As long as I am in the world I am the Light of the world.
--The Word as Light visited men before the Incarnation (Joh_1:9, etc.; Joh_5:38; Rom_2:15, etc.); at the Incarnation (Joh_8:12; Joh_12:46; Joh_3:19-21; comp. Joh_11:9, etc.); and He still comes (Joh_14:21); even as the Spirit who still interprets His “name” (Joh_14:25; Joh_16:13; comp. 1Jn_2:20-27). St. John draws no distinction in essence between these three different forms of revelation, in nature, in conscience, and in history; all alike are natural or supernatural, parts of the same harmonious plan. But man has not independently light in himself. The understanding of the outward revelation depends upon the abiding of the Divine Word within (Joh_5:37, etc.). Love is the condition of illumination (Joh_14:22, etc.). And the end of Christ’s coming was that those who believe in Him may move in a new region of life (Joh_12:46), and themselves become sons of light (Joh_12:35, etc.), and so in the last issue of faith have the light of life (Joh_8:12).(Bp. Westcott.)
Christ, the Light
Among all created excellencies, none can be borrowed more fitly representing Christ, than that of light.
1. Light is primum visibile, the first object of sight: and Jesus Christ, whom the apostle styles “God over all, Blessed forever,” is primum intelligibile.
2. Light being the first thing visible, all things are seen by it, and it by itself. Thus is Christ among spiritual things, in the elect world of His Church Eph_5:13-14; 2Co_4:3). The rays of Christ’s light are displayed through both His Testaments, and in them we see Him Psa_36:9).
3. No one is ignorant there is light; yet what light is few know (Job_38:19). The “generation” of Christ “who shall declare?” (Isa_53:8).
4. Light resembles Christ in purity: it visits many impure places, and lights upon the basest parts of the earth, and yet remains most pure and undefiled. Though Christ was conversant with sinners, to communicate to them His goodness, yet He was “separate from sinners,” in immunity from their evil (Heb_7:26).
5. The light of the sun is neither parted nor diminished, by being imparted to many several people and nations, that behold it at one time: nor is the righteousness of this Sun of Righteousness either lessened to Himself or to individual believers, by many partaking of it at once: it is wholly conferred upon each one of them, and remains whole in itself.
6. The sun hath a vivifying power, a special influence in the generation of man. The sun we speak of is the proper and principal instrument in man’s regeneration (Joh_1:4).
7. The sun drives away the sharp frosts and the heavy fogs of winter, it clears the heavens, decks the saith with variety of plants and flowers, and awakes the birds to the pleasant strains of their natural music. When Christ, after a kind of wintry absence, returns to visit a declining Church, or a deserted forsaken soul, admirable is the change that He produces, etc. Isa_55:12-13; Son_2:10-17).
8. All darkness flies before light: so Christ arising in the world made the day break, and the shadows flee away, the types and shadows of the law, ignorance, idolatry, the night of sin, misery, etc. All the stars, and the moon with them, cannot make it day in the world: this is the sun’s peculiar: nor can nature’s highest light, the most refined science and morality, make it day in the soul; for this is Christ’s (Joh_8:12; Joh_12:35; Psa_19:1-14; Wis_7:26-27; Luk_1:78-79; Eph_5:8). (Abp. Leighton.)
The Light of the world
I. CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
1. I am the Light of the world (Joh_9:5).
2. That was the true Light (Joh_1:9).
3. For a Light of the Gentiles (Isa_13:6).
4. A Light to lighten the Gentiles (Luk_2:32).
5. He that followeth Me … shall have the Light (Joh_8:12).
6. I am come a Light into the world (Joh_12:46).
7. The Sun of righteousness (Mal_4:2).
8. The Dayspring from on high (Luk_1:78).
9. The Bright and Morning Star (Rev_22:16).
10. The Daystar (2Pe_1:19).
II. CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
1. Walk as children of light (Eph_5:8).
2. Ye are all the children of light (1Th_5:5).
3. Ye are the light of the world (Mat_5:14).
4. That ye may be the children of light (Joh_12:36).
5. Let your light so shine (Mat_5:16).
6. The path of the just is as the shining light (Pro_4:18).
7. He [John] was a burning and a shining light (Joh_5:35).
8. Among whom ye shine as lights in the world (Php
2:15).
9. Let us put on the armour of light (Rom_13:12).
10. They that be wise shall shine (Dan_12:3). (S. S. Times.)
Light in death
For the last day or two he (Sir D. Brewster) was attended by his friend, Sir James Simpson, a man of kindred genius and of kindred Christian hopes. “The like of this I never saw,” he said, as we met him coming fresh from the dying chamber. “There is Sir David resting like a little child on Jesus, and speaking as if in a few hours he will get all his problems solved by Him.” For in that supreme hour of dawning immortality his past studies were all associated with the name and person of the Redeemer. “I shall see Jesus,” he said; “and that will be grand. I shall see Him who made the worlds,” with allusion to those wonderful verses in Hebrews which had formed the subject of the last sermon he ever heard, a few weeks before. Thus, tracing all to the Creator-Redeemer, he felt no incongruity even in these hours in describing to Sir James Simpson, in a “fluent stream of well chosen words,” some beautiful phenomena in his favourite science. Reference was made to the privilege he had enjoyed in throwing light upon the “great and marvellous works of God.” “Yes,” he said, “I found them to be great and marvellous, and I felt them to be His.” He had little pain but such as came from intense weakness. The light was with him all through the valley. “I have had the light for many years,” he whispered slowly, and with emphasis; “and oh, how bright it is! I feel so safe, so satisfied!” And so, in childlike reliance and adoring love, he gently fell asleep in Jesus on the evening of Monday, February 10th, 1868. On the Saturday following he was laid beside kindred dust. (Sunday at Home.)
