GCT “I am” Series Week 2/ I am Light of the World

Everything Between I am the Bread & I am the Light

I am the Bread - John 6:35

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

I am the light of the World - John 8:12 & John 9:5

John 8:12 (ESV)

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.”

John 9:5 (ESV)

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Outline of what took place:

John 7:1–9 / Jesus’ brothers tell Jesus to go to Judea to the Feast of Booths to prove Himself to the people and His disciples.

John 7:10-24 / Jesus goes to Judea privately to refrain from drawing attention. He speaks at the the Temple to the people with authority given by the Father / The Jews claimed He was a man of no study, and declare He had a demon for His teachings and how he had healed a man on the sabbath in John 5.

John 7:25-31 / People are in a stir questioning if He is the Christ but assume that the Christ should come from unknown place. They point out that they know where He comes from (Galilee and that His parents are Jospeh and Mary) / Jesus speaks of how they know know Him and where He comes from but they really don’t know who sent Him (The Father).

John 7:32-36 / Chief Priests and Pharisees send for officers to arrest Jesus.

John 7:33–36 (ESV)

Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”

John 7:37-39 / On last day of Feast of Booths, Jesus speaks of the coming of the Spirit, whoever receives the Spirit will have a heart that flows out living waters (John 4, Christ offers living water).

John 7:40-52 / Mixed feelings about His sayings and teachings / Christ is supposed to come from offspring of David, David is from Bethlehem but Jesus is from Galilee (John 7:25-31) / Officers that were told to arrest Him chose not to arrest Him because no one has spoken like Him / Nicodemus a pharisee and ruler of the Jews (John 3) steps up for Jesus and says the law gives someone a fair hearing of what what they do (this is gutsy for Nicodemus).

John 7:53-8:11 / Story of woman who had been caught in adultery and how people brought her before Jesus to test Him and see what He would do / This story is powerful and likely true, however, it likely doesn’t belong in our text in John 8, because it doesn’t fit the narrative that John is writing. John 7 up to verse 52, tells of a discourse between the crowd of people from the Feast of Booths at the Temple. This event takes place at the Temple but this is far likely at a different time in Jesus’s ministry because it has no flow to our previous text. The transition between verse 11 and 12 is awkward assuming that if the people (scribes and pharisees) left one by one. If they went away one by one, who would Jesus be speaking to once everyone had left?

John 8:12 (ESV)

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.”

Who was he speaking to? Verse 13 says the Pharisees spoke to Him, but this I think is the same group of pharisees from the passage of verse 32-36. The following verses from 37-52 all take place the following day, it’s possible that Jesus tells them that He is the light of the world on that last day of the Feast of Booths to build on what he said the previous day about where He comes from and where He’s going. It’s also possible John 7:37-52 all take place after what’s said in chapter 8 but given how John writes things in chronological order, I believe it’s safe to assume that the events in chapter 8 all follow what happened in chapter 7.

Something to add, according to some charts concerning the chronology of the four gospels, some people still add the story of the women caught in adultery as an event that took place between chapters 7 and 8 but take that with a grain of salt. The legitimacy and placement of that story is something that’s been debated for centuries. Some scholars say we should discard it from preaching while others say it’s perfectly fine where it’s at. I think it’s legitimate but just doesn’t quite fit in its particular spot, but translators leave it where it’s at for a good reason and I trust them with what they do and so should you.

I Am the Light of the World

The City of Ember example

A civilization of people living underground dependent on lightbulbs as their source of light. Their city is on the verge of collapsing on itself as it was created by the “builders” to only last 200 years. The builders of the city had set aside a locked box with fragments revealing a message and escape route for its citizens of the short timed city in expectancy of the eventual collapse. The story of the City of Ember takes place 240+ years after the city is built, the city has existed far longer than what the original builders intended it too and its leaders failed to value the locked box and what was contained in it as the protagonist of the story, Lina Mayfleet, a 12 year old girl who had just graduated from school to join the city workforce as a messenger finds the secret box in her closet. Lina was the great-great granddaughter of the city’s 7th mayor, so that’s how the story makes sense of her winding up with the important box. At the time of the city’s creation, the box was made with a set timer for 200 years which prohibited any holder of the box to open its contents. Lina’s great great grandfather attempted to open the box prior to its time of opening but failed to succeed. His failure to open the box as well as the corruption of the city’s leadership is what led to the neglect of the secret box and promise for a better life outside of Ember.

As many of you might be able to tell, this story serves as a profound allegory whether the book’s writer Jeanne DuPrau intended it to be or not, for spiritual awakening. It resembles a philosophical allegory from Plato, a famous Greek philosopher who lived between 420 BC and 340 BC. That allegory is known as the Allegory of the Cave. I may have mentioned it before in our series of James but in short, this allegory tells about people in a cave chained in a fixed position to where they can only stare at a particular wall in the cave. Behind the prisoners is a fire and behind the fire are some people not chained, but walk back and forth carrying objects. These people behind the fire cast a shadow for the chained prisoners staring at the wall in front of them. Those prisoners only see and hear from the shadows cast on the wall in front of them due to their fixed position. All they see and know is what is front of them.

Until one day a prisoner is released. He’s dragged around by someone because he’s never walked before. He’s turned around and notices the fire, he’s never seen the fire directly either so it hurts his eyes. He sees the people behind the fire talking and moving in a far different way than what he was used to…

Something odd that’s worth drHawing attention to is how philosophy scholars tend to treat the minds of Plato, Socrates, and Zeno (he popularized stoicism) as geniuses and acknowledge their existence and teachings while on the flip-side choose to disbelieve the existence and teachings of Jesus. This doesn’t make sense and neither should it as the manuscripts of their writings as well as what’s said about them doesn’t compare to the amount of manuscripts that exist from the gospel writings. There are other historical documents that prove the existence of Jesus outside of the New Testament writings, two specific examples include Jewish Antiquities and Annals of Imperial Rome.

Darkness is a theme throughout history that people Christian or not experience in reality. It’s been talked about before Christ and written about in novels. You and I experience some form of darkness everyday and if we took to heart the teachings of Jesus from from the chapters we’ve already covered, John 1-6, we would be aware of how spiritual this life and everything in it really is…

Question: Remember when Jesus told the crowd in John 6 that He is the bread of life? Do you remember referred Himself as the bread to them?

Answer: It was in response to the crowd saying that God performed a sign of providing manna to the people of Israel (Exodus 16:4)

Exodus 16:4 (ESV)

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

I mentioned during our first week on John that John’s letter was written to a general audience in comparison to the rest of the gospels. Although he wrote to a general audience, he still expected his audience to have some Old Testament knowledge as our second I am statement in John 8:12 and the following text after that, has plenty to do with what is written in Exodus.

John 8:12 (ESV)

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.”

Question: This one might really test your Bible knowledge, when Pharoah let the people of Israel go out of slavery following the 10 Plagues, how did God lead the people out of Egypt?

Answer: Exodus 13:21-22

Exodus 13:21–22 (ESV)

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

When the Lord went before Israel in a pillar of cloud and fire, He was the LIGHT. So when Christ says that He is the LIGHT in John 8:12, He is making a bold claim comparing Himself to God.

Side Note: Some scholars do speculate that it was Jesus who was in the pillar of cloud and fire in Exodus. Assuming that the doctrine of the trinity is true, then that would make sense.

Jesus doesn’t just stop there, our text in John has only just begun. The Pharisees rebuttal His claim and tell Him that He is not able to say such a thing as He is bearing testimony about Himself.

It’s fair of them to ask Jesus this. If I considered an example that could give you an idea of what makes their question valid that example would be Mormonism. Mormonism started with Joseph Smith. He claimed that he received a vision from God the Father and Jesus (2 personages as he would describe it) and was informed by them that none of the Christian churches he had been going to were “true” churches. In response to his supposed vision, he goes around telling people of what he saw.

We reject the Mormon faith as illegitimate for many reasons but here is one reason why we should, it was started because one guy said he saw something from God with no real evidence that it was actually from God…

Going back to our story here in John 8, when the Pharisees hear Jesus testifying that He is the Light of the world, they must have a similar thought to as we should with people like Joseph Smith, you make a bold claim and there’s no evidence to that. The difference between Jesus and Joseph Smith, Jesus had real evidence and He literally was God in the flesh which is what He goes on to explain to them for the remainder of the John 8…