Jesus: I AM the Light of the World

Introduction

There is one movie genre that I won’t watch and that is horror. I just don’t like those movies. I just remember watching some as a kid and screaming at the people in the movie, “Don’t open that door” or “No, don’t go into that creepy looking building.” And no matter what… they did what I told them not to and they paid the price for it. I don’t like those movies. I remember as a kid we had in our little town of 300 people a festival called the Sunfield Farmer’s Picnic. And this was an annual even that has been going on more than 100 years. I loved this festival as a kid. It all started out with a parade that lasted for 3 hours and 98% of it were old and new tractors. All the farmers in the area would enter their tractors. This festival was a typical American small town festival. We had tractor pulls, softball tournaments, a fire department BBQ pork lunch, games, fireworks.

I remember one year they hired an amusement company to bring in rides. They brought in 3 rides and a haunted house. And me as a 10 or 11 year old boy, I was a glutten for punishment. I hated haunted houses because of the horror movies, but I just had to go in. Just like me screaming at the TV for the people not to go into the creepy house, I went into the creepy attraction. And one thing that I remember about this haunted house was it was just a maze, but not just any old maze… It was a maze that was pitched black. You could not see your hand in front of your face. I remember trying to get through that place and running into walls, I remember it being hot and almost suffocating, I remember really feeling the darkness; and it seemed like the longer I was in there, the more hopeless it seemed. I didn’t know if I could find my way out. It wasn’t until I found a little crack in the wall that let in a little stream of light to where I finally found the exit, and when I opened that exit door I was relieved. And I said to myself that I would never do that again.

Folks, we live in a dark world - a world that is eclipsed by the long shadow of sin. And in desperation, the lost people around us search frantically for the truth, and they have no way to find it. So, because of their spiritual blindness, they only stumble deeper into sin’s hopeless gloom, and they find themselves utterly trapped in the snares of immorality, idolatry, and all sorts of sin.

Man has a great need and they are not always aware of it. They cannot see into the future, they cannot see God, who He is and what He is like. They cannot see the real meaning and purpose of life. They live in a dark and blinding world.

What would had been the remedy for me to get through the haunted house quickly… for me to bring a flashlight! What is the need for man who lives in complete and utter darkness? Man’s greatest need is to see the Light of the world! To see Jesus! And you would think that sinners, hopelessly lost in the darkness, would flock to the Light. Yet in a strange paradox, people love the very darkness that ensnares them. Like a dying man who cherishes his deadly disease, they cherish the sin that produces spiritual and eternal death.

But those who through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God… receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in God (Acts 26:18).

In chapter 7, Jesus presented Himself as the source of living water. Here Jesus makes another astounding claim about Himself - that He is the Light of the Word. And as before, His words generated severe opposition from the Jewish religious leaders. Let’s take a look at this Light this morning....

Man’s Need: Light

(8:12-20)

Jesus’ claim here meets man’s need. The claim is, “I am the Light of the world. I want you to realize the significance of this claim here… this is one of the great ‘I AM’ statements! This claim to deity was emphatic, and it was the very first thing He said in this passage. This great promise was twofold… He who follows Him #1 will not walk in darkness, and #2 will have the light of life.

Now before we go any further, let’s take a look at light and darkness...

In John 1:4, it is said that Jesus is the Light of men, and here in chapter 8 He is called the Light of the world. Jesus used the word light often. In fact, John uses it about 21 times. So what is meant by calling Jesus the Light?

Jesus is light by nature. Light is what He is within Himself, within His being, His nature, His character. Scripture says in 1 John 1:5 that God is Light. In Colossians 1:15 Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Therefore Jesus is Light. He is the Light of the world.

Jesus, the Light, tells us that He is holy, righteous and pure. Light is the symbol of purity and holiness. Light means the absence of darkness and blindness; it has no spots of darkness or sin and shame.

Jesus, the Light, reveals. His light shows clearly who we are. When we come into His presence, we see who we truly are. Wicked vile sinners. Look at Isaiah when he came before God… He said Woe is me for I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.

Jesus, the Light, guides. His light allows us to walk out of darkness. We no longer have to grasp and stumble about trying to find our way through life.

What a great picture… and it wasn’t coincidence that He said this at this time. This is the Feast of Tabernacles. The very first ceremony of the Feast holds great significance for Jesus’ claim. It was called “The Illumination of the Temple” and was held in the Court of the Women. In an open space in the Court sat four huge candelabra. When night fell, the candelabra were lit, and the elders danced and led the people in singing psalms before the Lord all night. The brilliance and glow from the flames were said to be so bright that the light could be seen throughout the whole city. It was against this background that Jesus cried out, “I am the Light of the world.”

So, there is the Light… Now let’s look at the darkness...

The word is used in Scripture to describe both the state and the works of man. Darkness is very real in Scripture.

The darkness refers to the world of the natural man who does not know Jesus Christ. The natural man walks in ignorance of Jesus Christ. He walks in ignorance of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. He walks in ignorance of the real purpose and destiny of life as shown by Christ.

The natural man stumbles about in this world. He knows nothing other than the things of this world as he sees them. his only hope is the hope of living a long life before death. He walks in darkness, ignorant of real life now and eternity.

2. The darkness symbolizes unpreparedness and unwatchfullness. It symbolizes the time when evil occurs.

3. The darkness is loved by men. Sinful men do their evil deeds under the cover of darkness. Men therefore hate the light because the light uncovers their evil behavior. One of the worst things to happen when someone is robbing your house is to turn the light on.

4. The darkness is hostile to light. You can see that in our nation today.

So, having said all that, there are two critical points here....

Man does not possess light, not within himself, not by nature. Men are in darkness by nature.

A man is delivered “out of darkness” by trusting in Christ.

So, Jesus just laid another bombshell onto these religious leaders… How dare He call Himself the Light of the world, the I AM! So they call Him out on it...

(13-18) They said that Jesus cannot be His own witness, but in Jewish Law, there needed to be two. But the witness of Jesus was true, and His witness was sufficient evidence for a very strong reason. Jesus knew His origin and destiny, where He had come from and where He was going. He was out of heaven, out of the spiritual dimension of being, and He was to return to heaven.

Again, Jesus speaks of His relationship with His Father and His mission. He had a Father-Son relationship with God. He knew God in a very personal and intimate way as Father. He had come from the presence and the household of His Father, that is, from heaven. Therefore, He alone could know all the facts. And He and God are two witnesses. He had come, being sent of the Father to proclaim the glorious message of salvation; I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.

(19-20) The Pharisees mocked Jesus. They told Him to present His Father… “Go get Him and bring Him here so He can bear witness.” Notice how they proved Jesus’ words: they judged by the flesh, by sight. They wanted physical evidence. (But they had it.... He is standing right in front of them and He has proved it by His miracles) He was Man standing before them, and they could see and know Him as Man, but He was also the Son of God. If they rejected His claim and refused to accept Him as Lord, they naturally did not know Him.

And the tragedy of this all was that Jesus was rejected in the Temple. The Pharisees wanted nothing to do with Him. They rejected and opposed Him, desiring to get rid of Him. But they couldn’t because it wasn’t His time yet.

Man’s Failure: Darkness

(21-30)

How to die in your sins

Life in a fallen world is full of missed opportunities and personal regrets. And I am sure that the Pharisees now are regretting their decision to reject Christ. In these verses, they and Jesus tell us how to die in your sins. If you are not saved. If you have never put your faith in Christ for salvation, here is how to die in your sins. Here is how to find your way to a literal, burning hell...

Be Self-Righteous

(22)

In verse 21, Jesus had warned the self-righteous religious leaders that their unwillingness to believe in Him meant they would die in their sins. Unforgiven, unredeemed, and unprepared to meet God, they had lived a life in darkness that would result in an eternity in hell. The Lord repeated what He had said earlier to them in chapter 7, that He was going to a place where those who refused to believe in Him can never come.

The response of the Jews here turned Jesus’ warning into a joke. Surely He will not kill Himself, will He? Ironically, those who were plotting to take His life asked if He intended to commit suicide. They understood that Jesus was speaking of his death. Now the Jews abhorred suicide, and believed that those who killed themselves went to the blackest part of hell. Since they assumed that they were going to heaven, the Jews mockingly suggested that Jesus must be speaking of killing Himself, in which case He would go to hell.

Confident in their self-righteousness, they were not just deaf to Jesus’ words, but they blasphemously twisted their meaning. It is true that Jesus would give up His life voluntarily, but He would not die by His own hand. He would die at the hands of those very men who now mocked Him.

Self-righteousness is a deadly lie, and is opposite of genuine salvation. The Judaism of Jesus’ day was a legalistic system of salvation by human works. The people based their hope of salvation on performing good works, observing ceremonies and rituals, and keeping the Law. As Paul put it...

Romans 10:3 NKJV

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

They failed to understand what Paul later came to understand, that by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in God’s sight.

The New Testament teaches that no one can be saved by self-righteousness.

Matthew 5:20 NKJV

For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

External compliance to the Law will save no one; salvation comes only from Christ’s righteousness imputed to those who believe. The Scribes and Pharisees were the epitome of self-righteous human achievers. Those who follow their example and trust in good works, morality, and religious activities to save them; who refuse to admit their inability to contribute anything to saving themselves and cry out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner!, will die in their sins. The self-righteous will never see heaven.

Be Worldly

(23)

Jesus refuses to acknowledge the Jews mocking suggestion here. Instead, He elaborated on His warning in verse 21 that they would die in their sin. The Lord pointed out that their origin, like their destiny, was altogether different than His. They were from a completely different realm; they were from below; they were a part of this world.

World (kosmos) is an important NT term. It refers in this context to the invisible spiritual system of evil that opposes the kingdom of God, and is controlled by Satan. The world does not recognize Jesus’ true identity, or that of believers. It is also ignorant of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent. Remember the darkness, they are blind to spiritual truth.

Materialism, humanism, immorality, pride, and selfishness, these are the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. These are the world’s hallmarks. It is utterly opposed to divine truth and holiness. Its opinions are wrong; its aims are selfish; its pleasures are sinful; its influences are demoralizing; its politics are corrupt; its honors are empty; its love is false.

Be Unbelieving

(24)

Here Jesus goes beyond the self-righteousness and worldliness and gets the heart of the issue - unbelief. Jesus declares yet again that those who reject Him will die in their sins because they refuse to believe that He is the I AM.

Jesus uses the name of God that was so sacred that the Jews refused to pronounce it. The Jews understood perfectly that He was claiming to be God. In fact, they were so shocked by His use of this name that they attempted to stone Him for blasphemy at the end of this chapter.

The Lord Himself says that those who reject Him cannot be saved, but will die in their sins. To be a Christian one must believe that Jesus is who He said He is… that He is deity, that He was God incarnate, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, that His death on the cross is the only sufficient, substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of all who would ever believe in Him, that He rose from the dead and ascended to the Father in heaven, and that He now intercedes for His own redeemed people and will one day return in glory. To reject those truths about Him is to reject Him and continue living in darkness.

Persistent unwillingness to believe the truth about Jesus Christ, you will die in your sins, since salvation comes only through faith in Him. Those who continue in unbelief, refusing to embrace in faith all that Jesus is and has done, will die in their sins.

Be Willfully Ignorant

(25-30)

It was their ignorance that was holding them captive. The Jews crazy question, “Who are You?” was amazing in the light of all the miraculous signs Jesus had performed and the repeated claims He had already made. The overwhelming evidence made it obvious who Jesus was, so He merely replied that He was who He had been claiming to be from the beginning of His ministry. He had nothing more to say.

Incredibly, despite the fact that Jesus had spoken so clearly to them, they still did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. Such was the deceptive power of their willful unbelief. They had no ears to hear.

There was coming a day when the truth of His claims would be confirmed, so as to become undeniable. Therefore Jesus said, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. Christ’s death and resurrection proved every claim ever made for Jesus by the prophets and apostles, and erased all doubt to any open mind as to His deity. That awesome work proved that He truly spoke the things that the Father taught Him, that the Father was one with Him, and could not leave Him alone, and that He always did the things that are pleasing to the Father, for He could do nothing else.

Some of the Jews who rejected Jesus would later realize that they had been terribly mistaken about Him. On the day of Pentecost alone, about 3,000 Jews would come to receive Him as the Messiah. Even on this occasion, six months before the cross, His words were so powerful that as He spoke, many came to believe in Him. But the majority, in spike of the evidence, refused to believe - choosing instead to remain self-righteous, worldly, unbelieving, and willfully ignorant to the end. As a result, they condemned themselves to ultimately die in their sins and never see heaven, but suffer eternal wrath.

Closing

So what about you? We have been going through the book of John, and Jesus repeats Himself a few times here, and He will again in the next few chapters. Many of these people listened to what Jesus had to say. They saw how He lived, they witnessed the miracles. And yet they still did not believe.

Folks, you can sit here in church and hear all about Christ. You can witness the power of Christ in some of the lives of the people here. You can see what God has done in this church. You can sit here week after week and know about Jesus, hear preaching on the Word, and still you don’t believe. You think in your heart that you are good and you are blinded by your self-righteousness, your worldly living, your unbelieving, and your willful ignorance! What a tragedy to try to live a good life… to try to fake all of us out that you are a good person… all of this in pride, only to stand before God one day and hear those words, “Sorry, I never knew you… depart from Me.” And then be thrown into the Lake of Fire separated from God for eternity.

Stop living in darkness! Look to Jesus who is the Light!