other Scriptures that refer to the fact that the Father taught Jesus how to walk daily and to prepare for the ministry. She says that the passage in Psa 119:97-102 is Messianic because He is the only one who ever refrained His feet from every evil way (verse 101). In this passage, the Psalmist says, “For thou hast taught me.”
Psa 119:97-102, “MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me .”
The Lord would wake Jesus day by day and reveal to Him His plan for that day and season. This revelation would give Jesus Christ the tongue of the learned to speak a word to him who was weary.
Isa 50:4-5, “The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned . The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.”
This plan required obedience to His Heavenly Father, even when it included persecutions and death on the Cross.
Isa 50:6-7, “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.”
To this plan, the Lord was not rebellious (Isa 50:5). This is how Jesus Christ learned to wait on the Heavenly Father and hear from Him. Jesus laid down to sleep meditating on the Word of God and how He fit into God’s plan. Jesus awoke with God speaking to Him about His plan for Him that day. [206]
[206] Billye Brim, interviewed by Gloria Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program, 22 May 2003.
Joh 8:28 Comments – When He is crucified, this Pharisee will know who He is.
Joh 8:29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
Joh 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:30 Comments Joh 8:30 reflects the third theme of the Gospel of John, which is a call to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This theme is woven throughout the Gospel of John (Joh 2:23; Joh 4:39; Joh 4:53; Joh 12:11; Joh 12:42; Joh 16:27; Joh 17:8; Joh 20:8) and culminates in the summary of the Evangelist’s testimony of seven miracles in Joh 20:30-31, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:31 Comments Many people believed in Jesus because of the miracles He performed. However, not all of them became disciples because they did not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. There are two phases of the Christian life: conversion and discipleship. A born-again believer must begin the process of Christian maturity in God’s Word in order to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Joh 8:32 Comments – Andrew Wommack say that it is the truth we know that sets us free. The truth itself does not set us free until we understand how to walk in that truth by applying it to our lives. [207]
[207] Andrew Wommack, Gospel Truth (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Andrew Wommack Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
When we are submitted to God’s Word, we will walk in the most freedom. But when we ignore the truth and walk in disobedience, we live in bondage. For example, a train is created and designed to travel down a set of railroad tracks. As long as it stays on the tracks it is free to move and prosper in what it was created to do. But if it jumps the tracks, it is bound in the soil in which it was not designed to travel. So it is with our lives. God has given each of us a destiny and a path to walk. Our greatest freedom will be to follow this divine path.
Joh 8:35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
Joh 8:35 Comments The servant has no legal right to set himself free. He lives as a servant, legally bound in the house of another. In contrast, the son of the householder was born free in his father’s house. He is free to live in this house without bondage forever.
Joh 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Joh 8:36 Comments Jesus came to see men entirely free from the bondage of his sinful nature, from the bondage of the devil, and from the bondages of this world. This freedom comes in its fullness by abiding in God’s Word (Joh 8:31-32).
Joh 8:31-36 Comments Jesus Came to Set Men Free – Jesus has come to set us free. He declared this in Luk 4:18-19. But in order to be set free and live free, we must know the truth. Anything that is contrary to the Word of God is deception. It is this deception that keeps mankind in bondage to sin.
Joh 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:39 Comments – Even the Pharisees had the doctrine of once saved, always saved. They believed that they, as Jews and a descendent of Abraham, could never lose their relationship with God.
Joh 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Joh 8:41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:41 “We be not born of fornication” – Comments – One commentator notes that this could have been a reference to the fact that the Jews believed that Jesus’ birth was not divine, but conceived in fornication. However, the context of this passage makes no indication of a reference to Jesus’ birth in this passage of Scripture.
Joh 8:39-41 Comments The Works of Abraham – The works of Abraham were that he believed God:
Gal 3:6, “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Gal 3:29, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Joh 8:44 “He was a murderer from the beginning” Comments Jesus makes a reference to the murder of Abel by his brother Cain.
Joh 8:44 “and the lusts of your father ye will do” Comments – The Greek text reveals a better reading when it says, “and the lusts of your father you desire to do.”
Joh 8:48 Comments – Men have not changed even today. Many who walk close to God and work miracles are accused by other Christians of having demons.
Joh 8:51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.
Joh 8:51 Comments – In Joh 8:51 death means spiritual separation from God, since every human will experience the death of their mortal body.
Heb 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:”
Joh 8:52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
Joh 8:53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?
Joh 8:52-53 Comments The Jews Misunderstand Jesus – They thought that Jesus was speaking of physical death.
Joh 8:54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God:
Joh 8:55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.
Joh 8:55 Comments Jesus says, “Ye have not known him ( ); but I know him ( )” Thus, John uses two different Greek words to convey the concept of knowing. W. E. Vine says usually means a “progress” in knowledge, while means a “fullness” of knowledge. [208]
[208] W. E. Vine, M. F. Unger, and W. White, Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, vol. 2 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1996), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2009), 346-347.
Joh 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
Joh 8:56 Comments – Perhaps the phrase “My day” is a reference to when Abraham when he met Melchisedec in Genesis 14. Note Hebrews 7 for a lengthy discussion of Melchisedec. However, a more likely interpretation is the Abraham was in heaven and was aware of the time when Jesus Christ left Heaven and came to earth in the form of a child. All of Heaven was probably aware of this day when Jesus took upon Himself the form of a man.
Joh 8:57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
Joh 8:57 Comments Luke tells us that Jesus was about thirty years old when He began His public ministry, saying, “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,” (Luk 3:23) He had been in the public ministry during two Passovers (Joh 2:23; Joh 6:4), or approximately two years. Thus, Jesus was in His early thirties.
Joh 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Joh 8:58 Comments – Joh 8:58 reveals to us that the Creator of the universe is not bound by the laws of the universe. Jesus Christ and God the Father do not live in the dimensions of time and space. In contrast, man lives in the present, remembers the past and looks forward to the future. But, God sees all of this in a glance. While man can only be in one location at a time, God is omnipresent.
If Jesus Christ would have said, “Before Abraham was, I was” or “I existed,” He would have been lying; for Jesus would have limited Himself to existing within the realm of time. But He is the Creator and He exists now, in the past and in the future, all at one time. Therefore, He had to say, “Before Abraham was, I am”. In other words, “Before Abraham existed, I am in continual existence.”
In Joh 8:58 Jesus makes perhaps the clearest declaration He has ever made to humanity that He Himself is God manifested in the flesh when He declares, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Since the Fall of man and the subjection of Creation unto vanity, all things have awaited the manifestation of the Son of God, the Messiah, and the Redeemer, who is to come and redeem mankind and creation from corruption. In two simple words “I am” every human being is given a choice whether to accept His redemption, or to reject it. Since the Holy Bible speaks the language of the heart, then the spirit of man will hear so simple a statement that none can misunderstand. Everyone’s heart has to make a decision whether to receive these words, or reject them. Most of humanity will reject these words, but the few that accept them will taste of the amazing experience of being regenerated, or born again.
All of creation and every human being, who have all be made subject to vanity, have cried out for redemption from their state of futility and suffering. God chose to bring mankind an answer in a form that tests his heart. This message of redemption did not come as a great oration of speech, for then only the wise would understand it. It did not come from someone who held an earthly position wealth and nobility, for then only those under his dominion would receive it, and that against their will. It did not come as a statement from a descendent of Abraham to his fellow Jew, for then only the Jews would receive it. However, it came in such simplicity that even the most unlearned could understand and believe. It came from a Person who had made himself poor so that men were not compelled to believe. It came from the lips of a sinless Man so that every race of men must recognize his own sinfulness. It came within the context of a human voice, being born of the seed of man, but declaring Himself to be eternal, so that any man of any age could receive it.
Joh 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Joh 8:59 Comments – Jesus withdrew from a hostile, negative environment on numerous occasions. He first withdrew from Judea into Galilee when John the Baptist was cast into prison (Mat 4:12). The people in His hometown of Nazareth tried to kill Him, and He supernaturally passed through the crowd, and moved His residence to Capernaum (Luk 4:30-31). He passed through hostile crowds miraculously on a number of other occasions (Joh 8:59; Joh 10:39). The people of the country of the Gergesenes asked Him to depart, and He did so (Mat 8:34 to Mat 9:1). He was persecuted while in Galilee and withdrew Himself (Mat 12:14-15). He hid himself several times from those who were hostile (Joh 5:13; Joh 12:36). He stopped His public ministry in Judea because the Jewish leaders sought to kill Him (Joh 7:1). Jesus once escaped across the Jordan River because of persecution (Joh 10:39-40). At one point Jesus stopped His public ministry and withdrew Himself into the wilderness (Joh 11:53-54). Jesus taught His disciples to do the same (Mat 10:23).
Mat 4:12, “Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;”
Luk 4:30-31, “But he passing through the midst of them went his way, And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days.”
Joh 8:59, “Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.”
Joh 10:39, “Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,”
Mat 8:34 to Mat 9:1, “And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city.”
Mat 12:14-15, “Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;”
Joh 5:13, “And he that was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place.”
Joh 12:36, “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.”
Joh 7:1, “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.”
Joh 10:39-40, “Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand, And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode.”
Joh 11:53-54, “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.”
Mat 10:23, “But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.”
Each time Jesus saved His own life, He knew that His time was not yet, and so He deliberately avoided being killed (Joh 7:30; Joh 8:20); for this power was in His hand and no man could take His life. However, when His time had come, He willingly gave Himself over into the hands of man (Joh 10:17-18).
Joh 7:30, “Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.”
Joh 8:20, “These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.”
Joh 10:17-18, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Jesus the Light of the World.
Christ’s statement and the Jews’ objection:
v. 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the Light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of Life.
v. 13. The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Thou bearest record of Thyself; Thy record is not true.
v. 14. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of Myself, yet My record is true; for I know whence I came and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come and whither I go.
v. 15. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
v. 16. And yet if I judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me.
After this incident of the woman and her accusers, Jesus was again at liberty to continue His teaching. The one company of Pharisees that had caused the interruption had left, but there were still some in the audience. In His discourse Jesus told His hearers: I am the Light of the world. He may have alluded to two ceremonies of the Jews. It was customary to light the four great candelabra in the Court of the Women on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, with appropriate ceremonies. Their light shone forth over the entire city and the vicinity and signified that salvation was to come from the Jews. But He may also have had reference to a ceremony on the day after the official close of the festival, the “feast of joy for the Law. ” On that day all the sacred books were taken out of the chest where they were commonly kept, and a lighted candle was put in their place, in allusion to Pro 6:23 or Psa 119:105. Jesus is the true Light of the world; from Him, as the Fountainhead and source of all spiritual enlightenment, the rays of salvation and glory have gone forth to illumine all men, Joh 1:7-9; Isa 49:6; Isa 60:3-19. Any follower, any believer in Jesus, has not merely a chart, but a Guide, an in fallible Leader. He will never lead the way into darkness, but will scatter the darkness in the way of His followers. And He gives such light to the souls of men through faith in Him, that it will serve as a lodestar for them to the everlasting mansions of life above. All darkness of ignorance, infidelity, and sin is dispelled before the illumination of Christ in the Gospel, until finally the glorious light of heaven will definitely put an end to all hiding and obscuring veils and present the Savior in the everlasting glory of His work of redemption. The salvation of Christ therefore consists in this, that He gives the true, divine life. “To follow Christ means to obey His words, to preach that He has Buffered and died for us; that is to obey His words in faith. He that believes on Him, clings to Him, trusts in Him, he will be saved, he follows Christ in faith, he holds on to the Light. ” But this statement again offended the Pharisees in the audience. The fact itself they did not dare to assail, but they disputed its formal validity. A man’s testimony concerning himself has no value, it is no testimony, in fact. The answer of Jesus showed that He recognized the correctness of this axiom in general. But His case did not come under that rule, it was different on account of His divine origin. His testimony concerning Himself is true, because He knows whence He has come and where He is going. He has an existence, a being, which goes beyond birth and death. From another world He came down into this world, and, when His time is come, He will return to that other world whence He had His origin. Of these facts the Jews had no idea and understanding; their thoughts were chained to the conceptions of this life. And that was their own fault, since they refused to believe. Therefore it was impossible for them to do anything but to judge falsely with reference to Christ. They judge according to the flesh, according to appearances, without going into the essence of matters, though the latter was an absolute necessity in the case of Jesus. The Lord Himself, by contrast, condemns no man in His capacity as Savior. He confines Himself to witnessing, and does not Bit in judgment, chap. 3:17. But if He does pronounce judgment, then His verdict is always correct and just. He did not come into the world for the purpose of judging, reproving, condemning the world, for He is the Light, the Salvation of the world. But He must sometimes set aside His original, His real purpose in and for this world, in order to condemn the children of unbelief. It is in such cases that His judgment is right and true, also for that reason since His Father, who sent Him, is in and with Him. The two are inseparably connected and united, even though Christ is now appearing in the lowliness and humility’ of His human nature.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Joh 8:12. I am the light of the world: In the transaction above related, Jesus appears unspeakably great, having displayed on the occasion a degree of wisdom, knowledge,goodness,andpower,evidentlymorethanhumanwisdom,indefending himself against the malicious attacks of his enemies; knowledge, in discovering the invisible state of their mind; power, in making use of their own secret thoughts and convictions to disappoint their crafty intentions; and goodness, in pitying and not punishing instantly one who had been guilty of an atrocious act of wickedness; wherefore it was with singular propriety that, after this remarkable decision, addressinghimself to his disciples and the multitude, he called himself the Light of the world; in allusion either to Mal 4:2 or the bright shining of the sun lately risen, and now darting his beams with great lustre and beauty upon them. “I am the Light of the world; I am the spiritual Sun, that dispels the darkness of ignorance and superstition, with which the minds of men are overcast: for by my doctrine and example I shew clearly every where the will of God, and the way of salvation. But observe, this sun arises in a few hours to descend again, and may fail many of you before your intended journey is dispatched: whereas he that perseveringly follows me, and governs himself by the dictates of my word and spirit, shall not be left to walk in the darkness of ignorance, error, and sin, but shall have the light of life continually shining upon him, to diffuse over his soul knowledge, holiness, and joy, tillhe is guided by it to eternal happiness.” The reader will just recollect, to enter the better into the proprietyand spirit of our Lord’s words, that this was the morning after the conclusion of the feast of tabernacles. See Joh 8:2.; and this discourse probably might have been delivered before the morning sacrifice; after which, no doubt, many would be setting out for their habitations in the country. Compare Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6. Mal 4:2. Luk 2:32 and the passages in the margin.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Joh 8:12 . The interpolated section, Joh 7:53 to Joh 8:11 , being deleted, we must look for some connection with Joh 7:52 . This may be found simply as follows. As the Sanhedrim had not been able to carry out their design of apprehending Jesus, and had, moreover, become divided among themselves (as is recorded in Joh 7:45-52 ), He was able, in consequence of this miscarriage in their plans against Him ( ), to come forth afresh and address the assembled people in the temple ( , comp. Joh 8:20 ). This renewed coming forward to address them is not, however, to be placed on the last day of the feast, but is so definitely marked off by Joh 8:20 as a special act, and so clearly distinguished from the preceding, that it must be assigned to one of the following days; just as in Joh 8:21 the similar transition and the recurring introduce again a new discourse spoken on another day. Others take a different view, putting the discourses in Joh 8:12-20 , and even that also in Joh 8:21 ff., on the day named in chap. Joh 7:37 ; but against this is not only the of Joh 8:12 and Joh 8:21 , but the , which in both places bears an evident reference to some preceding historical observation. Though Lcke’s difficulty, that a single day would be too short for so many discourses and replies, can have no weight, there is yet no sufficient ground for De Wette’s supposition, that John did not know how to hold securely the thread of the history.
I am the light of the world , i.e. (comp. on Joh 1:4 ) the possessor and bearer of the divine truth of salvation ( . . ), from whom this saving truth goes forth to all mankind ( ), who without Christ are dark and dead. The light is not identical with the salvation (Hengstenberg), but salvation is the necessary emanation therefrom; without the light there is no salvation. So also Isa 49:6 ; comp. Isa 42:6 . To regard the figure which Christ here employs, in witnessing to Himself, as suggested by some outward object for example, by the two colossal golden candlesticks which were lighted at the feast of Tabernacles (but certainly only on the first day; see Succah v. 2) in the forecourt of the women, where also was the , Joh 8:20 , on either side of the altar of burnt-offering (Wetstein, Paulus, Olshausen), is a precarious supposition, as the feast was now over; at the most, we can only associate the words with the sight of the candelabra, as Hug and Lange do the latter intermingling further references to spiritual darkness from the history of the adulteress. But the figure, corresponding as it essentially does with the thing signified, had been given long before, and was quite a familiar one in the prophetic view of the idea of the Messiah (Isa 9:1 ; Isa 42:6 ; Mal 4:2 ). Comp. also Mat 4:15-16 ; Luk 2:32 ; and the Rabbinical references in Lightfoot, p. 1041. There is really no need to suppose any special suggesting cause, not even the reading of Isa 42 ; for though the Scriptures were read in the synagogues, we have no proof that they were read in the temple. To find also a reference to the pillar of fire in the wilderness (Godet), according to which the , . . ., has reference to Israel’s wanderings, is quite arbitrary; no better, indeed, than the reference of Joh 7:37 to the rock in the wilderness.
] The strongly attested, though not decisively confirmed, subjunctive (so Lachmann, Tischendorf) would be the most usual word in the N. T. after , and might therefore all the more easily have displaced the future, which could hardly have been introduced through the following , seeing that the latter word has no connection with . Upon , with the more definitely assuring future , see on Mat 26:35 ; Mar 14:31 .
. ] As the antithesis of the divine , the , is the causative element of death, so is the light the cause of life, i.e . of the true eternal Messianic life, not only in its consummation after the Parousia, but already also in its temporal development (comp. Joh 3:15 ). , it will not be wanting to him, he will be in possession of it , for it necessarily communicates itself to him direct from its personal source, which he follows in virtue of his fellowship with Christ (“lux enim praeferri solet,” Grotius). The takes place through faith; but in the believer, who as such walks no more in darkness (Joh 12:46 ; Eph 5:8 ; Col 1:13 ), Christ Himself lives (the Johannean “I in you,” and the Pauline Gal 2:20 ; see on Joh 6:51 ), and therefore he has that light of life which proceeds from Christ as a real and inward possession (Nonnus, ); he is (Joh 12:36 ), and himself “light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8 ). This explanation, not merely the having Christ with him (Weiss), is required by the context; because , . . ., is the result of the , and therefore of faith (comp. Joh 3:15 ; Joh 3:36 , Joh 5:24 , Joh 6:47 ), and accordingly is added.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

B. Joh 8:12-30
[Christ, The Light Of The World.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Joh 8:12. Again therefore Jesus spoke to them [ ].The connection varies according as the section on the adulteress is regarded as in its true place or interpolated.
On the supposition of its interpolation Meyer construes thus (and Lcke): After the Sanhedrin had failed in their attempt to get possession of Jesus, and had become divided among themselves, as is related in Joh 7:45-52, Jesus was able, in consequence of this miscarriage of the plan of His enemies (), to appear again and speak to the assembly in the temple. The is supposed to show that the time of the discourse is one of the days following the day of the feast. De Wette, on the contrary, supposes that John has not intended to preserve closely the thread of the history. Tholuck considers it impossible to decide whether the discourse was delivered on the last day of the feast or after it. He says: If the pericope is genuine, this exclamation must have occurred some hours later. Rather, a whole night and some hours later.
If the section be genuine, the words following are connected with the affair of the adulteress (Cocceius, Bengel). We have given this connection the preference. In view of the remarks that the repeated in Joh 8:12 and Joh 8:21 is quite unmeaning without this section, for Jesus has not been interrupted by the history Joh 7:45-52; only the evangelist has interrupted himself by communicating some things which preceded behind the scenes. But the official state of things after the production of the adulteress must have been essentially changed. The rulers who threatened to take Jesus, and occasioned His saying, I shall soon go away from you,have given Him an involuntary token of acknowledgment before the people; now He has the field again for a time, and can speak once more. The transactions following took place, accordingly, after the scene just preceding, on the day after the last day of the feast.
I am the light of the world.Opinions as to the occasion of this figurative utterance: 1. Sunrise, or sunset. But the former was long past, and the latter had not yet come; and Jesus appears here not as antitype of the sun, as in Joh 9:5, but as the essential light, the light of the night. 2. The reading of the section Isaiah 42; since the light of the Gentiles ( ) of Joh 8:6 is equivalent to the light of the world ( ) of this place, and designates the Messiah. Jesus, accordingly, here addresses Himself to the hope of the light of Israel and the Gentiles (Luk 2:32; Joh 1:4; Joh 1:9). Against this it has been observed that the reading of Scripture lessons belonged to the synagogues, not to the temple; even the temple-synagogue, which Vitringa adduces, was not in the temple itself (Lcke, p. 283). 3. The torch-feast, or the illumination at the feast of tabernacles. In the court of the women stood great golden candelabras, which were lit on the evening of the first day of the feast, and spread their light overall Jerusalem, while by the men a torch-light dance with music and singing was performed before these candelabras (see Winer, Laubhttenfest. These lights are not to be confounded with the large golden lamps in the sanctuary). According to Maimonides this illumination took place also on the other evenings of the festival. Even apart from this, the exhausted lamps in the womens court, or in the treasury-hall where Jesus according to Joh 8:20 was speaking, would on the day after the feast as distinctly suggest the symbolical transitory illumination of Jerusalem, as the eighth day of the feast would suggest the cessation of the symbolical streams of water; and this gave the Lord the same occasion for describing Himself as the true enlightener of the night, which the previous day had given for presenting Himself as the opener of the true fountain (Wetstein, Paulus, Olshausen; see Leben Jesu, II., p. 955). Opinions which lack a full appreciation of Johns symbolization, like Meyers, lose their weight by that very lack; though according to them we must take not the torch-light part of the feast, but, with Hug, the sight of the candelabras, as the occasion of our Lords expression. Of course the Messianic prophecies in Isa 42:6; Mal 4:2; Luke 2, as well as the rabbinical figures (Lightfoot, p. 1041), assisted this application. But beyond doubt the illumination was specifically an emblem of the pillar fire which had accompanied Israel at the time of its pilgrimage in the wilderness and its dwelling in tabernacles; therefore also an emblem of the later manifestation of the of the Lord, the idea of the Shekinah (see Isa 4:5). To this was further added, as the immediate occasion, the fact that the adulterous woman had fallen into darkness, and that the tempters of Jesus had come and gone away in spiritual darkness.
The light of the world. is here, as in Joh 17:11, and elsewhere, the world of humanity in its obscuration. The true light, which enlightens the human night, the antitype of the temple light and of all lamps and night lights, is the personal truth and purity, which enlightens and sanctifies, or delivers from walking in religious and moral darkness. The substance or New Testament fulfilment of the pillar of fire.
Shall in no wise walk in the darkness [ ].According to the reading ,39 this is assuring: He shall surely not walk. A stronger expression of the assurance which is implied in the light of Christ; not to be understood as a demand, for this is precluded by the words: He that followeth Me. Darkness; the sphere of error, of delusion, of blindness. A fundamental conception of John.
Shall have the light of life., the fear of death, had literally brought the adulteress to the verge of bodily death itself. Hence the light of life is here not the life as light, but the light as life, as giving, securing, and sustaining the true life. He shall have it for a sure possession of his own, for the following of Christ by faith causes an enlightenment from Him which proves itself as a living light, the life turning into light, the light turning into life, a fountain of life; as the water which He gives becomes a fountain within.
Joh 8:13. Thy Witness is not true.The Pharisees who were present rejected the great utterance of Jesus respecting Himself, but, prudently enough avoiding the matter of it, they dispute its formal validity. Meyer. In reference to the matter of it they perhaps felt half bound by the preceding hypocritical act of homage on the part of their fellows. Jesus Himself also seemed to them to have formerly, chap, Joh 5:31, suggested to them this rule which they now stated. But (says Lcke) the case is different. Matters of conscience, of the inmost sense of God and of divine things must be juged of otherwise than matters of outward experience. As God can only reveal and bear witness to Himself ( , says Chrysostom), so the divine life and light in the world are only their own evidence. Lumen, says Augustine, et alia demonstrat et se ipsum. Testimonium sibi perhibet lux, aperit sanos oculos, et sibi ipsa testis est. Yet the times differ. Christ must be first accredited and introduced by the Father on the testimony of Scripture and miracle; afterwards His own testimony of Himself is valid. The connection also in that place and in this is very different. There Christ professed Himself the awakener of the dead, and as such the Father had accredited Him by the miraculous raising of the sick. Here He presents Himself as the sure guide through the darkness of this world to the true life, and His credential in this character must be the certitude of His own conviction. The proof of the truth of this conviction lies in the fact that He is clear respecting the course of His own life, His origin and His goal, and this proof He soon states further on. [Comp. my note on Joh 5:31, p. 192.P. S.]
Joh 8:14. Though I bear witness of myself, etc.Even when I am in this situation, as I am just now. He hereby intimates, that in other respects He quotes also another witness (the Father), as immediately afterwards in Joh 8:17.
For I know whence I came.The clear consciousness of His origin and appointment on the one hand, and of His destination on the other (His and His ), gives Him also a clear knowledge of His path, clearness respecting His own way and His guidance of others. He comes from the Father and goes to the Father (Joh 16:28). Therefore He reveals the Father and is the way to the Father. Or He is in His essence pure person, He goes to the perfection of His personality, therefore He is in His holy personal conduct the quickener and restorer of erring souls to personal life.
But ye know not [ ] whence I come, and whither I go.In the former case the aorist (), now the present (, ). They could not know whence He had come, but they ought to have seen whence He still at present came, to wit, that He was sent by God. And from His appearance they might then have inferred His origin. No more did they know whence He was going, though they fully intended to put Him to death; that is, they did not know that by the sacrifice of His life in death He would rise to glory. The reading: or [ instead of , and] whither I go, is improbable, because the knowledge of Christs end depends upon the knowledge of His spiritual origin. Grotius accounts for Christs testifying of Himself from His being sent of God: Legationis injunct conscius est is, cui injuncta est, reliqui ab ipso hoc debent discere. A true point, but not the whole thought. Cocceius observes that no other man knows whence He comes and whither He goes, and in this respect Christ stands above others, and may testify of Himself. Unquestionably His clear divine-human consciousness was the bright star of salvation in the night of the world.
Joh 8:15. Ye judge according to the flesh [ ].Tholuck (after De Wette): The loose and floating progression of ideas looks as if the ideas were inaccurately reproduced. Hardly! The train of thought is similar to that at Joh 7:24; except that here the emphasis falls on the judging itself. Ye already judge persons and actions according to the flesh, according to their outward, finite appearance, and according to finite standards ( , Joh 7:24). He means, therefore, primarily, judging by a false outward standard, but, in connection with it, judging by a false inward estimate (so Chrysostom, De Wette: after a carnal, selfish manner). Ye judge (condemn) the internal character of the Son of Man from His humble form; I judge (condemn) no person. Meyer justly observes that the addition: according to the flesh, is not to be here supplied (as Augustine and others would have it; Lcke: as ye do), but the is emphatic in the sense of . This is supported by the turn in Joh 8:16. The sentence, however, probably includes a reference to their theocratic judicial office, which in the affair of the adulteress had shown a thirst for reprobation, while His office consists not only in. not judging, but in delivering and saving. Hence modifications of the sentence: I judge no one. Now (, Augustine and others) is not untrue to the sense, but superfluous. So is the explanation: I have no pleasure in judging (De Wette). The maxim of Christ, however, is founded of course on the fact that He distinguishes between the original nature or essential constitution of persons and their caricature in sin (which Meyer disputes). It is just this which makes Him Redeemer.
Joh 8:16. But even if I myself judge.Meyer supposes that this also means condemn, and that the Lord would say that there are exceptions to that maxim of not judging. But the exceptions would destroy the positiveness of the previous sentence. He judgeth no man (unfavorably), but He does judge in general, and in the special sense judges in condemnation of sin in every man. Thus in His decision respecting the adulteress and her accusers He judged. Thus He judges or forms His estimate of them and of Himself. But all His judging is (see the critical notes), the real, essential estimation (of persons), discrimination (of sinner and sin), and separation (of believer and unbeliever). The ground of this judgment, of His being thus true, is that the Father by the actual course of things executes these same decisions, separations, and judgments, which the spirit of Christ passes.
Joh 8:17. In your law.From this turn it clearly appears that Christ was including judgment respecting Himself. After He has declared that His own testimony is alone sufficient for the declaration that He is the light of the world, He returns to the assurance that after all He is not limited to His own testimony, but has the Father also for a witness. In your law, i.e., in the law in which ye make your boast, and the very letter of which also binds you; not in the law which is nothing to Me (whether in the antinomian interpretation of Schweizer, or the doctrinal interpretation of De Wette). Comp. Joh 5:39; Joh 7:22; Joh 8:5; Joh 8:45-47; Joh 10:35.Tholuck: In this way of speaking of the we must by no means fail to perceive a characteristic of John.The testimony of two men is true. A free quotation from Deu 17:6. Two men is emphatic.
Joh 8:18. I am he who beareth witness, etc.He produces two significant witnesses: His own consciousness and the power of the Father working with Him. Paulus would take the to mean: I, as one who knows Himself; Olshausen: I, as Son of God. But it means also in particular: I, as the one sent by the Father. That which makes two witnesses valid in law, is the agreement of two consciences in a public declaration under oath. And if there may be two false witnesses it must be one of those abnormal, horrible exceptions for which human society cannot provide. But when the power of God in the miracles of Christ and His word in the Old Testament agree with the word of Jesus, it is a harmony of testimonies, in which the testimony of the Father Himself joined with the testimony of Him whom He has sent must be acknowledged.
Joh 8:19. Where is thy Father?An intentional misapprehension and malicious mockery. Therefore no doubt also a feint, as if they were inquiring after a human father of Jesus (Augustine, and others); the use of instead of is not against this. The Pharisees well knew that God is invisible; if their question had referred to God, it must have been: Where then does God, Thy Father, testify of Thee? They seem, in mockery, to look about for a human father of Jesus as His witness. This reference of the word to a human father does not necessarily involve, as Tholuck thinks, the calumnious intimation that He was a bastard (Cyril); for the thing in hand is not any exact information concerning His birth, but the presentation of His Father as a witness. Yet the irony might possibly have gone even to this wicked extent.
If ye had known me, etc.Because they did not and would not perceive the divine Spirit in the words and life of Jesus, they were blind to the Spirit of God in His miracles, as well as to the testimony of God concerning Him in the Scriptures; and this proved that they did not know God Himself any more than they knew Jesus. Comp. Joh 16:9.
Joh 8:20. In the treasury. . We must in the first place distinguish between the treasury-hall, the , which was in the court of the women (i.e., the court beyond which the women did not venture, but where the men also stopped or passed, see Mar 12:41), and the treasure-chambers of the temple, . Then we must again distinguish between the more special term , applied to the thirteen chests, and the same term in its more general application to the whole hall of the chests, which was also called , (see Tholuck, p. 241, where Meyers translation: at the money chests,is also set aside). The evangelist names this locality, because it was the most public, here everybody deposited his temple gifts. The locality gives the bold words of Christ concerning Himself and concerning the Pharisees their full force; yet no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come, Joh 7:30. The refrain of the history with an air of triumph. Meyer.
Joh 8:21. Again therefore he said to them, I go away, and ye will seek me, and will die in your sin [ ].As He had said before, Joh 7:33. Not a new discourse, placed by Ewald and Meyer, contrary to the usual view, on one of the subsequent days. It seems unnecessary to assume (with Tholuck) a special occasion for this discourse; for the occasion in the preceding mockery of the Pharisees stands out strongly enough (hence the ). The mockery of unbelief stands entirely on a line with persecution; mockery therefore is here to the Lord a new signal of approaching death, as persecution was at Joh 7:34. But for this reason He here declares still more strongly than He did there, both His freedom in His death and their condemnation. In the former case: Ye will not find me; now: Ye will die in your sin. The seeking again denotes the seeking of the Messiah amidst the impending judgments; not a penitent seeking of the Redeemer, but a fanatical chiliastic seeking of a political deliverer. Hence without any finding of Christ. And the not finding is, positively, a dying in sin. Lcke: The thing meant is natural dying in the state of sin, not a dying on account of sin or by reason of sin. But the former idea cannot here be kept apart from the latter. The sins are their sins as a whole, sealed by their unbelief and their murderous spirit towards the Messiah; the dying is dying in the whole sense of the word: perishing in woe, irremediable death, utter ruin in this world and in that which is to come; and lastly the persons meant are the people as a whole, deceivers and deceived. But as the does not mean every single Jew, so the sin of obduracy is not foretold of all, nor the prospect of death extended to hopeless damnation in every case. Only the sin and death of the nation as a body are without limit.
The extension of the condemnation into the future world Jesus declares in the words: Whither I go, ye cannot come. As they now could not spiritually roach Him, so hereafter even as suppliants they could not reach Him on the throne of His glory nor beyond in His heaven. A distinct opposite of hell is not to be thought of (as Meyer holds); a place of punishment is no doubt at least implied.
Joh 8:22. Will he kill himself?Formerly He said: Where I am; now he says: Whither I go. Hence they now (the Jews in the Judaistic sense) give their mockery another and a more biting form. The irony of Joh 7:35, rises to impudent sarcasm. Tholuck. They assume that He spoke of His death; and as He called this a , they mock, because they have no conception of the element of voluntary departure in the violence of death: Will He kill Himself? They think He has set Himself far above them in saying that they could not reach Him; they revenge themselves by suggesting that He will sink far below them. An orthodox Jew, they would say, utterly abhors suicide. According to Josephus, De Bello Jud. III. 8, 5, the self-murderer goes to the . Thus, according to the orthodox Jewish doctrine, to which the Pharisees bore allegiance, the suicide falls to the lowest hell of Hades, and is separated by a great gulf from Abrahams bosom (Luk 16:26), into which they hoped to go. Concerning a peculiar interpretation of Origen, see Lcke, p. John 207: [that Jesus would kill Himself, and so go to the place and punishment of suicides, to which the Jews could not go, because their sin did not subject them to it.Tr.]
Joh 8:23. Ye are from beneath; I am from above.Jesus meets their mockery with a calm assertion which turns the point of it against themselves. For from beneath hardly means here merely from the earth (Meyer), as in Joh 3:31; but, as in Joh 8:44, it denotes the diabolical nature which they have shown, and by virtue of which they belong to that dark nether world. They therefore could go thither, where they are spiritually at home; He could not, since He is from above, from heaven (Joh 3:3). The antithesis in these words is that of hades and heaven, says Origen; in the moral sense, says Stier; on the contrary Tholuck, with Meyer, makes the antithesis heaven and earth. But the parallel does not prove this; for that expression denotes not the visible world in itself, but the old bad nature of the world.
The more obscure first sentence He explains by the second: Ye are of this world. , also, according to the Jewish Christology, denoted pre-eminently the ancient heathen world, which was to come into condemnation. I am not of this world. Therefore in spirit and life belonging to the , the new and higher world. The former antithesis denotes the principle of the life; the latter, the sphere of life corresponding.
Joh 8:24. I said therefore unto you, that ye will die in your sins.That is to say, the words: ye will die in your sins, and the words: ye are of this world, or from beneath, are equivalent. Their being from beneath as to the principle of their life is the reason why they will die in their sins (Crell. Other views of the connection see in Tholuck). Meyer: Observe that in this repetition of the denunciation the emphasis, which in Joh 8:21 lay upon in your sins, falls upon will die, and thus the perdition itself comes into the foreground, which can be averted only by conversion to faith.
Yet they must not understand Him that they are in a fatalistic sense from beneath, or of this world, and therefore cannot but die in their sins. Hence He adds the condition: If ye believe not that I am He. There is, therefore, no lack of clearness in the connection (as Tholuck supposes). The expression: that I am He, is mysteriously delivered, without mention of the predicate. Meyer: To wit, the Messiah, the self-evident predicate. But the matter was not so simple; otherwise Christ would have previously named Himself the Messiah. And this He would not do, because their conception of the Messiah was distorted. They must, therefore, step by step perceive and believe that He is what He professed to be: the one sent of the Father, the Son of Man, the Quickener, the Light of the world; last: the one from above. They must believe in Him according to His words and His deeds; His higher existence, His real being, which stood before their eyes, and the real nature of which they criticised away, they must believe; not till then could they receive the word that He was the Messiah. The predicate is, therefore, the representation of Himself which Jesus gives in the context. According to Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, I. 62), an imitation of the Old Testament . Undoubtedly correct in the view that both here and there the self-evidencing living presence of the divine person must be above all things acknowledged without prejudice.
This mysterious import of the word is indicated also by the question of the Jews: Who art thou? (Joh 8:25). They wished to draw the last decisive word from Him. The answer of Jesus which follows speaks to the same point. Luther takes the as contemptuous; so does Meyer. But it is rather a sly question, to decoy or force Jesus to an avowal. Comp. Joh 10:24. If we compare the expression with that in Joh 7:39 : ,we might naturally translate: that I am here. That He is present as He is present in the fulness of His divine-human life,this they must believe and apprehend before they will rightly apprehend Him as the Messiah.
Joh 8:25. Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. [So the E. V. renders Comp. Text. Notes.P. S.].This passage has been a crux interpretum, because the progressive unfolding of the idea of the Messiah by Christ in His presentation of Himself has not been appreciated. The interpretation depends not merely on the sense of , but also on that of the expression .
[To state the points more fully, the interpretation depends: 1) On the construction of the whole sentencewhether it be interrogative, or exclamatory, or declarative; 2) on the sense of , whether it be taken substantively (principium, the beginning, the Logos), or adverbially (in the beginning, from the beginning, first of all, to start with, or omnino, generally); 3) on the ambiguity of (conjunct.) and , (relative); 4) on the meaning of as distinct from ; 5) on the proper force of . I remark in the premises that we must take adverbially, and write , , since (quoniam, quia) gives no good sense.P. S.]
1. Constructions which take the sentence as a question.
(a) Cyril, Chrysostom, Matthi, Lcke (more or less equivalent): Why do I even speak to you at all? [Cur vero omnino vobiscum loquor? cur frustra vobiscum disputo?P. S.] (Comp. Joh 10:25). This is grammatically possible, for can mean omnino (in certain circumstances), and can mean why. But such a sentence would be contradicted by Christs going on to speak, and it would be too empty (Meyer).
[With this agrees in sense Ewalds explanation, with this difference that he takes the sentence as an indignant exclamation: That I should have to speak to you at all! (Dass ich auch berhaupt zu euch rede!) But this leaves the position of before (as Ewald writes instead of , ) unexplained.P. S.]
(b) Meyer (and Hilgenfeld): What I originally (from the first) say to you, that do ye ask? or (Do you ask), what I have long been telling you? The objection to this is that Christ had from the first not presented Himself as Messiah. Besides, there is no: Do ye ask?in the sentence.
2. Constructions which connect with this sentence the following [Joh 8:26, and put only a comma, instead of a period, after ]. Some manuscripts, Bengel, Olshausen. Hofmann: For the first, for the present, since He is engaged in speaking to them, He has many reproving and condemning things to say to them. This would be an entire evasion of the question they had put.40
3. Constructions which take the sentence as a declaration.
(a) Augustine (similarly Bede, Rupert, Lampe, Fritzche): Principium (the Logos, the Word) me credite, quia () et loquor vobis, i.e. quia humilis propter vos factus ad ista verba descendi. [Wordsworth: I am what I am also declaring to you, the Beginning; comp. Rev 21:6, .P. S.] Untenable both in point of grammar and of fact; is adverbial, and Jesus could not present Himself to these adversaries as the divine Logos. [A reference to the Logos would require instead of .P. S.]
(b) Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Baumgarten-Crusius, Tholuck: I am41 what I told you in the beginning (and tell you until now). But (1) He had not given them from the beginning a definite description of Himself; (2) ought not to stand first; not to say that we ought rather to have [instead of ].
(c) Luthardt: From the beginning I am, that [] I may even speak to you. Obscure, and in part incorrect; for Jesus did not exist merely to speak to the Jews (see Meyer).
(d) Bretschneider: At the outset I declared concerning Myself what I say also now. But there is no .
(e) De Wette: First of all, or above all, I am what I even say to you.42 Luther: I am your preacher; if ye first believe this, ye will also know by experience who I am, and in no other way. (Ammon: He is to be known, above all things, from His words). But, in the first place, must mean for the first thing, to begin with; and secondly, Christ says not that they must know Him from His words, but He refers to accounts which He actually gave of Himself.
(f) Winer: I am wholly such as I represent Myself in My words. See the grammatical objection against wholly in Meyer.
(g) To begin with, for the first, I am that which I even say to you; or, First of all, I am the very thing I am declaring unto you. Erasmus, Bucer, Grotius,43 et al., Leben Jesu, II., 963, Brckner.44 For the first thing, they must receive with confidence His descriptions of Himself as the fountain of life, the light of the world, etc., which He openly and familiarly talks () to them; then they will come to a full knowledge of His character; for all depends on their ceasing to determine His character by their crude notion of the Messiah, ceasing to require in Him such a Messiah as they have imagined, and beginning to determine their ideas of the Messiah from His revelation of Himself, and to correct and spiritualize them accordingly. When Tholuck objects that, upon this interpretation, Jesus would be drawing them first to a lower view of Himself, and afterwards to a higher, he is mistaken; for the issue here is between a designation of Himself by the New Testament thing that He is, and a designation of Himself by the theocratic name, which in its rabbinical form had to be regenerated by the New Testament spirit, and the course of thought is not from lower to higher, but from the more general to the more specific.
Joh 8:26. I have many things to say and to judge of you. is emphatic. Because He has so much to say and to judge of them, so much to clear up with them, He cannot go on to the final, decisive declaration concerning Himself. It must first be still more clearly brought out, what they are, and where they stand. Tholuck, therefore, groundlessly remarks, quoting an opinion of Maldonatus: This expression also disturbs the clearness of the course of thought. The opinion, of course, has in view also what follows.
But he that sent me is true. is difficult. Meyer, with Apollinaris: , . So Euthymius and others. Better Lcke, Tholuck and others, after older expositors: However much I have to judge concerning you, My is still . Yet this sentiment is to be modified. It grieves Him that He has so much to judge of them; yet it must be so; God, who hath sent Him, is true. God judges in act according to truth, and Christ, the interpreter of His essential words which He hears of Him through the facts and through the showing of the Spirit, must do the same in speech. The , therefore, forms an adversative (missed in this view by Meyer) to the . According to Chrysostom the apodosis would mean: But I limit Myself to speaking , . Meyer: He has things to say to the world, other than the worthlessness of His enemies. But in this view God would rather be referred to as gracious, than as true. And Christ would not appeal to His duty to speak what He hears (comp. Joh 5:30).
Joh 8:27. They understood not.Different conceptions: (1) , Chrysostom. (2) Strange and improbable that they did not understand, De Wette. (3) The beginning of a new discourse with other hearers, Baumgarten-Crusius, Meyer. (4) A moral obtuseness, and refusal of acknowledgment, Lcke. So Stier and Tholuck: hardness of heart.The failure to understand was due, on the contrary, to their suspecting a secret behind the expression: He that sent Me, on account of their greedy chiliastic hope of a Messiah. For as Messiah in their sense Christ would have still been welcome to them. This introduces what follows.
Joh 8:28. When ye have lifted up the Son of man.It is now their turn to be tempted by Jesus, though in a holy mind. Jesus apparently yields to their vagueness of mind with a term of many meanings; hence the . The sense is: lifted up on the cross, as in Joh 3:14; but it carries also the thought that this shameful lifting up would be the means of His real exaltation (Calvin, et al.), which comes more strongly to light in Joh 12:32. Now His hearers understand it to mean: When ye have acknowledged the Son of Man as Messiah, and proclaimed Him in political form.Then shall ye know-that I am he.Some willingly, in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost; others against their will, in the destruction of Jerusalem, etc. (comp. Joh 6:62, a passage which is elucidated by this. On the different interpretations of the knowing, see Tholuck). They take it thus: Then shall ye perceive howl manifest and prove Myself the Messiah after your mind.And that I do nothing of myself.( comes under , and is not, as Lampe takes it, a new proposition). That is: That I do not of My own will and ambition usurp the honor and glory of Messiah. They understand it: That I, for secret reasons, do not come forward on my own responsibility, but abide the result.But speak these things as the Father taught me.His action is according to the instruction of the Father, primarily a testifying, speaking (therefore not a completing, according to Bengel and De Wette: completed by , by ); and this very thing includes self-command in the matter of a decisive Messianic profession. Just this reserve leads Him into the difficult position, in which He seems to stand alone, and yet is not alone. He manifests Himself and conceals Himself as the Father instructs Him. See the history of the temptation. Now His hearers take it that the divine arrangement requires the Messiah to let the Messianic people take the initiative in His elevation.
Joh 8:29. And he that sent me is with me.The Messiahs trust to the arrangement of the Father in the trying course assigned Him. But in the progress of their misapprehension they must take Him as expressing His confidence of happy success in His Messianic enterprise with the help of God.He hath not left me alone.Pointing to the help of God which He has hitherto received, and which is secured to Him by the co-working of the divine purpose throughout the government of the world with His work, as well as with His Spirit, and by the co-working of His dominion with the Father. But they probably think of the silent preparation of extraordinary succor.
For I always do the things that are pleasing to him.(Not: As appears from the fact that I do, etc., Maldonatus. The assistance of the Father is to be distinguished from the essential unity of the Father with the Son, and reciprocates the obedience of Jesus.) In His unconditional obedience He has the seal of His unconditional confidence. But they may imagine: He has already introduced and arranged everything according to the direction of God.
Joh 8:30. As he spoke these words, many believed in him.In the simplest historical sense: Became disciples, came forward as followers and confessors of Him. What kind of faith this was, the sequel must teach, and Jesus Himself took care that the faith which arose out of chiliastic misconstructions should soon be tested and set right. Tholuck: is here used for a faith which arises certainly not from miracles, but from the word; by force of the imposing power of His testimony concerning Himself; a faith, however, which was but superficial, for it did not find in the words of Jesus . They stand upon the footing of the disciples mentioned in Joh 6:66; hence is required of them. The main thing required is submission to the word of Christ, renunciation of their carnal expectations, and a clearing and spiritualizing of their faith.
Failure to observe the misconstructions traced above has occasioned much confusion over the words of Jesus immediately following, and over the relapse of many or most of these disciples, which follows soon upon them.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. As Christ is the source of life under different aspects: source of satisfaction, source of healing, source of quickening and inspiration,so He is the light also under different aspects: the star by night which prevents wandering in darkness, the sun by day which brings with it the works of the day and opens the eye to the day, John 9. Here He is the star or lamp of the night, the true pillar of fire, which is set to lighten from Mount Zion the holy city and the world. Suggested by the illumination at the feast of tabernacles. Next to the water-drawing and libation, this illumination was the leading feature of the festivities. As the drawing and pouring of the water typified the fulness of salvation which abode in Jerusalem and flowed forth thence, so these lights typified the enlightening of the world from the mountain of the Lord, Mic 4:2; Isa 2:2; Isa 60:3; Isa 60:5; Isa 55:5; Zec 14:7; Zec 14:17. After the manner of His former interpretation of the water-drawing Jesus points here to that illumination. It was in Him that that prophetic festivity found its fulfilment: the light of the Gentiles, Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6; Isa 9:1-2. He who follows Him, follows no flitting, earthly glimmer, which first flashes up, and then leaves the darkness only the more dismal; His light is a light of life, a light which in itself is life. Gerlach.
2. The consciousness of Christ is the star of night, the sun of day. He is sure of His origin (from the Father), of His destination (to the Father), and therefore of His way (with the Father), and can therefore offer Himself with absolute certitude and confidence as the guide of life to the people who are wandering in darkness. Though I bear witness of Myself, yet My witness is true. Consciousness attested by conscience is the basis of all certitude (Luther, Descartes, Kant, Schleiermacher). Christs divine self-consciousness is the starting-point of all divine certitude. Augustine: A light shows itself, as well as other things. You light a lamp, for example, to look for a garment, and the burning lamp helps you find it; but do you also light a lamp to look for a burning lamp?
3. The assault of the men of the letter on the testimony of Christ concerning Himself, a type of the battle between dead tradition and living faith.
4. The worlds way of judging, and Christs way: (1) The world judges of the nature of the person after the flesh (subjectively, with a carnal judgment, and objectively, from the mere appearance); Christ judges not the nature of the person, but his guilt. (2) The world forestalls the judgment of God, and, midway, condemns Christ to the cross; Christ pronounces the judgment of God, and the actual judgment He does not execute till the end of the world.
5. Christs appeal to the testimony of His Father, and the mockery of the Jews; the fact, and the mistaking and denial, of the original Life. It is remarkable how, in the words: in your law (of which ye are so proud), Jesus takes issue with them, and indeed, as it were quits them. Gerlach. Had not God from eternity come out of a rigid, self-imprisoned unity, and revealed Himself as second person in the Son, etc., He had not been able to redeem the human race, nor even therefore, to reveal, demonstrate Himself to it in His full truth. Ibid.
[5 . The significant expression: the Father is with Me, is a counterpart of: The Word was with God. in Joh 1:1. From eternity the Son was with the Father; in time the Father is with the Son. This personal distinction of the Father and the Son from each other is the stronger rather than the weaker, for that other: The Word was God, which stands by its side, and which has a parallel here in Joh 8:19; If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also. It is impossible to do justice to its significance, without the doctrine of the essential, eternal trinity of the Godhead; and this doctrine may be said to be contained in this combination of mysterious words. Augustine, in the Catena: Blush, thou Sabellian; our Lord doth not say, I am the Father, and I the self-same person am the Son; but I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.E. D. Y.]
6. The suicidal world suspects Christ and Christianity of a suicidal intent. Character of suicide on the part of the Lord. From beneath: the contrast of suicide, which is from beneath, and self-sacrifice, which is from above.
[6 . Here the Lord says: I am from above; ye neither know Me, nor My Father; ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. He had said before, Joh 7:28 : Ye both know Me, and know whence I am. This apparent contradiction only reflects in His free, spontaneous utterance the perfect harmony and unity of real deity and real humanity (against Docetism and Apollinarianism) in Him. And yet His having a really earthly, human origin, as well as a really divine, was not the same as being from beneath and of this world. This world lieth in the wicked one.E. D. Y.]
7. Christ reveals Himself in the spirit by veiling Himself in the flesh. The teaching of Christ is not something outside of Him or added to Him; He Himself is all teacher, all revelation; His doctrine is Himself. Gerlach.
[7 . The Being who sent Jesus into the world, was in such close companionship with Him, that He shared with Him, so to speak, all the opprobrium and hostility with which His mission was met, and would be present to His aid in every danger. It should ever be borne in mind that this obedience of the Son, although strictly predicable of Him only in His Messianic office, is to be regarded as proceeding from His essential unity with the Father; else, as Olshausen well remarks,it would depend for its perpetuity upon the fidelity of the Son.It is based upon those immutable relations of companionship springing from the essential unity of the Father and Son, and referred to so emphatically in the preceding words, is with me. J. J. Owen.E. D. Y.]
8. The chiliastic elements in the life of Jewish people: a. During the life of Jesus, in Galilee (John 6), in Judea (John 8); b. After the ascension of the Lord, (1) at the time of founding of the church, Act 6:7; (2) before the death of James the Just. See his biography.
9. It is not right to presume that the rulers of the Jews would have absolutely closed themselves beforehand against the impression of the Messiahship of Jesus. On the contrary they were thoroughly disposed from the beginning, under certain conditions, to acknowledge Him as Messiah; viz., if He would meet their idea of Messiah (see Matthew , 4) This accounts for the alternate attractions and the repulsions, which John exhibits to us in the boldest contrast, John 3; chs. 8. and 10. Even in the revilings against Christ on the cross the craving for a chiliastic Messiah may be perceived (Mat 27:42, see Leben Jesu, II. 3, p. 1562). This explains again the Lords reservation of His name of Messiah, which He positively refused to have publicly proclaimed by the people until the Palm-Sunday, and to which He Himself did not confess until the hour of His condemnation before the high council.
10. In the miraculous gliding of Christ out of the hands of His enemies, both here and often elsewhere, Luthardt rightly sees a presage of the resurrection of Christ, by which He perfectly transported Himself from the violence of His foes.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See the Doctrinal and Ethical points.Christ the true pillar of fire to His people: 1. He gives light upon the world of sin. 2. He gives light through the world of nature. 3. He gives light to His believing followers.Christ the light of the world in His saving work for those who follow Him: 1. The Light of the world. 2. The followers of the light. 3. The saving effect: (a) They shall not walk in darkness, (b) They shall have the light of life.The star of heaven in the night of earth.The morning star, which guides out of the night of death into the day of life.The light of life: 1. The light as life. The effect of the enlightening of the understanding is the quickening of the heart. 2. The life as light. Quickening is enlightenment.The true light and the true life are one.Redemption by the light of life from walking in the night.Christ the light of the world: 1. In the sureness of His course. 2. In that which His work begins with: not judging, not destroying, but quickening. 3. In that which His work ends with: separating by the effects of light, judging according to the fact, separating dead and living. 4. In that which His work both begins and ends with: the revealing of the real God, of the Father in His working, His quickening, His judging.
The Jews judging after the flesh, a judgment against themselves: 1. It is a judgment of the carnal mind, of passion, on the revelations of the Spirit. 2. It is a judgment according to outward appearance and pedigree on the wonders of the new life. 3. It is a carnal condemnation of the divine gentleness which could rescue from damnation.Prejudice, a way to condemnation.The Jewish students of God, in the treasury of God, unmasked as ignorant despisers of God.The manifest Father of Christ, a hidden God to His adversaries.How Christ can charge spiritual ignorance upon His adversaries at the height of their power (in the treasury). Men of the letter have the treasury of God, and not the knowledge of God.
The fearful word of Christ concerning His departure: 1. The horrible misinterpretation of it. 2. Its true meaning.Suicide elucidated by the conversation of Christ with the Jews.Self-killing and self-sacrifice; or, the death from beneath, and the life from above.To be from beneath, and to be from above.How Christ would be known according to His own representation of Himself, and not according to the preconceived opinions of the world: 1. According to the Old Testament, not according to the Jewish schools. 2. According to the New Testament, not according to medival tradition. 3. According to His divine glory, not according to our human notion.Legitimate steps in the revelation of Christ to us.Before the world would come to a decision concerning Christ, it must have the judgment of Christ concerning Himself.
Joh 8:26. The judgment of Christ concerning the world unavoidable: 1. As a testimony to the real government of God. 2. As a testimony to His true view of things.The words of Christ concerning His elevation, as they are misinterpreted by the ear of the Jews.The power of the Spirit in these words of the Lord: (a) His confidence that His elevation on the cross will be the lowest depth of His path to His heavenly exaltation. (b) The mercy with which He still gives His enemies the prospect of knowing their salvation by His death and resurrection, (c) The clear prediction of the effect of the preaching of the cross in the New Testament dispensation.The twofold knowing that Jesus is the Lord, as produced by His twofold elevation (the knowing which believers have, and that which unbelievers have).
The word of Christ: I am not (left) alone: 1. The sense of the expression: The Father is with Him through the whole course of His sufferings (Gethsemane). 2. The confidence of it: Notwithstanding He was soon to be forsaken by all the world and apparently by God Himself. 3. The foundation of the confidence: for I do always those things, etc.
Those who believe from misunderstanding.The form of enthusiastic belief, which can immediately turn into the bitterest unbelief.Misunderstanding of the word of God: 1. Its forms. 2. Its causes. 3. Its marks. 4. Its solution. 5. Its consequences.
Starke: Lange: The illumination of the understanding always inseparably connected with the sanctification of the will. On life depends light or use of eyes.Teachers should always lead their hearers from the earthly to the spiritual.Hedinger: He who follows Christ never misses the right way; always with will-o-the-wisps! Isa 11:3-4.God, who is () the truth itself, can testify of Himself, and all men, though they be but liars, must believe His testimony.If the Father and the Son testify the very same thing, how strong, how invincible is the testimony!Stiff-necked enemies of the truth deride what they do not and will not understand, and when they can go no further, they start something ridiculous.(In the treasury.) God wonderfully protects faithful teachers and confessors of His word.Quesnel: Jesus says nothing but what the Father bids Him say; therefore should His ministers also preach nothing but what they have learned of Him, Rom 15:18.
Joh 8:28. Zeisius: The prophecies of God will never be more truly and fully understood than in their fulfilment.O how many Christians do not know Christ before they have crucified Him with their sins!
Braune: Shall not walk in darkness, in un-holiness, in sin. It is manifestly a fundamental truth that mind and will belong together; neither can be corrupted or improved without the other; and enlightenment and sanctification ever play into one another. At the same time, looking at the preceding occurrences, the Lord seems to intend to guard His dealing with the fallen woman against all abuses. He does not let sin prevail.Does not the sun bear witness even to its own existence? Set it aside, if you can.Jesus alone knew both whence He came and whither He went; His adversaries knew neither.Contend not with blasphemers over God, but over noble life.The cross is the knot in which humiliation and exaltation are entwined. In the cross the deepest humiliation ended; in the cross exaltation began.
Heubner: Some light a man will always follow; the question is whether he will choose the right one. Criterion: The following of Jesus casts out all uncertain, restless groping.There are only two ways: that of the darkness, and that of the light.The test of true illumination is that it gives life.Bearing witness to ones self by no means absolutely inadmissible.The believer also knows the source and the goal of his life.How little would the hostile Jews have suspected that this Jesus, their antagonist, would soon be exalted at the right hand of God. So the children of the world suspect not the speedy glorification of the godly whom they despise.
Joh 8:19; comp. v. 37. The knowing of the Father and the knowing of the Son are inseparable.I go my way. Our enjoyment of the means of grace has its day.Ye shall seek Me. The time is sure to come when the man shall know those through whom God would have saved him: children their father, etc.Ye cannot come. Heaven inaccessible to the assaults of the wicked.From beneath, etc. Between the worldly-minded and the heavenly-minded there is as great a distance (and an abyss) as between heaven and earth.The enemies of the good cause must involuntarily promote it.
Schleiermacher: Walking in the light, walking in the truth.If our faith in the Lord rested on any human testimony, He could not be that on which we might build the full certainty of our salvation. We must cease to be of this world: then we can believe that He is that.The Lord leaves not alone those who are joined with the Redeemer.Besser: Zec 14:7 : At evening time it shall be light.If Christ is the light of the world, the world without Him is darkness.What a. cutting contradiction: The treasury of God surrounded by a God-forsaken people, whose offerings were as heartless as the coin clinking in the chest,Heb 12:3.Christ, and Christians with Him, go above, to heaven, because they are come down from above; but the servants of sin and of the devil go down, because they are from beneath.
[Matt. Henry: Joh 8:12. He that followeth Me. It is not enough to look at this light, and to gaze upon it; but we must follow it, believe in it, walk in it,for it is a light to our feet, not our eyes only.
Joh 8:26 : I have many things to say, etc. 1. Whatever discoveries of sin are made to us, He that searcheth the heart hath still more to judge of us, 1Jn 3:20. 2. How much soever God reckons with sinners in this world, there is still a farther reckoning yet behind, Deu 32:34. 3. Let us not be forward to say all we can say, even against the worst of men; we may have many things to say by way of censure, which yet it is better to leave unsaid, for what is it to us?E. D. Y.]
Footnotes:
[39][The rec. reads , with D. E. al., but is supported by B. F. G., etc. Orig., and adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf and Alford.P. S.]
[40][Bamlein: If we must take the question: Who art thou? as expressing contempt and wonder that Jesus should venture to say: Ye shall die in your sins,the reply: . . . . is perfectly suitable: Assuredly (from the first, in general) I havewhat I am doing also nowmany things to say, etc.E. D. Y.]
[41][ is supplied from the preceding question of the Jews: ;P. S.]
[42][ Von vorne herein (vor allen Dingen) bin ich, was ich auch zu euch rede; i.e., I am in fact what I say; I must be known from My speeches. Alford professes to follow this interpretation of De Wette as expanded by Stier, hut translates somewhat differently: Essentially, ( , traced up to its principle, generally), that which I also discourse unto you; or, in very deed, that same which I speak unto you. he is the LogosHis discourses are the revelation of HimselfWhen Moses asked the name of God, I am that which I am, was the mysterious answer;but when God manifest in the flesh is asked the same question, it is: I am that which I speak. Profound and true in itself; hut hardly an interpretation of the text in hand. The question, in all its circumstances and Its spirit, is not the same as that of Moses: and a hidden reference to would produce rather than .P. S.]
[43][Grotius: Primum hoc sum quod et dico vobis (i.e., lux mundi)= , .P. S.]
[44][Brckner, ed. 5th, does not materially differ from De Wette, except that he rejects his rendering of by above all things (vor allen Dingen), and translates: to begin with (von vorne herein).Godet translates: (I am) Precisely what I tell you (no more or less).P. S.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 1650
CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Joh 8:12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
IT was customary with our blessed Lord to take occasion from things that were immediately before him to instil divine knowledge into his hearers. When he was at a well, he spake of himself as a fountain of living water: when mention had been made of the manna which was given to the Israelites in the wilderness, he represented himself as the bread that came down from heaven, that men might eat of it and live for ever: when he was passing though a vineyard, he set himself forth as the true and living vine, by an union with which all the branches were to bring forth fruit. Thus, it should seem, in the passage before us, being early in the temple [Note: ver. 2.], and beholding the sun shining bright upon him, he resumed his discourse which had been interrupted, and spake to all the people, saying, I am the light of the world.
We cannot but notice in this impressive declaration,
I.
The excellency of Christ
Of all the objects in the visible creation, the sun is the most splendid and majestic: and hence it is the most frequently selected to characterize our blessed Lord. The sun has in itself a fulness of light, and is the one source of light to the material world. In Christ also are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; and from him alone is derived all spiritual light. It is he that enlightens all,
1.
By his instructions
[To form a correct judgment of this subject, we should survey the state of the world before the coming of Christ. The darkness that prevailed is justly styled by the prophet, gross darkness. The most learned philosophers could not absolutely determine whether there were a God; or, if there were, whether there were one or many. They conceived that there were some beings superior to themselves; and them they called gods: but the characters they assigned to them, were such as would disgrace the lowest of the human race. They felt themselves sinners; but the methods which they devised for expiating their crimes were beyond measure absurd. They could not account for the sin and misery which they both saw and felt, nor could they prescribe any remedy for these disorders. They were vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they shewed themselves to be very fools [Note: Rom 1:21-22.]. But the Dayspring from on high, the Lord Jesus Christ, has visited us, to give light to them that sat in darkness and the shadow of death [Note: Luk 1:78-79.]. He has declared to us fully the nature and perfections of God, the means of reconciliation with him, the duties we owe to him and to each other, and whatever else can conduce to the regulating of our lives or the furthering of our happiness.]
2.
By his example
[Had precepts alone been given us, we should have been ready to construe them in such a way, as would best suit with our carnal prejudices and sensual inclinations. But by exhibiting in his own life a perfect pattern of holiness, he has cut off all occasion for doubt respecting the nature or extent of our duty. We need only to walk as he walked, and we cannot err. Do we desire to ascertain what that service is, which we owe to God? we see in him, that we should have the whole law of God written in our hearts; and that it should be our meat and our drink to do his will. Do we wish to know how we should conduct ourselves towards our fellow-creatures? We have an unerring rule set before us, in his unruffled meekness, his inexhausted patience, his unbounded love: in laying down his life for his enemies, he has shewn us what we are to do, at least for the brethren, if not also even for our bitterest persecutors. In short, we can be in no situation whatever, wherein his example will not serve as a light to our feet and a lantern to our paths: if it do not shew us the precise act we are to perform, it will shew us infallibly the spirit we are to exercise.]
3.
By his influence
[The sun is of use to those only who have eyes to see it. But Jesus, at the same time that he imparts light, bestows upon us also the organs of vision whereby we may behold it. He opens the eyes of our understanding; and shines into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. He not only causes the day to dawn, but is also the Day-star arising in our hearts [Note: 2Pe 1:19.]. He gives the spiritual discernment whereby alone we can discern the things of the Spirit, however clearly they were before revealed. Indeed, our reason is nothing more than a taper which He has lighted up in our minds: and much more is the faculty of comprehending the deep things of God, derived from him: so that that inspired testimony concerning him is strictly true, He is the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world [Note: Joh 1:9.].]
From hence we are naturally led to consider,
II.
The blessedness of his followers
We regard with pity the inhabitants of the polar regions, who for half the year are statedly secluded from the cheering rays of the sun. We consider our quicker returns of light and darkness as incomparably more conducive to comfort and prosperity. But infinitely happier is he on whom the Sun of Righteousness has once arisen: for,
1.
He shall not walk in darkness
[Once he was guided altogether by erroneous principles. So blind was he, that he put evil for good, and good for evil; darkness for light, and light for darkness. Nor is this the case only with the ignorant and profane: it is equally true of those whose minds are cultivated, and whose lives are moral. Even Paul before his conversion, fraught as he was with the knowledge of the Scriptures, and zealous in the pursuit of righteousness, perpetrated the most horrible acts of wickedness under the idea of doing God service: he verily thought with himself that he ought to do the things which he did. But the follower of Christ, the true believer [Note: Compare Joh 12:46. with the text.], is not suffered to live under the influence of such delusions: his views are rectified: he beholds things in the light in which they are represented in the Scriptures; he has learned from them what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, and has his mind cast, as it were, into the very mould of the Gospel.
Once too he indulged himself in corrupt habits: whether more or less addicted to gross sin, he loved the ways of the world, and conformed himself to them: all his delight was in the things of time and sense: he lived as if he had nothing else to do, but to consult his reputation, ease, and interests in the world. But, having obtained mercy of the Lord, he now discerns the evil of such a life: he begins to see, that to be thus carnallyminded is death: and that there are objects infinitely nobler than those he has regarded, and more deserving his attention. Convinced of this, he will not live any longer to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. Instead of fulfilling any longer the desires of the flesh and of the mind, he strives henceforth to mortify them, and labours to perfect holiness in the fear of God.
We must add yet again, that he once walked in the darkness of distressing apprehensions. God has said, and experience proves, that there is no peace to the wicked. Every man in his unregenerate state is in bondage to the fear of death, and more or less under the terrors of a guilty conscience. The thoughts of death and judgment are painful to him; and he puts them far from him: he flees to business, to pleasure, to company, in order to dissipate those reflections which he cannot wholly avoid. He has an inward consciousness that he has not sought the Divine favour, and, in consequence of that, a secret fear that he shall not obtain it. From such feelings as these, the believer in Christ is happily delivered. He knows in whom he has believed, and that his adorable Saviour is able to keep that which he has committed to him. He has learned to reckon death among the number of his friends, and to regard it as the door of entrance into his Fathers presence. Instead of being harassed with a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, he enjoys that peace of God which passeth all understanding.]
2.
He shall have the light of life
[There is a light which proceeds from life, and leads to life; and that light is his blessed portion. A dead man has no light at all: but a living man has senses given him, on purpose to guard him from things destructive, and to lead him to things conducive to his welfare. The sight, the hearing, the smell, the taste, the touch, have all their appropriate uses; and each has its peculiar office, in circumstances where the others can find no scope for exercise. They are so many sentinels, that guard every avenue of ill, and that give warning on the first approach of evil. Thus protected is the follower of Christ: he has spiritual senses, which, being of quick perception to discern good and evil, give early notice of the things which might prove fatal to the soul. They serve as a light to his feet, and a lantern to his paths. Solomon justly observes, that the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly [Note: Pro 20:27.]. This candle being duly trimmed, his way is made plain before his face; and he is enabled to walk without stumbling: He walks in the light, as God is in the light; and thus maintains sweet fellowship with God, and a sense of his pardoning love in Christ Jesus [Note: 1Jn 1:7.]. If at any-time, through temptation or distress, this light burn dim, he cries to his Lord and Saviour, who has promised to send him fresh supplies of his Spirit; and speedily does light arise to him in his obscurity, and his darkness becomes as the noon-day [Note: Isa 58:10.]. Thus guided through his whole life, he arrives at last at those blessed regions, whereof the Lamb is the light [Note: Rev 21:23.], and where his Lord shall be an everlasting light, and his God his glory [Note: Isa 60:19.].]
Application
[You can easily conceive the difference both in the feeling and the safety of one that walks in midnight darkness, and of one that travels in the light of the noon-day sun. O that all would make a just application of this thought to their own case, and resolve without delay to become followers of Christ [Note: Joh 12:35-36. Jer 13:16.]!]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (13) The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself, thy record is not true. (14) Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go: but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. (15) Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. (16) And yet, if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. (17) It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. (18) I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. (19) Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. (20) These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.
We enter here upon one of the most blessed discourses of Jesus. Who but the Lord Jesus ever called himself, or could call himself, the light of the world? Let the Reader gather into one view, some few only of those unequalled expressions of Christ, which he applied to himself; and then ask, whether any less than God could possibly assume such language ? I am the light of the world. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever. Joh 6:51 . I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whomsoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Joh 11:25-26 . Reader! I charge you to pause over these words of Christ. What can we suppose, in Christ’s assuming this language, if for the moment it could be thought that he was not God? And on the conclusion, which is the only conclusion on principles of common sense, that he is; what must be the awful situation of those men, who call themselves Christians, after Him, and yet indirectly charge him with blasphemy in denying his Godhead?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Ver. 12. I am the light of the world ] , ut Plato loquitur, quia , ut Scaliger.

The light of life ] Light in good and bad men differs as the light of the sun (wherein is the influence of an enlivening power) and the light of torches.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12 59. ] THE CONFLICT BETWEEN JESUS AND THE JEWS, AT ITS HEIGHT.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

12 20. ] Testimony to Himself as the Light .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

12. ] The attempts of Bengel, Schulthess, and Stier, to establish a connexion with the passage concerning the woman taken in adultery are forced and harsh. It was, say they, the early morning ( Joh 8:2 ) and the sun was just rising, to which these words . allude, and the walking in darkness is an allusion to the woman, whose deed of darkness had been detected in the night. But not to dwell on other objections to this view, e.g. that such an allusion to the woman would be wholly out of character after our Lord’s previous treatment of her, how come these Pharisees, who on the hypothesis of the above Commentators are the same as those who accused the woman , to be again so soon present? Was this at all likely? We cannot escape from this difficulty with Stier, iv. 363, edn. 2, by supposing a multitude of the people to have been witnesses on both occasions: the of the one must surely extend through the other, if this connexion is to be maintained.
On the other hand, this discourse comes in very well after ch. Joh 7:52 . The last saying of Jesus (ch. Joh 7:37-38 ) had referred to a festal usage then just over: He now adds another of the same kind. It was the custom during the first night, if not during every night, of the feast of tabernacles (see authorities in Wetstein), to light up two large golden chandeliers in the court of the women, the light of which illuminated all Jerusalem. All that night they held a festal dance by the light.
Now granted that this was on the first night only, what is there improbable in the supposition that our Lord standing in the very place where the candlesticks had been or perhaps actually were should have alluded to that practice, as He did to the outpouring of water in ch. Joh 7:37-38 ? Surely to say in both cases, as Lcke and De Wette do, that the allusion could not have been made unless the usage took place on that day , is mere trifling. While the feast lasted , and the remembrance of the ceremonies was fresh, the allusion would be perfectly natural.
. . ] See on ch. Joh 1:9 , and Joh 11:9-10 . See also Isa 42:6 ; Mal 4:2 ; and on , ch. Joh 1:4 , and Joh 6:48 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 8:12-20 . Jesus proclaims Himself the Light of the World .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Joh 8:12 . . “Again therefore Jesus spake to them”; “again” refers us back to Joh 7:37 . Lcke and others suppose that the conversation now reported took place on some day after the feast: but there is no reason why it should not have been on the same day as that recorded in chap. 7. The place, as we read in Joh 8:20 , was , “in the Treasury,” which probably was identical with the colonnade round the “Court of the Women,” or , “in which the receptacles for charitable contributions, the so-called Shopharoth or ‘trumpets,’ were placed” (Edersheim, Life of Christ , ii. 165). Edersheim supposes that here the Pharisees would alone venture to speak. This seems scarcely consistent with the narrative. The announcement made by Jesus was, . Notwithstanding Meyer and Holtzmann it seems not unlikely that this utterance was prompted by the symbolism of the feast. According to the Talmud, on every night of the feast the Court of the Women was brilliantly illuminated, and the night, according to Wetstein and others, was spent in dancing and festivity. This brilliant lighting was perhaps a memorial of the Pillar of Fire which led the Israelites while dwelling in tents. This idea is favoured by the words which follow and which describe how the individual is to enjoy the light inherent in Jesus: , “he that follows me”. Like the basket of fire hung from a pole at the tent of the chief, the pillar of fire marked the camping ground and every movement of the host. And those who believe in Christ have not a chart but a guide; not a map in which they can pick out their own route, but a light going on before, which they must implicitly follow. Thus , “shall not walk in the dark”; cf. Mat 4:16 . The Messiah was expected to scatter the darkness of the Gentiles, “Lux est nomen Messiae” (Lightfoot), , but shall have light sufficient for the highest form of life. The analogous , . . show that the light of life means the light which is needful to maintain spiritual life.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Joh 8:12 .
Jesus Christ was His own great theme. Whatever be the explanation of the fact, there stands the fact that, if we know anything at all about His habitual tone of teaching, we know that it was full of Himself. We know, too, that what He said about Himself was very unlike the language becoming a wise and humble religious teacher. Both the prominence given to His own personality, and the tremendous claims He advances for Himself, are hard to reconcile with any conception of His nature and work except one,-that there we see God manifest in the flesh. Are such words as these fit to be spoken by any man conscious of his own limitations and imperfections of life and knowledge? Would they not be fatal to any one’s pretensions to be a teacher of religion or morality? They assert that the Speaker is the Source of illumination for the world; the only Source; the Source for all. They assert that ‘following’ Him, whether in belief or in deed, is the sure deliverance from all darkness, either of error or of sin; and implants in every follower a light which is life. And the world, instead of turning away from such monstrous assumptions, and drowning them in scornful laughter, or rebelling against them, has listened, and largely believed, and has not felt them to mar the beauty of meekness, which, by a strange anomaly, this Man says that He has.
Words parallel to these are frequent on our Lord’s lips. In each instance they have some special appropriateness of application, as is probably the case here. The suggestion has been reasonably made, that there is an allusion in them to part of the ceremonial connected with the Feast of Tabernacles, at which we find our Lord present in the previous chapter. Commentators tell us that on the first evening of the Feast, two huge golden lamps, which stood one on each side of the altar of burnt offering in the Temple court, were lighted as the night began to fall, and poured out a brilliant flood over Temple and city and deep gorge; while far into the midnight, troops of rejoicing worshippers clustered about them with dance and song. The possibility of this reference is strengthened by the note of place which our Evangelist gives. ‘These things spake Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the Temple,’ for the ‘treasury’ stood in the same court, and doubtless the golden lamps were full in sight of the listening groups. It is also strengthened by the unmistakable allusion in the previous chapter to another portion of the ceremonial of the Feast, where our Lord puts forth another of His great self-revelations and demands, in singular parallelism with that of our text, in the words, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.’ That refers to the custom during the Feast of drawing water from the fountain of Siloam, which was poured out on the altar, while the gathered multitude chanted the old strain of Isaiah’s prophecy: ‘With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.’ It is to be remembered, too, in estimating the probability of our text belonging to these Temple-sayings at the Feast, that the section which separates it from them, and contains the story about the woman taken in adultery, is judged by the best critics to be out of place here, and is not found in the most valuable manuscripts. If, then, we suppose this allusion to be fairly probable, I think it gives a special direction and meaning to these grand words, which it may be worth while to think of briefly.
The first thing to notice is-the intention of the ceremonial to which our Lord here points as a symbol of Himself. What was the meaning of these great lights that went flashing through the warm autumn nights of the festival? All the parts of that Feast were intended to recall some feature of the forty years’ wanderings in the wilderness; the lights by the altar were memorials of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. When, then, Jesus says, ‘I am the Light of the world,’ He would declare Himself as being in reality, and to every soul of man to the end of time, what that cloud with its heart of fire was in outward seeming to one generation of desert wanderers.
Now, the main thing which it was to these, was the visible vehicle of the divine presence. ‘The Lord went before them in a pillar of a cloud.’ ‘The Lord looked through the pillar.’ ‘The Lord came down in the cloud and spake with him.’ The ‘cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord appeared.’ Such is the way in which it is ever spoken of, as being the manifestation to Israel in sensible form of the presence among them of God their King. ‘The glory of the Lord’ has a very specific meaning in the Old Testament. It usually signifies that brightness, the flaming heart of the cloudy pillar, which for the most part, as it would appear, veiled by the cloud, gathered radiance as the world grew darker at set of sun, and sometimes, at great crises in the history, as at the Red Sea, or on Sinai, or in loving communion with the law-giver, or in swift judgment against the rebels, rent the veil and flamed on men’s eyes. I need not remind you how this same pillar of cloud and fire, which at once manifested and hid God, was thereby no unworthy symbol of Him who remains, after all revelation, unrevealed. Whatsoever sets forth, must also shroud, the infinite glory. Concerning all by which He makes Himself known to eye, or mind, or heart, it must be said, ‘And there was the hiding of His power.’ The fire is ever folded in the cloud. Nay, at bottom, the light which is full of glory is therefore inaccessible, and the thick darkness in which He dwells is but the ‘glorious privacy’ of perfect light.
That guiding pillar, which moved before the moving people-a cloud to shelter from the scorching heat, a fire to cheer in the blackness of night-spread itself above the sanctuary of the wilderness; and ‘the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.’ When the moving Tabernacle gave place to the fixed Temple, again ‘the cloud filled the house of the Lord’; and there-dwelling between the cherubim, the types of the whole order of creatural life, and above the mercy-seat, that spoke of pardon, and the ark that held the law, and behind the veil, in the thick darkness of the holy of holies, where no feet trod, save once a year one white-robed priest, in the garb of a penitent, and bearing the blood that made atonement-shone the light of the glory of God, the visible majesty of the present Deity.
But long centuries had passed since that light had departed. ‘The glory’ had ceased from the house that now stood on Zion, and the light from between the cherubim. Shall we not, then, see a deep meaning and reference to that awful blank, when Jesus standing there in the courts of that Temple, whose inmost shrine was, in a most sad sense, empty, pointed to the quenched lamps that commemorated a departed Shechinah, and said, ‘I am the Light of the world’?
He is the Light of the world, because in Him is the glory of God. His words are madness, and something very like blasphemy, unless they are vindicated by the visible indwelling in Him of the present God. The cloud of the humanity, ‘the veil, that is to say, His flesh,’ enfolds and tempers; and through its transparent folds reveals, even while it swathes, the Godhead. Like some fleecy vapour flitting across the sun, and irradiated by its light, it enables our weak eyes to see light, and not darkness, in the else intolerable blaze. Yes! Thou art the Light of the world, because in Thee dwelleth ‘the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’ Thy servant hath taught us the meaning of Thy words, when he said: ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’
Then, subordinate to this principal thought, is the other on which I may touch for a moment-that Christ, like that pillar of cloud and fire, guides us in our pilgrimage. You may remember how emphatically the Book of Numbers Num 9:1 – Num 9:23 dwells upon the absolute control of all the marches and halts by the movements of the cloud. When it was taken up, they journeyed; when it settled down, they encamped. As long as it lay spread above the Tabernacle, there they stayed. Impatient eyes might look, and impatient spirits chafe-no matter. The camp might be pitched in a desolate place, away from wells and palm-trees, away from shade, among fiery serpents, and open to fierce foes-no matter. As long as the pillar was motionless, no man stirred. Weary slow days might pass in this compulsory inactivity; but ‘whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the Tabernacle, the children of Israel journeyed not.’ And whenever It lifted itself up,-no matter how short had been the halt, how weary and footsore the people, how pleasant the resting-place-up with the tent-pegs immediately, and away. If the signal were given at midnight, when all but the watchers slept, or at midday, it was all the same. There was the true Commander of their march. It was not Moses, nor Jethro, with his quick Arab eye and knowledge of the ground, that guided them; but that stately, solemn pillar, that floated before them. How they must have watched for the gathering up of its folds as they lay softly stretched along the Tabernacle roof; and for its sinking down, and spreading itself out, like a misty hand of blessing, as it sailed in the van!
‘I am the Light of the world.’ We have in Him a better guide through worse perplexities than theirs. By His Spirit within us, by that all-sufficient and perfect example of His life, by the word of His Gospel, and by the manifold indications of His providence, Jesus Christ is our Guide. If ever we go astray, it is not His fault, but ours. How gentle and loving that guidance is, none who have not yielded to it can tell. How wise and sure, none but those who have followed it know. He does not say ‘Go,’ but ‘Come.’ When He puts forth His sheep, He goes before them. In all rough places His quick hand is put out to save us. In danger He lashes us to Himself, as Alpine guides do when there is perilous ice to get across. As one of the psalms puts it, with wonderful beauty: ‘I will guide thee with Mine eye’-a glance, not a blow-a look of directing love, that at once heartens to duty and tells duty. We must be very near Him to catch that look, and very much in sympathy with Him to understand it; and when we do, we must be swift to obey. Our eyes must be ever toward the Lord, or we shall often be marching on, unwitting that the pillar has spread itself for rest, or idly dawdling in our tents long after the cloud has gathered itself up for the march. Do not let impatience lead you to hasty interpretation of His plans before they are fairly evolved. Many men by self-will, by rashness, by precipitate hurry in drawing conclusions about what they ought to do, have ruined their lives. Take care, in the old-fashioned phrase, of ‘running before you are sent.’ There should always be a good clear space between the guiding ark and you, ‘about two thousand cubits by measure,’ that there may be no mistakes about the road. It is neither reverent nor wise to be treading on the heels of our Guide in our eager confidence that we know where He wants us to go.
Do not let the warmth by the camp-fire, or the pleasantness of the shady place where your tent is pitched, keep you there when the cloud lifts. Be ready for change, be ready for continuance, because you are in fellowship with your Leader and Commander; and let Him say, Go, and you go; Do this, and you gladly do it, until the hour when He will whisper, Come; and, as you come, the river will part, and the journey will be over, and ‘the fiery, cloudy pillar,’ that ‘guided you all your journey through,’ will spread itself out an abiding glory, in that higher home where ‘the Lamb is the light thereof.’
All true following of Christ begins with faith, or we might almost say that following is faith, for we find our Lord substituting the former expression for the latter in another passage of this Gospel parallel with the present. ‘I am come a Light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not walk in darkness.’ The two ideas are not equivalent, but faith is the condition of following; and following is the outcome and test, because it is the operation, of faith. None but they who trust Him will follow Him. He who does not follow, does not trust. To follow Christ, means to long and strive after His companionship; as the Psalmist says, ‘My soul followeth hard after Thee.’ It means the submission of the will, the effort of the whole nature, the daily conflict to reproduce His example, the resolute adoption of His command as my law, His providence as my will, His fellowship as my joy. And the root and beginning of all such following is in coming to Him, conscious of mine own darkness, and trustful in His great light. We must rely on a Guide before we accept His directions; and it is absurd to pretend that we trust Him, if we do not go as He bids us. So ‘Follow thou Me’ is, in a very real sense, the sum of all Christian duty.
That thought opens out very wide fields, into which we must not even glance now; but I cannot help pausing here to repeat the remark already made, as to the gigantic and incomprehensible self-confidence that speaks here. ‘Followeth Me’; then Jesus Christ calmly proposes Himself as the aim and goal for every soul of man; sets up His own doings as an all-sufficient rule for us all, with all our varieties of temper, character, culture, and work, and quietly assumes to have a right of precedence before, and of absolute command over, the whole world. They are all to keep behind Him, He thinks, be they saints or sages, kings or beggars; and the liker they are to Himself, He thinks, the nearer they will be to perfectness and life. He puts Himself at the head of the mystic march of the generations, and, like the mysterious Angel that Joshua saw in the plain by Jericho, makes the lofty claim: ‘Nay, but as Captain of the Lord’s host am I come up.’ Do we admit His claim because we know His Name? Do we yield Him full trust because we have learned that He is the Light of men since He is the Word of God? Do we follow Him with loyal obedience, longing love, and lowly imitation, since He has been and is to us the Saviour of our souls?
In the measure in which we do, the great promises of this wonderful saying will be verified and understood by us-’He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness.’ That saying has, as one may say, a lower and a higher fulfilment. In the lower, it refers to practical life and its perplexities. Nobody who has not tried it would believe how many difficulties are cleared out of a man’s road by the simple act of trying to follow Christ. No doubt there will still remain obscurities enough as to what we ought to do, to call for the best exercise of patient wisdom; but an enormous proportion of them vanish like mist when the sun breaks through, when once we honestly set ourselves to find out whither the pillared Light is guiding. It is a reluctant will, and intrusive likings and dislikings, that obscure the way for us, much oftener than real obscurity in the way itself. It is seldom impossible to discern the divine will, when we only wish to know it that we may do it. And if ever it is impossible for us, surely that impossibility is like the cloud resting on the Tabernacle-a sign that for the present His will is that we should be still, and wait, and watch.
But there is a higher meaning in the words than even this promise of practical direction. In the profound symbolism of Scripture, especially of this Gospel, ‘darkness’ is the name for the whole condition of the soul averted from God. So our Lord here is declaring that to follow Him is the true deliverance from that midnight of the soul. There are a darkness of ignorance, a darkness of impurity, a darkness of sorrow; and in that threefold gloom, thickening to a darkness of death, are they enwrapt who follow not the Light. That is the grim, tragical side of this saying, too sad, too awful for our lips to speak much of, and best left in the solemn impressiveness of that one word. But the hopeful, blessed side of it is, that the feeblest beginnings of trust in Jesus Christ, and the first tottering steps that try to tread in His, bring us into the light. It does not need that we have reached our goal, it is enough that our faces are turned to it, and our hearts desire to attain it, then we may be sure that the dominion of the darkness over us is broken. To follow, though it be afar off, and with unequal steps, fills our path with increasing brightness, and even though evil and ignorance and sorrow may thrust their blackness in upon our day, they are melting in the growing glory, and already we may give thanks ‘unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.’
But we have not merely the promise that we shall be led by the light and brought into the light. A yet deeper and grander gift is offered here: ‘He shall have the light of life.’ I suppose that means, not, as it is often carelessly taken to mean, a light which illuminates the life, but, like the similar phrases of this Gospel, ‘bread of life,’ ‘water of life,’-light which is life. ‘In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.’ These two are one in their source, which is Jesus, the Word of God. Of Him we have to say, ‘With Thee is the fountain of life, in Thy light shall we see light.’ They are one in their deepest nature; the life is the light, and the light the life. And this one gift is bestowed upon every soul that follows Christ. Not only will our outward lives be illumined or guided from without, but our inward being will be filled with the brightness. ‘Ye were sometimes darkness, now are ye light in the Lord.’
That pillar of fire remained apart and without. But this true and better Guide of our souls enters in and dwells in us, in all the fulness of His triple gift of life, and light, and love. Within us He will chiefly prove Himself the Guide of our spirits, and will not merely cast His beams on the path of our feet, but will fill and flood us with His own brightness. All light of knowledge, of goodness, of gladness will be ours, if Christ be ours; and ours He surely will be if we follow Him. Let us take heed, lest turning away from Him we follow the will-o’-the-wisps of our own fancies, or the dancing lights, born of putrescence, that flicker above the swamps, for they will lead us into doleful lands where evil things haunt, and into outer darkness. Let us take heed how we use that light of God; for Christ, like His symbol of old, has a double aspect according to the eye which looks. ‘It came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these.’ He is either a Stone of stumbling or a sure Foundation, a savour of life or of death, and which He is depends on ourselves. Trusted, loved, followed, He is light. Neglected, turned from, He is darkness. Though He be the Light of the world, it is only the man who follows Him to whom He can give the light of life. Therefore, man’s awful prerogative of perverting the best into the worst forced Him, who came to be the light of men, to that sad and solemn utterance: ‘For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Joh 8:12-20
12Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” 13So the Pharisees said to Him, “You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true.” 14Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I testify 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. 15You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. 16But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. 17Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. 18I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.” 19So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” 20These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.
Joh 8:12 “Then Jesus again spoke to them” “The multitude” is not mentioned in this chapter. It may be that the Feast of the Tabernacles is over and Jesus remained in the Temple area trying to reason and witness to the Jewish leaders.
However, as Jesus used the water ceremony of the feast to reveal Himself, in this section He uses the lighting ceremony of the feast to reveal Himself. It is surely possible that Joh 8:12 to Joh 10:21 is still set on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths).
“I am the Light” Chapters 6, 7, and 8 seem to be related to the “wilderness wanderings” period of Israel’s history, the source of the metaphors that Jesus uses of Himself.
1. chapter 6 uses “manna” and “the bread of life”
2. chapter 7 uses “water” and “living water”
3. chapter 8 uses “light” and “Shekinah glory.”
This metaphor of light is repeated throughout John (cf. Joh 1:4-5; Joh 1:8-9; Joh 3:19-21; Joh 9:5; Joh 12:46).
There has been some debate as to exactly what this refers.
1. the ancient fear of darkness
2. a title for God in the OT (cf. Psa 27:1; Isa 60:20; 1Jn 1:5)
3. the background of the Feast of the Tabernacles, lighting of the candelabra in the Court of the Women
4. an allusion to the Shekinah cloud of glory in the wilderness wandering period that symbolized the presence of God
5. the Messianic titles in the OT (cf. Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6; Luk 2:32).
The rabbis also used “light” as a title for the Messiah. The lighting of the huge lamps in the Court of the Women during the Feast of Tabernacle is the obvious setting for Jesus’ statement. The Messianic implications of light and the special references in Joh 1:4; Joh 1:8 coincide with the ceremony in the Temple for Jesus to continue to reveal His true origin.
This is one of the seven “I am” statements in John (followed by a predicate)
1. I am the Bread of life (Joh 6:35; Joh 6:41; Joh 6:48; Joh 6:51)
2. I am the Light of the world (Joh 8:12; Joh 9:5; cf. Joh 1:4; Joh 1:9; Joh 12:46)
3. I am the door of the sheepfold (Joh 10:7; Joh 10:9)
4. I am the good shepherd (Joh 10:11; Joh 10:14)
5. I am the resurrection, and the life (Joh 11:25)
6. I am the way, the truth, and the life (Joh 14:6)
7. I am the true vine (Joh 15:1; Joh 15:5)
These unique statements, found only in John, point toward the person of Jesus. John focuses on these personal aspects of salvation. We must trust Him!
“of the world” This term (kosmos, see Special Topic at Joh 14:17) shows the universal scope of the gospel of Jesus Christ (cf. Joh 3:16).
“he who follows me” This is a present active participle. It must be remembered that Christianity is not primarily a creed or a theology, rather, it is a personal relationship followed by a lifestyle of discipleship (cf. Mat 28:18-20; 1Jn 1:7).
“will not walk in the darkness” This is an allusion to the theological concept of Satan “blinding the eyes of the unredeemed” (cf. 2Co 4:4). There is a further allusion to the OT passages that speak of God’s word such as a “lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (cf. Psa 119:105).
Those who accept “the Light” should live different lives (cf. 1Jn 1:7)!
“the Light of life” Jesus possesses the life of God and gives it to His followers (cf. Mat 5:14), to those whom God has given to Him.
Joh 8:13 “Pharisees” See Special Topic at Joh 1:24.
“Your testimony is not true” The Jews were claiming a legal technicality of evidence (i.e., a requirement of two witnesses, cf. Num 35:30; Deu 17:6; Deu 19:15-21). Jesus had spoken earlier to this very objection (cf. Joh 5:31 ff) and had given several witnesses. In this context His witness is the Father!
Joh 8:14; Joh 8:16 “if. . .if” These are both third class conditional sentences which mean potential action. Most of the conditions through chapter 8 are of this type.
“I know where I came from and where I am going” This again is the “above and below” dualism. Jesus had a conscious memory of His pre-existence with the Father, an understanding of His mission, and a sense of the prophetic timetable (cf. Joh 1:1-4; Joh 1:14-18; Joh 7:28-29; Joh 13:1; Joh 17:5).
“but you do not know where I come from or where I am going” This must relate to chapter 7. They did not know Jesus’ place of birth (cf. Joh 8:41-42) nor did they know where He was going (cf. Joh 7:34-36; Joh 8:21). See SPECIAL TOPIC: WITNESSES TO JESUS at Joh 1:8.
Joh 8:15 “You judge according to the flesh” This also is an allusion to chapter 7 (cf. Joh 8:24). See Special Topic: Flesh (sarx) at Joh 1:14.
” I am not judging anyone” Some see a contradiction here between Joh 3:17; Joh 9:39. Jesus came not to judge, but to give life. By the very fact of His coming, those who reject Him are judged (cf. Joh 3:18-21).
Joh 8:16-18 Again this was the issue of two witnesses needed in a court case (cf. Num 35:30; Deu 17:6; Deu 19:15). Jesus, in no uncertain terms, affirms His oneness with the Father (cf. Joh 7:29; Joh 14:9). See SPECIAL TOPIC: WITNESSES TO JESUS at Joh 1:8.
Joh 8:16
NASB (1970),
NJB, REB”He who sent Me”
NASB (1995),
NKJV, NRSV,
NIV”the Father who sent Me”
Just as there is disagreement between two editions of the NASB, there is disagreement between the UBS3,4
1. UBS3 gives “Father” a “C” rating (MS P39,66,75, i2, B, L, T, W,
2. UBS4 gives “Father” an “A” rating (MSS *, D, and some Old Later and Syriac versions omit it)
Jesus is never alone! The Father is always with Him (cf. Joh 8:16; Joh 8:29; Joh 16:32), except possibly on the cross (cf. Mar 15:34).
The joy and completion of fellowship is the essence of salvation. The purpose of creation was for God to have someone to fellowship with, so He (i.e., Christ, cf. Joh 1:3; 1Co 8:6; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2) created them in YHWH’s image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27). This loss of fellowship is the penalty of sin. Its restoration is the goal of Jesus’ mission!
Joh 8:19 “Where is Your Father” They were still understanding Jesus on a physical, literal level. Their preconceived and prideful minds were closed to the truth (cf. Joh 8:27). This misunderstanding is a literary characteristic of John’s Gospel.
“if you knew Me, you would know My Father also” This is a second class conditional sentence. It is often called “contrary to fact.” “If you knew Me, which you do not, then you would know My Father, which you do not.” This theme is repeated from Joh 5:37, see full note at Joh 7:28. It is difficult to outline John’s Gospel because it is like a tapestry of recurring patterns or a symphony of repeated melodies.
Joh 8:20 “He spoke in the treasury” This verse is apparently another editorial comment from an eyewitness. The treasury was not a separate building. Rabbinical tradition (Shekalim 6) says there were thirteen trumpet-shaped containers, each marked for a specific purpose, located in the Court of the Women (cf. Mar 12:41), where the huge lamps were lighted during the Feast of Tabernacles.
“His hour had not yet come” See note at Joh 2:4.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Then = Therefore.
again. This section has no necessary connection with Joh 7:62, but refers to a subsequent occasion in “the Treasury” (Joh 8:20).
I am. See note on Joh 6:35,
light. Greek. phos (App-130.) Not luchnos as in Joh 5:36 (App-130.) One of the characteristic words of this Gospel. See note on Joh 1:4.
world. App-129. See note on Joh 1:9. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of the Subject), App-6, for its inhabitants without distinction, implying others than Jews.
not = in no wise. Greek. ou me. App-105.
shall have = not merely see it, but possess it.
life = the life. App-170. See note on Joh 1:4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12-59.] THE CONFLICT BETWEEN JESUS AND THE JEWS, AT ITS HEIGHT.
Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 8:12-13. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees
These wasps were always stinging him; when he drove them away once, they quickly returned to attack him again: The Pharisees
Joh 8:13-15. Therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them; Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
He did not come for that purpose the first time; he will come, a second time, to judge all mankind.
Joh 8:16. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
You see, brethren, how our Lord Jesus claimed to be God, for he put himself here in such a connection with God as would be quite inconsistent for any mere man. This is what Paul meant when he said that Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with God, he thought it not a prize to be grasped, for it was already his.
Joh 8:17-18. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.
He did that by the miracles which Christ wrought; and they proved that he was indeed sent of God.
Joh 8:19. Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
They thought they knew his reputed father Joseph; they thought they also knew all about Christ, the carpenters Son; but there is more in Christ, than carnal eyes can ever see. There is more in Christ than the most enlightened understanding, if it be but natural understanding, can ever perceive. These blind bats, the Pharisees, neither knew Christ nor the Father. If they had known him, they would have known the Father, for Christ is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.
Joh 8:20. These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.
Like our Lord, every child of God is immortal till his work is done. This ought to divest us of every kind of fear. The enemy cannot lay hands upon a Christian until his Lord wills it: and when his hour has come, then it behoves not the child of God to resist the Fathers will.
Joh 8:21. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.
Oh, what a terrible sentence is that! I pray that the Lord may never say that to any of us, Whither I go, ye cannot come. That would be the death knell of all our hopes, and would make our life one long banishment. Blessed be his name, we who have sought him, and have found him, know that; we shall not die in our sins; and whither he has gone, we shall go also.
Joh 8:22-23. Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above:
You are of a groveling nature; your thoughts rise out of the abyss where every evil dwells.
Joh 8:23-24. Ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore, of you, that ye shall die in year sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
If ye have no faith in Christ as the Son of God, ye shall die in your sins. What an awful thing it will be to die in your sins! What cerements for your eternal burial! What a robe of fire in which to lie down for your long sleep, and then to find no sleep because of it! Ye shall die in your sins. I should like this short, stern sentence to ring in the ears of every unbeliever. This is not my word, but Christs own word, the word of the most loving and tender Saviour: If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
Joh 8:25-29. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith, unto them, Even the same that I said unto, you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me:
This made Christs life so calm, so deeply joyous amid all its sorrow. He that sent me is with me. Servant of God, canst thou say the same? If so, it is thy joy, thy confidence thy strength. God grant that we may each one of us realize that blessed presence of our Lord!
Joh 8:29. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him.
Christ could truly say that. Oh, that it might be true of us, too!
Joh 8:30-31. As he spake these words, many believed on him, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
If you became my disciples because of what I said, will you believe what I shall yet say? Are you prepared to take in still further revelations, and to receive whatever I shall teach you? If so, then are ye my disciples indeed
Joh 8:32. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Some who heard this message of our Lord caught at it; they were always on the watch for anything to cavil at and contradict, and therefore
Joh 8:33-34. They answered him, We be Abrahams seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Or, the slave of sin. There is the test of your position; if you do the devils dirty work, you are his servant. If you delight in sin then you can hear your fetters clank if the ears of your conscience are But open: Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Joh 8:35-37. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abrahams seed;
I know what a boast you make of that.
Joh 8:37-39. But ye seek to kill me, because, my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father.
Jesus had admitted that, as a matter of temporal descent; but he denied it as a matter of real fact.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Joh 8:12. , again) as at ch. 7. Jesus is wont to take the beginnings of His discourses from the doctrine of salvation: then, when men contradict. He adds a proof.- , the Light) An expression suitable to the time of His speaking, the morning, and opposed to the works of darkness, such as is adultery.- , of the world) the whole world.- , he who follows) By this very expression He shows, that adultery is by no means sanctioned by Him, although He did not pronounce condemnation on the adulteress.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 8:12
Joh 8:12
Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world:-Jesus lays stress on the truth, that he came to give light to the world, both intellectual, scientific, and real light on all subjects. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (Joh 1:4). He shed light when the world saw the example set in his life and actions as well as in the precepts he delivered. To follow his precepts and examples is to receive and appropriate the light he gives. [Light was considered as an accompaniment of the presence of God. Moses saw the burning bush in Horeb. When he returned from the presence of the Lord on Sinai his face was shining with heavenly radiance. The pillar of fire that lighted Israel on their journey was the emblem of the presence of God. Now Christ, in the presence of both friends and foe, makes a more stupendous claim and affirms that I am the light of the world, not to the Jews only, but to all nations that will embrace his claims.]
he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.-[As the pillar of fire lighted and guided the children of Israel on their journey toward the promised land, so shall his followers be lighted by him, and shall have not only light, but the light of life which is the gospel. He fills the life with light in the reception of the word of God.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

the Twofold Witness
Joh 8:12-20
On either side of the Temple court stood a huge golden candelabrum. On the first and each succeeding night of the week of the Feast of Tabernacles these were lit, and they poured a brilliant flood of light over the Temple and the city. It was to these that our Lord alluded in Joh 8:12. They were symbolic and intended to recall the pillar of cloud which led the pilgrim march through the desert, and at night disclosed a heart of illuminating lire. Our Lord compared Himself to the manna in Joh 6:1-71, to the smitten rock in Joh 7:1-53, and to the cloud here in Joh 8:12.
What the pillar of cloud and fire was to Israel, Jesus will be to His Church and the individual soul. See Exo 13:21; Num 9:15-23. The fire in the cloud was prophetic of His deity enshrined in His humanity. It was this consciousness of the union of the divine and human that enabled our Lord to speak as He did of Himself. There was no egotism or self-assumption in His claim. It was the literal truth. He bare record of Himself, because He could say nothing less, and knew whence He came and whither He went; and the miracles which He wrought in union with the Spirit of God ratified His witness.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.
You will notice how definitely this portion of the gospel links with that which we have been considering. I mentioned that in certain ancient manuscripts the story of our Lords dealing with the adulterous woman and delivering her from condemnation is not found, but if we should omit it, we should do violence to the text that follows.
These words, with which verse 12 begins, connect definitely with what has gone before. Then spake Jesus again unto them, that is, immediately following some incident, which is clearly the story of verses 1-11. As we close chapter 7, And every man went unto his own house (v. 53), then verse 1 of chapter 8 begins, Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. Now if this twelfth verse were the beginning of chapter 8, it would leave the Lord Jesus out on the mountain with no one to whom He was ministering. But it is clear that He is in the temple court where some striking event has just taken place, which indicated that a light shone from Himself into the hearts of men. He follows that up by saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (v. 12).
When they brought that poor woman to Him and said, Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou? (v. 5). He stooped down and wrote on the ground, and then lifting up Himself, He said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her (v. 7). The light was shining out from His own blessed, holy personality, shining upon them and into their hearts, and making manifest all the hidden wickedness and corruption and hypocrisy. That was why not one of them dared to stone the poor, sinful woman, but beginning with the eldest one they all went out, one after the other, and the woman was left alone with the Lord Jesus, who spoke those wonderful words, Neither do I condemn thee (v. 11).
And so He says, I am the light of the world. Light reveals, light makes manifest, and that is the first way in which we must all know the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other like Him. His very presence among men was the condemnation of all other men, for here, at last, was one Man absolutely holy, utterly true, perfectly righteous. Every other man was shown up alongside of Him as sinful and full of iniquity. The light of the world, and yet He was in the world and the world knew Him not. The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not (Joh 1:5). Men turned away from Him, fearing the illumination that His presence brings. But nevertheless He is the light of the world, and all men are going to be judged by the light that the Lord Jesus Christ brought into this scene. He says, He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. It is through the knowledge of Christ and subjection to Him that deliverance is given from darkness and its awful power.
People talk about the problem of Jesus, and we have had author after author writing books to try to explain the problem of Jesus. But Jesus is not a problem, Jesus is the unraveler of all problems and all the perplexities that face us. Trust Him and receive Him as He is, God and Man in one glorious person, and your problems are met. And so He says, Follow Me, and you will not walk in darkness. You will have the light of life. But remember, it is only as the Divine One that Jesus can say, I am the light of the world.
In this gospel, on many occasions, we hear Him using that divine name I AM. Long ago, when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and sent him to Egypt to deliver His people, Moses asked, Whom shall I tell them has sent me? What name shall I give to Thy people Israel when I appear before Pharaoh to tell him that Thou hast sent me to deliver them? God said, Tell them that I AM hath sent you. I AM THAT I AM (see Exo 3:13-14). That is really an explanation of the name Jehovah-The eternally existing One, I AM THAT I AM. And so I AM is a divine title, and Jesus takes it on His lips again and again in His walk on earth. He says, I am the bread of life (Joh 6:35); I am the good Shepherd (10:11, 14), that is, the Shepherd of Israel; I am the door (10:7, 9); and here, I am the light of the world (8:12). If Jesus Christ had been anything less than God, it would be blasphemy to speak like this.
Think of any servant of God you know. Think of the very best man you have ever met or heard, the greatest preacher, the truest follower of Christ, and imagine him standing up before men and saying, Look at me, I am the light of the world. Follow me, and you will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Why, you would say, Who does he think he is that he has grown so great, calling himself the light of the world? You would put him down as a paranoiac. But there is no evidence of paranoia here. When Jesus contemplates the millions of people who have come into the world and says, I am the light of the world, He is practically saying, Look unto me and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else (Isa 45:22). We read elsewhere, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1Jn 1:5). You take every faithful servant of Christ-they point you to Christ the Light. They say, He is the light, look to Him, and you shall find the light of life. But Jesus says, Come to Me and believe in Me, for I am the light of the world. And notice the universality of it. He was not only the light of Israel, but a light to lighten the Gentiles also.
So Jesus moved among them there and they recognized Him not, because of their blinded hearts. So it is today. People say to us, I do not see anything in it.
I do not understand what you are talking about. I cannot comprehend all these things that you tell us about sin and salvation, about mens lost condition, and Gods provision for meeting their every need. I cannot understand it. Well, that is just what the Word says: The natural man [understands] not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are spiritually discerned (1Co 2:14). It is like a blind man to whom you are trying to explain a sunset in all its glory in the western sky, and he turns his sightless eyes to you and says, I cannot make it out. He needs sight to understand the sunset. O Christless soul, if I am addressing you today, you need to have your eyes opened by divine power in order that you may see the beauty and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if you will come to Him, He will open your eyes, illumine your mind, and you will understand the deep things of God. Think of the untold millions in the nineteen hundred years since Jesus uttered these words who have found in Him the light of life.
Do you want to be delivered from the darkness? Do you want to know the light? Then go to Him, or you will never find it. Sometime ago a lady wrote me and she said, I have been for years seeking after light. I am a searcher after truth, and if you can help me I will be glad. She said, I have investigated Theosophy, Spiritism, New Thought, and other cults. I have studied all kinds of religions, and I am in the dark still. I wrote her and said, My dear friend, you have been looking down blind alleys for years. Come back to your Bible, read the gospel of John, and see the wonderful revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him you will find all your questions answered. Your soul will be satisfied when you receive Him as your Savior. We do not need all these other things.
Do you remember that incident that took place here in Chicago during the Worlds Fair of 1893? They had a great congress of religions, with the representatives of most of the religions of the world there, each one crying up the virtues of the particular system with which he was connected. One day Joseph Cook, the great Boston preacher, gave his testimony. He was to give an address setting forth the biblical view of salvation. He took his text, not from the Bible, however, but from Shakespeares tragedy of Macbeth, for he knew that those thousands were not interested in the Bible but probably had all read Shakespeare.
He said, See, here is Lady Macbeth. It is after the death of Duncan, you remember. See how she rubs her hands, saying, Out, damned spot! Will these hands neer be clean? All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. And here is her husband, Macbeth, looking on and he cries out, Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red! There they rub and they rub, trying to wash out the stains of Duncans blood, but it is impossible. And Joseph Cook said, I will place Lady Macbeth on my right arm and her husband upon my left, and as I walk down the aisle of this great Congress of Religions I have only one question to put to you, Who will cleanse our red right hands? Our hands and hearts are stained with sin. Tell us how we may get rid of our sins! No religious system on earth could give a satisfactory answer, but, he cried, When I turn from all of these I hear the words rising from the Scriptures, The blood of Jesus Christ [Gods] Son cleanseth us from all sin (1Jn 1:7).
Oh, that is the answer to all your spiritual problems and perplexities: Jesus the Light of the world, the divine Savior of sinners. But when men are determined to reject the truth of God and their hearts are filled with self-righteousness, they will go to any length to discredit the messenger. There is nothing more blinding than religious prejudice.
And so the Pharisees said to Jesus, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true (Joh 8:13), or, Thy record is not valid. They were referring to what He had said Himself, If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true (5:31). But after telling them of John the Baptist and of His mighty works, He said, The Father Himself which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me (v. 37). The law tells us, In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established (2Co 13:1; see also Mat 18:16). The testimony of one man was not valid. So the Pharisees are quick to take Him up on that. But He answered by declaring that He was not alone, but the Father was with Him, and so the witness was true.
And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me (Joh 8:16). The law demands more than one to prove a testimony true. Very well, I am one that bears witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me, He beareth witness of Me. How did the Father bear witness? When our blessed Lord was baptized there came a voice from heaven saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I have found all My delight. And then the works that Jesus did-they were the works of the Father by the Holy Spirit through the Son-all these bore testimony to the fact that He was indeed the light of the world. And so God has given abundant witness to the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, if men are willing to receive it, if they are not filled with prejudice, if they are not determined to reject the message of God.
Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? (v. 19a). I do not know how to put into that question the scorn and contempt that I am sure they put into it. Do you see what is implied there? It is said sometimes that John never referred definitely to the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. So some have gone so far as to say that John knew nothing about it, that it is only mentioned in Matthew and in Luke, and, therefore, it may not be true. John deals with the full Deity of Christ. He traces Him back to the eternities (Joh 1:1), but you notice here that you have an intimation of the truth of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ and His virgin birth. What was back of that scornful question of theirs? He had said, I am one that bears witness of myself, and the Father beareth witness of me. And they said, Where is thy father? Do you get the point of that? Do you see the cruelty of it? Do you see the malice of it? Oh, they knew that it was reported that He had no human father. They are intimating that He was born of fornication-conceived out of wedlock-and, therefore, it was absolutely false for Him to talk as though He knew His father. In verse 41 they said, We be not born of fornication: we have one Father, even God. See what they meant. Oh, yes, they had heard the story of the virgin birth, and that is the way they treated it.
But His Father was God. God was the Father of His humanity as truly as of His divine nature. And Jesus answered and said, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also (v. 19b). Oh, weigh those words well. People sometimes say, I wish I knew God and understood God. I wish I could know how God looks at things, how He feels about things, and what His attitude toward men really is. But God seems so far away and to me He is the Unknowable. Back of this universe, I take it, there must be some First Cause. He that formed the ear must be able to hear, and He that formed the lips must be able to speak. He that formed the brain must be able to think. Back of this universe there must be a personal God. But oh, He seems so far away! I wish I knew Him. Like Job, maybe you say, Oh that I knew where I might find him! (23:3). Listen to me! You may find Him in Jesus. Jesus said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father (Joh 14:9). If you want to know God, get acquainted with Jesus. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory (1Ti 3:16). In the face of Jesus you will find the face of God; in the character of Jesus you will find the character of God.
But Jesus says sadly, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also. Then we read These words spoke Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come (Joh 8:20). See again, it is absolutely necessary that you recognize verses 1-11 as part of the gospel, otherwise there would be no record of His entering the treasury.
And no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come. As we have seen before in looking at some of the earlier passages, it was impossible that any harm should come to Jesus, that He should be injured in any way, or that He should die, until the hour struck for which He came into the world. Before He left the Fathers glory, it had been settled in the counsels of eternity that on the Passover Day, one particular, definite day, the Lord Jesus, the Passover Lamb, was to be offered up. And until His hour was come, men could not take Him. But when that hour came, He put Himself into their hands and allowed them to spit upon His blessed face, to beat Him with their cruel rods, and, at last, nail Him upon a cross of shame. There He made reconciliation for iniquity, and the light never shone brighter than in the darkness of Calvary.
And now, because the sin question has been there settled, God offers salvation to every soul in all the world who will receive His Son and trust in Him as Savior. Those of us who have trusted Him have found Him to be far more than we ever dreamed He could be, and because of what He means to us we long to have you know Him too. And so we plead with any of you here who are out of Christ to come to Him and take Him as your Savior.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

world
kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield “Mat 4:8”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

The Light of the World
Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.Joh 8:12.
1. Jesus spoke these words in the Temple at Jerusalem. He was sitting in the treasury, within the court of the women; and it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, when this court was crowded with pilgrims.
The purpose of the Feast of Tabernacles was to commemorate a chapter in the life of the Hebrew nation away far back in its history. The observance of it was bound up with thoughts of the forty years wanderings in the wilderness. It was held at the close of the harvest and the vintage, after the farmers had finished the round of the years labours in the fields. When the set time arrived, the people quitted their homes to go up to Jerusalem; and they lived there during the week of the festival in small booths made of branches of olive, and palm, and myrtle, the purpose of this being to recall the tent-life of their fathers in the Arabian Desert. The little huts of greenery were set up in the open courts of the houses, upon the flat roofs, along the principal streets, in the open places of the city, and in some of the outer courts of the Temple.
Two characteristic ceremonies of this Festival gathered up in expressive symbols the lessons of a Divine sustenance and of a Divine Presence, which remained as the great results of the teaching of the desert, and both of these were treated by Christ as parables of Himself. Each morning water was brought in a golden vessel from the Pool of Siloam and poured upon the altar of sacrifice. That water recalled to the people the supply drawn from the rock at Meribah, and pointed forward to the spiritual water which hereafter men should draw out of the wells of salvation. For in Christ the living rock, the image and the prophecy found their accomplishment; and so in the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. Then again, every evening there were lighted in one of the courts of the Temple two great lamps which are said to have cast their light over every quarter of the Holy City. These recalled the pillar of fire which had been in old times the sure token of Divine leadership and pointed forward to the sun of righteousness which should arise with healing in his wings. In Christthe light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israelthe image and the prophecy found their accomplishment, and therefore He spake again unto the people, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.
2. I am the light of the world. This is one of those short, pregnant statements of our Lord characteristic of this Gospel, which impress us at once by their brevity, their beauty, and their largeness of meaning. Statements of a similar kind, of equal terseness and force, occur to every oneI am the good shepherd; I am the resurrection, and the life; I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
Sometimes Jesus gathers His work and nature up in one descriptive word, and offers it, as it were out of a wide-open hand, complete to His disciples. In such a word all the details of His relation to the soul and to the world are comprehensively included. As the disciple listens and receives it, he feels all his fragmentary and scattered experiences drawing together and rounding into unity. As, having heard it, he carries it forth with him into his life, he finds all future experiences claiming their places within it, and getting their meaning from it. Such words of Jesus are like spheres of crystal into which the world is gathered, and where the past and future, the small and great, may all be read.
What Divine audacity there is in such sayings! and how little we can suppose them to be the sayings of a mere teacher or prophet! They have no parallel in the words of even the greatest teachers. One and all imply something which the most powerful and enlightened, conscious of their own capacities to communicate truth or to do good, would scruple to arrogate to themselves. They might claim respect for the truth they speak, and summon men to attend to it with a voice of authority. But no merely human teacher would dare to make himself the centre of all truth, and the centre of the world.
It was indeed a magnificent word, a stupendous word. It is one of those sayings of our Lord which prove that never man spake as this Man. It is utterly unaccountable and inexplicable save on one assumption. It either makes us tremble with a shock of surprise, with a feeling of doubt which we wish to crush down as blasphemy, or it brings us to our knees in worship, as before One who is lifted immeasurably above the ordinary limitations of humanity. There are only two possible conclusions to which we can come concerning such words as these. They are either the wildest words of audacity and self-deluded egotism that human lips ever uttered, or they are the language of one who was set far above all human criticism and judgment by His real and unmistakable Divinity. Had such a claim as this been made by the greatest teacher, prophet, or apostle of the ancient world, his words and memory would long since have perished in the scorn and disgust which it would have provoked; and were such a claim advanced by any person in the present day, there would be a universal feeling that mental derangement was at the base of it. No wonder that the men who listened to Him were either filled with indignation or inspired with reverential awe. No wonder that He seemed to them either a blasphemer or the Son of God. There could be no middle course. It was certain that the person who talked in this way would either be scorned and hated and crucified by the world or lifted by adoring hearts wholly above the world in love and honour and supremest adoration. And no middle course has ever been possible for long. Men have never continued to reverence Him as a man unless they have learned to worship Him as God. It is difficult to trust Him at all unless we trust Him all in all. These words are either so extravagant or so sublime, that the Man who spoke them was guilty of a self-conceit unparalleled in human history, or He was higher than the highest human thought can reach and not to be addressed save in the worshipful words of Thomas, My Lord and my God. We have ever to make our choice, and most of us have made it to our hearts rest and joy. We are sure that He knew what He was saying and had Divine right to say it: I am the light of the world.
3. What does Jesus mean? How is He the light of the world? Let us understand what light is and does.
(1) The light of the world, the light of lifethe words send us instantly abroad into the world of Nature. They set us on the hilltop watching the sunrise as it fills the east with glory. They show us the great plain flooded and beaten and quivering with the noonday sun. They hush and elevate us with the mystery and sweetness and suggestiveness of the evenings glow.
Any one who has watched a sunrise among mountains will know how the light opens out depths of beauty and life where but lately the eye rested on a cold monotony of gloom or mist. At one moment only the sharp dark outline of the distant ranges stands out against the rosy sky, and at the next peak after peak catches the living fire, which then creeps slowly down their rocky slopes, and woods and streams and meadows and homesteads start out from the dull shadows, and the grass on which we stand sparkles with a thousand dewdrops.
Walk on the central glacier of the Oberland in the gloom of a summer night. The grey clouds have hung about the Grimsel, and inflicted on you the sense of chill October, instead of bringing the sweet clearness of an August afternoon. The night has gathered starless and cold; but you are bent on your journey, though it requires all the energy of your determination to carry you through the discomforts of the march. The path at first is sharp and stony, then it is steepsteep in descent, steep in ascentand your already tired and aching feet make you feel that it is hard to know which is the worse of the two. However, you have passed the polluted moraine, and at last you are on the ice. How cold it is! The breeze comes sweeping down the glacier, and chills you to the bone. Onward you go. The clouds are clearing. Things are better. Star after star is plain above you, and the giant mountains tower grim and gaunt around you, but, at any rate, less wrapped in shrouds. Onward you go, taking more and more courage. What is that shaft of amber, clear and fine as polished steel? What is that flash of deeper glory which shoots across the heavens? What is that line of scintillating gold and crimson which marks the crenulated crests of the mountains, and makes their snow-peaks and ice-lines like transparencies drenched in living fire? How glorious it is, the breaking of the dawnthe breaking of a real splendid August morning over the region of eternal snow! Gradually it steals down the slope of the mountains, till the very glacier itself is aglow. Now a world is before you, startling in its wildness and beautyyour graceful Finster Aar and savage Schreckhorn, and Strahleck barrier, and then, beyond, the soaring Eiger and the grim and meditative Mnch. Wild and beautiful in form and strangeness,it is all before you now. Ah! it was all there, in its strangeness and stateliness, even when you shivered in the mist and darkness. It was all before you; but to you it was useless, unperceived, unwondered at. You needed the magic of light to reveal it. You know what it is, though it was there before you knew it. You are a debtor to the tender mystery of the dawn.1 [Note: Knox Little, The Light of Life, 4.]
Twice recently has it been my privilege to watch the sun rise in circumstances of unusual beauty. Long before his appearing we had tokens of his coming. The horizon, and the clouds that gathered in little flocks about the horizon, and banks of clouds further remote abiding motionless in the highest places, began to clothe themselves in appropriate raiment to welcome the sovereign of the morning. Dull greys, gleaming silver, deep reds, dark purpleall available hues were to be seen in that array. Then in the fulness of time the great flame rode out among the encircling glories, making them all appear dim and faint in the presence of his own effulgence.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lining, 69.]
(2) Now the idea of light, long before the time of St. John, had become spiritual in its religious application; and when Christ speaks of Himself as the light of the world, it is no darkness of nature that He has in view, but the darkness that rests on mens thoughts and life, the darkness that all true men feel more or less in themselves. Wherever men have arisen to the power of thought, and are capable of looking before and after, there comes home to them a deep sense of their ignorance. Their outlook is fast bound on all sides; and more light is their instinctive cry amid encircling darkness, or a twilight of uncertainty more perplexing sometimes than darkness itself. They look upwards, and long that the day may break on their mental struggle, and the shadows flee away from their hearts. The outward light is not enough. The eye is not satisfied with seeing. There is the conscious need of a higher light than ever. lit up sea or shore. The darkness of the world, in short, is a moral darkness, in which man is often unable to see his true way or choose his own good.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i the centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.1 [Note: Milton, Comus.]
I am the light of the world; and before His coming, His appearance was foretold in tokens of purple and gold. Here and there, in Isaiah and Jeremiah, we have great peaks tipped with the light of the coming day, suggesting the glory in which the whole world would be bathed in after time. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; is not that a foretoken of the tenth chapter of John? Liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; is not this the herald of the wonderful happenings which thrill the gospel story through and through? And then, after all these golden hints of promise there came the Sun, the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings, and the whole world passed into a new day.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lining, 69.]
(3) But Christs words must be interpreted by their reference to the light which was then being celebrated. Of that light we read that the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. This was a customary mode of directing the movements of large bodies of men, whether caravans or armies. In the case of an army a tall pole was erected in front of the chiefs tent, and from it a basket of fire was suspended, so that the glare of it was visible by night, and its smoke by day. The head of a marching column could thus be descried from a great distance, especially in wide level tracts with little or no vegetation and few inequalities of surface to interrupt the view. The distinctive peculiarity of the Israelitish march was that Jehovah was in the fire, and that He alone controlled its movements and thereby the movements of the camp. When the pillar of cloud left its place and advanced the tents were struck, lest the people should be separated from Jehovah and be found unfaithful to Him. During the whole course of their sojourn in the wilderness their movements were thus controlled and ordered. The beacon-fire that led them was unaffected by atmospheric influences. Dispelled by no gales, and evaporated by no fiercest heat of the Eastern sun, it hovered in the van of the host as the guiding angel of the Lord. The guidance it gave was uninterrupted and unerring; it was never mistaken for an ordinary cloud, it never so altered its shape as to become unrecognizable. And each night the flame shot up, and assured the people they might rest in peace.
There is no difficulty in understanding what was in our Lords mind at this time. Already He had made two distinct allusions to the incidents of the wilderness journey. In the sixth chapter He spoke of the manna which God had sent down from heaven, and He said: I am the bread of life. Then in the seventh chapter He spoke of the water which gushed out of the rock, and He said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink; as much as to say, I am the rock from which the living water flowed. And in the text it is said: Then spake Jesus again unto themimplying that He was taking up the same subject after a little intervalsaying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life, alluding, evidently, to the third great symbol of the exodus, the pillar of fire, by which Jehovah guided His people through the wilderness. So it seems clear that our Lord is referring here to Himself as the fulfilment of this great Old Testament typeI am the light of the world.
4. There are two things, then, that light does, and it seems as if Christ had them both before Him when He said, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness. The first is that it enables us to see. Enter a dark room and you do not see anything; but bring a light and you see what the room contains. The other is that it guides us. The lights at the harbour mouth are there to guide vessels safely into the harbour. And one has sometimes discovered the use of a light, even though it were but the glimmer of a candle in a cottage window, when one has been overtaken by the darkness on some hillside or unfrequented moor. So we have
I. Christ is the Light of the world because He enables men to see what is in the world.
II. Christ is the Light of the world because He guides men through the world.
I
He Enables Men to See
The lights by the altar in the Temple were memorials of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. When, then, Jesus says, I am the light of the world, He would declare Himself as being in reality, and to every soul of man to the end of time, what that cloud with its heart of fire was in outward seeming to one generation of desert wanderers. Now, the first thing which it was to these was the visible vehicle of the Divine presence. The Lord went before them in a pillar of a cloud. The Lord looked through the pillar. The Lord came down in the cloud, and spake unto him. The cloud covered the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord appeared. Such is the way in which it is ever spoken of, as being the manifestation to Israel in sensible form of the presence among them of God their King.
1. He enabled men to see God.
(1) He made clear in His own life and words the Divine idea, as no one had done before, and no one has ever done since. Men had been struggling with this idea from the first efforts of religious speculation. It was still unformed and imperfect. Outside of revelation it fluctuated and took many shapes, now presenting itself as a multiplicity of Divine energies, with more or less coherence; and now retreating into a vague Absolute or Necessity, encompassing all being, but without thought or love for any. Polytheism more refined or more sensualistic, and Pantheism more or less abstract, divided the thought of the Gentile world. On the other hand, the idea of God had been to the Hebrews one of growing clearness. He was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of Israel, who had given the covenant on Mount Sinai, who had led their fathers by the way of the wilderness into the promised land, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, and yet also the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, a holy God, of purer eyes than to behold evil, even a Father whose pitying mercy was able to measure all the depths of our weakness. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
This sublime conception of the Hebrew mind was perfected in Christ. Every attribute of spiritual excellence was brought out into clearer distinction, and every element less exalted was enlarged and purified. Hitherto the God of the Hebrews had remained too isolated and apart. With all their growth of religious intelligencethe voice of the Divine always speaking more clearly as we descend the course of their prophetic literaturethere still clung certain restrictions to their highest conception. Jehovah was their God in some special mannerthe Giver of their Law, the God of their Temple, who was to be worshipped in Jerusalem. They had difficulty in enlarging the Divine idea so as to embrace the human race, in rising above local privilege and national prerogative to the thought of God as the spiritual Source and Guide of all men alike. Christ fixed for ever this great thought. God is a Spirit, He said; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, was there any special virtue, so far as the Divine presence was concerned. This presence was universal and universally spiritual, embracing all life, claiming the homage and devotion, the faith and love, of all moral intelligencethe presence of the Father as well as the Sovereign of men.
(2) How did He accomplish this? By the manifestation of His person even more than by His doctrine, since He said, not I bring the light and the truth, but I am the light, and I am the truth. He is the light of the world, because in Him is the glory of God. His words are madness, and something very like blasphemy, unless they are vindicated by the visible indwelling in Him of the present God. The cloud of the humanity, the veil, that is to say, his flesh, enfolds and tempers; and through its transparent folds it reveals, even while it swathes, the Godhead. Like some fleecy vapour flitting across the sun, and irradiated by its light, it enables our weak eyes to see light, and not darkness, in the else intolerable blaze. Yes! Thou art the light of the world, because in Thee dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Thy servant hath taught us the meaning of Thy words, when he said: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
In that famous picture which Holman Hunt has painted of this wonderful scene and utterance in the Saviours life, there is one fatal blunder, as it appears at least to those who read Jesus with clearest eyes. The Saviour stands in the encircling gloom, lamp in hand, through which rays of light stream out upon the dusky archways of the Temple, upon the shadowy forms in the background, and upon His own sad, beautiful face. But it is from the lamp which He carries that the illumination comes. That is the mistake. It ought to have been shown as the irradiation from His own person, the glory of His own face, the sunlight of His own matchless purity, grace, and love. He Himself is the light of the worldnot what He taught, but what He was and did. His very incarnation is the worlds light. The fact that God could and did dwell in a human form, could speak through human lips, and think through a human mind, and feel the beatings of a human heart, and suffer all human pangs, and render into perfect beauty a human life; the fact that Gods great, awful, mysterious, holy, and loving nature could have its abode in the flesh in a body like our own and glorify it,that to begin with, and more than all things else, is the light of the world, for it lightens the face of every man that comes into the world.1 [Note: J. G. Greenhough, The Cross in Modern Life, 90.]
2. Christ has made clear not only the idea of God, but the idea of man.
(1) The two ideas everywhere interchange, and react the one upon the other. The glory of Christ is that He seized so clearly the spiritual essence of both, and set the great realities of the spiritual life in man in front of the Supreme Spiritual Reality whom He revealed. There is nowhere for a moment any doubt in Christ as to what the true life of man is. He is here and now, a creature of nature, like all other creatures; but his true life is not natural, like that of the fowls of the air or the lilies of the field. He is essentially a moral being, with relations beyond nature, and wants and aspirations and duties which connect him with a Divine or Supernatural order. From first to last this spiritual conception underlies the Gospels, and makes itself felt in them. There is no argument, because there is no hesitation. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? The possibility of a negative answer is not supposed. The claims of the natural order, some have even thought, are unduly depressed. The spiritual life seems to overshadow and displace them. But this is only by way of emphasis, and in order to rouse man from the dreams of a mere sensual existence. After all these things do the Gentiles seekthose who know no better, to whom the meaning of the spiritual and Divine order has not come. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. The spiritual must be held in its true place as primary; after this the natural has also its place, and is to be recognized in addition.
(2) But the great thought is, that man is the dependant of a Divine kingdom, everywhere transcending the visible and present world. God has made him in His own image, and loves him, however far he may have degraded that image and wandered away from Divine good. He claims man as His ownas rightfully belonging to the higher world of spiritual intelligence, of which He is the Head. And so Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Surely this is a higher conception of human life than that of either ancient or modern secularisma conception truer to the radical instincts of human nature, ever looking beyond the present, and owning the power of more than earth-born thoughts. From the fact of sin itself and a sense of wrong there comes a voice which speaks of something betterof a life akin to angels and to God. The very misery of man attests his greatness, and that there is more in his life, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away, than the experience of a day. Towards this thought the yearnings of all larger hearts, and the searchings of all higher minds, had pointed for centuries. It was the dream alike of Plato and of Cicero, of Egypt and of Persia. Hebrew Prophecy and Psalmody had grasped it more firmly as the Divine shone upon them more clearly. Yet withal it remained a comparative uncertainty before Christ. He, as no one before Him had done, held forth before men the conception of a higher life, greater than all the prizes of earth, and more enduring than all the accidents of time. That which was but faintly apprehended by Gentile philosopher, or even Jewish seer, was made manifest by the appearing and resurrection of our Lord, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. As St. Peter says in his First Epistle, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.
Christ asserts for man his true dignity and his rightful place in the universe of matter and of spirit. There is no single point in respect to which Christ has wrought so complete a revolution as in respect to the dignity and worth of the individual man. He effected this change, not by teaching a new philosophy, but by living a new life, and consecrating that life by His pitying death. He came to save man, not because man was wise or worthy, but because he was ignorant and lost, and yet could be exalted to wisdom and holiness. Therein did He declare that the lowliest and the most simple have an intrinsic worth in the judgment of God, such as the world had never before accorded to man as man. It was the reproach of Christ, that He consorted with publicans and sinners. His eating with them, however, did not signify that He sympathized with them as they were; it signified that He knew what they might become. To accomplish His work for man, Christ not only was found in fashion as a man, but, being such, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto deatheven the death of the cross. In this He attested still more strikingly what manhood, as manhood, is worth in the judgment of God. It is not surprising that the light that streamed from Christs life and death slowly but surely effected changes so great in all the estimates that Christendom has learned to put upon man.
How great is little man!
Sun, moon, and stars respond to him,
Shine or grow dim
Harmonious with his span.
How little is great man!
More changeable than changeful moon,
Nor half in tune
With Heavens harmonious plan.
Ah rich man! ah poor man!
Make ready for the testing day
When wastes away
What bears not fire or fan.
Thou heir of all things, man
Pursue the saints by heavenward track:
They looked not back;
Run thou, as erst they ran.
Little and great is man:
Great if he will, or if he will
A pigmy still;
For what he will he Song of Solomon 1 [Note: C. G. Rossetti, Poems, 121.]
(3) The new ideal of man was set forth by our Lord not only in His discourses but in Himself. Jesus never taught a systematic and scientific morality. He simply replaced the moral world on its true axis, which is the love of God and of man; but on no occasion did He attempt a classification of our duties, a complete explanation of the motives, aims, impulses, and restraining forces of our moral conduct. In the Sermon on the Mount, He showed the inner and spiritual nature of the law; He pointed out what is true purity and love. In His inimitable parables He has taught us, by many examples, what are the conditions of eternal life; but it is, above all, by the manifestation of His Person, and by the radiance of His life, that He has revealed to us the moral ideal of humanity. For the first time, a life absolutely fulfilling the moral law was seen in Him, a life wholly directed by the love of God and man, a life in which there is not an action, a word, a thought, or an impulse of the heart which does not conduce to the glory of God and the good of mankind, and which is not inspired, filled, penetrated by this love. In Him we see for the first time the admirable union of all those virtues which seem contrary to each other, and which usually exclude each otherauthority and simplicity, majesty and humility, strength and gentleness, hatred of evil and tender mercy, purity without asceticism, condescension without servility; so that, to employ an image which the subject affords us, just as the various colours which are separated by the prismred, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violetvivid and brilliant as they are, form, when united, a perfect white of spotless beauty, so all those different features which compose the form of Christ unite and blend in a harmony so extraordinary and so lifelike that it is imprinted for ever on the conscience of mankind. Through Him, light has for ever been thrown upon man. In Him, man has been seen as he ought to be. This great example stands before us; and wherever it is seen, the absolute return to darkness is impossible. Doubtless the powers of darkness may fall at times on portions of humanity; baseness, lying, hypocrisy, and violence may even shelter themselves under the name of Christ; but misconception and confusion will not last long; the light will at length be triumphant, the delusive shadows, the hideous nightmares, will disappear, and, in the fair and glorious daybreak of morning, justice, purity, and love will shine forth resplendent.
Science is teaching us lessons concerning the physical structure of the universe. The same stuff is ablaze in Sirius and the Sun and the flaming heart of the earth, and so Jesus Christ gives us the moral unity of all the worlds. The setting of the next life we can little imagine, but this we know, that Gods ideal of life is Jesus Christ. We are to be like Him. That is the real predestination. He who in both worlds delighted to do His Fathers will, suffered with brave hope, obeyed with changeless fidelity, served with supreme, unfailing love, is the universal type. God tells us that it is enough to be like Him. The words He uttered, Good and faithful, are negotiable in both worlds. Character and capacity are all of life that we can take with us when death swings open the door from this into the next room in our Fathers house.1 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 62.]
3. But now, since Jesus has perfectly revealed to us what God is and what man ought to be, He has lighted up the profound abyss which separates man from God. The more His holiness is made evident and clear, the more evident does our own imperfection become; all our virtues pale beside His perfection, as the false glitter of glass trinkets is outshone by the lustre of a pure diamond. His purity brings out the frightful and repulsive character, not only of our crimes, but of those thoughts, evil intentions, hatreds, and covetous desires, which, though unreached by human law, are revealed through Him. He shows us at once the evil that we have done, and the good which we have neglected to do; He casts a searching light on all hollow pretence, on all ostentation, pursuit of earthly glory, and selfishness more or less cleverly dissimulated. Never before Him had our nature been so profoundly, so accurately judged; never before had man been so clearly revealed to man. Thus were realized the prophetic words which the aged Simeon pronounced over the child Jesusthat by Him the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed (Luk 2:35). Thus the light which shines forth from His person, and which at first attracts us by its sublimity, ends by becoming overwhelming and terrible when it penetrates to the depths of our being, and clearly shows our corruption.
(1) One phase of the mystery of man is that which meets us in the mass of sin, and seemingly base, lost life, which there is in the world. It is that same mystery of mans moral nature; only not of its struggling, but of where it has ceased to struggle. That is the terrible thing which one is apt to feel wherever life is in dense masses, as in large citiesthe multitudes who do not seem to struggle, who are complacent in the hollowest shams of vanity and folly; who are sunk in low, grovelling tastes, from which nothing seems to rouse them; who grow up hard, bold, defiant, and despise the very efforts that you make to help them upwards. And there are yet deeper abysses: all the lost, broken-down lives that fester in the byways of our cities; the masses of crime; the even more hopeless baseness of those who fatten by fostering crime,whole classes, lost, lost, so lost that we cannot tell even how to try to save them, how to begin to try! And what is to be the end and outcome of it all?
(2) This light would be overpowering, and would leave us without hope, if, after having shown us our misery, it did not at the same time reveal the Divine mercy, if it did not show us in God a love greater than our rebellion, a pardon greater than our iniquity. This is what Christ crucified teaches us beyond all else, and it is for this reason that these grand words, I am the light of the world, never appear grander or more true than when they emanate from the Cross. At the foot of the Cross the sinner sees and receives a pardon truly worthy of God, because it completely satisfies His justice while at the same time revealing His mercy.
In the Howard Prize Essay for 1885, on The Preservation of Health, by Dr. Clement Dukes, the following passage occurs: Light is not only the great preserver of health, but a great preventer of disease; for Tyndall found that sunlight arrested the growth of organisms, so that, as Dr. Murphy states, sunlight serves the double purpose of aiding the growth of those organisms which are necessary for man, as well as of man himself, while it retards the production of those which are antagonistic to his existence. Many illustrations are given of this in the essay. The author, drawing upon his own experience, says that when house surgeon in a London hospital, he found that in one of its wards, which was very dark, simple fractures took seven to fourteen days longer in uniting than they would have done in a well-lighted ward, whilst they were afraid to put compound fractures in it at all; and when, from want of space, they were compelled to do so, they chose a bed where the light was greatest. Florence Nightingale, as the result of her wide observation, remarks: One of the greatest observers of human things says: Where there is sun there is thought. All physiology goes to confirm this. Where is the shady side of deep valleys, there is cretinism. Where are cellars and the unsunned sides of narrow streets, there is the degeneracy and weakness of the human race; mind and body equally degenerating. Put the pale, withering plant and human being into the sun, and, if not too far gone, each will recover heart and spirit. In France there are hospitals where they trust almost entirely to light for the cure of disease. Surely there is here an earthly analogue to a spiritual fact, namely, that only by the beams of the Sun of Righteousness can the evil growths in humanity be stayed and the good ones be fostered.
I was talking some time ago to a City Missionary, an earnest-hearted woman working in the worst parts of one of our great cities; and she told me, how, at first, her work made her utterly despairing. There seemed to be nothing she could do; and she was among a whole population who seemed just sinking down, down to hellnothing else for it, according to all her old creed. She told me how she used to go home and be haunted with the horror of it; and then she went out again, praying, and longing, and trying, but still reaching only one here and there. But one day it came to herjust the thought of the Heavenly Fathers love shadowed forth in Christs, and compared to which her love could be nothing; and like a great flood of light it all broke upon her, that she could trust Him. Why should she be racking her soul with anxiety almost to madness as if she alone in this great universe cared for them? And ever after that, she told me, she had laboured on, not less earnestly than before, but with an easier, freer heart, feeling the mystery losing itself not in darkness, but in light. That light was Christs. That anxiety of love for sinners, and that trustful thought of God, are both from Him. There were kind loving hearts before Christ, sad for human suffering; but nowhere, before, do you find that peculiar sadness for sin, and for the poor, lost sinners of the world. That is like a new light upon the great dark mystery, the light of a new love, which has ever since been working in the world; and, the light of a greater love still than ours, a love in the infinite Heart of things, a love to which our hearts go out in that strong trustful plea Whittier has shaped for us
Father of all,Thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee!1 [Note: B. Herford, Courage and Cheer, 144.]
II
He Guides Men
The second thought is that Christ, like the pillar of cloud and fire to the Israelites, is a guiding light to us in our march through the wilderness of this world.
But if Christ is to lead we must follow. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. The first demand is for obedience. How emphatically the Book of Numbers (chap. 9) dwells upon the absolute control of all the marches and halts by the movements of the cloud. When it was taken up, they journeyed; when it settled down, they encamped. As long as it lay spread above the Tabernacle, there they stayed. Impatient eyes might look, and impatient spirits chafeno matter. The camp might be pitched in a desolate place, away from wells and palm trees, away from shade, among fiery serpents, and open to fierce foesno matter. As long as the pillar was motionless, no man stirred. Weary, slow days might pass in this compulsory inactivity; but whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, abiding thereon, the children of Israel journeyed not. And whenever it lighted itself up,no matter how short had been the halt, how weary and footsore the people, how pleasant the resting-placeup with the tent-pegs immediately, and away. Whether the signal was given at midnight, when all but the watchers slept, or at mid-day, it was all the same.
All true following of Christ begins with faith, or we might almost say that following is faith, for we find our Lord substituting the latter expression for the former in another passage of this Gospel parallel with the present. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. The two ideas are not equivalent, but faith is the condition of following; and following is the outcome and test, because it is the operation, of faith. None but they who trust Him will follow Him. He who does not follow does not trust. To follow Christ means to long and strive after His companionship; as the Psalmist says, My soul followeth hard after thee. It means, the submission of the will, the effort of the whole nature, the daily conflict to reproduce His example, the resolute adoption of His command as our law, His providence as our will, His fellowship as our joy.
Between teaching and leading there may be all the difference that there is between theory and practice. A teacher may content himself with the thought, the attention, the contemplation, of his pupils, but a leader calls for action. That is precisely the note which is struck in these words: he that followeth me. Like the host in the wilderness following the pillar of fire, like the pilgrims to Mecca following the fire-cages slung high upon the poles, so must men follow this Christ, that they may not walk in darkness, but may have the light of life.
1. We have the promise that if we follow faithfully we shall not walk in darkness. This is true in practice of life and its perplexities. Nobody who has not tried it would believe how many difficulties are cleared out of a mans road by the simple act of trying to follow Christ. No doubt there will still remain obscurities enough as to what we ought to do, to call for the best exercise of patient wisdom; but an enormous proportion of them vanish like mist when the sun breaks through, when once we honestly set ourselves to find out whither the pillared Light is guiding. It is a reluctant will, and intrusive likings and dislikings, that obscure the way for us, much oftener than real obscurity in the way itself. It is seldom impossible to discern the Divine will, when we only wish to know it that we may do it. And if ever it is impossible for us, surely that impossibility is like the cloud resting on the Tabernaclea sign that for the present His will is that we should be still, and wait, and watch.
I only speak my own experience; I am not talking theology or philosophy: I know what I am saying, and can point out the times and places when I should have fallen if I had been able to rely for guidance upon nothing better than a commandment. But the pure, calm, heroic image of Jesus confronted me, and I succeeded. I had no doubt as to what He would have done, and through Him I did not doubt what I ought to do.1 [Note: Mark Rutherford.]
So the years went on, and the sense of unreality in my teaching grew steadily more intense and intolerable. I saw myself continually expending all the forces of my mind on theories which left me and my hearers alike unchanged in the essential characteristics of our lives. I felt myself, like St. Augustine, but a seller of rhetoric. I was inculcating a method of life which I myself did not obey, or obeyed only in those respects that caused me neither sacrifice nor inconvenience. In order to continue such labours at all various forms of excuse and self-deception were required. Thus I flattered myself that I was at least maintaining the authority of morals. I did not perceive that morals are of no value to the world until vitalized by emotion. At other times I preached with strenuous zeal the superiority of the Christian religion, and dilated on its early triumphs. This pleased my hearers, for it always flatters men to find themselves upon the winning side. What I wonder at now is that they did not perceive that my zeal to prove Christianity true was exactly proportioned to my fear that it was false. Men do not seek to prove that of which they are assured. Jesus never sought to prove the existence of a God, because He was assured of it; He simply asserted and commanded. In my heart of hearts I knew that I was not sure. But I did not easily discover the reason of my uncertainty. I supposed the source to be the destructive criticism of the Gospels which had reduced Jesus Himself to a probability. In my private thoughts I argued that it was no longer possible to feel the intense reality of Christ. Francis might feel it, Catherine might feel it, because they lived in an atmosphere of poetry, unchilled by criticism. I could never feel as they felt because I could not transport myself into their atmosphere. Yet as often as I turned to these great lives, something thrilled within me, some living responsive fibre, so that I knew that I was not after all quite alien to them. Could it be that there was that in me that made me, or could make me, of their company? But how could I attain to their faith? What could give back to a modern man, tortured by a thousand perplexities of knowledge of which they never dreamed, the reality of Christ which they possessed? And then the answer camenot suddenly, but as a still small voice growing louder, more positive, more intenseLive the Life. Try to do some at least of the things that Jesus did. Seek through experience what can never come through ratiocination. Be a Francis; then it may be thou shalt think like him, and know Jesus as he knew Him. Live the lifethere is no other way.1 [Note: W. J. Dawson, The Empire of Love, 112.]
2. But there is a higher meaning in the words than even this promise of practical direction. In the profound symbolism of Scripture, especially of this Gospel, darkness is the name for the whole condition of the soul averted from God. So our Lord here is declaring that to follow Him is the true deliverance from that midnight of the soul. There is a darkness of ignorance, a darkness of impurity, a darkness of sorrow; and in that threefold gloom, thickening to a darkness of death, are they enwrapt who follow not the Light. That is the grim, tragical side of this saying, too sad, too awful for our lips to speak much of, and best left in the solemn impressiveness of that one word. But the hopeful, blessed side of it is, that the feeblest beginnings of trust in Jesus Christ, and the first tottering steps that try to tread in His, bring us into the light. It is not necessary that we should have reached our goal, it is enough that our faces are turned to it, and our hearts desire to attain it; then we may be sure that the dominion of the darkness over us is broken. To follow, though it be afar off, and with unequal steps, fills our path with increasing brightness, and even though evil and ignorance and sorrow may thrust their blackness in upon our day, they are melting in the growing glory, and already we may give thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.
Only he can be a true follower whose life and love are in union with the life and love in Christ. He will not be light in the Lord until his will is intermarried with the will of his Lord. Every man who is thus joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him, and walks in His marvellous Light. He is inly and immovably persuaded that nothing can separate his love from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus his Lord; and the comforting, assuring light of this love floods his understanding. The love of God in his will, and the light of God in his mind, make him a new man. The descent of Gods life and light to dwell in his soul makes him sure and certain of his final ascent to God.
3. But we have not merely the promise that we shall be led by the light and brought into the light. A yet deeper and grander gift is offered here: He shall have the light of life. That means, not, as it is often carelessly taken to mean, a light which illuminates the life, but, like the similar phrases of this Gospelbread of life, water of life,light which is life. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. These two are one in their source, which is Jesus, the Word of God. Of Him we have to say, With thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light. They are one in their deepest nature; the life is the light, and the light the life. And this one gift is bestowed upon every soul that follows Christ. Not only will our outward lives be illumined or guided from without, but our inward being will be filled with the brightness. Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.
This is the great distinction between the light which Christ is and the light by which the Israelites were led from day to day. They had an external means of ascertaining promptly which way they should go. Their whole life was circumscribed, and its place and mode determined for them. The guidance offered us by Christ of an inward Kind. A God without might seem perfect as a guide, but a God within is the real perfection. God does not now lead us by a sign which we could follow, though we had no real sympathy with Divine ways and no wisdom of our own; He leads us by communicating to us His own perceptions of right and wrong, by inwardly enlightening us, and by making us ourselves of such a disposition that we naturally choose what is good.
If I had fulness of life I would have perfectness of vision; I would know what God is, what man is, what heaven is. Is it not written, This is life eternal that they should know thee? And yet, marvellous to tell, this unspeakable glory may be minebe mine now, here, in the midst of the present world: He that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. It is not by dying it shall come to me; it is by followingfollowing the steps of the Master through lifes strait gate and lifes narrow way. It is by taking up the cross, by lifting the burden, by bearing the sacrifice, by doing the will, that the doctrine shall be known to me.1 [Note: G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 251.]
The still commandress of the silent night
Borrows her beams from her bright brothers eye;
His fair aspect fills her sharp horns with light;
If he withdraw, her flames are quenchd and die;
Een as the beams of thy enlightning Sprit,
Infusd and shot into my dark desire,
Inflame my thoughts, and fill my soul with fire,
That I am ravishd with a new delight;
But if thou shroud thy face, my glory fades,
And I remain a nothing, all composed of shades.
Eternal God! O Thou that only art
The sacred fountain of eternal light,
And blessed loadstone of my better part,
O Thou, my hearts desire, my souls delight,
Reflect upon my soul, and touch my heart,
And then my heart shall prize no good above Thee;
And then my soul shall know Thee; knowing, love Thee;
And then my trembling thoughts shall never start
From Thy commands, or swerve the least degree,
Or once presume to move, but as they move in Thee.2 [Note: Francis Quarles.]
4. Christ is our guiding light even unto death. The night cometh. I shall have to lie down and die. Is there any light? I am the light. He claims that to those who are in Him the night shineth even as the day. What does my Lord do in the hour of death to break up the reign of darkness? He gives us the cheer of sovereignty. All things are yours death! Then I do not belong to death? No, death belongs to me. Death is not my master, he is my servant. He is made to minister to me in the hour of translation, and I shall not be enslaved by his approach.
That was a true and beautiful word uttered by Mrs. Booth when she was passing home: The waters are rising, but I am not sinking! Death was her minister, floating her forward to glory. All things are yours death. And my Lord further softens the night by the gracious light of fellowship. I will be with thee. When we are in fine and congenial company how the time passes! The hours slip away and we marvel when the moment for separation comes. And so it will be in death! Our company will be so rich and welcome that the season will pass before we know it. I think the Christians first wondering question on the other side will be: Am I really through? Really? Even the night shall be light about thee. It matters not how stormy the night may be, the Light of Life shall never be blown out. At eventide it shall be light.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lining, 73.]
Whence are weand whither? Especially, whither? How that question has pressed upon the heart of man. Do you remember the first living glimpse that we get of our old Saxon forefathers, as they stood facing Christianity, not yet converted to it, but wondering if perhaps it might be true? They are facing it with this mystery of the unknown beyond pressing on their hearts. I know few more beautiful episodes in old-world thought. It was a few years after Augustine had come as a missionary to England, and in the rude North, King Edwin of Northumbria had gathered his chiefs and thanes together in Witenagemot, or Wise mens meeting, that they might consider this new faith. One by one they told their faith about it, but the best word spoken was this. Said one of the thanes: Truly the life of man in this world is on this wise. It is as when thou, O King, art feasting with thy thanes in winter-time, when the hearth is lighted and the hall is warm; but without, the rains and the snows are falling, and the winds howl. Then cometh a sparrow and flieth through the hall; it cometh in by one door and goeth out at the other. When a little moment brief and pleasant is passed, it disappears, and from winter returns to winter again. So is it with the life of man, O King. It is but for a moment; what goeth before it, and what cometh after it, wot we not at all. Wherefore, if these strangers can tell us aught, let us hearken to them and follow their law.2 [Note: B. Herford, Courage and Cheer, 145.]
5. And, finally, Christ guides His followers to another and a better life. Through the opened doors of that immortality which He has brought to light by means of His gospel, there has streamed ever since a steady radiance, towards which the hearts of all men have turned with thankfulness and hope. Christ has done for immortality what He had done for theism. He has not demonstrated it to the reason, but He has verified it as a fact. He has not superseded the necessity of searching and scrutinizing its possibility or probability on grounds of reason, but He has enforced these demonstrations by the best attested events of human history; and He stands before the rational faith of men declaring afresh to all the generations, I am he that liveth and was dead, and Behold, I am alive for evermore, and Because I live, ye shall live also.
What about the morrow? When the river is crossed, is there any light upon the regions beyond? Am I to gaze into blackness, impenetrable, inscrutable? I am the light. What kind of light does He give me here? In my Fathers house! Is there not a softening gleam in the very phrase? Look here for a sheaf of rays of welcome light. In my Fathers house, there is our habitation! I go to prepare a place for you, there is the preparation for us! I will receive you unto myself, there is a welcome for us! Does not this throw the soft light of the morning on the Beyond? The same light which has been given to me along the way of time will shine upon me in the realms of the new day. The Lord God is the light thereof. So you see it is Jesus all the way; my light to-day, to-night, to-morrow!1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lininig, 74.]
There is an ancient prayer for the departed which runs: Grant them, O Lord, eternal rest, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
The Light of the World
Literature
Aglionby (F. K.), The Better Choice, 51.
Banks (L. A.), Christ and His Friends, 254.
Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have won Souls, 75.
Brooks (P.), The Light of the World, 1.
Church (R. W.), Cathedral and University Sermons, 80.
Church (R. W.), Village Sermons, iii. 46.
Greenhough (J. G.), The Cross in Modern Life, 88.
Herford (B.), Courage and Cheer, 138.
Hopkins (E. H.), in The Keswick Week, 1908, 10.
Horne (C. S.), The Light of the World, 1.
Ingram (A. F. W.), The Gospel in Action, 23.
Jerdan (C.), For the Lambs of the Flock, 54.
Jowett (J. H.), The Silver Lining, 69.
Lewis (J.), The Mystic Secret, 143.
Little (W. J. Knox), The Light of Life, 1.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: John i.viii., 319.
Marten (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 100.
Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 250.
Maurice (F. D.), Lincolns Inn Sermons, iv. 174.
Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, ii. 218.
Newman (J. H.), Oxford University Sermons, 1.
Porter (N.), Yale College Sermons, 204.
Pulsford (J.), Loyalty to Christ, ii. 7.
Ragg (L.), Christ and our Ideals, 51.
Ross (J. M. E.), The Self-Portraiture of Jesus, 80.
Tulloch (J.), Some Facts of Religion and of Life, 209.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), Nos. 375, 687.
Walters (C. E.), The Deserted Christ, 21.
Westcott (B. F.), The Revelation of the Father, 47.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxi. 380 (Horder); xxxvi. 138 (Whiton), 362 (Perowne); xlvi. 310 (Lang); lvi. 161 (Hughes); lxvii. 177 (Ingram); lxxvii. 70 (Marshall).
Clergymans Magazine, iii. 193 (Bersier).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

I am: Joh 1:4-9, Joh 3:19, Joh 9:5, Joh 12:35, Isa 9:2, Isa 42:6, Isa 42:7, Isa 49:6, Isa 60:1-3, Hos 6:3, Mal 4:2, Mat 4:14-16, Luk 1:78, Luk 1:79, Luk 2:32, Act 13:47, Act 26:23
shall not: Joh 12:35, Joh 12:46, Psa 18:28, Psa 97:11, Isa 50:10, 2Pe 2:4, 2Pe 2:17, Jud 1:6, Jud 1:13
shall have: Joh 7:17, Joh 14:6, Job 33:28, Psa 49:19, Rev 21:24
Reciprocal: Exo 25:37 – give Exo 40:24 – General Lev 24:2 – the lamps 2Sa 22:29 – lamp 1Ki 15:4 – give him 2Ch 4:7 – ten candlesticks Job 19:8 – set Job 22:28 – the light Job 29:3 – by his light Job 33:30 – enlightened Job 38:19 – the way Psa 27:1 – light Psa 36:9 – in thy Psa 56:13 – the light Psa 84:11 – a sun Psa 118:27 – showed Pro 4:18 – General Isa 49:9 – to them Dan 2:22 – and the Hos 11:10 – walk Mic 7:8 – the Lord Mar 14:49 – was Joh 8:9 – alone Joh 8:18 – one Joh 8:25 – Even Joh 8:51 – see Joh 9:39 – that they Joh 10:25 – I told Joh 10:27 – and they Act 3:22 – A prophet Act 26:18 – and to 1Co 1:30 – wisdom 2Co 3:14 – which veil 2Co 4:4 – lest Eph 5:8 – but Eph 5:14 – Christ 1Th 1:6 – and of Jam 1:17 – from the 2Pe 1:19 – a light 1Jo 1:5 – that God 1Jo 2:8 – and the Rev 14:4 – which follow
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
I am the Light of the world.
Joh 8:12
This is one of the central and salient sayings of our Saviour. It is eminent even amongst the utterances of Him who spake as never man spake. He had already declared Himself to be the giver of the living water; He had offered Himself to the world as the bread of life; here He presents Himself as its light. Yes, what bread and water and light are to man in his physical being, Christ will be to him in his spiritual life.
I. We think with astonishment of the tremendous claim which lies at the back of these words.None of the great founders of religious systems before or since, have ever assumed the authority for themselves which it implies. The most famous sages and philosophers have ever admitted their own imperfect vision. They have all alike recognised their limitations in respect of knowledge, They only professed to have caught glimpses of the light and to lead men to the blessed sight of it. But our Saviour separates Himself by an impassable gulf from all other teachers of truth and religion in this respect, namely, by having claimed to be Himself the light of the world.
II. What light is in the world of nature, that Christ claims to be in the higher regions of mans life.The condition of the world at His first coming is best described in the words of Zecharias, i.e. Men sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. The state of the heathen world to-day shows us what it is to be without Christ, and it fills us with profound sadness when we think of it. Give us light has been the wail which has gone up to heaven from Christless souls.
III. Our darkness is threefold until Christ gives us light.It is intellectual, moral, spiritual.
(a) The understanding must be enlightened before we can apprehend aright the truth of God, the truth which He has revealed by the Gospel for the salvation of mankind. It must be spiritually discerned.
(b) The moral faculty needs to be enlightened, directed, and strengthened. Men equally dislike to be told the truth in this respect about themselves. They will admit their ignorance and the existence of many things beyond the reach of their minds, but they are sure that they mean well, that they know what is right.
(c) Man as a religious being must come to Christ for light. There is a spiritual side of him; it is in this sphere of his being that he is most nearly related to God and comes into closest touch with Him. Any survey of his nature is defective which stops short with his intellectual powers, his moral sense and his conscience: there is still more of him, he is a religious being.
Rev. F. K. Aglionby.
Illustration
There is a brilliant passage in a famous essay by the late Dean Church in which he refers to Dantes love of light. He must have studied and dwelt upon it like music. His mind is charged with its effects and combinations, and they are rendered with a force, a brevity, a precision, a heedlessness and unconsciousness of ornament an indifference to circumstance and detail; they flash out with a spontaneous readiness, a suitableness and felicity, which show the familiarity and grasp given only by daily observation, daily thought, daily pleasure. Light everywherein the sky and earth and seain the star, the flame, the lamp, the gembroken in the water, reflected from the mirror, transmitted pure through the glass, or coloured through the edge of the fractured emeralddimmed in the mist, the halo, the deep waterstreaming through the rent cloud, glowing in the coal, quivering in the lightning, flashing in the topaz and the ruby, veiled behind the pure alabaster, mellowed and clouding itself in the pearllight contrasted with shadowshading off and copying itself in the double rainbow, like voice and echolight seen within light, as voice discerned within voice the brighter nestling itself in the fainterthe purer set off on the less clear light in the human eye and face, displaying, figuring, and confounded with its expressionslight blended with joy in the eye and in the smile: joy lending its expression to light light from every source, and in all its shapes, illuminates, irradiates, gives its glory to the Comedia.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
CHRIST AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
We deplore existing misery, we see as in a vision a higher and nobler life, but we are confronted with the hard realities of selfish human nature at every turn, which render hopeless the realisation of the vision. It is here that the revelation of Jesus Christ comes to our aid. I am the light of the world, He says; He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life. By listening to His teaching we shall see what is needed to bring about the better life that we desire; by following His example we shall be going the right way to accomplish our aim. In other passages He claims to be the sole teacher of man, and He follows up this assertion by imparting two great lessons: the first, All ye are brethren; One is your Father, Which is in heaven; the second, He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. If there is truth in these words we have in them light indeed for the perplexities of social life, a new hope for humanity.
I. Brotherhood.They supply just that proof of the possibility of a real brotherhood of men which depends for its existence, not upon mutual self-interest, but upon mutual love, irrespective of any idea of benefit to be derived from uniting, and the binding force in which is mutual attraction from within, and not pressure from without. They give meaning to that feeling which the best men have ever realised, viz. the feeling of disinterested love and friendship; a love which is greater than that subsisting between the sexes in that it depends on no mutual services rendered; a a love like Jonathans, of which David sangThy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman; a love which is superior to that between parent and child, because it has no pride of ownership to rest upon nor expectation of benefits to be received; a love that finds its parallel in the pure, disinterested affection between the children of a true and noble family until self-interest creeps in and breaks its spell. It is a grand thing to know that when we feel such an emotion stirring within us for individual men, and for the great mass of suffering humanity, we are not necessarily deluding ourselves; but that there is in us at least the capacity for such disinterested affection; that, selfish as we have grown by long habit, we were not made so, and need not be so.
II. Service.Following close upon this revelation of brotherhood comes the revelation of duty which is its natural consequence: He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. Nor is there any other reason that I can conceive why the greatest should be the servant, except this which Jesus has given, viz. that the greatest is he who is most like God, who therefore loves most, and who in consequence of that love is ever seeking to do most for the rest. And the Blessed Teacher has exhibited in His own Divine Person the truth and beauty of His teaching. He has brought home to mens hearts and minds a new conception of greatness, so that even selfish men of the world cannot refuse their tribute of praise to self-sacrifice when they see it manifested in a devoted life; however unable they may be to account for such a life, or for the praise and admiration which it extorts even from them.
III. The Light of the World.My own hope for true social progress in the future depends upon no labour organisations nor programmes of legislation, however useful and even essential these may be in their proper place. But it depends upon the workmen and their leaders being filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ; and that in no vague sense, but as a result of investigating and then acknowledging His claim to be the Light of the World, the Teacher the Revealer of the Heavenly Father of Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, and upon their being willing to follow Him, and so have the light of life. The pressure of circumstances has brought together great masses of men in various organisations and associations. It needs but the Presence of Christ in the midst of each organisation, and His love in the heart of each individual, to generate that sense of kinship which shall transform the association into a brotherhood. This will not come all at once. But very much may be done if each Christian will let his light shine bright and clear before men; if religious teachers will not shrink from declaring the truth as it is in Jesus for fear of inconvenient inferences that may be drawn from it; if Christians of the capitalist class will bring their religion into every detail of their business life and be ready to take the consequences; and, finally, if workmen, members of labour organisations, who believe in Jesus as their Saviour and Teacher, will strive to have and to give to their fellow-workmen a reason for the faith that is in them, and will commend that faith to them by the uprightness of their life. It may be that much of what is set before us as exhibiting the ideal state of the future will prove to be impracticable. Probably the path of progress will not be by great revolutions, social or industrial, but through the detection of injustices and hardships by the quickened conscience of an awakened community, and the rapid and sure remedying of the evils as they are one by one dragged out into the light of day. But by whatever way we are led we shall be sure to go right if we follow Christ. We shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life, and it will lead us into the kingdom of our Father and our God: His kingdom on earth, for the advent of which all Christians daily pray in the prayer which Christ has given us; and after that His kingdom in heaven.
Rev. Canon G. E. Ford.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
THE LIGHT-GIVER
The words are characterised by a fullness which is very impressive.
I. It is Christ Himself Who is that wondrous Light.It is from His Personality that there stream the illuminating rays which suffice for the spiritual necessities of all mankind. In a famous picture Christ is portrayed as carrying the light. The lamp is in the hand of the suffering Son of Man. The genius of the artist ought not to blind us to the inadequacy of the representation. Surely its insufficiency corresponds to the incompleteness of that interpretation of the saying which understands Him to mean no more than that in His doctrine all men may have the satisfaction of their needs and the solution of their perplexities. His words were indeed light; but the light of which he here speaks consists of much more than His teaching. He is Himself the Pillar of Light, ever moving onward, ever scattering the gloom which would otherwise obscure and sadden human circumstances. The Light of the World is a Personthe historic Christ, Son of man, Son of God.
II. In order to gain the benefit of that Divine Light there must be discipleship finding its expression in activity and advance. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness. The light is not for self-absorbed contemplation. It is given for action, movement, progress.
III. The promise is not merely one of guidance, but of possession.The disciple will not only be able to see the light, but he shall have it. The light becomes a part of the true and persevering follower. The idea of the possibility of self-communication by Him in Whom all life was gathered together to its multitudinous parts is one of the fundamental conceptions of Christianity. The Christian life is not only one of imitation, but also one of reinvigoration in Him.
IV. An unfailing light!A light strong enough to scatter the thickest shades! A light capable of irradiating all our path! A light which no darkness can overcome! It is for this that we so often cry out. It is this which the Gospel offers us in that Figure of figures, to Whom none other in all the long annals of the human race can be seriously compared. Without Him, without the all-sufficient illumination of His abiding Presence, without the testimony of that Incarnation, that ministry, that Passion, that triumph, without that everlasting Light of light, there is over not a little of our road a degree of distorting mist and of impenetrable blackness which no optimism can deny or explain away. Without Christ as guide and food and light
In darkness and in weariness
The traveller on his way must press.
But with Himas Himself the burning and shining pillartreading in His steps, accepting His leadership, faithful to His words, believing in His Divine Sonship, we need not be afraid of present or future.
Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.
Illustration
For all thy rankling doubts so sore,
Love thou thy Saviour still,
Him for thy Lord and God adore,
And ever do His will.
Though vexing thoughts may seem to last,
Let not thy soul be quite oercast;
Soon will He show His wounds, and say
Long have I known thy nameknow thou My face alway.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

The Light of the World
Joh 8:12-42
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
1. Jesus Christ the Life, was the Light. When we study-Joh 1:1-4, we think of Christ in the beginning as the Word, creating by His command all things, for “without Him was not any thing made that was made.” In Him was life; that is, He possessed inherent life, and as such He was the Creator of life. There follows a marvelous conclusion: the Life that was before all things was also the Light. We remember that before He ever created the sun and the moon and the stars to give light, He was the Light, and He said, “Let there be light: and there was light.”
2. The darkness of sin in the hearts of men failed to comprehend the Light. The darkness on the primeval earth quickly succumbed, when God said, “Let there be light”; but the darkness which shrouded men’s hearts failed to respond to the light. Joh 3:1-36 puts it this way, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
How dark is that darkness that hates the light. Men hate the light because they love their evil deeds, and they know that if they come into the light of Christ’s effulgent glory, their evil deeds will be made manifest, and they will stand reproved.
To the contrary, they who do the truth will come to the light that their deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought of God.
3. In Christ the Light, there is no darkness at all. We now turn to John’s Epistle, chapter 1: “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” If there is no darkness in Him, there is no sin, and there is no sorrow, or sighing, nor anything that shadows the soul. In His presence, therefore, there is light, life, and fullness of joy. It is in the light of His countenance that we may safely hide from any and every encroachment of evil.
4. Christians are witnesses of the light. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came to be a witness of the Light. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. Would that all Christ’s witnesses would accept John’s position. The greatest man born of woman made no claim to greatness. He said he was not worthy to stoop down and unloose the latchet of Christ’s shoes. He said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.” Let us do as he did.
5. We are not the Light, but we are children of the light. We are not of the darkness, for we have been saved out of the darkness. We are all children of the Light. What then? Let us walk in the light. Let us not sleep, but watch and be sober. How can children of the light dwell in darkness? Thus it is written: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” It is only when we walk in the light, that we have fellowship with Him; and, thank God, the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all unrighteousness. If this were not so, we could not abide in the light.
1Jn 2:1-29 tells us that our darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. Then it adds, “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.” But “he that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.”
I. CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD (Joh 8:12)
1. The source of all good. Light is the emblem of all that is good and gracious, and it alone has the power of dispelling the darkness. The sun is the light of the physical earth; Christ is the Light of the world peoples.
What is there that is pure, or lovely, or true, or good, that He has not given to man? It is written, that every good and perfect gift cometh from above, from the Giver of light. What have we that He did not give? All things temporal, all things eternal, are the gifts of His love. On earth Christ went about doing good, because He was the Giver of all good.
2. We live and move in Him. Should the Lord cut off from man His gifts, all people would at once succumb. We breathe His air, drink His water, receive His heat, eat His provided food. We are saved from sin by His Blood, we are kept from the evil one by Him, we are made heirs of eternal life in Him. The truth is, we live, and move, and have our being in Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour.
He is before all things, and in Him all things are held together. He is Life, and Love, and Light. He is All and in all.
His sun shines on the just and the unjust. It touches, each day, the whole world. The lowliest brown babe that hugs the thin breast of a heathen mother, lives in the glory of God’s great body of physical light. Thus also does God’s rain fall upon all men. There is not a land, the world around, where God is not its greatest Benefactor.
What is true in the realms earthly, and temporal, and physical, is just as true in the realms Heavenly, eternal, and spiritual. Christ died for all. He lives for all. He is the willing Saviour offered to all men; especially the Saviour of those who believe. Christ’s commission is “to every creature.”
Let those who so gladly accept God’s sunlight, also accept His grace.
II. WHY CHRIST GAVE A TRUE RECORD OF HIMSELF (Joh 8:13-18)
1. Christ’s record was true because He was true. The Pharisees said to Him, “Thou bearest record of Thyself; Thy record is not true.” The Lord replied, “My record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.”
2. Christ’s record was true because the Father bore witness of Him. The Father bore witness at His birth by the ambassage of angels who gave their magnificat above the shepherds’ fields. One of them announced Christ as Saviour and Lord. All gave glory to God, as they broke forth in praise, saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The heavens also were filled with the glory of God.
The Father again spoke approvingly of Christ at His baptism, and again at His transfiguration. The Father likewise gave His approval of the Son later on, when the Greeks said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Again, and still later, when the Father received Christ up, and gave Him a seat at His right hand, He accepted every claim Christ had, ever made as to His Deity, as to His being sent forth by the Father, and as to His return to be with the Father.
Two witnesses, according to Jewish Law, established the truth. Think, withal, of the dignity and power of the Father and the Son who gave witness to Christ.
3. The Pharisees received not the witness of God. Tauntingly they said to Christ, “Where is Thy Father?” Jesus responded, “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father: if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also.”
This is still true. Christ and the Father are one. The two are one in word, in work, and in will. To see the Son was to see the Father; to know the Son was to know the Father. To one Christ said, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”
III. DIVINE CONTRASTS (Joh 8:21-25)
1. There is a contrast between Christ’s and their destiny. The Lord said, “I go my way * * ye cannot come.” Why did He go one way, and they another? It was all due to the sin question. He knew no sin, did no sin, and in Him there was no sin. They were sinners by nature, sinners by deed, and sinners by choice. Sin cannot enter into Heaven. There shall no unclean thing go in thereat; nothing that maketh an abomination or a lie.
They could not go whither He went, because He went to the Father, and they could not go to the Father except by Him. They would not have Him, therefore they could not have the Father. They could not have the Father apart from Him, because He only could take away their sin, through His Blood. His was the only Name given among men whereby they could be saved.
When they cast Him off, and when any cast Him off, they can never get to the Father.
2. There is a contrast between Christ’s and their natures. The Lord also said, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above.” Then He added, “Ye are of this world; I am not of this world.”
They were, in fact, from their father the devil, and the works of their father they did. Christ was from God, His Father, and the works of His Father He did.
Two cannot walk together unless they be agreed in nature, in ambition, in desires, in intents. Christ was from above therefore He loved the things above; they loved the things which were upon the earth, Christ set His affection on the things above; they, on the things which were upon the earth.
Sinners shall die in their sin, because they lived in them. He could only die for sin, but never could He die in sin, for He had no sin. Sinners die in their sins because they reject Christ who is Life forevermore. Death cannot abide where life goes.
IV. CHRIST’S X-RAY OF SINFUL HEARTS (Joh 8:28-29; Joh 8:37)
1. He told them that they would lift Him up. This portrayed their attitude to the Son of God. At Pentecost Peter said, “Him * * ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” Suppose they did do it through envy: were they, therefore, to be excused? Suppose they rejected His claims and His Saviourhood and slew Him thinking Him an impostor: were they to be excused thereby? Suppose they were blind leaders of the blind: were they excused thereby? Nay, in nothing were they to be excused. They were plainly told the truth by the Lord. He dealt with them faithfully, instructively, and sufficiently; yet they went about to slay Him. He truly loved them, and all day long He held out His hands to them; yet they would have none of Him. They showed themselves a disobedient and gainsaying people. They demonstrated the shameful sinfulness of their own hearts.
Christ knew the sin of their unbelief would lead to His own crucifixion. He knew they would lift Him up on the Tree. Therefore, Christ knew their depth of sin.
2. Christ told them why their hearts were so sin-filled, and why they were so Satan-driven. He said, “Ye seek to kill Me, because My Word hath no place in you.”
Thus it was: The supposed guardians of the Scriptures knew not the Scriptures. They who professed to know God, knew neither God nor His Son. Those who gave the Law, kept not the Law.
The X-ray of their hearts is the X-ray of every sinning and rejecting son of Adam. They have not His Word abiding in them. For this cause, He whom the Father sent they believe not, they love not, they obey not. They will not come to Him, because they believe Him not; they believe Him not, because they know Him not; they know Him not, because they know not His Word.
Do we not have multitudes of leaders in the churches who deny His Word? They reject every vital of the faith once delivered. The Spirit distinctly wrote of the certain men who would creep in, in these last days, even denying the very Lord who bought them.
V. MANY BELIEVED ON HIM (Joh 8:30-36)
1. They believed as He spake unto them. It is written: “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?” We praise God for the many who heard Christ and believed. This demonstrates that the others who heard, might have believed. They had the same opportunity, the same message from the Master. Thus those who believed, made those who believed not, without excuse.
They believed His Word. Faith carries with it great potentialities. Faith is the basis of many spiritual possibilities. Here are some of the achievements of faith: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved.” His faith “was counted unto him for righteousness.” Stop and consider what faith wrought through Abel, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Moses, and Rahab, and through Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, Samuel, etc. Thank God, many believed His Word!
2. How to become disciples indeed. Christ said to those who believed, “If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed.” What did He mean? He meant that a true faith is a continued faith. He meant that a true faith is a faith that follows on to know the Lord. There is a Scripture which says, “Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.” They loved the Lord, yet they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. To these Christ said, “Whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness.”
There may be a faith, or a belief, that is the mere assent of the mind, an intellectual recognition of fact. True faith is the faith that continues in the Word, no matter the cost.
Thus faith that is real, goes further than an acknowledgment of truth, it includes the affiance of the heart.
3. True faith sets men free. Let us get Christ’s words, “If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Free from what? From every foe that binds. The Lord said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. * * If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Christ came to set the captives to sin, and to circumstances, and to the tyranny of men, free. Let us therefore stand fast in the liberty wherewith He hath made us free.
VI. A VAIN BOAST AND A CERTIFIED CONDITION (Joh 8:39-45)
1. Their boast-“Abraham is our father.” Literally, by natural generation, they were right. The Lord said, in acknowledgment of this, “I know that ye are Abraham’s seed.” However, they were not children of Abraham, in any real, spiritual sense. Mark what Christ told them:
“If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill Me, a Man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.”
There is no reason for us to boast in our church membership, our baptism, our gifts to the church, our knowledge of the creed of the church, nor anything else, if we are crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting Him to an open shame.
It is useless to boast something which is not true.
2. Christ’s charge: “Ye are of your father the devil.” The language was strong, but it was true, for the works of the devil they did. His desires they fulfilled. The devil was a liar and did not abide in the truth. He was a liar, and the father of lies; he was a murderer from the beginning. Like father, like sons. They also did not abide in the truth; they were liars, and they sought to kill the Lord Jesus.
They boasted their relationship with Abraham, while Christ charged them with the things that were wholly foreign to Abraham. He told the truth, but they believed Him not.
3. They chided Him, in return, with dark insinuations. (1) They said, “We be not born of fornication.” This was their rejection of Christ’s Virgin Birth, and the insinuation that He was conceived out of wedlock. This charge and reproach is continually cast upon Christ today, by many so-called of the clergy.
(2) They said, “Thou * * hast a devil.” They said it twice, in Joh 8:48 and also in Joh 8:52. To what lengths can the human heart go in its denials of truth! No matter what Christ was, they denied Him, and they denounced Him. Yea, ultimately they crucified Him. Another time, the people said that Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils.
VII. ABRAHAM REJOICED TO SEE MY DAY (Joh 8:56)
1. When did Abraham see Christ’s day? It certainly was not during the lifetime of our Lord. He saw Christ’s day back during the centuries, when he went out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees, and made his way to Canaan. He saw Christ’s day when he stood ready to offer his son Isaac, and, being stopped by Jehovah, he turned and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket.
2. What did Abraham see of Christ and His day? He saw Him as God’s sacrifice for sin. He also saw Him a substitute for sin when he saw the ram a substitute for Isaac. He even named the place Jehovah-jireh-“the Lord will provide Himself a lamb.”
Is that what we see as we look backward to Calvary and its sacrifice? Do we see Christ made sin for us? bearing our iniquity? suffering, the Just for the unjust? Do we see Christ pouring His soul out unto death, that we might have life, by grace and through faith? Do we see the Good Shepherd giving His life for the sheep? And, as we see it all, do we exultantly cry out with the backward vision of faith, even as Abraham cried out with forward look of faith, saying, “The Lord has provided a sacrifice”?
3. What did Abraham do? He rejoiced; He exulted. How could he help being glad? That goat meant to Abraham, not alone the provision of Christ as a substitute, but it meant that both he and his son would never die that death which befalls the wicked and the unredeemed.
Abraham saw more that made him rejoice. He saw the vindication of his faith, and knew it was counted unto him for righteousness. No wonder he rejoiced.
And we may ask, And what did Christ do, as He, in His eternal omniscience, saw Abraham rejoice? He, too, rejoiced. Yes, there is always joy in Heaven when a soul is saved and safe from the wrath to come. What then will be the joy, the gladness, the rejoicing of Christ when He finally sees the full fruition of His Cross, in the gathering Home of untold myriads of the redeemed? Yes, He will see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.
AN ILLUSTRATION
“At a certain English port the harbor lights are so arranged that when the pilot of an incoming vessel sees them all in line, shining as one light, he knows the vessel is in the deep water channel which will lead him safely into the harbor, and, keeping the lights in view, he pilots the vessel into harbor, however dark the night. So when the teaching of the Word of God (Psa 119:105), the inward impulse of the Holy Spirit (Act 16:6), and the outward circumstances of providence (Act 16:10) all combine to point in one direction, the waiting servant may ‘go forward’ (Exo 14:15), well assured that he is in the right channel.”
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

2
After disposing of the incident with which the Pharisees interrupted his main work, Jesus resumed his teaching pertaining to spiritual matters. When Jesus said I am the light of the world, he only repeated what John the Baptist said of him in chapter 1:6-9. Walking in this light means to conduct one’s self according to the teaching that Jesus gives.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
[I am the light of the world.] “R. Biba Sangorius saith, Light is the name of the Messiah. As it is written, Light dwells with him;” Dan 2:22. We have the same passage in Bereshith Rabba; saving that the author of these words there is R. Abba Serongianus.
They were wont to adorn their Rabbins and doctors with swelling and magnificent titles of Lights.
“A tradition. His name is not R. Meir, but Nehorai. Why therefore is he called R. Meir? Because he enlightens the eyes of wise men by the traditions. And yet his name is not Nehorai neither, but R. Nehemiah. Why then is he called R. Nehorai? Because he enlightens the eyes of wise men by the traditions.” O blessed luminaries without light! Begone, ye shades of night! for “the Sun of righteousness” hath now displayed himself.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

THE conversation between our Lord and the Jews, which begins with these verses, is full of difficulties. The connection between one part and another, and the precise meaning of some of the expressions which fell from our Lord’s lips, are “things hard to be understood.” In passages like this it is true wisdom to acknowledge the great imperfection of our spiritual vision, and to be thankful if we can glean a few handfuls of truth.
Let us notice, for one thing, in these verses, what the Lord Jesus says of Himself. He proclaims, “I am the light of the world.”
These words imply that the world needs light, and is naturally in a dark condition. It is so in a moral and spiritual point of view: and it has been so for nearly 6,000 years. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, in modern England, France, and Germany, the same report is true. The vast majority of men neither see nor understand the value of their souls, the true nature of God, nor the reality of a world to come! Notwithstanding all the discoveries of art and science, “darkness still covers the earth, and gross darkness the people.” (Isa 60:2.)
For this state of things, the Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself to be the only remedy. He has risen, like the sun, to diffuse light, and life, and peace, and salvation, in the midst of a dark world. He invites all who want spiritual help and guidance to turn to Him, and take Him for their leader. What the sun is to the whole solar system-the center of light, and heat, and life, and fertility,-that He has come into the world to be to sinners.
Let this saying sink down into our hearts. It is weighty and full of meaning. False lights on every side invite man’s attention in the present day. Reason, philosophy, earnestness, liberalism, conscience, and the voice of the Church, are all, in their various ways, crying loudly that they have got “the light” to show us. Their advocates know not what they say. Wretched are those who believe their high professions! He only is the true light who came into the world to save sinners, who died as our substitute on the cross, and sits at God’s right hand to be our Friend. “In His light we shall see light.” (Psa 36:9.)
Let us notice, secondly, in these verses, what the Lord Jesus says of those that follow Him. He promises, “He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
To follow Christ is to commit ourselves wholly and entirely to Him as our only leader and Savior, and to submit ourselves to Him in every matter, both of doctrine and practice. “Following” is only another word for “believing.” It is the same act of soul, only seen from a different point of view. As Israel followed the pillar of cloud and fire in all their journeyings-moving whenever it moved, stopping whenever it tarried, asking no questions, marching on in faith,-so must a man deal with Christ. He must “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” (Rev 14:4.)
He that so follows Christ shall “not walk in darkness.” He shall not be left in ignorance, like the many around him. He shall not grope in doubt and uncertainty, but shall see the way to heaven, and know where he is going.-He “shall have the light of life.” He shall feel within him the light of God’s countenance shining on him. He shall find in his conscience and understanding a living light, which nothing can altogether quench. The lights with which many please themselves shall go out in the valley of the shadow of death, and prove worse than useless. But the light that Christ gives to every one that follows Him shall never fail.
Let us notice, lastly, in these verses, what the Lord Jesus says of His enemies. He tells the Pharisees that, with all their pretended wisdom, they were ignorant of God. “Ye neither know Me nor my Father: if ye had known Me, ye should have known my Father also.”
Ignorance like this is only too common. There are thousands who are conversant with many branches of human learning, and can even argue and reason about religion, and yet know nothing really about God. That there is such a Being as God they fully admit. But His character and attributes revealed in Scripture, His holiness, His purity, His justice, His perfect knowledge, His unchangeableness, are things with which they are little acquainted. In fact, the subject of God’s nature and character makes them uncomfortable, and they do not like to dwell upon it.
The grand secret of knowing God is to draw near to Him through Jesus Christ. Approached from this side, there is nothing that need make us afraid. Viewed from this stand-point, God is the sinner’s friend. God, out of Christ, may well fill us with alarm. How shall we dare to look at so high and holy a Being?-God in Christ is full of mercy, grace, and peace. His law’s demands are satisfied. His holiness need not make us afraid. Christ in one word, is the way and door, by which we must ever draw nigh to the Father. If we know Christ, we shall know the Father. It is His own word,-“No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” (Joh 14:6.) Ignorance of Christ is the root of ignorance of God. Wrong at the starting-point, the whole sum of a man’s religion is full of error.
And now, where are we ourselves? Do we know? Many are living and dying in a kind of fog.-Where are we going? Can we give a satisfactory answer? Hundreds go out of existence in utter uncertainty.-Let us leave nothing uncertain that concerns our everlasting salvation. Christ, the light of the world, is for us as well as for others, if we humbly follow Him, cast our souls on Him, and become His disciples.-Let us not, like thousands, waste our lives in doubting, and arguing, and reasoning, but simply follow.-The child that says, “I will not learn anything till I know something,” will never learn at all. The man that says, “I must first understand everything before I become a Christian,” will die in his sins. Let us begin by “following,” and then we shall find light.
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Notes-
Before beginning the notes on this section, I will ask any one who doubts the genuineness of the first eleven verses of the chapter, to consider how very awkwardly Joh 8:12 would come in if it immediately followed Joh 7:52.-The omission of the disputed passage about the woman taken in adultery, however necessary some may think it, undoubtedly makes a breach in the connection which cannot be reasonably explained.-Omit the passage, and our Lord appears to break in upon the angry council of the Pharisees, foiled in their attempt to take Him, and vexed with Nicodemus for pleading for Him. This is surely very improbable, to say the least.-Retain the disputed passage, on the other hand, and the whole connection seems plain. A night has passed away. A sunrise is over the whole party assembled in the temple court. And our Lord begins again to teach by proclaiming a beautiful truth, appropriate to the occasion:-“I am the light of the world.”
v12.-[Then spake Jesus again…them.] The expression “spake again” exactly fits in with the preceding narrative. It carries us back to Joh 8:2, where we read that our Lord was sitting in the temple and teaching the people, when the woman taken in adultery was brought before Him. This naturally interrupted and broke off His teaching for a time. But when the case was settled, and both accuser and accused had gone away, He resumed His teaching. Then the expression comes in most naturally, “He spake again.” Once admit that the narrative of the woman is not genuine and must be left out, and there is really nothing with which to connect the words before us. We are obliged to look back as far as Joh 7:37 of the last chapter.
The same remark applies to the word “them.” The natural application of it is to “the people” whom our Lord was teaching, in Joh 8:2, when the Scribes and Pharisees interrupted Him. Leave out the narrative of the woman, and there is nothing to which the word “them” can be referred, except the angry council of the Pharisees at the end of the seventh chapter.
[I am…light…world.] In this glorious expression, our Lord, we cannot doubt, declares Himself to be the promised Messiah or Saviour, of whom the prophets had spoken. The Jews would remember the words, “I will give Thee for a light of the Gentiles.” (Isa 42:6, Isa 49:6.) So also Simeon had said, He would be “a light to lighten the Gentiles.” (Luk 2:32.) Why He used this figure, and what He had in His mind in choosing it, is a point on which commentators do not agree. That He referred to something before His eyes is highly probable, and in keeping with His usual mode of teaching.
(1) Some think, as Aretius, Musculus, Ecolampadius, Bullinger, and Bp. Andrews, that He referred to the sun, then rising while He spoke. What the sun was to the earth, that He came to be to mankind.
(2) Some think, as Stier, Olshausen, Besser, D. Brown, and Alford, that He referred to the great golden lamps which used to be kept burning in the temple courts. He was the true light, able to enlighten men’s hearts and minds. They were nothing but ornaments, or at most, emblems.
(3) Some think, as Cyril and Lamp, that He referred to the pillar of cloud and fire which gave light to the Israelites, and guided them through the wilderness. He was the true guide to heaven, through the wilderness of this world.
The first of these three views seems to me most probable, and most in harmony with the context.
Rupertus remarks, that two grand declarations of Christ followed each other on two successive days at Jerusalem. On the last day of the feast He said,-“If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink.” (Joh 7:37.) The very next day He said,-“I am the light of the world.”
[He that followeth Me.] This means “following” as a disciple, servant, traveler, soldier, or sheep. What the teacher is to the scholar, the master to the servant, the guide to the traveler, the general to the soldier, the shepherd to the sheep, that is Christ to true Christians. “Following” is the same as “believing.” See Mat 16:24; Mat 19:21; Joh 10:27; Joh 12:26. “Following” here, we must always remember, does not mean copying and imitating, but trusting, putting faith in another.
Musculus and Henry observe, that it is of no use that Christ is the light of the world if we do not follow Him. “Following” is the point on which all turns. It is not enough to gaze upon and admire the light. We must “follow” it.
[Shall not walk in darkness.] The expression “darkness” in the New Testament sometimes denotes sin, as 1Jn 1:6, and sometimes ignorance and unbelief, as 1Th 5:4. Some have thought that our Lord referred to the woman taken in adultery, and to such deeds of moral darkness as she had been guilty of. The meaning would then be,-“He that follows Me and becomes my disciple, shall be delivered from the power of darkness, and shall no longer commit such sins as you have just heard of.”-Others, on the contrary, think that our Lord only referred to the intellectual darkness and ignorance of man’s mind, which He had come to illuminate. The meaning would then be,-“He that follows Me as my disciple shall no longer live in ignorance and darkness about his soul.” I decidedly prefer this second view. The promise seems to me to have a special reference to the ignorance in which the Jews were, about everything concerning Christ, as shown in the preceding chapter.
[Shall have…light of life.] This expression means,-“He shall possess living light. He shall have spiritual light, as much superior to the light of any lamp or even of the sun, as the living water offered to the Samaritan woman was superior to the water of Jacob’s well.” The spiritual light that Christ gives is independent of time or place,-is not affected by sickness or death,-burns on forever, and cannot be quenched. He that has it shall feel light within his mind, heart, and conscience,-shall see light before him on the grave, death, and the world to come,-shall have light shining round him, guiding him in his journey through life, and shall reflect light by his conduct, ways and conversation.
Chrysostom thinks that one purpose of this promise was to draw on and encourage Nicodemus, and to remind him of the former saying Jesus had used about light and darkness, Joh 3:20-21.
Augustine remarks on this verse, “What is our duty to do, Christ puts in the present tense: what He promised to them that do it, He hath denoted by a future time. He that followeth now, shall have hereafter,-followeth now by faith, shall have hereafter by sight. When by sight? When we shall have come to the vision yonder, when this night of ours shall have passed away.” I should be sorry, however, to confine the promise to so limited an interpretation as this, and though I have no doubt it will only be completely fulfilled at the second advent, I still think that it is partially and spiritually fulfilled now to every believer.
Calvin remarks, that in this verse “Benefit is offered not only to one person or another, but to the whole world. By this universal statement Christ intended to remove the distinction, not only between Jews and Gentiles, but between learned and ignorant, between persons of distinction and common people.” He also says,-“In the latter clause of the verse, the perpetuity of light is stated in express terms. We ought not to fear therefore lest it leave us in the middle of our journey.”
Brentius remarks, that if a man could continually “follow” the sun, he would always be in broad daylight in every part of the globe. So it is with Christ and believers. Always following Him, they will always have light.
In this most precious and interesting verse there are several things which deserve our special attention.
(a) We should note the great assumed truth which lies underneath the whole verse. That truth is the fall of man. The world is in a state of moral and spiritual darkness. Naturally men know nothing rightly of themselves, God, holiness, or heaven. They need light.
(b) We should note the full and bold manner of our Lord’s declaration. He proclaims Himself to be “the light of the world.” None could truly say this but One, who knew that He was very God. No Prophet or Apostle ever said it.
(c) We should note how our Lord says that He is “the light of the world.” He is not for a few only, but for all mankind. Like the sun He shines for the benefit of all, though all may not value or use His light.
(d) We should note the man to whom the promise is made. It is to him “that followeth Me.” To follow a leader if we are blind, or ignorant, or in the dark, or out of the way, requires trust and confidence. This is just what the Lord Jesus requires of sinners who feel their sins and want to be saved. Let them commit themselves to Christ, and He will lead them safe to heaven. If a man can do nothing for himself, he cannot do better than trust another and follow Him.
(e) We should note the thing promised to him who follows Jesus,-viz., deliverance from darkness and possession of light. This is precisely what Christianity brings to a believer. He feels, and sees, and has a sense of possessing something he had not before. God “shines into his heart and gives light.” He is “called out of darkness into marvelous light.” (2Co 4:4-6; 1Pe 2:9.)
Melancthon thinks that this verse is only a brief summary of what our Lord said, and must be regarded as the text or keynote of a long discourse.
Bullinger remarks how useful it is to commit to memory and store up great sentences and maxims of Christ, like this verse.
v13.-[The Pharisees…said unto Him.] These “Pharisees” were probably some of the multitude who had come together to hear our Lord’s teaching, and not those who brought the woman taken in adultery to Him. The Pharisees were a powerful and widely-spread sect, and members of their body would be found in every crowd of hearers, ready to raise objections and find fault with anything our Lord said, wherever they thought there was an opportunity.
[Thou bearest record of thyself.] This would be more literally rendered, “thou dost witness about thyself.”
[Thy record is not true.] This means,-“thy testimony is not trustworthy, and deserving of attention.” The Pharisees evidently could not mean “thy testimony is false.” They only meant that it was an acknowledged principle among men that a man’s testimony of his own character is comparatively worthless. Our Lord Himself had admitted this on a former occasion, when He said before the council,-“If I bear witness of myself my witness is not true.” (Joh 5:31.) Solomon had said,-“Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” (Pro 27:2.)
v14.-[Jesus answered…though I bear record…true.] Our Lord meant by these words that even if He did testify of Himself, and make assertions about His own office and mission, His testimony ought not to be despised and disregarded as not trustworthy. Whether His enemies would hear it or not, what He said deserved credit, and was worthy of all acceptation.-“The testimony that I bear is not the testimony of a common witness, but of one who is thoroughly to be depended on.”
[For I know whence I came, etc.] Our Lord here gives a solemn and weighty reason why His testimony to Himself ought to be reverently received by the Jews, and not refused. That reason was His divine nature and mission. He came to them and stood before them not as a common prophet and an every-day witness, but as one who knew the mysterious truth that He was the Divine Messiah, that should come into the world.-“I know whence I came:-I came forth from the Father, to be His Messenger to a lost world. I know whither I go:-I am about to return to my Father when I have finished His work, and to sit down at His right hand after my ascension. Knowing all this, I have a right to say that my testimony is trustworthy. You, on the other hand, are utterly ignorant about Me. You neither know nor believe my Divine origin nor mission. Justly, therefore, I may say that it matters little whether you think my testimony deserving of credit or not. Your eyes are blinded, and your opinion is worthless.”
Chrysostom observes that our Lord “might have said, I am God. But He ever mingleth lowly words with sublime, and even these He veileth.”
Bucer, Chemnitius, and Quesnel observe that our Lord’s argument is like that of an ambassador from a king, who says,-“I know my commission and Who sent Me, and therefore I claim attention to my message.”
Webster paraphrases the sentence: “I speak in the full consciousness of my previous and future existence in the glory of the Father; and I therefore feel and assert my right to be believed on my own testimony. If you knew whence I came and whither I go, you would not want any other witness than myself. And this you might know if you were spiritual; but you are carnal, and judge after the flesh.”
v15.-[Ye judge after the flesh.] The meaning of this sentence seems to be,-“You judge and decide everything on fleshly and worldly principles, according to the outward appearance. You estimate Me and my mission according to what you see with the eye. You presume to despise Me and set light by Me, because there is no outward grandeur and dignity about Me. Judging everything by such a false standard, you see no beauty in Me and my ministry. You have already set Me down in your own minds as an impostor, and worthy to die. Your minds are full of carnal prejudices, and hence my testimony seems worthless to you.”
Calvin thinks that “flesh” is here used in opposition to “spirit,” and that the meaning is, “You judge on carnal wicked principles;” and not, “You judge after the outward appearance.” Most commentators think that the expression refers to our Lord’s humble appearance.
[I judge no man.] In these words our Lord puts in strong contrast the difference between Himself and His enemies. “Unlike you, I condemn and pass judgment on no man, even on the worst of sinners. It is not my present business and office, though it will be one day. I did not come into the world to condemn, but to save.” (Joh 3:17.) It is useless, however, to deny that the connection between the beginning and the end of the verse is not clear. It seems to turn entirely on the twice-repeated word “judge,” and the word appears to be used in two different senses.
Some have thought that our Lord refers to the case of the woman taken in adultery, and contrasts His own refusal to be a judge in her case, with the malicious readiness of the Pharisees to judge Him and condemn Him even when innocent. “I refuse to condemn even a guilty sinner. You on the contrary are ready to condemn Me, in whom you can find no fault, on carnal and worldly principles.”
Some, as Bullinger, Jansenius, Trapp, Stier, Gill, Pearce, and Barnes have thought that the sentence before us means,-“I judge no man according to the flesh, as you do.” But this view does not seem to harmonize with the following verse.
Bishop Hall paraphrases the verse thus: “Ye presume to judge according to your own carnal affections, and follow your outward senses in the judgment ye pass on Me. In the meantime ye will not endure Me, who do not challenge or reconcile that power which I might in judging you.”
v16.-[And yet if I judge, my judgment, etc.] This verse seems to come in parenthetically. It appears intended to remind the Jews, that if our Lord did not assume the office of a judge now, it was not because He was not qualified. The sense is as follows: “Do not however suppose, because I say that I judge no man, that I am not qualified to judge. On the contrary, if I do pass judgment on any person’s actions or opinions, my judgment is perfectly correct and trustworthy. For I am not alone. There is an inseparable union between Me, and the Father that sent Me. When I judge, it is not I alone, but the Father with Me that judges. Hence, therefore, my judgment is and must be trustworthy.” The reader should compare Joh 5:19, and Joh 5:30. The doctrine is the same. That mighty truth,-the inseparable union of the Father and the Son,-is the only key that unlocks the deep expression before us. Our Lord’s frequent reference to that truth, in John’s Gospel, should be carefully noted.
v17.-[It is also written, etc.] Our Lord, in this verse, reminds the Jews of an admitted principle of the law of Moses,-that the testimony of two witnesses deserved credit. (Deu 17:6; Deu 19:15.) “You will admit that the testimony of two witnesses deserves credit at any rate, although one witness alone may prove nothing. Now, admitting this, hear what testimony I can adduce to the divine character of my mission.”
Let it be noted, that where our Lord says “in YOUR law,” He did not mean that He was above the law and did not recognize its authority. He only intended, by laying stress on the word “your,” to remind the Jews that it was their own honored law of Moses, to which they were continually professing to refer, that laid down the great principle to which He was about to direct their attention. “It is written in the law that YOU speak of so much, and that you so often quote.”
It admits of consideration whether our Lord did not mean to use the expression “of two men” emphatically. It may be that He would put in strong contrast the testimony of two mere men, with the testimony of Himself and His Father in heaven. It is like the expression, “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” (1Jn 5:9.) At any rate the word rendered “men” is emphatic in the Greek.
v18.-[I am one, etc.] The connection and sense of this verse are as follows: “Admitting that the testimony of two witnesses is trustworthy, I bid you observe that there are two witnesses to my Divine nature and mission. I myself, the Eternal Son, am one of these witnesses: I am ever testifying concerning myself. The Father that sent Me into the world is the other witness: He is ever testifying concerning Me. He has testified by the mouth of the Prophets in the Old Testament. He is testifying now by the miraculous works which He is continually doing by my hands.” The reader should compare Joh 5:31-39.
There is undeniably something very remarkable about this verse. It seems a singular condescension on our Lord’s part to use the train of argument that it contains. The true solution probably lies in the very high dignity of the two witnesses, whom He places together before the Jews. The Greek words beginning the verse are peculiar, and can hardly be rendered in English. They will almost bear to be translated,-“I, the great I am, am the person witnessing about myself; and the Father,” etc.
Chrysostom and Theophylact both remark that our Lord here claims equality of honor with the Father, by putting His testimony and the Father’s side by side.
Poole remarks: “Our Savior must not be understood here to distinguish himself from His Father in respect of His Divine being, for so He and His Father are one; but in respect of His office, as He was sent, and His Father was He who sent Him.”
v19.-[Then said they…Where is thy Father?] This question of the Jews was probably not asked in a tone of serious inquiry, or from real desire to know. It was more likely sneering and sarcastic.
Calvin observes, “By these words they meant that they did not so highly value Christ’s Father as to ascribe anything to the Son on His account.”
Hengstenberg bids us observe that they did not ask, “Who is thy Father?” but “Where is thy Father?” It sounds as if they looked round in contempt, as if scornfully expecting an earthly father to stand forth and testify to Christ.
[Jesus answered, Ye neither know Me…Father.] Our Lord here tells His enemies that they were ignorant both of Himself and of His Father in heaven. With all their pride of knowledge and fancied high attainments they knew nothing rightly either of the Father or the Son. The expression certainly favors the idea that the expression “Ye know me,” (Joh 7:28,) must be taken as a slight sarcasm.
Let it be noted that great familiarity with the letter of Scripture is perfectly compatible with gross spiritual darkness. The Pharisees knew the Old Testament prophecies well; but they neither knew God nor Christ.
[If ye had known Me…my Father also.] These words teach plainly that ignorance of Christ and ignorance of God are inseparably connected. The man who thinks he knows anything rightly of God while he is ignorant of Christ is completely deceived. The God whom he thinks he knows is not the God of the Bible, but a God of his own fancy’s invention. At any rate he can have a most imperfect conception of God, and can have but little idea of His perfect holiness, justice, and purity. The words teach also that Christ is the way by which we must come to the knowledge of God. In Him, through Him, and by Him, we may come boldly into the Father’s presence, and behold His high attributes without fear.
He that would have saving, soul-satisfying religion, and become a friend and servant of God, must begin with Christ. Knowing Him as his Savior and Advocate, he will find it easy and pleasant to know God the Father. Those that reject Christ, like the Jews, will live and die in ignorance of God, however learned and clever they may be. But the poorest, humblest man, that lays hold on Christ and begins with Him, shall find out enough about God to make him happy for ever. In the matter of becoming acquainted with God it is the first step to know Jesus Christ, the Mediator, and to believe on Him.
Augustine and others think that the thought here is the same as that in the words spoken to Philip, when in reply to Philip’s question, “Lord, show us the Father,” Jesus said, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” (Joh 14:8-9.) I think this is at least doubtful. The thing that Philip needed to know was the precise relation between the Father and the Son. The thing that the Jews needed was a right knowledge of God altogether.
v20.-[These words spake Jesus…treasury…temple.] This sentence seems meant to mark a pause or break in the discourse, and to show also how publicly and openly our Lord proclaimed His Messiahship. It was in a well known part of the temple called the treasury that He declared Himself to be “the light of the world,” and defended His testimony.
Calvin thinks that “the treasury was a part of the temple where the sacred offerings were laid up, and therefore a much frequented place.”
[No man laid hands on Him.] The remark made on a former occasion applies here. (Joh 7:30.) A divine restraint was laid on our Lord’s enemies. They felt unable to lift a finger against Him. They had the will to hurt, but not the power.
[His hour was not yet come.] The same deep thought that we remarked in Joh 7:30, comes up here again. There was a certain fixed time during which our Lord’s ministry was to last, and till that time was expired His enemies could not touch Him. When the time had expired, our Lord said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luk 22:53.)
The expression should be carefully noticed, and remembered by all true Christians. It teaches that the wicked can do no harm to Christ and His members until God gives them permission. Not a hair of a believer’s head can be touched until God in His sovereign wisdom allows it.-It teaches that all times are in God’s hand. There is an allotted “hour” both for doing and for suffering. Till the hour comes for dying no Christian will die. When the hour comes nothing can prevent his death. These are comfortable truths, and deserve attention. Christ’s members are safe and immortal till their work is done. When they suffer it is because God wills it and sees it good.
Quesnel remarks: “A man enjoys the greatest peace of mind when he has once settled himself in a firm and steadfast belief of God’s providence, and an absolute dependence upon His design and will.”
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Joh 8:12. Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. The last thirteen verses (chap. Joh 7:49-52) have been occupied with an account of the impression made by our Lords words of promise (chap. Joh 7:37-38). This verse really follows chap. Joh 7:38, containing a second manifestation of Jesus, in a form and manner still connected with the feast which had just ended. As the pouring out of the water had furnished occasion for the promise of the living water, so the imagery of this verse was probably suggested by the illumination of the temple-courts on the evenings of the festival. This illumination proceeded from four great candelabra erected in the court of the women, and of its brilliancy the Rabbis speak in the highest strains. It formed indeed so marked a feature of the weeks rejoicings, that no one can be surprised to find a reference to it in our Lords words. Like the water poured on the altar, the light may well have had a twofold symbolism, commemorating the mighty guidance of Israel by the pillar of fire, and also prefiguring the light which was to spring up in the times of Messiah (Isa 9:2; Isa 13:6, etc.). What the pillar of fire had been to Israel in the wilderness, that would Messiah be to His people in the latter days.
He that followeth me shall in no wise walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. The words he that followeth me are in all probability closely connected with the figure of the first clause of the verse. Around is the darkness of night: only where the pillar of fire moves light shines on all that follow its course,on all, not on Israel only, for Jesus is the light of the world. The language of both promises is free from every limitation save that which is expressed in coming to Him, believing in Him (chap. Joh 7:37-38), and following Him. The special condition mentioned in this verse (when we pass from the associations of the original figure to the practical application of the words) brings out the idea of discipleship and imitation. This includes coming and believing. No true disciple shall walk in the darkness, but shall have as his own inward possession (comp. chap. Joh 7:38) the light of life,the light which life gives. Living in Christ, he shall have the light of Christ (see chap. Joh 1:4). Darkness bears with it the ideas of ignorance, danger, and sin: light implies knowledge, guidance, safety, and holy purity (chap. Joh 12:35; 1Th 5:4; 1Jn 1:5, etc.).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our blessed Saviour having baffled the design which the Pharisees had upon him, and showed a spirit of divine wisdom, in delivering himself from that snare which they had laid for him, he returns to instruct the people in the treasury.
And here note, 1. He instructs them in the nature of his office, which was to enlighten all men with the knowledge of divine truth; so that they should not walk in darkness, either of sin or error, but be led to eternal life.
Learn hence, That the great end and errand of Christ’s coming into the world, was to give light unto poor souls that sat in darkness.
Observe, 2. The exception which the Pharisees made against our Saviour’s testimony of himself: Thou barest record of thyself: thy record is not true. Indeed, such is the corrupt nature of man, which is prone to seek itself, and hunt after vain-glory, that it may render a person’s testimony of himself suspected; but Christ being true God, that cannot lie, and coming out of the bosom of his Father, as his ambassador, his testimony of himself is above all exception, and ought to be credited without further proof.
Observe, 3. How Christ challenges his enemies the Pharisees for judging carnally of him, and according to the meanness of his outward appearance, whereas he judged no man; that is, 1st, No man, as they judged, according to outward show.
Or, 2ndly, I judge no man; that is, at present. My proper work is not to condemn any, but to teach all; and my present office is that of a prophet, not of a judge. My coming now is to instruct and save the world; my next coming will be to judge and condemn it.
Observe, 4. Christ declares that he is not alone in the testimony given of himself, but that the Father did also testify and bear witness of him, and that according to their own law, the testimony of two was always accounted and esteemed valid. “Now, says Christ, if so much weihgt be to be laid upon the testimony of two men, how much more forcible should the testimony of the Father, and of him whom the Father hath sent, be, to satisfy you, that what I say of myself is true?”
Learn hence, 1. That the Father and the Son, though one in essence and operation, yet are distinct persons.
2. That these distinct persons did bear joint witness concerning Christ. God the Father testified of him by a voice from heaven; and Christ, as God, bare witness of himself as man, and as Mediator. Surely out of the mouth of two such witnesses, the truth of Christ’s divine mission is sufficiently established.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Joh 8:12. Then spake Jesus again Addressing himself to his disciples and the multitude; I am the light of the world It was with singular propriety that our Lord spake thus, after the wonderful display which he had just made, by the above-mentioned remarkable decision, of his wisdom and knowledge, as well as of his power and goodness. He probably alluded to Mal 4:2, where the Messiah is foretold under the name of the Sun of righteousness; or to the bright shining of the sun that morning. As if he had said, I am the spiritual Sun, that dispels the darkness of ignorance and superstition, with which the minds of men are overcast; for by my doctrine and example I show clearly everywhere the will of God and the way of salvation: and I never leave those in darkness who walk by my light, as the sun leaves travellers when he sets, and occasions the darkness of the night. For he that followeth me That adheres to, and continues to learn of me; that imitates my example, and governs himself by the dictates of my word and Spirit; shall not walk in darkness In ignorance or error, sin or misery; but shall have the light of life He that closely, humbly, steadily follows me, shall have the divine light continually shining upon him, diffusing over his soul knowledge, holiness, and joy, till he is guided by it to life everlasting.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

2. Jesus, the light of the world: 8:12-20.
We find in this section: 1. A testimony (Joh 8:12); 2. An objection (Joh 8:13); 3. The answer of Jesus (Joh 8:14-19); 4. An historical notice (Joh 8:20). Joh 8:12. Jesus, taking up the discourse again, said to them: I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.
The , again, can the less be a simple transition to a new discourse since it is placed at the beginning with a certain emphasis and is accompanied by , therefore, which would, in that case, be a useless repetition (in answer to Weiss). It announces therefore a new testimony, analogous to that of Joh 7:37 ff., as if John meant to say: Jesus, after having thus applied to Himself a first symbol, takes up the discourse again for the purpose of applying to Himself a second. Was this new discourse given on the same day as the preceding one? According to Weiss, Joh 8:20 proves the contrary, because it indicates a new situation. But was Jesus obliged to remain during the whole day as if fastened to one spot? The term , He spoke, indicates a less solemn attitude and tone than the expressions He opened His mouth and cried, in Joh 7:37. This is a continuation, a complement of the preceding discourse; this circumstance speaks in favor of the identity of the day. In any case, it must be said withLuthardt: The historic thread which concerned the author was quite other than that of days and hours.
For what reason does Jesus designate Himself as the light of the world? Hug and others have thought that He alluded to the brightness which was shed forth by the two candelabras which were lighted at evening during the feast, in the court of the women, and the light of which, according to the Rabbis, shone over the whole of Jerusalem. This ceremony was very noisy; a sacred dance, in which grave men participated, took place around the candelabras; and it may be that Jesus made allusion to this solemn march in the following words: He that followeth me shall not walk… The singing and the music of instruments filled the temple; the festivity was prolonged even until daylight. The celebrated Maimonides affirms that this ceremony occurred on every evening of the feast, which would accord with the explanation of Hug. But the Talmud speaks of it only on occasion of the first evening. For this reasonVitringa and other commentators have thought that they must connect this saying rather with some prophetic passage which may have been read in the temple during that day; Isa 42:6 : I will cause thee to be the covenant of the people, and the light of the nations. Comp. also Isa 49:6; Isa 49:9.
But it is not certain that there were regular readings from the Old Testament in the temple; even the existence of a synagogue in the sacred inclosure is doubtful (see Lucke). Jarchi speaks only of a synagogue situated near the court, on the temple-mountain. And, above all, the saying of Jesus does not contain any sufficiently precise allusion to these prophetic passages. The commentators who hold that there is an allusion to the candelabras of the temple seem to me to commit the same mistake as in the explanation of the previous symbol (Joh 7:37 ff.). Thinking only of the ceremony which was celebrated in the time of Jesus, they forget what is much more important, the miraculous and beneficent fact of which this ceremony was the memorial, and which was for Jesus certainly the essential point. The feast of Tabernacles, which at this time assembled the people together, was designed to recall to their minds the blessings of God during the sojourn in the wilderness. Hence, the tents of leafy branches under which they lived and which gave the name to the feast. Now among these blessings, the two greatest had been the water from the rock and the pillar of fire in the cloud. Jesus has just applied to Himself the first of these types. He now applies to Himself the other (hence the , Joh 8:12).
It is thus that Jesus celebrates the feast of Tabernacles, translating it, in some sort, into His own person. Only Israel is henceforth the whole world, the , as in chap. 6. Jesus was the manna, not for the people only, but for humanity, and in Joh 7:37, the living water for whosoever is athirst. We have already explained in Joh 1:4 and Joh 3:19 the termlight; it is the perfect revelation of moral good, that is to say, of God, the living good. The expression: He that followeth me shall not walk …, alludes, not to the torch-dance in the court, but to the pilgrimage of Israel in the desert. The people arose, advanced, stopped, encamped, at the signal which came from the luminous cloud; with such a guide, there was no more darkness for the travelers. Thus are the obscure things of existence, the night which the selfish will and passions spread over his life, dissipated for man from the moment when he receives Jesus into his heart. At every step, he begins by looking to Him, and he finds in Him the revelation of holiness, the only real truth. The light of life does not signify that which consists in life or which produces it, but that which springs from it (Joh 1:4); a light which radiates from the life in communion with God and which directs the exercise of the understanding. The future , in the Received Text, is probably a correction in accordance with the following . The conjunctive aorist must be read ; comp. Joh 10:5. The use of the form is founded upon the natural distrust of the heart: It is not to be feared, whatever may be its own darkness, that it will be compelled still to walk in the night. : it will possess internally.
There is a profound connection between this testimony and that which precedes. In Joh 7:37, Jesus presented Himself as the life ( ); in Joh 8:12, He offers Himself as the light which emanates from the life. As to the response which man should make to these divine gifts, in the first passage it is the receptivity of faith (shall drink); in the second, the activity of practical obedience (shall walk).
Vv. 12-20.
1. If the passage containing the story of the woman taken in adultery is omitted, Joh 8:12 follows soon after Joh 7:37, and contains what we may believe to have been the second point of the discourse, which would have been developed in both of its parts more fully, had it not been for the interruptions from the multitude and the Pharisees. The question by which Jesus is interrupted in these verses turns the discourse into a new line, and leads Him to speak of the testimony on which He rests. As to the consistency of what He says in Joh 8:14 with what is said in Joh 8:31, see Note XXIX., Vol. I., p. 557. This fourteenth verse declares that, in the present case, although He testifies of Himself, His testimony is true, because He is the only man who has the knowledge on which reliable testimony can be founded. In connection with this statement. we must explain Joh 8:17-18.
In one sense, it seems evident that Jesus does not comply here with the demand of the Mosaic law to which He appeals. There is but one witness besides Himself. But the case is one which allows no more. The only two who can bear testimony are the two who knowand these two, by the necessity of the case, are the one sending and the one sent, for no man has seen God at any time, Joh 1:18. The only-begotten Son, therefore, having come in the flesh, must not only be the revealer of God, but He must also be the human witness of Himself. Indeed, the witness of God on His behalf must, in some measure, come through Him. While there is not, therefore, a fulfilment of the Mosaic requirement, in the letter of it, there is a full satisfaction of its spirit.
2. The expression, You judge according to the flesh, Joh 8:15, seems to be immediately connected with the words of Joh 8:14. As they are wholly unqualified for judging, through want of knowledge, they judge according to the fleshly standard. They look upon Him as a mere man like themselves. They judge apart from any connection with God. He, on the other hand, in case He passes judgment, does so in union with the Father, and hence His judgment answers to the true condition of things and the true idea. The peculiar form of the sentence: I judge no one, and if I judge…I and the one who sent me, favors the view that there is a reference to a final and decisive judgment which is not made independently of God. In view of this fact, Jesus does not make it His work here on earth to judge any one, and if, on any occasion and in any subordinate sense, He does so, He still does it in accordance with the Father’s mind. It seems evident that the last clause of Joh 8:15 and Joh 8:16 are parenthetical in their character, and that the thought moves on from Joh 8:14-15 a, as above explained, to Joh 8:17 f.
3. The question of the Pharisees in Joh 8:19 is a challenge to produce the evidence of the Father, of whom He speaks. We can scarcely suppose that, after all which Jesus had said in Jerusalem, these Jewish leaders could have doubted whom He meant by His Father, or could have intended to imply a doubt. But they demanded the production of the evidence from the Father in some conspicuous way which might answer the demands of the law. They said, in substance, You cannot give us the proof from God. The second witness thus fails you. Where is your Father? This seems to be the force of the interrogative particle . They did not say , for this was not the question which was in their minds.
4. In His answer, Jesus presents before them the incapacity which they have, in their present moral state, to appreciate the testimony of God, which comes with its full force only to the soul which has susceptibility to the truth. To know God, they must know Him who reveals Him. Thus we have a new declaration and testimony to the truth for which the Gospel was written.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

LXXX.
MESSIANIC CLAIMS MET BY ATTEMPT TO STONE JESUS.
(Jerusalem. October, A. D. 29.)
dJOHN VIII. 12-59.
d12 Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. [The metaphor of light was common, and signified knowledge and life; darkness is opposed to light, being the symbol of ignorance and death.] 13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true. [They perhaps recalled the words of Jesus at Joh 5:31.] 14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye know not whence I come, and whither I go. [No man can bear testimony of his own nature, for he knows neither its origin nor its end. The Jews could not judge as to Christ’s nature–that he was the source of light and life, because of their ignorance as to him. But Jesus, having complete knowledge as to his eternal existence, was qualified to testify. These are truths about Deity to which Deity alone can testify, and as to the truth of which [453] Deity alone is fully competent to judge.] 15 Ye judge after the flesh [i. e., carnally, superficially, according to appearances. Carnal tests are not suited to spiritual truth]; I judge no man. 16 Yea and if I judge, my judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. [He contrasts his spirit with theirs. They came upon him eager to condemn, but he had come not to condemn, but to save ( Joh 3:17). As an exception to his general course he might at intervals condemn a sinner; but should be do so the sentence would be just, for it would be the judgment of the Father, and hence devoid of any personal resentment or other biasing, perverting influence; the Father being lifted above and removed from the heats of argument in which the Son engaged.] 17 Yea and in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true. 18 I am he that beareth witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. [Jesus here returns to the point raised in Joh 8:13. He cites the law as to two witnesses, found at Deu 19:15, and calls the law their law because they had arrogantly claimed possession of it ( Joh 7:49). The Father had borne witness to the Son by the prophets, including John the Baptist, by his voice at the baptism and transfiguration, by the works wrought by Jesus, and by the very nature of the life manifested by our Lord throughout his entire ministry. If the witness of two men establishes truth, much more the witness of the two divine voices–that of the Father and of the Son.] 19 They said therefore unto him, Where is thy Father? [They evidently thought that Jesus referred to the testimony of some earthly parent (see Joh 8:27), and appeal to him to produce this absent, unseen witness. It was according to their carnal or fleshly judgment to thus think.] Jesus answered, Ye know neither me, nor my Father: if ye knew me, ye would know my Father also. [If they had really known the Son they would have recognized in him the Father, and vice versa– Joh 14:6, Joh 14:8.] 20 These words spake he in the treasury, as [454] he taught in the temple and no man took him; because his hour was not yet come. [The treasury, or place where the chests for offerings were placed, was in the court of the women, the most public part of the Jewish temple. It was near the hall Gazith, where the Sanhedrin met. Though he taught in a place so suited to his arrest, he was not taken. There is evidently a pause after Joh 8:20, but probably not a very long one.] 21 He said therefore Jesus again unto them, I go away, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sin: whither I go, ye cannot come. [See comment on Joh 8:30], If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples [Discipleship is an abiding condition–a life, not an act. The prejudices and preconceived notions of these Jews would prevent them from believing on him]; 32 and ye shall [456] know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. [Freedom consists in conformity to that which, in the realm of intellect, is called truth, and in the realm of morality, law. The only way in which we know truth is to obey it, and God’s truth gives freedom from sin and death.] 33 They answered unto him, We are Abraham’s seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? 34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin. [Jesus here shows that the freedom of which he spoke was spiritual–a relief from the distress mentioned in Joh 8:21, Joh 8:24.] 35 And the bondservant abideth not in the house for ever: the son abideth for ever. 36 If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. [For light on this passage read Gal 4:19-21. Slaves have no permanent relationship to a house, and may be changed at will. God was about to dismiss the Jews as unfaithful slaves ( Luk 20:16-19). Sons, on the contrary, have a permanent relationship to the house, and if a son take one into fraternal adoption, he communicates to such a one his own perpetuity– Rom 8:2.] 37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; yet ye seek to kill me, because my word hath not free course in you. [Outwardly and carnally ye are Abraham’s seed, but ye are not so inwardly and spiritually, for he was the friend of God ( Jam 2:23), but ye are the enemies of God’s Son, even seeking to kill him because ye are so corrupt that his words are distasteful to you, and ye resist them.] 38 I speak the things which I have seen with my Father: and ye also do the things which ye heard from your father. [An introductory statement leading up to Joh 8:44. In the discourse which follows, Jesus discloses two households, two sets of children, and two styles of language or thought–one divine, the other diabolic.] 39 They answered and said unto him, Our father is Abraham. [Seeing that he was distinguishing between his parentage and their parentage, they reassert for themselves [457] the fatherhood of Abraham, leaving him to find a better one if he could.] Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I heard from God: this did not Abraham. [Jesus here asserts that true descent is spiritual–a common nature manifesting itself in a similarity of works. According to this standard, the works of the Jews disproved their claim to be derived from Abraham.] 41 Ye do the works of your father. [This refers back to Joh 8:38, and shows that in distinguishing between his and their parentage Jesus had not allotted them the parentage of Abraham which they so gliby claimed.] They said unto him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. [Perceiving that he spoke of spiritual parentage, and recognizing the fact that he had shattered their claim of spiritual derivation from Abraham, they fell back upon the citadel of Jewish confidence and pride–spiritually they were begotten of God; they were not begotten of an idolatrous but of a godly stock. Fornication is here used as the common symbol for idolatry– Exo 34:15, Exo 34:16, Hos 1:2, Hos 2:4.] 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I came forth and came from God; for neither have I come of myself, but he sent me. [If ye were God’s children, ye would recognize me as of the same household, and love me accordingly, for I am both God-derived and God-sent. Thus their hatred destroyed this claim also.] 43 Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. [By “speech” here Jesus means the outward form or expression of an idea; by “word” he means the inner thought or substance–the idea itself. Throughout this whole dialogue the Jews had failed to understand the verbiage of Jesus, because his thoughts were so utterly unfamiliar that no words could make them plain. Minds filled with ideas of the devil find it difficult to comprehend the thoughts of God, no matter how plainly expressed.] 44 Ye are of your father the devil, [458] and the lusts [wishes, desires] of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. [By your hatred of the truth and your desire to commit murder, which are notable lusts of the devil, you show that you are spiritually derived from him. He was a murderer in the very beginning, for he brought sin into the world, which caused death ( Rom 5:12). He shrinks from the truth as you do, because it meets no response in his heart. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own offspring, for he is a liar and the father of lying.] 45 And because I tell [you] the truth, ye believe me not. [As children of Satan they were used to his flattering speech; hence they rejected the word of Jesus because it was the bitter truth, and convicted them of sin.] 46 Which of you convicteth me of sin? If I say truth, why do ye not believe me? [If you can not convict me of sin, then what I say must be true. Why, then, do you not believe me?] 47 He that is of God heareth the words of God: for this cause ye hear them not, because ye are not of God. [The word “hear” is used in the sense of receive. Children of God love the honesty of God, but children of the devil prefer to be deceived. The saying is akin to Joh 3:20, Joh 3:21.] 48 The Jews [the same mentioned in Joh 8:31] answered and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon? [They present this piece of scorn as though it were a current saying; but it was probably suggested by the distinction in parentage which Jesus had just made. See Joh 8:38. He had shown they were no true sons of either Abraham or God, and they retaliate by calling him a Samaritan, swayed by diabolical influences. Jesus had visited Samaria ( Joh 4:5.), and had just come through Samaria to this feast; these things, coupled with his bitter charges against the sons of Abraham, were sufficient to suggest the slanderous accusation.] 49 Jesus answered, I have not a demon; but [459] I honor my Father, and ye dishonor me. [He did not deny the charge of being a Samaritan, not choosing to recognize the difference which they attached to race– Joh 4:39-42, Luk 10:33, Luk 17:16.] 50 But I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. [I do not mind your abuse, for I do not seek my own glory. My Father seeks it, and judges those in whom he finds it not– Joh 5:23.] 51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my word, he shall never see death. [Jesus here re-states the thought in Joh 8:31, Joh 8:32. “To keep” here means to cherish and obey. Sin is bondage, and its wages is death. The fleshly body of the Christian dies, but the spirit within him does not. His eternal life begins in this world– Joh 5:24.] 52 The Jews said unto him, Now we know that thou hast a demon. [They thus construed his words as a confirmation of their former accusation.] Abraham died, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my word, he shall never taste of death. 53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, who died? and the prophets died: whom makest thou thyself? [The argument is this: God’s word spoken to Abraham and the prophets had not preserved their lives, yet you claim power of life for your words greater than God’s, yet surely you will not claim even to be as great as Abraham. Such wild talk is mere raving. They expected Jesus to disclaim the high position to which he seemed to have exalted himself.] 54 Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing [he prefaces his answer by showing that his words are not spoken in a spirit of self-exaltation, but in accordance to the will of his Father]: it is my Father that glorifieth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God; 55 and ye have not known him: but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be like unto you, a liar [referring back to Joh 8:44]: but I know him, and keep his word. [Jesus here makes plain as sunlight his entire discourse by showing that he has used the word Father where they would have used the word God. [460] There is a distinction, too, between the “known” and the “know” used by Jesus. The first represents knowledge which is acquired. The Jews had not acquired a knowledge of God from their Scriptures. The second, “know,” indicates that which is grasped intuitively, by direct personal cognition.] 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad. [“My day” means the mediatorial manifestation of Messiah. Abraham saw it by faith in the promised seed.] 57 The Jews therefore said unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? [They continue to persist in a literal interpretation, and even wrest the words of Jesus; for Abraham might well have seen him as the seed of promise, without his fleshly eyes ever seeing Abraham. Fifty years indicated the prime of life. It had been two thousand years since the time of Abraham, and Jesus was not yet a mature man as estimated by years.] 58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am. [“I was” would simply have expressed priority, but “I am” marks timeless existence. It draws the contrast between the created and the uncreated, the temporal and the eternal. Compare Exo 3:14.] 59 They took up stones therefore to cast at him. [judging him to be a blasphemer]: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. [He doubtless drew back into the crowd and was concealed by his friends.]
[FFG 453-461]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

THE LIGHT OF LIFE
Joh 8:12-16. Then, Jesus again spoke to them, saying, I am the Light of the world; the one following Me can not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of life. The subjunctive mode is here very consolatory, assuring us that no one following Jesus can walk in darkness, but that all such will have the Light of life. The world is full of deluded people, walking in the false light of spiritual death. Dead bodies frequently, in dense darkness, emit a phosphorescent light, which only serves to bewilder and delude. If you do not have the life of the Holy Ghost in your heart, you are walking in Satans counterfeit light of spiritual death, whose phosphorescent glare can only illumine the way to hell. Cold Churches have no light but this illusory ignis-fatuus of the devil, only serving to delude its carnal votaries, till their feet finally slip and they take the awful plunge. As true light of every species emanates from fire, so without the fire of the Holy Ghost in your heart, you will not have the Light of life. Then the Pharisees said to Him, Thou art witnessing concerning Thyself; Thy testimony is not true. This is a stratagem on the part of the Pharisees to turn His own utterances against Him. Jesus responded, and said to them, If I testify concerning Myself My testimony is true, because I know whence I came and whither I go. You do not know whence I come and whither I go. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. And if I judge, My judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I and He who sent Me. In vain do they seek to turn Him down on His own affirmation, that if one testifies of himself, standing alone, his testimony is not true, as He and His Father testify in perfect harmony, thus confirming the truth and establishing the validity of His testimony.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

John 8. Further Controversy in Jerusalem.
Joh 8:12-20. The Light of the World; Discourse in the Treasury.If we remove the Pericope adulterai (Joh 7:53 to Joh 8:11, clearly a later addition, though a genuine piece of gospel tradition, possibly belonging originally to Lk. and inserted here to illustrate Joh 8:15, I judge no man), this section regains its natural connexion with Joh 8:7, and especially Joh 7:15-24. It is another specimen of the controversies of the period. Joh 8:12 may refer to the custom of lighting at this Feast the great candelabra in the Court of the Women where the treasury was (Joh 8:20), to commemorate the pillar of fire. The Pharisees dispute the credentials of Jesus. His reply is in effect the old prophetic claim to speak for God. He knows whence He is. His claims have the necessary legal witness (Deu 17:6), His own and Gods. They reply that He does not produce His second witness. Their scoffing only reveals their deep ignorance of God. His arrest is not yet attempted. God has more work for Him to do in the capital.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

8:12 {4} Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
(4) The world, which is blind in itself, cannot come to have any light but in Christ alone.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

5. The light of the world discourse 8:12-59
Following Jesus’ claim to be the water of life (Joh 7:37-38), official opposition against Him intensified considerably. The following sections of this Gospel trace this rising opposition. While some believed on Jesus, most of His own people rejected Him (cf. Joh 1:11-12). This section of the text deals with Jesus’ claim to be the Light of the World and the controversy it generated.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Jesus’ testimony about Himself 8:12-20
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The context of the events in this paragraph continues to be the temple during the feast of Tabernacles (Joh 8:20; cf. Joh 7:14). Jesus was speaking to the Jews who had assembled there, some of whom were residents of Jerusalem and others pilgrims from other parts of Palestine and the world. This teaching may have taken place on the day after the feast, which was also a day of great celebration. [Note: Edersheim, 2:164.]
Jesus here made the second of His "I am" claims (cf. Joh 6:35). This time He professed to be the Light of the World (cf. Joh 1:4). The water of life and the bread of life figures represent what satisfies and sustains life. The light of life figure stands for what dispels the darkness of ignorance and death. Jesus was claiming that whoever believes in Him will enjoy the light that comes from God’s presence and produces life.
The light metaphor was ancient in Israel’s history. The Jews associated light with God’s presence. He had created light on the first day and lights on the fourth day of Creation (Gen 1:3; Gen 1:14-19). He had revealed Himself in a flame to Moses on the Midianite desert (Exodus 3). He had also protectively led the Israelites through the wilderness in a cloudy pillar of fire (Exo 13:21-22; Exo 14:19-25; Num 9:15-23), and He had appeared to them on Mt. Sinai in fire. These are only a few instances in which God had associated His presence with fire and light (cf. Psa 27:1; Psa 36:9; Psa 119:105; Pro 6:23). Symbolically the light represented various characteristics of God, particularly His revelation, holiness, and salvation (cf. Eze 1:4; Eze 1:13; Eze 1:26-28; Hab 3:3-4).
Isaiah had predicted that the Servant of the Lord would be a light to the nations (Isa 49:6). God Himself would illuminate His people in the messianic age (Isa 60:19-22; Zec 14:5-7; cf. Rev 21:23-24). However in Jesus’ day the light of righteousness was in mortal conflict with the darkness of sin (Joh 1:4; Joh 1:9; Joh 3:19-21). Many religions contain the light and darkness symbolism, but John presented Jesus as the true Light. It is particularly the aspect of light as revelation that constituted the focus of the controversy surrounding Jesus’ claim. The Jews considered the Old Testament and their traditions as authoritative revelation, the true light. They also spoke of Torah, the temple, Adam, and Johanan ben Zakkai, one of their leaders, as the light of the world. [Note: See Beasley-Murray, p. 128.] Now Jesus challenged that authority by claiming to be the true (final and full, cf. Joh 1:9) revelation from God (cf. Heb 1:1-3). He invited the Jews to "follow" Him as the true light (cf. the pillar of fire in the wilderness).
"More important to the immediate context, the theme of light is not unrelated to the question of truthfulness and witness in the following verses, for light cannot but attest to its own presence; otherwise put, it bears witness to itself, and its source is entirely supportive of that witness." [Note: Carson, The Gospel . . ., pp. 338-39.]
Part of the feast of Tabernacles was the lamp-lighting ceremony. Every evening during the festival a priest would light the three huge torches on the menorah (lampstand) in the women’s court (or treasury) of the temple. These lights would illuminate the entire temple compound throughout the night. People would bring smaller torches into the temple precincts, light them, and sing and dance sometimes all through the night. It was one of the happiest occasions of the entire Jewish year. [Note: Shepard, p. 352; Edersheim, 2:165-66.]
"Now the brilliant candelabra were lit only at the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles; there is dispute as to the number of nights on which the illumination took place, but none as to the fact that at the close of the feast it did not. In the absence of the lights Jesus’ claim to the Light would stand out the more impressively." [Note: Morris, p. 388.]
By the way, in chapters 6, 7, and 8 Jesus claimed that He fulfilled wilderness types of God: manna, water, and light.
". . . the Pharisees could not have mistaken the Messianic meaning in the words of Jesus, in their reference to the past festivity: ’I am the Light of the world.’" [Note: Edersheim, 2:166.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 18
CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Thou bearest witness of Thyself; Thy witness is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye know not whence I come, or whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. Yea and if I judge, My judgement is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me. Yea and in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true. I am He that beareth witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me. They said therefore unto Him Where is Thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye know neither Me, nor My Father: if ye knew Me, ye would know My Father also.- Joh 8:12-19.
At the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus, who knew that He was sent to confer upon men the realities which had been symbolised and promised in all religious rites, proclaimed that He was the fountain of life (Joh 7:37); and thus responded to the unuttered prayer of those who looked with some weariness at the old routine of drawing water in remembrance of the provision God had made for their fathers in the desert. Another feature of the same Feast leads Him now to declare a further characteristic of His person. In commemoration of the Pillar of Fire that led their fathers in the trackless desert, the people lit large lamps round the Temple, and gave themselves up to dancing and revelry. But this, too, was no doubt felt to be for the superficial souls that can live upon rites and symbols, and do not seek to lay bare their inmost being to the very touch of eternal reality. Not merely the cynic would smile as venerable men joined in the lamp-light dance, but possibly even the grave and pious onlooker, looking back on his own mistakes in life, and conscious of the blind way in which he was still blundering on, stood wondering where the true Guide of Israel, the real Light of human life was to be found. In sympathy with all such longing after truth and clear vision Jesus cries, I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
His words must be interpreted by their reference to the light which was then being celebrated. Of that light we read that the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light. This was a customary mode of directing the movements of large bodies of men, whether caravans or armies. In the case of an army a tall pole was erected in front of the chiefs tent, and from it a basket of fire was suspended, so that the glare of it was visible by night, and its smoke by day. The head of a marching column could thus be descried from a great distance, especially in wide level tracts with little or no vegetation and few inequalities of surface to interrupt the view. The distinctive peculiarity of the Israelitish march was that Jehovah was in the fire, and that He alone controlled its movements, and thereby the movements of the camp. When the pillar of cloud left its place and advanced the tents were struck, lest they should be separated, from Jehovah and be found unfaithful to Him. During the whole course of their sojourn in the wilderness their movements were thus controlled and ordered. The beacon-fire that led them was unaffected by atmospheric influences. Dispelled by no gales, and evaporated by no fiercest heat of the Eastern sun, it hovered in the van of the host as the guiding angel of the Lord. The guidance it gave was uninterrupted and unerring; it was never mistaken for an ordinary cloud, never so altered its shape as to become unrecognisable. And each night the flame shot up, and assured the people they might rest in peace.
Two obvious characteristics of this guiding Light must be kept in view.
1. Gods people were not led by a road already made and used, and which they could have studied from beginning to end on a map before starting; but they were led day by day, and step by step, by a living guide, who chose a route never before trodden. In the morning they did not know whether they were to go forward or back, or to stay where they were. They had to wait in ignorance till their guiding pillar moved, and follow in ignorance till it halted. Our passage through life is similar. It is not a chart we are promised but a guide. We cannot tell where next year or next month may be spent. We are not informed of any part of our future, and have no means of ascertaining the emergencies which may try us, the new ingredients which may suddenly be thrown into our life, and reveal in us what till now has lain hidden and dormant. We cannot tell by what kind of path we shall be led onwards to our end; and our security from day to day consists not at all in this, that we can penetrate the future, and see no dangers in it, but our security is that we shall always be guided by infallible and loving wisdom. We have learned a chief article of human wisdom if we have learned to leave to-morrow to God and faithfully follow Him to-day. A road as it lies in the distance often looks impassably steep, but as we approach and walk it step by step, we find it almost level and fairly easy.
2. This light was to guide, not their conduct, but their movements. All men need similar guidance. All men have practical matters to determine which often greatly perplex them; they must make a choice between one or other course of action that is possible. Steps which will determine their whole subsequent life must be taken or declined; and for the determining of such alterations in the place or mode of their life there is often felt great need of a guidance which can be entirely relied upon. Sometimes, indeed, our course is determined for us, and we are not consulted in the matter; as the pillar of fire was silent, assigning no reasons, condescending to no persuasion or argument, but simply moving forwards; passing over rugged and steep mountain ridges, past inviting and sheltered glens, offering no present explanation of the route, but justified always by the result. So we often find that our course is determined apart from our own choice, wishes, judgment, or prayers. But this we commonly resent, and crave a guidance which shall approve itself to our own judgment and yet be infallible; which shall leave us our freedom of choice, and yet carry us forwards to all possibilities of good. In fact, we would rather have our freedom of choice and the responsibility of guiding our own life, with all its risks, than be carried forward without choice of our own.
This is the great distinction between the light which Christ is and the light by which the Israelites were led from day to day. They had an external means of ascertaining promptly which way they should go. Their whole life was circumscribed, and its place and mode determined for them. The guidance offered to us by Christ is of an inward kind. A God without might seem perfect as a guide, but a God within is the real perfection. God does not now lead us by a sign which we could follow, though we had no real sympathy with Divine ways and no wisdom of our own; but He leads us by communicating to us His own perceptions of right and wrong, by inwardly enlightening us, and by making us ourselves of such a disposition that we naturally choose what is good.
When matters difficult to handle and to manage come into our life, and when we are tempted to long for some external sign which would show us infallibly the right thing to do and the right way to follow, let this be our consolation, that this very exercise of judgment and bearing of responsibility in matters where right and wrong are not broadly distinguished are among the chief instruments for the formation of character; and that even though we err in the choice we make, yet by our error and by all honest effort to keep right with God in the matter, we shall certainly have made growth in ability to understand and to do what is right. No doubt it is easier to believe in a guide we can see and that moves before us like a pillar of fire; but supposing for a moment that this dispensation under which we are living is not a great deception, supposing for a moment that God is doing that one thing which He pledged Himself to do, namely, giving a Divine Spirit to men, Himself dwelling with men and in them, then we cannot fail to see that this guidance is of a much higher kind, and has much more lasting results than any external guidance could have. If, by allowing us to determine our own course and find our own way through all the hazards and perplexities of life, God is teaching us to estimate actions and their results more and more by their moral value, and if thereby He is impregnating you with His own mind and character, surely that is a much better thing than if He were keeping us in the right way merely by outward signs and irrespective of our own growth in wisdom.
Persons whose opinion is not to be lightly esteemed say that if we honestly seek Gods guidance in any matter we cannot err, and have no business to reflect afterwards on our conduct as if we had made a wrong choice. I cannot think that is so. Sincere people who ask Gods guidance, it seems to me, frequently make mistakes. In fact, our past mistakes are a great part of our education. Unless we are habitually in sympathy with God we are not infallible even in matters where a moral judgment is all that is required; and sometimes more is required of us than to say what is right and what is wrong. Other points have to be considered-points which call for a knowledge of life, of places, and professions, of the trustworthiness of other men, and a thousand matters in which we are liable to err. It is of course a great satisfaction to know that we wished to do right, even if we discover we have blundered; and it is also a satisfaction to know that God can use us for good in any position, even in that we have blundered into, although meanwhile we have lost some present good.
The light which Christ brought to the world was the light of life. This additional description of life He commonly appended to distinguish the real and eternal good He bestowed from the figure by which it had been hinted at. He calls Himself the Bread of life, the Water of life, to point out that He is really and eternally what these material things are in the present physical world. All this present constitution of things may pass away, and the time may come when men shall no longer need to be sustained by bread, but the time shall never come when they shall not need life; and this fundamental gift Christ pledges Himself evermore to give. And when He names Himself the light of life He indicates that it is on the true, eternal life of man He sheds light.
There may, then, be many things and important things on which Christ sheds no direct light, although there is nothing of importance on which He does not shed light indirectly. He brought into the world no direct light upon scientific questions; He did not hasten the development of art by any special light thrown on its objects and methods. There was no great need for light on such matters. These are not the distressing difficulties of human existence. Indeed, men find stimulus and joy in overcoming these difficulties, and resent being told natures secrets, and not being allowed to find them out. But the darkness that settles on the life of the individual, and upon the condition of large classes of people through what is human, personal, and practical is often overwhelming, and compels men to cry for light. The strange miscarriage of justice in the life of many individuals; the compulsion put upon them to sin and to disbelieve through the pressure of unceasing failure and privation; the triumph of cold-hearted villainy; the bitterness of separation and death; the impenetrable darkness of the future; the incomprehensible dimness, in which the most important truths are involved-all this men find no pleasure in, but rather a torment that is sometimes maddening, often destructive of all faith, and always painful. This is the kind of darkness that causes men to sink; they run upon the rocks, and go down in darkness, no living soul hearing their cry. This is the darkness which wrings from many a heart at this moment the question of despair, What has become, of God?
The darkness regarding conduct in which men are involved has largely a moral root. Men are blinded by their appetites and passions, so that they cannot see the best ends and enjoyments of life. It is the strong craving we have for gratifications of sense and of worldly desire that misleads us in life. As some creatures have the faculty of emitting a dark and turbid matter that discolours the water, and hides them from their pursuers, so it is a self-evolved and home-made darkness that involves us. False expectations are the atmosphere of our life; we live in an unreal world created by our own tastes and desires, which misinform us, and bid us seek the good of life where it is not to be found.
It is then this light that Christ is and brings, light upon human life, light upon all that most intimately concerns human character, human conduct, and human destiny. What each of us chiefly needs to know is, what is the best kind of human life-how can I best spend my energies, and how can I best sustain them? Are there any results of life which are satisfying and which are certain; and if so, how can I attain them? Do not all things happen alike to all; is it not with the wise man and the righteous as with the fool? Is life worth serious devotion; will it repay what is spent upon it? Is not cynical indifference, or selfish caring for present interests, the most philosophical as well as the most pleasant and easy attitude towards life to assume? These are the questions which we find answered in Christ.
The expression, the light of life, may, however, have a somewhat different meaning. It may mean that he who follows Christ shall have that light which accompanies, and is fed by, the life which Christ gives. At the outset of the Gospel John declared that the Life was the light of men. And this is true in the sense that they who accept Christ as their life, and truly live in Him and by Him, walk in light and not in darkness. The clouds and gloom which overhung their life are dissipated. Their horizon is widened, their prospect cleared, and all things with which they have presently to do are seen in their true dimensions and relations. They who live with the life of Christ have a clear light regarding duty. The man who has entered into the life Christ opens to us, however slow and dull in intellect he may be, may indeed make many mistakes, but he will find his way through life, and issue from it, in his measure, triumphant.
It is further to be remarked that Jesus does not content Himself with a place beside other teachers, saying, I will give you light, but affirms that the light is inseparable from His own person. I am the light. By this He means, as already observed, that it is by receiving Him as our life that we have light. But His words also mean that He imparts this light not by oral teaching, but by being what He is, and living as He does. Teaching by word and precept is well, when nothing better can be had;[33] but it is the Word made flesh that commands the attention of all. This is a language universally intelligible. A life, the highest conceivable, on almost the lowest conceivable stage, and recorded in the simplest form, with indifference to all outward accompaniments attractive whether to the few or to the many, is set before us as the final and unalterable ideal of human life, amid all its continual and astonishing changes. It is by this life led here on earth He becomes our Light. It is by His faith maintained in the utmost of trial; His calmness and hopefulness amidst all that shrouds human life in darkness; His constant persuasion that God is in this world, present, loving, and working. It is by His habitual attitude towards this life, and towards the unseen, that we receive light to guide us. In His calmness we take refuge from our own dismay. In His hopefulness we refresh ourselves in every time of weariness. In His confidence our timorous anxieties are rebuked. Upon the darkest parts of our life there falls from Him some clear ray that brightens and directs. Thousands of His followers, in every age, have verified His words: I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
And as the Teacher taught by living so must the scholar learn by living. Christ brings light by passing through all human experiences and situations, and he that followeth Him, not he that reads about Him, shall have the light of life. There are very few men in the world who can think to much purpose on truths so abstruse and complicated as the Divinity of Christ and the Atonement and Miracles; but there is no man so dull as not to see the difference between Christs life and His own. Few men may be able to explain satisfactorily the relation Christ holds to God on the one hand and to us on the other; but every man who knows Christ at all even as he knows his friend or his father, is conscious that a new light falls upon sin of all kinds, upon sins of appetite and sins of temper and sins of disposition, since Christ lived. It is in this light Christ would have us walk, and if we follow as He leads on, we shall never lack the light of life. We need not be seriously disturbed about the darkness that hangs round the horizon if light falls on our own path; we need not be disturbed by our ignorance of many Divine and human things, nor by our inability to answer many questions which may be put to us, and which indeed we naturally put to ourselves, so long only as we are sure we are living so as to please and satisfy Christ. If our life runs on the lines His life marked out, we shall certainly arrive where He now is, in the happiest and highest human condition.
[33] Many had spoken wonderfully the truths concerning our state, and even concerning our hopes; they had sounded great depths in the sea of wisdom; they had drawn the line between what is solid and what is vain in life; they had caught, firmly and clearly, what was worth living for; they had measured truly the relative value of the flesh and the Spirit.-Dean Church, Gifts of Civilisation, p. 105.
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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