16 The Light of the World (John 8:12-47)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Thanks so much for listening. Today is the 16th talk in my series on the Gospel of John, and we will be studying John chapter 8, verses 11 through 47. In this season of the podcast, we have been focusing on the big picture John is painting in his Gospel. Instead of going through the details of each verse like we normally do, we have been looking at the overarching themes in the Gospel. This is a kind of study I've wanted to podcast through for a long time because sometimes we get so caught up in the details of marking up a verse and highlighting and color-coding things that we forget to go back and put it all together to look at the picture that all those details are painting. In this study, I've been trying to model that step for you of taking a look back and looking at the overarching themes and the way the flow of thought is coming together. Now, as we've seen, John has been arguing that eternal life comes to those who believe that Jesus is the Christ. And as he argues that point, he has been exploring issues surrounding belief. So we've looked at the importance of evidence. We've looked at the evidence that Jesus is the Christ. We've looked at the importance and veracity of testimony and the different types of testimony. And we have talked about the dynamics of belief and unbelief and how making a claim to belief after being impressed by a miracle is not significant. You have to persevere. Now last week we looked at the story of the woman caught in adultery. As I explained in that podcast, that story was not in the original text of the Gospel of John, but was most likely added later. While it doesn't seem to belong at this point in the Gospel, there is widespread consensus that the story is authentic and apostolic, and so we looked at it to ask what we could learn from it, but also noted how it doesn't seem to fit the flow of John's Gospel. Today we're going to pick back up with chapter 8, verse 12. Chapter 7 ends with Jesus giving this great call. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Jesus and drink. And then John gave us a variety of responses to what Jesus said. We saw the condescending disbelief of his brothers and the hostility of the Jewish leadership. We saw just about every kind of response you could have in the crowd: interest, confusion, hostility, and belief. The crowd marvels at his teaching, and the guards become so distracted they forget to arrest him. And then we see the continuing interest of Nicodemus in standing up for Jesus. John explored this theme that belief is related to our will. We believe what we want to believe. The Pharisees refused to believe, despite the evidence literally staring them in the face. Their legalism was just too much of a stumbling block for them. They weren't willing to risk losing the approval of men, so they refused to believe Jesus. They weren't willing to admit that they had a problem with sin, so Jesus was not the kind of Messiah they wanted. John added this idea in that section that if you're not willing to submit your will to God's will, you will reject Jesus. You must want the right things for Jesus to be somebody you want to believe in. Chapter 8, verse 12 picks up right after that with another I am statement of Jesus, and the flow of thought makes sense. In other words, if you leave out the story of the woman caught in adultery, there is no gap or interruption in the flow of thought. First Jesus claimed to be the source of living water, and we saw responses to that. Now he claims to be the light of the world, and again John is most interested in how people respond. Let's start with 812. Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Now many scholars think Jesus is still at the Feast of Tabernacles when he made this statement. That feast lasted seven or eight days, and it included several different ceremonies. One of the ceremonies involved pouring out water, and many people think he took that occasion to say, I am the living water. Another one of the ceremonies involved lighting lamps, and it's possible that he is now saying at the occasion of those lamps being lit that he is the light of the world. It seems likely that Jesus is building on the imagery of this festival when he makes these statements, but John doesn't tell us that directly. The image of being the light of the world is a powerful one. It's fairly easy to understand. When the darkness comes, you can't see. You stumble over things you didn't know were there. You get lost because you can't see the landmarks you're familiar with. You can walk off a cliff in the dark because you can't see it coming. When we're lost in the dark at night, what we most want is somebody to come along with a light. And that's the image that Jesus is drawing on here. In his analogy, we human beings are stumbling around in the darkness, and our metaphorical darkness is ignorance and lies. We lack knowledge, we lack understanding, we believe lies instead of believing the truth. We don't see reality the way it really is. We think we understand it, but we're actually clueless. One of the things Jesus came to do is to bring the light of truth to that darkness. He came to teach us what is true so that we would know and understand, and he came to bring the light of life, the understanding that leads to eternal life. Now in John's gospel, we've seen Jesus building this picture of his work a little bit at a time. He's the Messiah, He is the one in whom we must believe. He came to bring life by offering his own body on the cross to buy us forgiveness from God. Here he's emphasizing that he is the prophet who brings the light of understanding to the world. I'm going to go ahead and read chapter eight verses twelve through thirty. Again Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So the Pharisees said to him, You are bearing witness about yourself, your testimony is not true. Jesus answered, Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I am coming from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me. They said to him, therefore, Where is your father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father, if you knew me you would know my father also. These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come. So he said to them again, I am going away and you will sink me and you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come. So the Jews said, Will he kill himself? Since he says where I am going you cannot come? He said to them, You are from below, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. So they said to him, Who are you? Jesus said to them, Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him. They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me, and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him. As he was saying these things, many believed in him. Now there are several themes in this section that we have seen before in John. There is a whole lot we could talk about, but I am going to stick to my purpose of staying with the big picture. First, there is this question of what is at stake. Why does it matter whether we believe in Jesus or not? And in this case, it matters because he is the bringer of light. Jesus tells the Pharisees, unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins. Dying in your sins is a terrible thing. It is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. As Jesus made clear, we are all guilty before God. We human beings are inherently selfish by nature. We love ourselves more than we love God and our neighbors, and one day we will die and face the judgment seat of God and he will find us guilty. To die in your sins means to die without dealing with the problem of your guilt. Your sins remain when you stand before your Creator. The penalty for your crime has not been paid, you are guilty and you will reap what you sow. And Jesus says in the section, if you reject me, that is your fate, and that is a central theme of his message. We've seen this theme before. And we have also seen this theme frequently in John. The Pharisees raise this interesting question. Well, Jesus, you say you're the light of the world, and that sounds great and all, but you're talking about yourself. Anybody can go around and say, hey, I'm a big deal, but that doesn't mean you are really a big deal. Why should we listen to what you have to say? And Jesus gives them an answer that he's given them before. He says, Even if I'm the only one testifying, my testimony is true. But I'm not the only one testifying. God my Father also testifies to who I am. God testifies that Jesus is the Messiah through the miracles that Jesus does. They are signs that God is with Jesus, and God performs miracles through Jesus to verify and testify Jesus is the Messiah. Further, God spoke in Scripture and the scriptures testify to the nature of the Messiah, and they all point to Jesus as the Messiah. And then finally, occasionally we have a voice from heaven where God audibly says, This is my son, listen to him. So that's the kind of testimony Jesus is talking about. He says, I am telling you about myself, but I'm not the only one. My Father, God, testifies that I am the Messiah. And then he gives them another reason they can trust him, but that reason is something that hasn't happened yet. He refers to his crucifixion and resurrection. So he predicts a future event that will establish he is who he says he is. Let me read 828 again. So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the Father taught me. Jesus talks about being lifted up several times in the Gospel of John. Later in chapter twelve, John immediately explains that Jesus uses this phrase to talk about the way he was going to die. I think the context and evidence suggests that whenever Jesus uses this phrase, he's talking about his death. His point here is when they finally do succeed in killing him, God will raise Jesus from the dead. And on that day, they will see the ultimate vindication of his ministry. God will definitively testify that Jesus is the Messiah through the resurrection. So they think that by getting Jesus arrested and executed, they are going to prove he is a fake, but the very event they think is going to stop him will end up being his vindication. I think he's talking about the same thing in verse 21 with the language about where I am going, you cannot come. They're seeking to arrest him, and his response is, I'm going where you can't come. And the irony is his arrest and execution is the very means that he ends up triumphing over them. They think they finally beat him, they think he is silenced and soon to be forgotten, but God raises him from the dead and elevates him to sit at the right hand of the Father. That's where he's going that they can't follow. He's pointing to the resurrection as his ultimate vindication. So why should we believe that Jesus is the light of the world? Because God has testified in many ways that Jesus is the Messiah, and because they will soon see the ultimate sign, his death and resurrection. Now, again, there's a lot more we could talk about in how Jesus argues with them in the back and forth, but I want to stick to the big picture, so we're going to move on. In verse 30, we again encounter this huge theme of belief. As he was saying these things, many believed in him. Jesus declares himself to be the light of the world. He says he's come from God, and many Jews among the crowd hear and believe. But the story goes on. Let's look at 30 through 36. As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever, so if the sun sets you free, you are free indeed. Okay, what's going on in this section? If we're honest with ourselves, we realize we are slaves to a brutal master, and that master is our own sin. We cannot free ourselves from it no matter how much we'd like to or how hard we try. But Jesus makes this great promise become my disciples, learn the truth from me, and I will break the chains of your slavery. I will free you from your slavery to sin. You can't free yourselves, but I can do it for you. If the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. But as we have been noticing in John, belief is not such a straightforward, simple matter. A warning always comes with belief. As we've seen, it's not enough to make a one-time claim to believe because you've been impressed with a miracle or something. We have to keep believing. Jesus says, if you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples. You have to persevere, stay the course. You have to keep following me without giving up. When he starts teaching them more about the plans and purposes of God, will they continue to believe him? What are they going to do when they find out, you know what, life is hard and it's going to keep being hard? How will they react when they discover loving God and loving your neighbor involves service and sacrifice? What if they don't like the lessons he teaches them? It's not enough to hear and claim to believe. Faith requires remaining as his disciple and accepting the truth from him, even if that truth is hard to hear. And we can see this process begins almost immediately. John says many believed, and Jesus gives them their first lesson. Lesson number one, you are not free, and you need me to make you free. Now today we're familiar with this passage and we know what he's talking about, but this was not so obvious to his audience at the time. They don't quite get it, and they balk at his words. They respond to him and they say, You're you're talking to us like we're slaves, but we're not slaves. We're the children of Abraham. We are the chosen people of God. How can you free us when we don't need to be free? Saying that they are slaves is offensive to them. They're confused, and that means they have a choice. Will these words be a stumbling block to them? Or will they continue to listen and believe? They believe Jesus, but then with the next thing out of his mouth, they're saying, Hey, wait a minute. What what are you talking about? I don't think that's true. Jesus responds back to them, Well, you're slaves all right. You're not free. Everyone who sins is a slave of sin. And Jesus uses this analogy that's very relevant to the situation that he's speaking to here. He uses the analogy of a household. In the typical household of the time, everyone had to submit to the father as head of the house. The eldest son, who stood to inherit, had a unique position because his word was like the father's word. If the eldest son gave an order, it was treated as if the head of the house had given the order. In the family ranking system, other members of the family came next, followed by the slaves at the bottom. Family remained family. Family stayed in the household. But slaves are not family. Should they turn out to be unsuitable, they could be removed. They had no guarantee that they wouldn't be sold to someone else. Now the Jews talking with Jesus from their perspective, as children of Abraham, they are part of God's family. They're the chosen people of God. God is their father, as they're going to say in a minute. God's household is their household. They don't need freeing like slaves because they are children of Abraham, there is no getting rid of them. But Jesus tells them, The fact is, in the household of God, you're more like slaves than you are like the family members. Your slavery to sin means that you don't belong in God's house, only the son belongs there. You slaves don't. That's why it's so important when he says, If the Son sets you free, you shall really be free. If the Son took a slave and raised that slave to the status of brother, the slave was free indeed. And Jesus, as the eldest son of the father, is going to break our chains to sin and welcome us as family members into the household of God. And that is a powerful and wonderful image. He's telling them being the physical descendants of Abraham doesn't give you the right to assume that you belong in the household of God. You need to recognize your slaves to sin and look to Jesus for deliverance. But he also offers this great hope, this hope of I can make you free, and that hope depends on accepting the fact that we're slaves to sin. They have to be willing to embrace everything Jesus teaches, even when that means abandoning any sense of entitlement they might have as children of Abraham. To be his disciples, they must embrace the truth that their slavery to sin has lost them their place in God's household, and only the Messiah can give it back to them. And that's exactly what he came to do. Now we can see they don't like this. They don't like what he's saying. Let's go on and look at 37 through 50. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you. I speak Speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. That is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, We were not born of sexual immorality, we have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. Now notice what's happened here in verse 30. Jesus started talking to Jews who believed him, and now here we are in verse 37, and he says, You're trying to kill me, you're children of the devil, and you are not of God. So how did we get from 30 to 37? What's going on here? Jesus does not accept them as genuine believers right away. And we've seen this earlier in John. Claiming to believe because you saw a miracle doesn't mean anything. We saw large crowds abandon Jesus after he talked to them about being the bread of life. And we're seeing that same kind of thing here as he talks about being the light of the world. We see this warning. It's great that you claim to believe in all, but you need to persevere. You need to continue accepting and believing my teaching in order for this belief that you claim to have to ultimately lead to freedom and life. And I think that's the fundamental purpose of this section. And it's a theme we have been seeing in John and are seeing again here. Just because you claim to believe doesn't mean that you're a follower of Jesus. You have to remain committed to Jesus and let that belief change your life. Now I imagine Jesus was speaking to a mixed group because this is a public setting, and some of those he was talking to will end up believing and persevering, but others won't. Now let's try to sort out what sounds like really harsh dialogue here. Everything Jesus says here relies on the idea that people are like their parents. Children not only look like their parents physically, they act and speak like their parents. They pick up their way of doing things, they pick up their mannerisms. And many of you have had that experience. You've seen your own children imitate you just as you imitated your parents. The Jews say God is our father because we're children of Abraham. So Jesus asks them, Do you act like your father? Well, no, you don't. You act like someone else. Two aspects of their behavior indicate that they have a different father. First, they don't believe the message, and second, they're trying to kill the messenger. Here is a prophet from God and they hate him. Jesus is speaking a true message from God and they reject his message. They see him as a threat and they want to have him arrested and executed. Is that what Abraham did? No. When angelic messengers showed up at Abraham's door, Abraham believed them. He did not try to kill them. He showed them hospitality, he listened to them. When Abraham met the priest of God Melchizedek, Abraham gave him gifts. Abraham did not try to murder him. Abraham believed the messages that came from God, even when the promises God made were humanly impossible. Unbelief and murder do not characterize the children of God, but they do characterize someone else. Lies and murder are the chief characteristics of the devil. He lied to Adam and Eve, he inspired Cain to murder his brother. The whole line of Satan is characterized by hatred and deception. And Jesus says, Look at your response to me. Who would respond to me like you are? Would Abraham respond like you are, or would the devil? Well, Abraham would welcome me, the devil would try to kill me, and you're acting a lot more like the devil. Then Jesus pushes them to justify their response. He says, Can you prove I've done anything wrong? Can you convict me of sin? What explains why you reject me when I have done nothing wrong and I am clearly speaking truth from God? And he says, I'll tell you what explains it. Ultimately, your behavior is influenced not by God, but by Satan, the ruler of this world. And that's a pretty strong thing to say to someone. But as we have been seeing in John, belief is a gift of God. Left to ourselves, all of us would trot off merrily to hell. We would reject God, we would reject the truth, and we would be trapped in our sins. But God in his mercy sent both his son to save us and offer his life for us on the cross and his spirit to open our eyes to the truth so that when we are confronted with the claims of the gospel, we see and believe. And this goes right back to what we saw in chapter three when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about being born again. Okay, to wrap up this section, let's think some more about this idea of freedom. In this section, Jesus has expanded our picture of what he came to do. All along, he's been saying that eternal life will come to the one who believes that he is the Messiah. He has hinted and he's getting more bold about saying he came to offer his own life to free us from our guilt and condemnation, and that we escape condemnation and find eternal life through the work he has come to do as the Messiah, and that's why we should believe him. But now he's added something to the picture. In addition to bringing us forgiveness for sins and reconciliation with God, he also came to free us from the bondage of sin. Ultimately, we will become the sort of people who are no longer slaves to sin. We're going to become people who do not sin anymore, and we will be truly free from sin, death, corruption, and all the futility that that brings. What must we do to receive this freedom that he's promising? We must learn from him. We must be his students and his disciples. We must embrace what he teaches as true and persevere in being his disciples. When we figure out being a Christian is tough, we hang in there and continue to trust him and stay with him until the end. Now all of us know what it's like to be in a situation where we long to be free. Something burdens us, something ties us down or afflicts us, and we just wish with every fiber of our being that we could escape it. Once I had a job where I was working for a boss who was making my life miserable. One morning on the way to work I stopped at a gas station, and on the other side of my pump a car pulled up with three men in it. They were all decked out in fishing gear with a big picnic basket in the back seat and they were laughing and joking. Obviously, they weren't working where I was working. They were about to go spend a beautiful sunny day outside on the water, and I was going to work in an office with no windows for a boss who was out to get me. And I wanted the freedom they had so badly. Now all sorts of things in life are like that. We get sick and we long to be well. We do something terribly stupid and we wish we could take it back and escape the consequences. We make wrong financial choices and then we have to live with scarcity and lack. We all recognize that feeling of release, that lightness and joy when it's over. As a kid, you may remember walking out of school on that last day of school on the first day of summer vacation, and you had that sense of I'm free. Or maybe you felt it on the day you graduated from high school, or you got your driver's license or your first paycheck. Well, the Bible teaches that the worst form of slavery, the heaviest burden that we bear, the thing that we ought to most want to be free from is our own moral corruption. And all of us have to come to grips with that fact. Now I've known for a long time that I am my biggest problem. Sure, sometimes my friends and family mess up and I wish they'd cut it out. But fundamentally, if I'm honest, I realize all my biggest problems come back to me and the choices I've made. They exist because of the selfish way I respond or the selfish things that I will just not let go of. And once we understand the deep and terrible consequences of our slavery to sin, we begin to understand why salvation is so wonderful and why being set free is such a big deal. Eternal life is not just living forever. It's not just being forgiven of our sins so that we can continue to breathe. It's actually being rescued from our own corruption, from futility, from sin, decay, death, despair, bitterness, anger, frustration, and all the things that ruin our lives. That's why life in the kingdom of God will be so great, because you and I will no longer be the kind of people we are now. We are not going to corrupt and ruin our friendships and relationships with other people. We are going to love God the way He deserves to be loved. We are going to love each other the way we all long to be loved. Our friendships, our relationships are going to be fully satisfying and joyful because there will be no more tears, no frustrations, and no sorrows. We'll be able to go to sleep at night and leave the door unlocked. We will have nothing to fear. And that's the kind of life we're looking forward to in the kingdom of heaven, and that's the freedom that Jesus is promising. And that's why salvation is so important. Today we have the down payment of the Spirit. The Spirit matures our faith and teaches us to understand more fully what life is about. The Spirit teaches us to hunger and thirst for this kind of freedom the way we hunger and thirst for physical food. When the kingdom of God comes in its culmination, we will receive that kind of life. We will receive our inheritance in full. And fundamentally, that inheritance is the solution to the problem of sin. And to me, that's the best part of the deal. And Jesus says here, He came to give us that kind of freedom. He came not only to die for us, to reconcile us to God, he came to free us fully and finally from all the presence, power, and penalty of sin and death. And that's a huge gift. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. The blog post version of this episode is on the link below the podcast, or you can find it by going to WednesdaytheWord.com slash John 16. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please support the show by following it on your favorite podcast app and leave a positive rating or review if you can. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. RT music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite singer songwriter Reggie Coates. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. And if you ever get a chance to hear him lead worship, take it, you'll be glad you did. If you want to find out more or hear previous episodes in this series, you'll find them all by scrolling down your podcast feed or going to wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.