Blinded by the Light (2)

John 8:13-59

Jesus is the light of the world. By his light we see the truth: human beings are slaves to sin. This is the first step to freedom.

The rest of John 8 is both believers and non-believers desperately trying to refuse the light and fight the truth by questioning Jesus' credentials. Jesus offers to us true freedom through the truth of his word. That first step is this: to see in his light the slavery-chains of sin... and that true freedom is possible in the Son.

Hating the Light

Kids hating the light in the morning. AAAaaaaahhh.

It means the end of the dream. It means the end of vacation.

But, I have to be honest, I am loving the vacation time too. I’m not super looking forward to Monday.

But I liked sleeping in until noon and doing mostly nothing and eating ridiculous amounts of leftovers.

But we don’t just live life that way… because we know that life doesn’t work that way. And we also know there is more out there…

Jesus as the Truth Light

John has had this theme, starting in John 1:4 and continuing through of Jesus as the light. In our passage, Jesus drops this profound statement, this powerful revelation of who he is and what he came to do.

12 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 this comes in the cycle (back to chapter 7) and really stands as the crescendo. Jesus sneaks into Jerusalem during the Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles) and he teaches, the people are divided, and the religious leaders reject him. Than again, Jesus teaches more, the people are divided on who Jesus is, and the religious leaders reject him.

This follows hard on the end of chapter 7. So we probably still have the context of the Festival of Booths.

Lighting of the huge lamps near the center of the city. Lighting the whole city. So Jesus, as he so often does, uses the immediate metaphor to reveal and explain spiritual reality.

What does Light do?

It reveals. It shows us what reality is. It reveals the truth of things and brings that information back to our eyeballs so that we can be aware of it.

Now Jesus is working hard to get a very powerful message across here, but everyone else is working just as hard to fight and discredit and question. So we have a long chapter wherein Jesus says two very powerful positive things and almost everything else is attack and defense. So I want to jump to the other positive thing Jesus teaches because it furthers this idea of Jesus as the light of the world.

Fighting against the Light

They say “EEEeeeeeehh!” to Jesus. They don’t like the light. They don’t like what the light reveals or might reveal. And so they fight.

They question Jesus’ credentials. “Who says?” “Who testifies?” and as always Jesus claims his word are the testimony of his Father, making it clear that they are obviously disconnected from the Father if they don’t recognize his works and words.

But no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come.

Light reveals the truth of things, and

John 8:31-32

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Now this is a powerful verse. The truth of Jesus, and we will learn later in John that the truth isn’t just something Jesus says it is something Jesus is. The truth of Jesus has power and power to free us. His word. And when the Word, the Logos, speaks of his “word” we listen in and know that there is so much profundity going on here.

And this isn’t just a one time thing, Jesus speaks of “abiding” in his word. Living in it and living by it. If we abide in his word, then we are disciples, and then we know truth… and that will set us free.

And this fits perfectly, smoothly with his light imagery, he is the light which reveals the truth. And this has application for days, so many things. The truth of Jesus, the truth in Jesus.

But there is one particular truth encounter that takes place throughout this passage. It is the reason the religious leaders are rejecting Jesus. It is the reason people keep coming to Jesus, then leaving Jesus. It is the very first truth one must confront in the light of Jesus.

And it isn’t a pleasant truth.

He said it to the Pharisses in verse 21

21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”

And then more

23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

And then in explaining the truth he was talking about he says:

34

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

This is what is revealed in the light of Jesus. This is the first truth that those who would follow Jesus have to face. And these verses in verse 30, recall, are directed to those who are believing in Jesus. It is partial faith, it is fragile faith, it is incomplete, but it is a start. And Jesus starts them with this first, hard to hear truth.

You are a slave to sin.

More Fighting against the Light and the Truth

They can’t hear it.

They say “we’ve never been enslaved!” They say “Abraham is our father and he is better than you!”

They say “you are a Samaritan and you have a demon!” Are you greater than Abraham?

They fight. And they reject. They see the light and they say “EEEEEeeeeeehhhh!!!”

Jesus reveals a hard truth, they are slaves to sin.

Where he came from and where He is headed

Two great answers. Two great truths.

The first comes at the beginning, and it is a most profound and offense revelation.

John 8:58-59

58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Not only is Jesus claiming to be Ancient, immortal perhaps, a thousand years old, those words “I AM” resound… the name given to Moses, Yahweh, I AM… and nobody in his audience missed that. This was outright heresy… or a revelation that God himself stood among them. They believed it was heresy and so they picked up stones to stone him.

But Jesus had another great answer to all their questions. This one they didn’t really understand. But Jesus saw the end of their sin. He saw where all of this was going. He isn’t going to convince them. They aren’t going to recognize the light until they have done their best to destroy the light. Most of them will not know their own sin until their sin has traveled to its final destination on the cross.

John 8:28

28 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.

When I am lifted up… when the light of the world is raised for all to see…

On a cross on Calvary…

And what is revealed in that light? Your sin, and the way it has enslaved you and me.

What an ugly truth.

But what is the first step to freedom? To see the chains that bind you. To know that you are enslaved and that freedom is a thing.

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

That is the ugly truth. It was the ugly truth about them, it is the ugly truth about me. But it doesn’t end there. Even to a group of people who were rejecting the most basic truth that they were in chains to their sin, Jesus still speaks a gospel, good news, a message of hope and freedom. To the very people who would crucify him in a few months…

35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

What are your chains?

Are you willing to examine yourself in the light of Jesus? We can make up our own story about who we are, self-justifications and excuses and reasons why. But always, always, there is our sin seeking to chain us, to entangle us?

And the light of Jesus reveals that. The light of truth. As we abide in his word, spoken in the Scripture, spoken through his Spirit in prayer and through the people of God. As we abide in his word, our sin is revealed as sin. As the chains of slavery.

When we come in truth to Jesus, he calls us out on our sin.

Example(s)

As I am in prayer… or reading and studying Scripture, or in worship, or driving in my car listening, waiting on the Lord, or talking spiritual mentors or friends, in any of a thousand ways, as I am abiding in the Word of Christ.

And perhaps someone calls me out on something I did or said. Or, more often, God replays an argument to my mind. And I have the righteous anger, the marshalled arguments… and God pulls them back, shines his light, and reveals that underneath the righteous anger lies arrogance and spite.

And it’s ugly. And I hate that that is in me. It is sin, and the chains of that sin seek to wrap around my soul and drag me down to hell. Hell now and hell then.

Sin Enslaves – But We Can Be Free

But this is the beautiful message, as Jesus casts his vision forward to the cross. It stands, lifted up as a light, the very epitome of sin… and the key that sets the captives free, the cross that shatters our chains.

If the Son sets us free, we are free indeed. And because of where he came from. Because Jesus is sent from God and is God. And because of where he went, the light of the world lifted up to the cross, to death for our sins.

The Son sets us free… and we are free indeed.