Who Gets the Light?
Notes
Transcript
Big Idea
Big Idea
Tension: Who does John tell us gets the light and therefore, all the blessings of salvation?
Resolution: is the one who receives him by faith.
Exegetical Idea: The one who gets the light, and, therefore, all the blessings of salvation is the one who receives him by faith.
Theological Idea: The only way to have the light, and all the blessings of salvation (election, justification, regeneration, perseverance, adoption), is to have faith.
Homiletical Idea: I get the light and all its benefits by faith alone.
Outline
Outline
Background:
Introduction: Who gets the light?
This is a world of profound darkness.
Every religion has a form of “Enlightenment”, that is, every religion is trying to give you a way to peer through the darkness, to make sense of this world. Every religion, to some extent, tells us that this is what you have to be or do to have “Enlightenment.” So if you’re a Muslim, to be “Enlightened” is to submit yourself to the way of Quran. If you’re a Buddhist, to be “Enlightened” comes only by being detached.
Maybe you say, “Well, I don’t have a religion, I’m an atheist.” First off, that’s a bit naive. After all, didn’t humanism come out of a period in history called, “The Enlightenment”? But I would press you and say, “But you still believe in Enlightenment.” After all, that’s what atheism is trying to achieve, isn’t it? To get over the bonds of religion that holds humanity down, right?
And if every religion teaches that there is a way to “Enlightenment”, it also teaches that there are those who don’t get it.
Now, every religion, every philosophy also teaches that with Enlightenment comes a blessing or benefit. If you’re a humanist, the blessing of Enlightenment is freedom from the constraints of religion or tradition. If you’re Buddhist, Enlightenment gives you freedom from the attachments of thsi world. If you’re Mulslim, Enlightenment gives you paradise.
Who doesn’t get him
The world
The true light was coming into the world, which gives light to everyone - that he is shining his light to all the world. He is the one and only source of regeneration.
He was in the world and the world was made through him - they should have recognized him. (cf. Col 1:15-17) THe wrold was made through him and for him. It was perfectly fitted for him and he for it.
Yet the world did not know him - But the world doesn’t know him. They don’t get Enlightened. They don’t receive him. They don’t see the light.
His own - Well maybe his own. Here his own “people” refers to the Jewish people.
Surely his own people would recognize him and receive him. Surely his own people would want to grab hold of him.
But they don’t. They won’t. They don’t grab hold of him. They don’t receive him.
Why won’t these people receive him? Because they’re blind. <John 9>
Who does get him? Those who believe
To those who “believed in his name.” It is to those who believe in him, or to those who have faith. Those who get the light are those who believe in him.
To see - Well, in this passage, I think we can see the contrast with the “world” and “his own” in this passage. They couldn’t believe in the light because they were blind. So if someone does believe in the light, they can see. “I once was blind, but now I see.”
To know - Again, we’re told that the world did not know him. To believe in CHrist is to know him with all of who we are. It is more than mere information. It is to “know him in your bones.”
To receive/seize - Again, if the wrold did not “know him” then his own did not “receive him.” This first word for “receive” means to “take” or “seize.” To receive him means to “take hold of him”, “to grasp him,” to “grab hold of him for dear life.”
Faith is in teh past and the present. Notice the “past tense” to all who “did” receive him, and the present tense to all who “believe”. In other words, true faith is not a “one time” thing. True faith lasts (Heb 3:14)
For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
This is a faith that ultimately comes from God. “Not of blood nor of the will of flesh nor of the will of man”. This is not a faith which we could attribute to something called free will, but it is something that comes entirely from God.
Now here, it seems like John is out to offend us, doesn’t he? But I promise you, John is out for your joy. Because if you and I could muster up faith like turning a key in the ignition, that would make our salvation dependent upon us. And we are fickle, fallible, and faltering creatures. Don’t you know how doomed you would be if you were responsible for mustering up enough faith for today? But faith, true faith, is the stuff of God. It’s what God puts in you and wroughts in you. It’s all by grace (Eph 2:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
I should also say, this does not remove our responsibility to “believe.” You say, “Well, if God gives faith, then why do I even care?” This is one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith. That God beckons us to believe, then gives us the faith by which we trust in him. So if you’re wondering, “Has God given me faith?” Well put your faith in Christ and find out.
“Believe in his name” - Finally here we see a phrase that means to “believe” in his name. In the Old Testament, often times people hwo have faith in God are said to “believe in his name”, so, for example...
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
So, when John describes having faith in Christ as believing in “his name” he is using the same language to desceribe trusting Christ as the Old Tesatment uses to describe having faith in God. It’s essentiually saying, it trusts in Christ as if he were GOd. You see, what saving faith does most importantly is grab hold of Christ, the light, the Word who was in the beginning with God.
What God gives to the one who believes
If you get some of salvation, you get all of salvation.
justification - “the “right” to become children of God.” This is a legal language to describe what God gives to the believer.
a “right” to the blessing of God? Just think about that.
How can this person get a “right” to the blessing of God? After all, John is under no illusion about the sinfulness of mankind.
Because the lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Because God has removed the unrighteousness, the curse from those who bleieve, they are given the right to the blessings of salvation.
This is what Paul means when he says that we have been justified. What justification means is that we are no longer uner condemnation, but also that we’ve been given the status of righteous. That we th4e blessings of the covenant have been unlocked for us (Gal 3:13-14)
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
adoption - and what are the blessings of the covenant that are unlocked? It’s the blessing of becoming a child of God. It is to be able to call the Father of the Son our Father. It is the blessing of being called a child of God. It’s the blessing that Paul refers to in his letters as adoption
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
regeneration - Two times here we told of the blessings of regeneration, or the “new birth”. It is to be born “of God” or the new birht. And this is immensely important from John’s understanding of what it means to be saved, it means to be “born again”. We see this, for example, in John 3:5-8
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
And again, this is all due to God’s sovereign power. It is God who makes people be born again, not man. It is God who gives regeneration, not human flesh. And the only way to get regeneration, the only way to be born again, is to put your faith in Jesus. John 11:25-26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
And in this, John is in lock step with the rest of Scriptures.
Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
New life - Of course, if we’ve been born again, this something what is implied is that we should not go on sinning. To be united to him means that we will abide in him, that we will change. That if we abide in his love for us, we ought to produce the fruit of love. John 3:19-21
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
persevering faith - It is, of course, the fact that we’ve been born again which gives us a faith that perseveres. It is a faith which endures, which is preserved. It is a faith that is funded by eternal life, and it because he died once to live forever more, our faith will never, finally fail and fall away.
Christ himself - But the most important blessing that faith gives us, the one which makes all of these gifts pale in comparison, is that God gives his Son to us. You see, for John, to receive Christ is to receive everything.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
You see, the one who gets the light is the one who believes in Him. And the one who believes in him, possesses him. He doesn’t only get the stuff that he gives, but he gets him. He gets the Son of God.
How we respond to the light:
John the writer of the gospel writes about John the Baptist. And as we’ll see later, he was actually a disciple of John the Baptist, so in essence, he’s saying, “I would know.”
John himself is not the light - John was pretty clear that he was not hte light (vs. 8). Later he would say “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)
John bears witness about the life - he comes so that he could tell everyone about the light, about Jesus, the Christ.
John’s bore witness so that all might believe - His goal was that “all” would believe. His goal was that all woudl put their faith in Christ. He wanted all to believe.
Knowing the light gave John purpose. Because he had found him and known him, John gave his life so that all would see and know thge light.
Application
Don’t be blind; look at the light
Salvation is all by grace alone; this is a good thing
If we’re born again, our lives should change
Be humble
So live a life of purpose - give yourself to the witness of the light.
Conclusion: Tis so sweet