John 8:12-30: The Light of the World

(1) Bible Study Questions

Discuss: An ancient view of Rabbinic Judaism about Jesus is stated in the two quotations as follows:

“[i]f someone claims to be God or the Son of Man, he is a liar”. Rabbi Abbahu, y. Ta’anit 2.1, 65b quoted in E Kessler, N Wenborn (ed), A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), 417 accessed at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QkI_JNv3rIwC&pg=PA416&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false on 22 March 2014.

[Jesus the Nazarene] impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him. […] You know that the Christians falsely ascribe marvelous powers to Jesus the Nazarene, may his bones be ground to dust, such as the resurrection of the dead and other miracles. Even if we would grant them for the sake of argument, we should not be convinced by their reasoning that Jesus is the Messiah. For we can bring a thousand proofs or so from the Scripture that it is not so even from their point of view. Indeed, will anyone arrogate this rank to himself unless he wishes to make himself a laughing stock?” (Maimonides Mosheh ben Maimon (AD 1138-1204), Epistle to Yemen, ca AD 1172): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus#Epistle_to_Yemen.

How would you outline a Christian response to this argument against Jesus being the Christ?

How do these opinions from Rabbinic Judaism interact with (a) those who say Jesus is a ‘myth’ or a ‘legend’, or (b) those who say Jesus is a ‘true prophet’ but not the Son of God?

1. During what event are the incidents recorded in chapter 8 happening, and where? (John 7:2, 10-11, 14, 37, 53, 8:1-2, 20)

2. Look up John 8:19, 25. What is the key question in this chapter?

3. Look up the following passages, and summarize their view of Jesus’ identity:

• John 7:20
• John 8:48
• John 8:52
• John 10:19-21

4. Why is it inherently unlikely that John the Evangelist made up this contemporary view of the Jewish leaders about Jesus’ identity?

Note: During the festival of tabernacles, the feast in which this saying occurs (John 7:2), four huge lamps were installed in the court of women in the temple (Carson 1991: 337). There was night time singing and dancing in that court, and the light in the court of the women would illuminate far and wide. Thus, Mishnah, Sukkah 5:1-4—“There was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not illumined by the light of the place of the water drawing. Men of piety and good deeds used to dance before them with lighted torches in their hands, and sing songs and praises. And Levites without number with harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets and other musical instruments were there upon the fifteen steps leading down from the Courtyard of the Israelites to the Courtyard of the Women [...]”: http://www.morashasyllabus.com/class/Succos%20II.pdf.

5. What claim is Jesus making about his identity? How is it topical and appropriate to the setting in which he makes it? (John 8:12, cf. 1:4)

6. What does the particular “I am” statement here tell us about who Jesus is and what Jesus does?

7. Compare John 5:31 with 8:14-18. In what circumstance would Jesus concede in 5:31 that his testimony would be untrue? Is that circumstance in existence or contrary to fact? Why is Jesus’ self-testimony truthful?

8. What does Jesus not do in verse 14, how has he just demonstrated this, and why is this statement a paradox? How do you resolve the paradox? (vv. 11, 14-15, 26, cf. 3:17, 5:22-23)

9. What does Jesus regard as the terrible sin that leads to “dying in your sins”? (v. 24, cf. vv. 21, 3:36, 5:14)

10. To what does the ‘lifting up’ of the Son of Man refer? (v. 28, cf. John 3:14-17, 12:31-34) According to Jesus, what will the ‘lifting up’ of the Son of Man prove or demonstrate? (vv. 28-29, cf. Isa 52:13-14)

Note: Just as in English, the expressions rendered ‘lift up’ can mean ‘lift off the ground’ or ‘elevate’ in a physical sense, or it can mean ‘exalt’, ‘glorify’, ‘praise’. This fact serves John’s purpose. For this reason, the ‘lifted up’ passages should be read alongside the ones where John uses the verb for ‘glorify’ (John 7:39, 12:16, 23-24, 13:30-32).

(2) Sermon Script

Big Idea

Jesus is the light of the world, who comes from the Father, the judge who does not judge now (not the sinful woman, not even the Pharisees), the Son of Man who will be lifted up for the sin of the world. Those who reject him will die in their sins and cannot go where he is going, which is back to God the Father. The answer is to believe in Jesus, that he is the Christ, the Son of Man, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Introduction: Know Thyself

An ancient Greek proverb was “know thyself”. [1] Know who you are. Know yourself properly, don’t think of yourself as either above or below what in reality you are. So Dirty Harry’s way of saying it was “A good man knows his limitations”. Knowing yourself is good philosophy. It’s important to know your strengths and weaknesses. It’s good for you and good for others. We want people to be realistic about who they are and what they are capable of.

A megalomaniac is someone who has delusions of grandeur. They begin to think of themselves as all powerful. They think that they are so important that the world revolves around them. We say now that they have a ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. They are selfish, self-centred, and self-absorbed. They believe that life is all about them. Think of people like Mao, or Stalin, or Hitler, or Pol Pot, or the North Korean communist leaders. It is nothing for them to sacrifice others for their own interests. They think themselves special, a cut above the rest. They are interested in keeping and maintaining their own wealth and political power.

Who is Jesus Christ? That is the big issue of life and the big issue of this passage. And if we think Jesus Christ is in any way a teacher, we should expect that Jesus understands something about himself.

The thing is, Jesus’ teaching only makes sense if he is either a meglomaniac who is deluded or purposely tells lies, or he is God the Son who only ever tells the truth. [2]

Deluded or Dishonest?

Megalomaniacs might say some, but not all, of the things Jesus said. Or the pre-existent, incarnate second person of the Trinity might have said the things Jesus said. But he cannot be both. Jesus is either God the only begotten Son, the eternal Word, of one being with the Father. Or Jesus is a complete space cadet, a fruit cake, or nutter, needing to be locked up. If history and the Bible means anything, there is nothing in between. [3]

We cannot countenance that sort of rubbish that is sometimes said, about “Jesus being a good teacher, but not the son of God.” Or we cannot in any way hold to the thinking that Jesus could be a prophet, but not the Son of God. He might be a ‘false prophet’ and not the Son of God. But he can’t be a true prophet and not the Son of God. The actual documents of the New Testament don’t let you say that. None of his hearers thought, “He’s just a good teacher” as they heard the fullness of his claims. No ‘good teacher’ teaches the things Jesus teaches about himself, if they are untrue.

Four times in John’s Gospel, Jesus is accused of being raving mad and demon-possessed.

• John 7:20, “You are demon-possessed’, the crowd answered. ‘Who is trying to kill you?” (NIV)
• John 8:48, “The Jews answered him, ‘Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?’” (NIV)
• And then when Jesus said that if anyone keeps his word, he will never see death, in John 8:52 we read, “At this the Jews exclaimed, ‘Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death.’” (NIV)
• And when Jesus says that he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep at the command of the Father, John 10:19-21 tells us, “At these words the Jews were again divided. Many of them said, ‘He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?’ But others said, ‘These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’” (NIV)

It is highly unlikely that later Christians would fabricate the fact that Jesus was regarded as demon possessed by his opponents or some in the crowd. [4] Christians believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and God. That makes it unlikely they would make up the idea that Jesus was sometimes accused by his contemporaries of being ‘demon possessed’ and raving mad. They would have thought it blasphemy even to think it.

But John, who claims to be an eyewitness (chapters 20 and 21), tells us that Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries thought Jesus demon possessed and raving mad. And John was happy to record lots of things Jesus said that would otherwise be outrageous. Confronted with the signs he did, the only explanation for his mighty works his contemporaries could come up with was that he was empowered by Satan.

Now, if the Jews are right about Jesus, we should stop following him and not think Jesus was a good teacher. They believe, and still believe, that Jesus was a false Messiah, a sorcerer, a deceiver, and not the Messiah at all. [5] He did not rise from the dead. Generally, the view of the Jews is that “Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and deceived and led Israel astray”. [6] One later Rabbi said, “if someone claims to be God or the Son of Man, he is a liar”. [7] Jesus certainly claimed to be the Son of Man, the Son of God, the great “I am” who existed before Abraham. So his contemporaries understood him as a blasphemer, and one who made himself equal with God.

If the muslims are right, and Jesus isn’t the Son of God and didn’t die, forget about Jesus being a good teacher, because much of Jesus’ teaching is about himself. Jesus said he was the Son of God, and that he was going to die. The muslim attempt to deny that this was Jesus’ teaching, that he was the Son of God and that he would die, has 500 years of pre-muslim history to whitewash. Before Mohammad was born, we have 500 years of undeniable historical evidence that Jesus made that claim. [8] History means nothing, if Mohammad and Islam are right. If Islam is right, again, Jesus’ teaching was wrong on its most fundamental point—himself!

If Jesus is now dead, we must not think of Jesus as a good teacher, because Jesus told his disciples he would rise from the dead and go back to the Father, and prepare a place for them, and then come back and take them to be with him. If Jesus is now dead, he is the biggest liar known to man. He is not a good teacher. He is a liar, just like the devil.

If Jesus is a complete nutter, don’t waste any more time on him. Go off, enjoy what is left of your insignificant and ultimately meaningless life, maximize pleasure, minimize pain, and die in whatever way seems best to you. That is what the atheist urges us to do. The atheist put their signs on buses in London, “There’s probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy life”. [9] As if all your worries dissolve because there is no God! No one in atheist communist China or atheist communist Russia (as it then was) or atheist communist North Korea have anything to worry about, do they? Fundamentally, if there is no God, what is there in life, if that is the case, except eat drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Survival of the fittest is the harsh reality of our godless accidental world—and too bad if you’re not fit.

But if Jesus is who he says he was, then the Gospels make sense, life makes sense, death makes sense, the Bible makes sense, Christianity makes sense. We have eternal life, we have hope, we have courage to live as Christians, and it is found in the person of Jesus Christ.

Context

The chief issue in our Bible passage is “Who is Jesus?” You see this in chapter 8 verse 25, with the question, ‘Who are you?’ Again, we see it in verse 19 with the question, “Where is your Father?” These are questions about Jesus’ origin and Jesus’ identity. Jesus has been talking about God the Father, so the question, “Where are you from?” And therefore, it is ultimately a question about “Who is Jesus?”, Jesus’ identity.

And Jesus, of course obliges with different answers in this short dialogue. He makes it clear who he is, for those of us who have ears to hear.

Jesus is the Light of the World (v. 12)

First, Jesus says he is the light of the world. Chapter 8 verse 12:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (NIV)

In recent years we have seen the showing of the ‘Vivid Festival’ in the Sydney CBD[10] in May and June. It’s basically about spending the best part of $10 million dollars of taxpayers money to show ‘pretty lights’ and play ‘nice music’ around the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. [11] And if Jesus were here, he would turn up and say, “Nice lights, but I am the light of the world.”

In our Bible passage, Jesus is teaching in the temple treasury in the court of women. During the festival of tabernacles, which is the feast in which this saying occurs (John 7:2), four huge lamps were installed in the court of women in the temple (Carson 1991: 337). There was nighttime singing and dancing in that court. Each night during the feast of tabernacles, the light in the court of the women would illuminate far and wide.[12] It was the ancient Jerusalem form of the ‘Vivid Festival’. And Jesus, in the midst of these nighttime festivities, declared, “I am the light of the world”.

He takes the festival, and says, “It’s all about me!” This is utterly arrogant and self-absorbed, if it were not true. But Jesus is “God from God and Light From Light”, so he is simply telling the truth. John has declared at the very beginning of his Gospel that Jesus is light. His light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not grasped it (John 1:4). In Chapter 9, Jesus will not only claim to be the light of the world, but Jesus will give a sign. He will open the eyes of a man born blind. The blind man will see the light of the world, while the Pharisees will be blind to who Jesus is. But for now, Jesus makes the claim, “Your pretty lights are all about me. I am the one who will give you the light of life.” Verse 12, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

So by following Jesus, we will have light, and life. By rejecting Jesus, we will have darkness, and therefore no life. So it is a personal relationship with Jesus, following him, that is the difference between light and darkness. It’s all about Jesus, who he is, and what he’s done.

John elsewhere talked about two more ways we walk in the light. There are two practical things that show we walk in the light.

First, when we walk in the light, we confess our sins (1 John 1:8-10). People love darkness instead of light because their deeds are evil, and will be exposed by the light (John 3:19-20). The light of Jesus makes our sins obvious. We can’t see our sins when we walk in the darkness. But when we walk in the light, when Christ shines on us, our sin becomes visible. And just like sunlight banishes certain stains like vegetable dyes or red wine, the true light of the world cleanses us from our sins. Jesus the light cleanses us, because Jesus died for us.

Second, when we walk in the light, we love our brothers and sisters, our fellow Christians. The person who hates his brother is still in darkness (1 John 2:9). You cannot say that you walk in the light and hate a fellow Christian. But whoever loves his brother lives in the light (1 John 2:10).

Following Jesus Christ, confessing our sins, loving our fellow Christians—that is what walking in the light means. Jesus is the light of the world, and promises that if we follow him, we will not walk in darkness.

Jesus is the Judge Who Does Not Judge (v. 14)

But Jesus is also the judge who, paradoxically, does not judge. Jesus has already claimed to be the judge of the living and the dead. John chapter 5 verse 22:

The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. (John 5:22-23 NIV)

The Father has given the Son authority to judge because Jesus is the Son of Man (John 5:27). Jesus is entrusted with the judgment of the living and the dead. As we say in the Creed, “he will come to judge the living and the dead.”

Yet, Jesus does not judge, in the sense of condemn. John 3:17:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (NIV)

Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery at the beginning of chapter 8. For Jesus said he did not come to condemn. In verse 15, Jesus says, “I pass judgment on no one.” In other words, now is not the time of judgment. Jesus will judge in the future. In verse 26, Jesus says, “I have much to say in judgment of you”. But now is not the day of judgment. For Jesus is getting ready to die on the cross, to save and not condemn. He even wants the Pharisees to believe in him, and not be condemned. And so he warns them in verse 24:

I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins (NIV).

Jesus will judge the world, because he is the Son of Man. And he gives a heads up what will happen if people persist in rejecting who he is—they will die in their sins.

Sins—we have them. They are our evil thoughts, words, and deeds. They are the good things we haven’t done, and the bad things we’ve thought, said, and done.

We die because we sin. But far worse than dying because we sin is “dying in your sin” (see v. 21 for the singular). Dying because we sin is what is going to happen to each one of us if Jesus doesn’t come back in the next 100 years or so. The wages of sin is death. It is appointed to man to die once and after that face judgement.

But dying in your sin is dying without hope of your sin being forgiven. It is dying without having the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, taking away your sin. And that is what the sin of unbelief does—it cuts someone off from the source of the forgiveness of sin, Jesus Christ. So John 3:36 tells us, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him”. That is dying in your sin, and it requires that a person has to face God’s wrath without the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Don’t do that. Instead, believe in Jesus Christ and entrust yourself to him. Jesus is the Son of Man who will be lifted up (v. 28).

Finally, we see in this passage that Jesus looks forward to his death. Verse 28:

When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be.

Jesus has already talked about being lifted up. In Chapter 3 verse 14, Jesus has said that just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. By saying ‘lifted up’, Jesus is referring to the action of crucifixion. In crucifixion, Jesus will be nailed to a cross, and lifted to the upright position, raised off the ground for everyone to see, with his arms stretched out and nailed to the cross beam.

Of course, lifted up can have another meaning. It can mean to glorify, to exalt, to give great praise, to lift high in that sense. And Jesus means it, paradoxically, to have that double meaning. Jesus means both that he will be lifted up on the cross, in shame and disgrace, and in that disgrace, lifted up and glorified, because he draws all people to himself as the crucified savior. Jesus will be lifted up in shame and disgrace and pain. But the cross of shame will be his glory and exaltation. And doing this, the Son obeys the Father. As the lamb of God, the Son pleases the Father. The Father has sent the Son to do this very thing. And Christ’s obedience to the will of the Father pleases his Father.

Conclusion

We love the lamb of God who was slain, don’t we? We love him, because with his blood, the Lord Jesus purchased men for God. This is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends. Jesus is the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. It is on the cross that Jesus bears the sin of the world. He removes God’s wrath from us. Without his death, God’s wrath remains on us. By his death, God’s wrath is removed.

And that is why we exalt Jesus. We lift up the one who was once lifted up for us. We love the one who died for our sins so that we don’t have to die in our sins. And we believe that he is the light of the World, the only Son of the Father, who came from above, from God, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, one in being with the Father, so that we now can walk in the light.

Let’s pray.

(3) English Translation

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis's_trilemma. I am folding ‘liar’ and ‘lunatic’ together, because someone who was a conscious fraud and a lunatic could not be a good teacher, either.

[3] This of course supposes our Gospels are trustworthy and accurate presentations of history, which is what I believe. But one could argue that Jesus as we have him in the Gospels is a mere ‘legend’, that subsequent generations ‘fictionalized’ the account of Jesus, making him make astounding claims. If so, then it seems to me impossible to get to anything historical and reliable about Jesus. Of course, some make that claim, but then arrogantly think that they are able to discern what is true and what is false in the canonical Scriptures. The following essay briefly answers the ‘legend’ possibility: http://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2012/12/trilemma-or-quadrilemma-answering-the-legend-critique-of-lewiss-lordliarlunatic-argument/. The legend claim certainly doesn’t make sense of the early Jewish evidence that he was a sorcerer who did miracles and mislead the people, or the early pagan evidence from, for example, Pliny, that by the second decade of the first century in Bithynia in Asia Minor, Christians were singing hymns to Christ as to a god. It doesn’t make sense of the high Christology of the Apostolic Fathers, particularly Ignatius (died from AD 98 to 117), who regarded Christ as God (Ephesians 1:1; 7:2; 19:3; Romans 3:3; Smyrnaeans 1:1).

[4] You would have to be very clever to make up such a scenario.

[5]The following is the view of Maimonides Mosheh ben Maimon (AD 1138-1204): “The first one to have adopted this plan was Jesus the Nazarene, may his bones be ground to dust. He was a Jew because his mother was a Jewess although his father was a Gentile. For in accordance with the principles of our law, a child born of a Jewess and a Gentile, or of a Jewess and a slave, is legitimate. (Yebamot, 45a) Jesus is only figuratively termed an illegitimate child. He impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him. Daniel had already alluded to him when he presaged the downfall of a wicked one and a heretic among the Jews who would endeavor to destroy the Law, claim prophecy for himself, make pretenses to miracles, and allege that he is the Messiah, as it is written, ‘Also the children of the impudent among thy people shall make bold to claim prophecy, but they shall fall.’ (Daniel 11:14) […] You know that the Christians falsely ascribe marvelous powers to Jesus the Nazarene, may his bones be ground to dust, such as the resurrection of the dead and other miracles. Even if we would grant them for the sake of argument, we should not be convinced by their reasoning that Jesus is the Messiah. For we can bring a thousand proofs or so from the Scripture that it is not so even from their point of view. Indeed, will anyone arrogate this rank to himself unless he wishes to make himself a laughing stock?” (Maimonides’, Epistle to Yemen, ca AD 1172): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus#Epistle_to_Yemen.

[6] Talmud Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah 47a quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_the_Talmud, accessed on 22 March 2014.

[7] Rabbi Abbahu, y. Ta’anit 2.1, 65b quoted in E Kessler, N Wenborn (ed), A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), 417 accessed at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QkI_JNv3rIwC&pg=PA416&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false on 22 March 2014.

[8] Mohammad (c AD 570-c 8 June 632) cannot realistically make any claim to historical commentary about Jesus Christ. His claim for accuracy must be by a divine inspiration which is in complete contradiction to the apostolic testimony about Jesus Christ.

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_Bus_Campaign.

[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivid_Sydney.

[11] The 2010 event cost $8 million. See http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/light-show-vivid-is-a-turn-off/story-e6freuy9-1225875949898.

[12] Mishnah, Sukkah 5:1-4—No joy parallels that of the Simchat Beit HaShoevah: “One who has not seen the joy of the Simchat Beit HaShoevah has never seen joy in his life [...] There was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not illumined by the light of the place of the water drawing. Men of piety and good deeds used to dance before them with lighted torches in their hands, and sing songs and praises. And Levites without number with harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets and other musical instruments were there upon the fifteen steps leading down from the Courtyard of the Israelites to the Courtyard of the Women [...]”: http://www.morashasyllabus.com/class/Succos%20II.pdf.

[13] A literal translation of the Greek is “Jesus said to them, ‘the beginning, which is what also I am saying to you’. The common understanding might be rendered “[What I have been saying from] the beginning…”, which is the translation of most EVV, and the one I have adopted. Cyril, however, took it as “From eternity I am what I declare to you”, and Augustine translated it as if it was a nominative, “the beginning, that which I also tell you.” (Godet, John, vol 2, p 325) However, Calvin takes it as a great mistake to think that Christ is here asserting his eternal divinity (T H L Parker trs John Vol 1 p 216).

(4) Exegetical Notes

Regarding verse 14, Jesus’ testimony is always truthful. As to the hypothetical circumstance of Jesus’ testimony not corroborated by the Father, see on John 5:31.