The Divine Word, Part 2
John 1:3–5
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
We return this morning to our series in the opening verses of the Gospel of John. In our first two messages, we began by observing that Jesus’ question to the Pharisees in Matthew 22:42 is absolutely foundational for every one of us to answer: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?” The answer to this question determines where every human being will spend eternity. You can believe ten thousand true things about Christianity, but if you’re wrong about Christ, you’re no true believer in the Gospel at all.
And whether it’s the heresies of the early church—the adoptionists, the Arians, the Monophysites—or whether it’s the contemporary cults, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons, or even the false religions like Islam and Judaism, it seems everybody has a “Jesus.” But perhaps the definitive sign that their “Jesus” is no true Jesus at all, is that they claim that He is something other than—something less than—very God of very God. The difference between (a) the biblical Jesus who is the eternal Creator, God the Son incarnate, and (b) a “Jesus” who is not God, is an infinite difference. And a “Jesus” who is not God simply cannot save those who believe in him, because no such Jesus exists. The only Savior there is is our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).
And we mentioned that that is why the Apostle John begins his Gospel proclaiming the true and full deity of Jesus Christ. We’ve seen that the purpose for his Gospel is, chapter 20 verse 31, “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” If faith in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and the only Jesus there is is God of very God, then it makes sense that John would begin this book defending the deity of Jesus.
He begins by calling Jesus “the Word.” And we spoke about how that term, the Logos, was meant to identify Him as the One who is the eternal generation and the supreme revelation of God the Father. And I would refer you to that first message for the unpacking of those truths. But while calling Jesus “the Word” would actually be enough identify Him as the One true and living God, John doesn’t stop there. In the first five verses of the prologue of His Gospel, He introduces us to this Word. And we mentioned that He presents to us seven characteristics of the Word, that we might know and worship Jesus Christ as Holy God. And we worked through three of those in our last time together. I’ll take a few minutes to review them.
Review I: Eternal (1:1a)
The first characteristic of the Word that we saw in verse 1, is that the Word is eternal. John says, “In the beginning was the Word.” In other words, before the beginning began, this Word already was. He was already existing, already being. As Matthew Henry put it, “The Word had a being before the world had a beginning.” That is to say that this Word is eternal.
The old Arian credo—that “There was when the Word was not”—that there was a time when the Word did not exist, but was brought into existence by the Father, is totally baseless. And you remember, I gave you Cyril of Alexandria’s great reply to the Arians as he commented on this text. If John 1:1 says, “In the beginning the Word was,” Cyril asks, “How will ‘was not’ intrude where ‘was’ is?” (9). It can’t! The Father was never not the Father, and you can’t have a Father without a Son, and so the Son is as eternal as the Father is. Before the creation of anything—including time itself—the Word was!
And so all of the glory that belongs to a God who exists eternally—who never had a beginning, who never began to be but just always was—that glory belongs to Jesus Christ the Word of God. This Savior of ours is eternal God!
Review II: Distinct (1:1b)
Secondly, we found that the Word is distinct. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God”—pros ton Theon. And we mentioned that if you are with someone, you are not that someone; you are personally distinct from that someone. And so that means that the Word is distinct from God the Father.
But how can He be with God and be God at the same time? Well, Scripture often refers to God the Father—the first person of the Trinity—by simple title “God.” We’re on solid ground to conclude that John is doing that here, because in the First Epistle of John, he opens that letter in a very similar way and says, “the Word of Life” was pros ton Patera: “with the Father.” So, God the Father is God, and the Word is God. But the Word is not the Father, but distinct from the Father. He was with Him from all eternity.
This means that the Son, Jesus, is not simply another manifestation of God, or another name for God, or another mode by which God reveals Himself! That’s the heresy of modalism, which characterized the teaching of sects as ancient as third-century Sabellianism and as contemporary as Unitarianism or Oneness Pentecostalism. Those who teach such a thing are not Christians. The Word is a genuinely distinct person—a distinct personal subsistence in the identical divine essence as the Father: two divine whos who subsist in the same divine what.
Review III: Consubstantial (1:1c)
And then, we focused on a third characteristic of the Word that comes at the end of verse 1. Not only is He eternal, and not only is He personally distinct from the Father, but He is, also, number three, consubstantial. And “consubstantial” is a word you ought to know; it just means “of the same nature.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Though the Word is with God and therefore distinct from God, He also is God Himself, by nature, eternally subsisting in the full and undivided divine essence, and is therefore in no way less than or unlike the Father (Cyril, 12). Everything that you can say about God as God may be said about the Word. The Word is God!
And we spent quite a lot of time reviewing the challenges (of especially the Jehovah’s Witnesses) to the grammar of this text. Because this is so clear of an affirmation of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the cults look for ways to subvert this clear teaching to make room for their heresy. And I refer you to the previous sermon for the details, but I remind you of the conclusion of the grammarian Dan Wallace, who says the construction in John 1:1 “was the most concise way [John] could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father” (269). In other words, the way John said it was the only way to say that the Father is God and the Word is God, but that the Word is not the Father—which is precisely the historic, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity: distinct, consubstantial persons, who eternally subsist in the whole, undivided divine essence.
And so we saw how Jesus is called the same names of God, that He is described with the attributes of God, that the works of God are predicated of Him, and that He is the believer’s proper object of worship, just as God is. And so it’s right to say, as one commentator did, that you could paraphrase the first two verses of John’s Gospel like this: “In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with the Father, and the Son was God. He was in the beginning with the Father.”
Well, we come this morning to the rest of these opening five verses. And we find four more characteristics of the Word, that cause us to know and worship Jesus Christ as Holy God.
IV. The Creator (1:3)
The fourth of seven is: He is Creator. Look at verse 3. John says, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
And you see that, while the first two verses described the Word’s relationship to the Father, in verse 3 John turns to address the Word’s relationship to the creation. And the relationship that the Word has with respect to the creation, is that He is the Creator of the whole of it: “All things came into being through Him.” And we can tell that John has shifted from Creator to creation, because whereas verses 1 and 2 are full of the word was—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God”—here in verse 3 John speaks of all things that came into being.
We spoke about this last time. “Was”— the Greek verb eimi—is a word of being, a word of existence. Ginomai, the Greek verb that gets translated “came into being” in verse 3, is a word of becoming. In the beginning, Genesis 1, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and,” literally, “light came into being.” “There became light.” All things came into being; but in the beginning, the Word was. Everything else becomes; but the Word is. Which means He is not part of the creation, but that He is the Creator of all the creation!
And the Scripture often speaks of the Second Person of the Trinity as the Creator of all things. We just referenced Genesis 1, where God created all He created by His word: “Then God said,” “and it came into being.” “Then God said,” “and it became so.” It is by means of His spoken word that God creates all things. Once again, Psalm 33:6: “By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made.” And that word is none other than the eternal Word, through whom, John says, “all things came into being.” And again, Hebrews chapter 1. The God who spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken [i.e., His Word] to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” God made the world through His Son, the Word! And back to Colossians chapter 1, and verses 15 and 16: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.”
Everything that has come into being owes its existence to the Word, who never came into being, but who eternally was! There is nothing that lies outside the scope of the Son’s creative work. Every creature of the earth—from the largest elephant, to the most miniscule insect; from the birds of the air, to the snake that slithers on the ground; every species of plant, every kind of tree; the stars of the heavens, the hundreds of billions of galaxies throughout all the caverns of space; even the angels and the archangels; the powers, dominions, and authorities of both earthly and spiritual realms—all of it was created by your Savior!
The Author and Perfecter of your faith is the Creator and Sustainer of all things! The One who “stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing,” Job 26:7, begets faith in your depraved soul and nurtures it until the very end, until you come triumphant to His judgment seat! Matthew Henry writes, “How excellent must [the church] needs be which derives its institution from him who is the fountain of all excellency!” Henry says, “When we worship Christ, we worship him to whom the patriarchs gave honor as the Creator of the world, and on whom all creatures depend.” O, worship Him, saints! Worship Him as the Creator of all things!
But before I move on, I want to make the observation that when John says, “All things came into being through Him,” or when Paul says, “all things have been created through Him and for Him,” they do not mean that Christ was the mere instrument of creation—as if He were merely the chisel in the hand of the sculptor. The preposition through doesn’t always signify instrumentality; sometimes it simply denotes the efficient cause of something. So, in 1 Corinthians 1:9, Paul says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son.” He does not mean that God is the mere instrument of the effectual call, but that He is the efficient cause of the believer coming into possession of salvation. Similarly, here in John 1:3, the Son is not a subordinate, or an underling—as if God said in Genesis 1, “Ok Son, I command you to make the creation!” No, Genesis 1:26 says, “Let Us make.” That is the language of coordinate agents, not an agent and His instrument. Matthew Henry said that God made the world by the Word, “not as the workman cuts by his axe, but as the body sees by the eye.”
The Gnostics taught that matter was inherently evil, and therefore that a good God couldn’t have created a physical world. And so a lesser-god, a sort of godlike spirit-being who was an emanation from God created all things. The Arians taught something quite similar; just saying that the Son wasn’t an emanation but the first creation of God. That is not what John means when he says “all things came into being through Him.” This material world was created by the Triune God, whose works are inseparable and undivided. Every divine act—creation included—proceeds from the Father, is accomplished through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit.
And I’ll tell you how we know that for certain. It’s because John adds something in verse 3 that at first blush seems entirely redundant. Look at it again: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Or the ESV says, “without him was not any thing made that was made.” What a strange way to speak! But it’s actually brilliant. You might remember from last time how I spoke of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who say John 1:1 is mistranslated—that John calls the Word a god, and not God, because the original doesn’t have the definite article. And in our last message we spoke about a grammatical principle called Colwell’s Rule, which totally disallows that. It is a grammatical impossibility to say that the Word is anything less than fully and truly God.
But even if you don’t know a word of Greek, you can come to that same conclusion. The Arians of the fourth century and the Jehovah’s Witnesses of today say that the Word was not God, but the first and highest and most glorious creation of God. They say that the “all things” that came into being through the Word refers to all other things, but the Word came into being before them. But the second half of verse 3 simply will not allow that interpretation: “Without him was not any thing made that was made.” Jesus does not belong to this category of things that have come into being, because nothing that was made was made without Him! In other words, Jesus made everything in the category of “made.” And because it is absurd to assert that anyone could take part in creating himself, Jesus was not in that category of “made.”
And John’s point is: no one need fear that, by worshiping Jesus, you are worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator (cf. Rom 1:25). This Word is not a creature! He is the eternal, uncreated Creator, and so He is the proper recipient and worthy of all your worship! So worship Him, saints! And trust Him! O, how well-founded is your trust if the author of your eternal bliss is the author of your very being!
V. The Fountain of Life (1:4a)
A fifth characteristic of the Divine Word comes in verse 4. Number five: He is the Fountain of Life. Verse 4 says, simply, “In Him was life.” And it’s difficult to express just how profound a statement that is. We tend to gloss over it, as if it meant no more than that the Word was alive. But this is so much more than that. As we’ve said before, other living things came into being; they became alive. But in the Word was life. Without beginning, without becoming, life was existing in this Word.
As the Apostle John speaks of Him in his first epistle, he will call Him, 1 John 1:1, “the Word of life.” He goes on, verse 2, to say, “and [that] life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” The Son is the eternal life! Jesus says this very thing about Himself, doesn’t He? In John 11, as He comforts Martha, who is inconsolable over the death of her brother Lazarus, He tells her that her brother will rise again. And she says, “Yes, I know he’ll rise again in the resurrection.” And Jesus says, John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life.” In John 14:6, He says, famously, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am the life”!
But perhaps the closest parallel to this statement in John 1:4 comes in John chapter 5 and verse 26, where Jesus says, “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” This speaks of nothing other than the divine attribute of self-existence, or sometimes you’ll hear it called aseity, from the Latin a se, meaning from oneself. Everything else derives its existence from a principle of life before it. I came into being by virtue of my mother and father, and they from their mothers and fathers before them, and theirs before them. But eventually, that regress stops at the origination of all being—all existence—itself. And what John is telling us is that such being, such life itself, never had a beginning. It always was in the eternal Word.
Every creature—whether plant, animal, or human—receives its life from the original, self-existent being. But that being—in whom was life—is pure being. He derives His life from nothing and no one. He Himself is the principle of all life. That is to say, there is no ‘becoming’ in God. There is only pure being. He depends on nothing outside of Himself to be what He is! He has no passive potency by which He might be brought into a state of being other than what He is eternally. His very name is Yahweh: “I Am that I Am,” Exodus 3:14. The One who is. The One in whom was life. John is telling us: this Word is the Great I Am. Even as Jesus says in John 8:58, “Truly, Truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” “Before Abraham ever came into being, I never came into being! I am who I am! I am the Great I AM! who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush in Exodus 3! I am the One who has all life in Myself!”
Dear people, your Savior, is the self-existent God of the universe! Your Savior has all life in Himself! The One to whom you are entrusting your soul for eternity depends on nothing outside of Himself to be what He is! And in fact, He is the One on whom all things depend! “In Him,” Acts 17:28, “we live, and move, and have our being.” He is the being in which everything else has its being! His existence is the ground of the existence of everything that exists! “In Him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). He is, Psalm 36:9, “the fountain of life”! All life is grounded in Him, and He gives to all life, and breath, and all things! O, worship the Lord Jesus—the eternal Word—for His aseity, for His self-existence, for His being the fountain of life!
And what does a fountain do but overflow, right? A fountain pours forth its streams to give life wherever it flows. And John speaks of that in the second half of verse 4 when He says, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” It’s not just physical or natural life that is in the Word. But the fullness of that life overflows also into spiritual and eternal life. Consider these related passages from the Apostle John. John 6:33: Just before Jesus says that He is the bread of life, He tells the crowds, “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” In John chapter 10 and verse 10, Jesus says, that He came into the world so that the sheep that His Father had given Him would “have life, and have it abundantly.” In John 6 and verse 51, Jesus explains that His flesh—the breaking of His body in death—is the bread that He “will give for the life of the world.” John 3:16 says that the Father gave His only begotten Son over to that death so that those who believe in Him would have everlasting life. In John 5:40, Jesus says it is only those who come to Him that have life. And back in John 10, verse 28, He says when He gives eternal life to His sheep—those that the Father gives to Him—they will never perish. First John 5:11–12 says, “The testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” And John chapter 3 and verse 36 says something very similar: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life.”
This Jesus, dear friends, is the fountain of life! Life itself is in Him. And abundant life, everlasting life, eternal life—freedom from sin and the just penalty of eternal punishment—is only found in Him. Dear sinner, you who have wandered in to the fellowship of the redeemed this morning, but who remain steadfast in your unbelief and pursuit of sin, or you, seasoned churchgoer, who, despite your church membership, remain a stranger to the grace of God, you do not have the Son of God. And therefore you do not have this life of which He is the sole fountain.
What will you do about that? Will you treat today like every other day, even though eternal life lies within your reach this morning? Will you hear beggars like us, who have found a priceless treasure, celebrate and rejoice in the bounty of that treasure in your hearing, and yet will you refuse that treasure yourself? Oh friend, there is no life apart from repentant faith in Jesus Christ. Bow the knee this morning. Turn from sin. Come to Him in faith. Put all your trust in Him for righteousness. And find life.
VI. The Light of Men (1:4b)
Well, we’ve sort of overlapped into the sixth characteristic of the Word that causes us to know and worship Jesus Christ as Holy God. He is eternal, He is distinct from the Father; He is consubstantial with the Father; He is Creator; He is fountain of life. But number six: He is the Light of men. Once again, verse 4: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”
You cannot separate life from light. Light is nothing other than the result of the life imparted to the soul. Life is given, and the eyes are opened. Scripture often associates life and light. Job 3:20 says, “Why is light given to him who suffers, and life to the bitter of soul.” There, light and life are in synonymous parallelism. To be given light is to be given life. Job 33:30 also says that God “bring[s] back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.” To be alive is to be in the light. But then even in Psalm 36 verse 9, which we mentioned before, the two are joined inseparably. Psalm 36:9: David says to God, “For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” God is our source of life and our source of light. And so the Apostle John is telling us in the opening verses of His Gospel that this Word is the source and fountain of both light and life! Indeed, He is the light of life itself!
Now, many commentators believe that the light spoken of in verse 4 refers to the light of reason. In other words, the Word is not just the fountain of life. He is also the fountain of rational life. Human beings are created in the image of God, and part of what that means is that they are given the ability to reason above the capacities of the animals. And so man can observe the creation, Romans 1, and rightly conclude that there is a powerful and divine Creator, whom they should seek to worship. And these commentators suggest that John is attributing the blessings of all of man’s rationality and knowledge to this Word that is the Light of men.
And while I believe that’s true—the eternal Word, as the Creator and Sustainer of all life, does give human beings the gift of rationality; that He is the Light of their reason—nevertheless, I don’t believe that’s what John is aiming at here in verse 4. At least it’s not all he’s aiming at. In Scripture, so often darkness is an illustration of spiritual death. And as death is to darkness, so life is to light. The fountain of life overcomes the death of sin, and the Light of men overcomes the darkness of sin. Acts 26:18 speaks of conversion as the “open[ing of] their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God.” First Peter 2:9 calls God “Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” And 2 Corinthians 4:4 describes the unregenerate man as those whose minds have been blinded, “so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” And in verse 6 Paul speaks of regeneration—the bestowing of spiritual life—as God shining “the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
And so it is no wonder that Jesus speaks of Himself this way later on in the Gospel of John. In John 12:46, He says, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” Backing up to John chapter 9 and verse 5, He says, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” And back once more to chapter 8 and verse 12: “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” And so, while there is no question that the divine Word is the source and fountain of the light of reason, John points us beyond that and says that this Word is the source of the spiritual light of salvation. As the manifestation of the divine life, the Word is the Light of men—the Light of truth over and against all lies and falsehood, the Light of holiness, over and against sin and wickedness. If you would escape the darkness of sin and death, you must follow Him who is the Light of life!
And just to summarize this point, I love what Matthew Henry says. He writes, “Life and light—spiritual and eternal life and light—are the two great things that fallen man, who lies so much under the power of death and darkness, has need of. From whom may we better expect the light of divine revelation than from him who gave us the light of human reason? And if, when God gave us natural life, that life was in his Son, how readily should we receive the gospel-record, that he hath given us eternal life, and that life too is in his Son!” Can you see, dear fellow sinners, how perfectly suited Jesus Christ is to be your Savior? Can you see how worthy He is of your trust? how all of His credentials as it were urge and entreat you to rest your whole soul upon Him for salvation? Do you see how able and capable He is to settle your case before the bar of God’s holy justice? O, trust in Him—for salvation from sin in justification, and for freedom from sin in sanctification! Christ for pardon, and Christ for power!
VII. The Victor (1:5)
And that brings us to seventh characteristic of the Word. Eternal, distinct, consubstantial, Creator, the Fountain of Life, the Light of men. And, finally, number seven: He is the victor. And we see this in verse 5. “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
And that word that gets translated comprehend is a bit difficult to translate. The Greek verb is katalambano. It means to “lay hold on something so as to make it one’s own” (Morris, 76). But there are different senses in which you can lay hold of something. You can seize it with your hands, as if you’ve captured it—apprehended it in the way a police officer apprehends a criminal. Or you could lay hold of it with your mind, understand it, the way a student apprehends a concept that his professor is teaching him. In fact, katalambano is like our English word apprehend, or comprehend, or maybe even grasp. The word can mean to grasp like you grasp a concept; to understand it, which is how the NIV translates it here. Or it can mean to comprehend as in to envelop and overcome, which is how the ESV translates it. Which sense does John intend here?
Well, to say the darkness did not comprehend the light could mean that Jesus came into this world of darkness, and the world did not understand Him. God revealed the most perfect image of Himself in human form, the Lord Jesus Christ, and this dark and sinful world rejected Him, disbelieved Him, and eventually crucified Him. Job 33:14 says, “Indeed God speaks once, or twice, yet no one notices it.” Romans 1 outlines how God has spoken to mankind in the creation, and how they have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. They failed to honor the God they knew in creation, and “their foolish heart was darkened.” Second Corinthians 3:14–15 speak of how Israel failed to understand Christ both in Old Testament prophecy and in New Covenant fulfillment. Paul says, “…to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.” The light of revelation has come, but those in darkness failed to understand it. They didn’t comprehend it. And those who take this position point to John chapter 1 and verses 9 to 11, where John says the true Light enlightens every man, but the world didn’t know Him, and His own did not receive Him. And they say verse 5 is anticipating the point he’s making there.
And while those arguments aren’t without merit, I believe that it’s best to understand comprehend in the sense of overcome, or conquer, or, as the LSB translates it, overtake. And as I attempt to make this point, turn to 1 John chapter 2. While you’re turning there, I’ll make the preliminary point that it would be quite unusual to speak of darkness understanding light. That’s sort of a strange way to speak—mixing metaphors at least. If we were to take it that way, even as I’ve been saying, we’d have to read “darkness” as referring to certain people in the world who are in spiritual or moral darkness. But in John’s Gospel, the concept of darkness doesn’t so much refer to people “as the evil environment in which people find themselves” (Morris, 76).
But aside from that, look at 1 John 2:8. In the second half of that verse, John says, “…the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.” So, we’ve got a reference to darkness and light, so we’re talking about the same concept as in John 1. And John says the darkness is passing away. Now look down to verse 17. John admonishes the believers not to love the world—that is, the evil world system that opposes God and lies in the power of Satan. And he says in verse 17, “The world is passing away and also its lusts.” So, within a span of 10 verses, John says the darkness is passing away and the world is passing away. I think that’s a good indication that John believes the darkness to be equivalent to the evil world system that opposes God and lies in the power of Satan (Michaels, 56). In other words, the darkness of this evil world system has attempted to overcome the light, but the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
Turn back to John chapter 12. In addition to understanding the light-darkness metaphor properly, it’s also the case that the only other occurrence of katalambano in John’s Gospel comes in John 12 and verse 35. And it occurs in collocation with the light-darkness contrast. John 12:35: Jesus says, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.” Jesus is using the metaphor of physical darkness suddenly overtaking a traveler who stays too long in one place before setting out on his journey. He’s saying that if the unbeliever delays to put his trust in Him for salvation, before he knows it, the darkness of ignorance, sin, and unbelief will overtake him, and there will be no light that leads to spiritual life.
This is the sense of the term used in John 1:5. It’s not that the darkness has utterly failed to understand the truth about Jesus. There’s a sense in which the forces of darkness knew exactly who He was. In Luke 4:34, Jesus confronts a demon-possessed man, and the unclean spirit says, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” The darkness understood the Light in that sense! No, John is saying that the life that was the light of men had shone when the Son of God came into the world. While He was in the world He was the Light of the world. And while He was in the world, the darkness did everything it could to extinguish that light.
Herod commands that every two-year-old boy and younger be killed in order to snuff out the life of this rival King. But the angel warns Joseph and they flee to Egypt, and the darkness fails to overtake the light. Satan assaults Jesus in the wilderness with every Scripture-twisting temptation he can think of, but the Second Adam withstands His trial and beats Satan out of the field. The people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue are so filled with rage at Jesus’ teaching that they back him up against the edge of a cliff, intending to throw Him down. “But,” Luke 4:30, “passing through their midst, He went His way.” The darkness couldn’t overtake the light. Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, “But,” in their jealousy, Matthew 12:14 says, “the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, as to how they might destroy him. But,” verse 15, “Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there.”
And then came Gethsemane, when Jesus handed Himself over to the chief priests and officers of the temple and the elders who had come to arrest Him. And He says to them, “This hour and the power of darkness are yours” (Luke 22:53). And so begins the final assault, when all the powers of darkness were roused against the Light of men. The trumped up charges. The sham trial. The unjust verdict that condemns the Sun of Righteousness—the Fountain of Life—as being “deserving of death” (Mark 14:64).
The spitting. The beating. The mocking and slapping. The desertion by all who followed Him. The threefold denial of Him by His closest disciple. Being traded for Barabbas, a murderer and insurrectionist. The purple robe. The crown of thorns. More beating, and spitting, and mocking. The crucifixion. The nakedness.
“I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head…. They open wide their mouth at me, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet” (Ps 22:6–7, 13–16). “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
But then: “It is finished.” Then: “Into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Then the veil is torn from top to bottom! The earth quakes and the rocks split! The dead are raised out of the graves! The centurion confesses, “Truly this was the Son of God!” Sunday morning, the women come to the tomb and the stone is rolled away. And the angel says, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? Jesus has risen, just as He promised!” He is the Victor! Death has been defeated! Sin has been atoned for! Heaven has been opened! “The Son of God appeared for this purpose,” 1 John 3:8, “to destroy the works of the devil.” And destroy them He did! Through death He rendered powerless him who had the power of death and freed those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives (Heb 2:14–15)!
And He ascended into heaven, where He intercedes for His people at the right hand of the Father, ensuring that all that He has purchased will be applied! And He is coming again, soon to return and set up His kingdom on the earth, where He will rule the world in righteousness, banishing every trace of evil from His very-good creation! And until He does, He goes on working through His Holy Spirit, and through His church, to subdue the hearts of sinners, to bow their knees before Him in glad submission, and to cleanse them from their filth and fit them for life in His presence forever! Dear friends, the Light even now shines in the darkness, but when the darkness was at its worst, the darkness did not overcome the Light!
In our day, brothers and sisters, the darkness continues to assault the light, to try to drive it out, to extinguish it. In so many ways do the forces of hell aim to snuff out the light of truth, the light of holiness, the light of salvation. But take heart. The light still shines (present tense) in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it! Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again! If your trust is in Him, the Word of the Father—the eternal, distinct, consubstantial Word; the Creator of all things; the self-existent Sustainer of all things; the Light of men; who is the Victor over all the darkness—if you trust this Word, you will never be shaken! You will never be put to shame! “Though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; … God is in the midst” of His people, and they “will not be moved”!
Do you see, friends? This Jesus is God! He is the divine Word! And He is in your midst! He is in His church, dwelling among us! He is in our hearts, dwelling in us by faith! Worship Him. Trust Him. Rest in Him, as you follow Him all your days.