Light in the World

to consider. The prologue goes
all the way down through verse 18, and we have just been working
our way through it thus far, really savoring the depths of
what John the Apostle is offering to us in his description of the
Lord Jesus Christ and last Lord’s Day as we as we saw his description
of the forerunner and the ministry of John the Baptist. In order
that we can kind of set the tone and glide right into our consideration
of the passage before us this morning, I wanna go all the way
back to verse one. A good deal of what we’ll interact
with this morning is in a sense in contrast with what John the
Apostle has already said. So if you would, all the way
back to verse one. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things came into being through
Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come
into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did
not comprehend it. There came a man sent from God
whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify
about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not
the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the
true light which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the
world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He
came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive
Him. But as many as received Him,
to them He gave the right to become children of God, even
to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us. And we saw His glory, glory as
of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John has introduced us to some interesting concepts. At the
very beginning, he introduced us very enigmatically to the
Word. In the beginning was the Word.
And for a number of verses, John continued that pattern, just
referring to this being, whoever he was, as the Word. We learned
about his eternal nature. We learned about his relational
position, that he was with God. We learned that he himself had
a divine identity, that he was God. We learned in verse 2 that
he had a distinct personality, even though he was in the beginning
with God, and he was with God, he was God, and in that, he was
completely distinct from the Father, as we’ll come to see
in a moment. We saw his creational power in
verse three, all things came into being through him, a thought
that John the Apostle will repeat again this morning. All things
came into being through him and apart from him nothing came into
being that has come into being. We saw some very difficult passages,
some difficult thoughts that it was key to clarify that even
when we went through them, for the very verses before us this
morning, When John said, in him was life, and the life was the
light of men, that was not the light of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that was the light of human conscience. As we saw, that light, that human
conscience, shines in the darkness, and both things coexist side
by side throughout eternity. The darkness did not comprehend
it. We learned about the ministry of John the Baptist last Lord’s
Day. We learned of his divine commissioning.
This was a man sent by God, not like Christ was from God’s very
side, but a divine commissioning nonetheless. He came as a witness. He came literally to the courtroom
of all humanity. And all humanity sat in the courtroom
and essentially heard the witness of John the Baptist. He came
for the purpose of testifying about the light, and now the
light takes on new and greater significance. He came to testify,
he came to tell everybody about the Lord Jesus Christ, and we
saw that that’s exactly what John is referring to here, for
the very purpose that all might believe through him. We come to this new section. A new section beginning in verse
9 where we really begin to get a glimpse of what John now refers
to as the light of the world. The Apostle John switches metaphors
and he moves from the metaphor of the Word, which we had already
determined is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he switches
metaphors and moves to the light, referring to the same Savior. He’s the light. He’s the light
of the world. Let you in on a little pastoral
quirk. Years ago, I kind of had a misstep,
kind of. I found myself not really fond
of that little song that became popular for a short time in the
80s, Shine Jesus Shine, right? You’ve probably heard of it.
It’s still not my favorite, I have to admit. But my argument was
that I really didn’t find that idea in scripture, as if, the
idea I really didn’t like is that we would order the Lord
Jesus around. Go shine. That’s kind of how it seemed
to me. But as I backed away, and especially
as I reviewed this passage, that essentially is the idea of that
little song. that Jesus is shining, Jesus
is going to shine, Jesus will continue to shine. He doesn’t
need to be told to do so. But we have, for the very first
time in this passage really, John the Apostle telling us that
light was in a very new and real way in the world. Jesus is shining. We have light in the world. And
I very carefully selected my preposition there. I could have
said light of the world. He is the light of the world.
He himself will say it later in John’s gospel. But what John
the Apostle is saying here in chapter one is that in a very
real way, light came into the world. Light was in the world
in a whole new way. And what John wants to address
is humanity’s interaction with the glory of Christ. Humanity’s
reception or non-reception of that glory. We have the light
of God, the light of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world, and
we have humanity’s reaction to it. As we begin to contemplate
what I would call points of light that I see four in this passage,
look first of all at the light and its effect. And check that. It’s the light and his effect. Because every time that John
now refers to the light, he’s talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. The light and his effect. Look
at verse 9. There was the true light which
coming into the world enlightens every man. As I told you this
morning, as we began to look, the reason we read the passage
in full is there are a number of contrasts with the previous
sections. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was God. That whole section forms a contrast
to what John says here. Look at verse 4. In verse four
it says, in him was life, and the life was the light of men.
He was talking about a kind of light then, a kind of revelation,
a kind of information that humanity has been privileged to receive. But now we have the true light.
Now we have light of a completely different nature. We’ll come
back to that thought in a moment. The very purpose for which Christ
came. was to be a light, and that’s
exactly what John the Baptist was given for, was to testify
about that light, so that all might believe through him. And then the clarification there
in verse eight, he, that is John the Baptist, was not the light,
but he came to testify about the light, now there was the
true light. And so there are a number of
these contrasts. You were here a couple of weeks
ago. You saw that there is an antithesis
here that is woven throughout this passage. The light that
John mentions in verses four and five is not the same light
that he mentions in verses seven through nine. Some of your Bibles
might have a device that we looked at several weeks ago, the device
of capitalizing that word. In some cases, your Bibles might
capitalize every time that light occurs. The New American Standard,
for one, capitalizes light every time it occurs in this section.
The ESB, the NIV, they don’t capitalize it at all. And neither
one of those are particularly helpful. As I said, once or twice
a year I try to find something kind to say about the old King
James Version. Here’s your opportunity. The
King James Version, I think, has it exactly right here. When
it does not capitalize the light in verses 4 and 5, but it does
capitalize the light in verses 7 through 9. He’s talking about
a different kind of light. And for the very first time,
it’s appropriate here in verses 7 through 9, here in particularly
in verse 9, to capitalize the word light, because it refers
to someone very special. It refers to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was appropriate to just refer to light in passing, a lower
case, if you will, because it was a light of a different nature
in verses four and five, a more basic, a more primary level of
revelation. But the apostle John has something
very different in mind. We began to see that in verse
seven, but now his idea of light shifts clearly to a reference
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the light. Glance down at verse 9, where the Apostle John says here
that there was the true light. Humanity has been privileged.
They’ve been blessed. God has not left himself without
a witness. You can step out and look at
creation, just as we sang and spoke about this morning. You
can look and see, and that is God’s witness to all humanity. But there’s another kind of witness. There’s another kind of testimony. There’s another kind of revelation
that God has given to humanity, and it took place in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He was the true light. John the
Baptist was a witness of that light, but Jesus Christ is the
light himself. How do we know that that’s referring
to the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 9? Look at verse 10. was in the world, and the world
was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came
to his own, to those who were his own, did not receive him. John is talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ, there’s no doubt about it. Jesus Christ is the
light referenced here in John 1, 7 through 9, light with a
capital L. There’s a significant translational
issue here in verse 9. I want to pause. Even as I’ve
read already from the New American Standard, you may have already
picked up on it. And you may be scratching your head as to
why I read it the way that I read it, or the New American translated
it the way they did, when your Bible says something remarkably
different, depending on the translation you’re reading. It pertains to
this phrase that phrase embedded there in the text, coming into
the world. Should it be attached with the
true light, the true light, the light coming into the world,
or should it be attached to every man, every man coming into the
world? Well, based on the construction of the Greek, either way would
work. Either way is entirely plausible. You could say, that there was
the true light coming into the world that enlightens every man. Or you could say there was the
true light that enlightens every man who comes into the world. Both of those are accurate. The King James has it the other
way. The true light enlightens every
man. Pardon me, there was the true light which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world. And there are a good many things
in favor of that particular translation. Namely, noses. Now if you’ve been with me before,
you know what I mean by that. A good many noses attached to
people who held this position. In other words, you’ve got numbers
in your favor. It’s a popular idea. And there
are some really old noses in there too. Some people, when
they are deciding an important matter such as this, they just
simply want to count noses. How many people held to a particular
position? What’s the majority rule? And
there are some, as I said, very old noses. Very early translations. The King James, most notably,
translates it this way. The early church fathers, a lot
of powerful men in the history of the church held to that position.
that it’s referring to all the men who came into the world,
the reformers, now that’s the one that we wince at, you know,
we conservatives, because those are our guys, right? They set
the church aright. But the plentiful noses, the
early majority, even big noses, bear with me. Even old noses, it’s not enough
to make this position convincing, it’s not. There’s a great deal
against this idea that the reference is to man, merely to people who
happen to be coming into the world. For one, John doesn’t
use the phrase this way. He doesn’t use this phrase to
refer to people. He uses this phrase often and
he doesn’t use the phrase to refer to people. In this particular
gospel, John’s gospel, John doesn’t say, of human birth that someone
was said to be coming into the world. That’s a common phrase
for us, and so it’s easy for people to kind of jump backward
in time and to append this into John the Apostle’s writing. John
doesn’t say that, though. He doesn’t use the word, the
phrase, that way. One pastor in describing this,
I think he said it well when he said, as far as men are concerned,
they were never outside of the world. and thus they cannot come
into the world by means of birth. I mean, we tend to think of it
that way, but in the Hebrew culture, that idea would have been totally
foreign, coming into the world. He does, though, John the Apostle,
use this phrase of Christ. He uses this phrase repeatedly
of Christ, that he was in the world. The true light coming
into the world enlightens every man. He uses it here, but he
uses it elsewhere. And in order to be honest, not
everyone favors this translation, as I said. It wasn’t historically
popular. Not a lot of noses behind this
one. The biggest problem that people
have with it is the verb is separated. One at the very beginning of
a sentence and the other almost at the very end. And so, there’s no doubt it’s
a very unique construction. But John, as I said, he uses
this phrase, coming into the world, to speak about the entry
of Christ into this world in which we live. Listen to these. The Apostle John said it. In
John chapter 3. John chapter 3 verse 19, this
is the judgment, that light has come into the world and men love
the darkness rather than the light. The great crowd of people
who were miraculously fed, feeding the 5,000. In John chapter 6,
when the people saw the sign which he, that is Jesus, had
performed, they said, this truly is the prophet who is to come
into the world. Same exact phrase, Martha. Remember Martha? Everybody loves
Martha. John chapter 11, Martha said,
Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
even he who comes into the world. Jesus himself. I have come as
a light into the world. Jesus uses that of himself on
a number of other occasions. 1628, 1837. This is referring
to the light. It’s the light that’s coming
into the world. Israel was in constant expectation of the coming
one, and it makes only perfect sense here that he doesn’t need
to double down on what he says about mankind. He’s already said
that the light will lighten every man. He doesn’t need to double
down and say every man who ever comes into the world. Let’s ask another question in
the passage. That phrase, coming into the
world, is referring to the light, but what does John mean when
he says the true light? In what sense was it true? Now
there are two very similar Greek words, alatheis and alathenos. Alatheis means true as opposed
to lying, truth. And it’s used plentifully in
John’s gospel. 14 times in this gospel, twice
in his epistle. And elsewhere in the entire rest
of the New Testament, it’s only used nine times. So this is kind
of one of John’s words, but that’s not the word he uses here. Instead
he uses allathenos, which is true as opposed to spurious or
questionable. In other words, something that’s
genuine, perfect, He isn’t saying that Christ is the true light
as opposed to false lights, false prophets. He’s saying that of
all the light that ever came into the world, Jesus Christ
was genuine, true, perfect. There couldn’t have been a better
testimony than Christ. There couldn’t have been a witness
better than Christ to the nature of God, who He is, and what He
expects. It’s the perfect ideal, as one
said. And this word is used equally plentifully in John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel speaks of true
worshippers. John 4.23. True bread. John 6.32. Jesus of Himself said,
I am the true vine. John 15.31. John 17.3. He speaks of the true God. All
of these things point to the fact that what John the Apostle
is here saying is that Jesus Christ was the perfect representation
of God. He was the true light. There
was no witness that could ever surpass the witness of the Lord
Jesus. This true light has come into
the world. This is the first time that John
the Apostle really references that entry into the world, that
something new has taken place. and it’s for a purpose. He’s
been telling us about the Light, about the Word, and about the
Lord Jesus Christ from eternity past, and even this forerunner,
he advances this idea that there’s some kind of a purpose to it,
that he’s sent with an evangelical mission, he’s sent to tell men
about the Light, What is the purpose? This will
sound so simplistic it’s almost laughable. What’s the purpose
of light? The purpose of light is to enlighten.
The purpose of light is to literally reveal. And if you look at the passage,
look at verse 9. There was the true light which
coming into the world enlightens every man. How so? How so? Some people looked at this passage
and they said, well, that’s just hyperbole. That’s just kind of
biblical over-speak, if you will. Literally, all men, you can’t
really say that Jesus Christ enlightened every man because
not every man believes in Jesus. And so the opinions on what this
means are all over the map. Some people would say that when
when it says that Jesus Christ comes into the world as light
to enlighten every man, that all are converted. And you have
entire religions, cults really, that would say that every person
ever born will be eventually saved. That’s not true. Universalism
is not true. Some people would say that this,
what he’s referring to here, is merely the light of reason
that Jesus just kind of came to supercharge our consciences
and give us intelligence. Another said that there was this
inward light of grace that was sufficient to say, now the Quakers,
here’s how they held it. If you’ve been in the Midwest,
the Quakers, or what they’re referred to there as the Friends
Movement, they had a very interesting take on the gospel. I don’t believe
that it’s biblically supportable, but they went right to this verse
to defend it. The Quakers believed that at
some point in time, every single person has to interact with the
gospel of Christ. Every single person has enough
gospel presented to them that they have opportunity. because
otherwise it wouldn’t be fair in their understanding of the
gospel. Every single person has the opportunity
to hear the gospel, interact with the gospel, and decide for
themselves. They have enough gospel that
it’s sufficient to save them. Well, there are other opinions. Some said that what Jesus really
came to do is just enlighten all the ones that end up getting
enlightened. which is really a strange perspective on this
passage. Some people said that, some commentators
suggested that Jesus Christ shines sufficiently for the salvation
of all mankind, but he actually doesn’t do anything to anyone. Some people said that it was
a light to Gentiles as well as Jews, which is an interesting
way to take every man He’s saying that this is Jews and Gentiles. He set all those aside. Let me
just tell you what I actually believe this means. In what sense
did the true light enlighten every man? Just as we talked
about in verses four and five. where the light of the conscience,
every person ever born on the face of the earth has a conscience.
Every person born on the face of the earth knows that there
is a God. That’s what Paul says in Romans
1. Everyone knows that God exists. Everyone sees his awesome power. Everyone knows his character.
What Jesus Christ came to do is to add into that pool of knowledge
the knowledge of Himself invading the world, that Lord Jesus Christ
had come. It’s a basic awareness of the
existence of Jesus Christ together with the hope that He brings.
And what this says is that every man is aware of that. Every single
person ever born is aware in some degree that Christ came. Now if you’re living in America,
and really throughout the greater part of the world, it really
is pretty easy. All you have to do is look at
the date on the newspaper. Look at the date on the newspaper
and you know that something stupendous, something absolutely remarkable
happened 2015 years ago. So much so that we scrapped the
former calendar and adopted a completely new system. Jesus Christ. You could go up
to any person, regardless of what culture they’re in. If you’re
able to access their language, you could mention the name of
Jesus Christ, ask who he is, and at the very minimum, they
would have to acknowledge he was a historical figure. This light that comes It’s universal
only in the sense that every single person has a glimpse of
this light. It doesn’t mean that all have
to be saved by it, but God, in sending the Lord Jesus Christ
as light into the world, interacts with every single person that
the world has ever seen. Not just in a general way, as
if God shines his love on the whole world. The light of the
Lord Jesus Christ touches every single person. As one said, it is a common teaching
of the New Testament writers that God has revealed something
of himself to all men, sufficient at least for them to be blameworthy. In other words, Paul in Romans
1 says, if you don’t have a basic belief in God, you are without
excuse. God has given himself plenty
of witness, and now what essentially John the Apostle says is that
Christ has done likewise. He has borne witness of himself.
He is the light. He is the light of every person
ever born into the world. I love the way one said it. One pastor said, men were not
left alone to interpret the manifestations of the light in the life around
and in them. We talked about that in verses
four and five, that when you’re born, you have this sense, we
call it the God-shaped vacuum, you have this sense that there’s
something bigger and grander, that there is a designer, a creator
outside of you. that someone put this all together
and he has me here for some kind of a purpose. There is that longing
in the human heart. Men were not left alone to interpret
the manifestations of light and the life around them and in them.
No, man is wholly destitute of the illumination of the light.
pardon me, no man is wholly destitute of the illumination of the light.
In nature and life, the conscience makes itself in various degrees
available to all. The word is the spiritual sun.”
Did you get that? It would be impossible to live
on this world and not have some perception that there is a sun. a globe burning in the sky, warming
this earth, lighting this earth, and likewise with regards to
Christ. It is impossible. It is impossible
to come away conceiving, in fact, you are without excuse to come
away conceiving that God has not redemptively interacted with
humanity. It’s impossible. Now the light, I think it’s fair
to say, the light illumines every man. That’s exactly what the
passage says. Every man has had some measure
of light. They have seen and interacted
with the light, but not all are saved. That’s essentially what
John begins to address in verse 10. John isn’t saying that that
isn’t true, and he isn’t saying two different things in two different
verses. He’s saying that the light has
come into the world, but not all have received the light. As we begin to contemplate the
points of light, we’ve seen, first of all, the light and his
effect. His effect is to enlighten, illuminate. And every heart has been touched
by the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, though, as
we contemplate the points of light, there’s light in the world,
Let’s look at the light in his general rejection. His general
rejection. Because we’re gonna talk about
specific people groups next Lord’s Day. But generally speaking,
if you stand back and you look at the totality of humanity,
Jesus Christ has been rejected. Not by everybody, but generally
so, look at verse 10. He was in the world. And the
world was made through Him. And the world did not know Him. Let’s take it just one at a time.
He basically, the Apostle John here, stands back and he takes
a summary of the entire history of the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, he was in the world.
There’s no doubt what he’s pointing to here, this section that really
opens up to the incarnation of Christ, as we’ll see in verse
14. What John is referring to here
is the incarnation of Christ, those 33 years where Jesus was
born, came, lived upon the earth. This idea the verb here, he was
in the world, just talks about continuity. It talks about him
coming and abiding, that he spent time here, and he still is in
existence, but there was a time where he was here intensely so.
He was here, here on earth. That was first suggested back
in verse five, remember? Alluded to, in verse five it
just said, the light shines in the darkness, that in some way
the light came to earth, The darkness did not comprehend it.
But then it was alluded to very strongly in verses 7 and 8. He
came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might
believe in Him. And here you have John telling
people, essentially, the sun is shining, that it was like
that. The Lord Jesus Christ is here.
The coming one, the one you’ve been waiting for, is here. It was suggested earlier, it
was alluded to in verses 7 and 8, and it’s fully declared in
verse 14. Just glance down at verse 14 for a moment. The Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory
as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and
truth. He was in the world. Just was. And for the sad millions of people
that are completely indifferent to that, it’s gotta be grievous
to God. It should be grievous to us.
He was in the world. He was here. But get this, and what John is
doing here, he’s building. It’s building to a crescendo.
As I said, he’s standing back and he’s looking at the entire
history of the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity past to His time
on earth. Look at verse 10 again. He was
in the world, and the world was made through Him. What he points to here, he’s just
building and pointing to this divine glory that the Lord Jesus
Christ became incarnate and He lived among us, but it was the
very One that had created everything. That’s what was so astounding. Think back to verse 3. As John
began to tell us about the Word, about this being called the Word,
who was with God from eternity past, all things came into being
through Him. And apart from Him, nothing came
into being that has come into being. So when John, the apostle,
says here again, the world was made through Him, he’s just reiterating
what he’s already declared. But he’s already heralded in
the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the creator. He’s
the creator that came down to earth and took on human flesh.
But when he got here, we should have recognized him. As one said, the world owes its
very existence to him. And John is, as we’ll see as
we go through his gospel, he will do this frequently. The
very thing that you expect, John states the exact opposite. What you would expect from verse
10 is this. This is the conclusion, right?
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and
the entire world fell on its face in reverence and repentance. That’s not what John says. That’s
what we’d expect based on those two thoughts. He was in the world
and the world was made through Him. He’s here. The God of the
universe is here. The God of the universe that
took on human flesh is here. He was in the world and the world
was made through Him. The world did not know Him. The interesting thing here The
word world essentially changes meanings. It morphs as this verse
goes on. It doesn’t have the same meaning
as it did in verse nine. There are four different words
that can be translated in the New Testament as world. And even
the word before us here this morning has a number of different
subtle meanings. Paul uses the word 46 times,
that’s a lot. The synoptic writers, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, use it 14 times, not so much. John? John speaks
of the world more than 100 times. This is John’s subject. This is John’s theme. What does
it mean? as one described, primarily in
the New Testament, it is used of the material universe as distinct
from God. So everything outside of God
is said to be the world. But man is the chief inhabitant
of the world as we know it, and thus cosmos, usually, that’s
the Greek word, usually in John, includes the world of moral agents
as well as the sum of physical forces. So when you begin to
talk about the world, it includes the people, it includes our thought,
it includes our systems, it includes the planets and the stars and
all those things. It isn’t just this globe. That is, it stands for mankind
at large, as well as for the earth in which is man’s habitation. But as the fall introduced disorder
into which in the beginning was good, the term cosmos frequently
carries with it a suggestion of imperfection, evil, estrangement
from God. And you have that use throughout
the Gospel of John. Listen to this. John 7-7. The world cannot hate you, but
it hates me. The world hates me. Now that’s
a strange thing to say if you’re talking about the planet Earth.
He’s not talking about the planet. John 14, 17, the spirit of truth
whom the world cannot receive. He’s talking about the totality
of the people. Those disinclined to God. John 15, 19, 17, 14, same thing. The world, which is completely
aloof and apart from God, with their backs towards Him, hardened
hearts, trying to suppress what they know about God to be true,
is hostile towards God. As I said,
the Word takes on all manner of different meanings in the
New Testament, including adornment, First Peter 3.3, the way a woman
dresses. It’s her cosmos. The ordered
universe, Romans 1.20. The creation of the world, Paul
talked about. The earth, the globe itself. The inhabitants of the world.
When John later will talk about the lamb of God, the savior who
takes away the sin of the world. He’s not talking about the globe
there. He’s not talking about the way
a woman dresses, but there’s a subtle shift if
you look at verse 10. The first two times it’s mentioned,
it refers to the earth and everything about it. He’s talking about
this world system, spiritually speaking. But in the third time, It talks
about just people. People, the world, humanity in
general. And it says that they did not
know Him. When it says they did not know
Him, it doesn’t mean, it doesn’t give them an excuse. They can’t
take this way out to say, I never heard of Jesus. I never knew
that there was a God. I’m agnostic, I was raised that
way. It means to recognize, to acknowledge. As one said, more than intellectual
knowledge is in mind, there is the thought of failing to know
intimately, to know and love as a friend, to be in a right
relation. He was in the world. Jesus Christ was in the world,
He was in the world as the Creator and yet you have the great mass
of humanity who just brushed Him off and were indifferent
to Him. Even though He was their Creator,
even though He was the Savior of the world who had come to
die for sinners. The great mass of people brushed
their hands and thumbed their nose and did not know him. One pastor said the world was
his work, bearing the stamp of his intelligence as the masterpiece
bears the stamp of the genius artist. Now you have people today
that can walk into They don’t even need to see the name in
the lower right hand corner. They can look at a piece of art
and they can know who the artist was who painted the painting.
That’s what he’s saying. What he’s saying here is that
that’s what every person should have known about Christ. He was
filling it with his invisible presence. And especially with
moral light, with which he was enlightening the human soul.
And behold, when he appears, this world created and enlightened
by him did not recognize him. But not all, not all. The great number of humanity,
the majority, if you will, just were indifferent to Christ, indifferent
to God, trying to suppress what they know about God and absolutely
indifferent to the Lord Jesus Christ, indifferent to Him as
a Savior, indifferent to Him as the Creator, but not all. The next Lord’s Day we’ll look
at the light in His particular reception. In verses 11 and following. Would you bow? Our merciful God, We humble ourselves
in your glorious presence. And we thank you that you’ve
seen fit by your spirit, first of all, to empower the Apostle
John to write these deep things and to testify himself about
the true light. Lord God, we thank you and praise
you that purely by your grace and
mercy, you have opened the blinded eyes of us sinners. Lord God,
for any who are in this room, young and old, if we have placed
our faith in Christ, it is not because of us. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the creator of the world from eternity past, came as a
light shining so bright that no man should have ignored it. No man could have ignored it
except out of the willful sinfulness of his soul. Lord God, we are
humbled before you, we who placed our faith in Christ, but we know
in our midst that there are those who have not. We know in our
midst that there are those who continue to press down on the
light and the light of knowledge of what you have proclaimed,
what you have shown, what you show every day in your creation,
your power, your righteousness, your holiness. But on top of all that knowledge,
There is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ that not only
was He God, not only was He the Creator, He was sent by you into
this world to pay for the sin of sinners. O Lord God, if any
in our midst do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, They have only to place their
faith in Him today, to stop ignoring the testimony that you’ve given,
and to submit themselves to you in faith. Jesus Christ is the
only way of salvation. And we rejoice in that. It’s
in Jesus’ name that we pray. You can take your bulletins.
As we close, let’s stand together and sing Jesus Messiah.