Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Nisbet Commentary - John 3:19 - 3:19
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’
Joh_3:19
I. Avoidance of the light is quite consistent with a truth-loving disposition, according to an imperfect idea of truth.—This is an age of earnest seeking after truth. Men would like to find out what are called the great problems of life; to know whence man comes and whither he is going; to understand the mystery of pain and sorrow and death in the creation of a God of Love; to understand the way in which prayer acts; and many such things, which are so much talked and written about in our day. How welcome would be considered any ray of light which would tend to clear up these difficulties! But has not the light itself come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ? Why, then, do you not come to it? Why do you not bring all your dark questionings to be illumined by it?
II. The light will illumine your deeds which you know are evil, and do not wish to have reproved.—You would be glad to study the wise sayings of Christ, only they oblige you continually to bring your own life to the rule of His life and precepts, and pronounce judgment upon it by that rule. You have a high respect for Christian morality as a system, but you cannot endure the continual conviction of sin, and the stinging words, ‘Thou art the man,’ especially when pronounced by human lips. You are not insensible to the wholesome general influence of religion, and you linger on the outskirts of an atmosphere warmed and brightened by other men’s piety; but you are afraid of entering in; afraid of forming distinctly religious habits yourself, lest you should gradually be brought into a position in which the inconsistencies of your own conduct will be more apparent, and a painful and humiliating alteration of your life, perhaps at an advanced age, be required of you. All this is undoubtedly avoiding the light. And yet you want to attain to truth, which dwells in the light! Do not think to make a distinction between one light and another; there is but one light for the soul of man, and that illuminates both the mind and the conscience. God does not reveal mental truth separately; thinking right is inseparably bound up with doing right. The riddance of mental darkness about religion must be accompanied by ceasing to do the works of darkness.
III. ‘He that doeth truth cometh to the light.’—Observe that the corresponding expression to doing evil is not doing good, but doing truth; because good actions wrought in Christ are the putting truth into operation as a living power, instead of treating it as a mere abstract idea. On the other hand, doing the truth is not to be diluted into dealing truly. It involves, of course, being honest and straightforward and open in one’s actions, as well as sincere of purpose, and simple-minded. But it reaches much further and deeper than this. It is thinking and feeling, speaking and acting in all things in harmony with the life of Christ.