LIGHT SHINES IN BLACKNESS OF OUR SIN

 

John 1:4-5

There is a story about a father who told his son he would send him to sleep in the attic, with only bread and water for supper, if he broke the laws of the home once more. The child disobeyed again and was sent to the attic! But the father couldn’t eat, because he had the boy on his heart the whole time. His wife said “I know what you’re thinking, but you must not bring the boy from the attic. It would cause him to disobey again. He would have no respect for your word. You must not cheapen your relationship as his father by failing to keep your promise.” To which the husband replied “You’re right! I will not break my word. To do so would cause my son to lose respect for my word. But he is so lonely up there.” He kissed his wife good night, entered the attic, ate bread and water with his son….and when the child went to sleep on the hard floor, his father’s arm was his pillow……. “He who knew no sin suffered for the sinner!” 

 

This is exactly what the gospel reveals when Jesus left His

exaltation into His humiliation!

 

In His humanity Jesus took upon Himself…. my shame, my guilt, my punishment and my just wrath from the Father, upon Himself. In order to do this, the eternal Word took on flesh (a human nature) and everything this entails. Jesus was not just a human nature; he was a human being. He was a man. He was the Son of God.” Jesus came down to this earth and He needed flesh in order to suffer in order to please the Father’s wrath because of our rebellion. Jesus had to physically be born and walk this earth to die for my sin! God needed a perfect sacrifice to atone for my sin. I couldn’t do it…..you couldn’t do it! Only the incarnate Son of God, Jesus, the Christ, the only One who exemplified in His humanity that none of us could ever do.

John tells us that the Self-Existence of the Word is

in the person of Jesus the Christ.

 

What do I mean? John declares the incarnation of Jesus, and the glorious eternal Light of Heaven entered this sin darkened world. This reminds of the song by Sovereign Grace “God Made Low” in the third verse where they sing.

 

As He sleeps upon the hay

He holds the moon and stars in place

Though born an infant, He remains

The sovereign God of endless days

 

Emmanuel has come to us

The Christ is born! Hallelujah!

Our God made low to raise us up

Emmanuel, has come to us

 

In Him We Have Life (V4-V5)

 

Here the Word is seen as the Source of Life. Incarnate means “to clothe with flesh; to embody in flesh.” The eternal Word is God’s personal Revelation to men. (v4) This Revelation is personal in that it proceeds from God and is directed to men. The incarnation was the act of God, whereby the Son took to Himself a human nature This was something the nation was told some 700 years before Christ was born. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6. 

God became flesh! Think about that for a moment!

He was hungry

He thirst

He was overcome with fatigue

He slept

He was taught

He grew

He loved

He was astonished

He was glad

He was angry righteously

He was grieved

He was troubled

He was overcome by future events

He exercised faith

He read scripture

He prayed

He sighed in His heart when He saw another man in illness and he cried when His heart ached

  

Jesus felt everything we will feel

and more in His humanity.

The Hebrew writer wrote, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” 

Heb 4:15. That’s why He came! He knew we were going to be messy; that’s the whole point and purpose of the Gospel. He didn’t come to throw our sin in our faces and say “see you wretch” …even though He illuminated our sins to our heart through the Holy Spirit. He knew you were lost and He knew we needed to be rescued from the abyss of the cliff. That’s why He is still seeking the lost with the Gospel. We see this wonderful truth in Luke 15 with the lost sheep, the lost coin and lost son. He came to demonstrate His mercy and grace by taking the punishment that is rightfully mine, and yours on the cross of Calvary. We failed; where Jesus in His humanity conquered [was victorious] on our behalf! As Paul wrote in Galatians 4:5 “to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

 

There are three things we learn that Jesus did in His incarnate body. The Word is not merely an expression of God’s thought to men, He is an expression of God’s gracious thought.

HE WAS LIFE

 

It is His Word that is the Word of life. Jesus was demonstrating that He was and is the source of life and that He may give to whomever He wills. In His humanity He was our source, our guide, our King, and instructor, sacrifice for redemption. This is why John introduces Jesus as in Him is life. Psalm 36:9 declares, “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light do we see light.” That life is the light of truth, and the message of Christ’s salvation and eternal life with God is what John is proclaiming. John would later affirm this when he wrote, “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” 

1 John 5:10-13. Life is and only come from the Son of God and its in this Life that ushers in the light of truth. All things were made through and for Him, and He is the source of life and His Light has shone into the heart of men. (v3)

HE WAS LIGHT

 

The Word is the True Light that has come into the world. (v9) John contrasts and supports his opening statement from the Book of Genesis, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Gen 1:1-3. In the process of generating life, light was God’s initial instrument for illuminating the dark and formless void. It was the introductory instance of God shining light in the darkness. The dominant theme in the Gospel is light in contrast to world’s darkness. “Light” in (v4) is not restricted to spiritual illumination only; this is evident in Matthew’s gospel. We read, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Matt 6:22-23. According to Jesus, man’s nature and spiritual nature is dead in trespasses and sins, though God’s law is written in his heart. His conscience “The eye is the lamp” bears witness and this is the light that John is referring to here in (v4). Light is that truth and holiness manifest against the darkness of lies and sin. Scripture tells us over and over again that God is the source of life and light. John wrote in his first epistle, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5

The Light is shining, this is something that we should be repeating daily into our lives. Especially for those who think they are trapped in darkness of despair and uncertainty. There is no need to remain in darkness when the Light is shining into the hearts of men. Since He is the source of life, it would make perfect sense that He is the light of this world! Meaning Spiritual light into the hearts of the redeemed as J C Ryle said “this sentence means that the life which was in Christ, was intended before the fall to be the guide of man’s soul to Heaven, and the supply of man’s heart and conscience….and that since the fall of man it have been salvation and the comfort of all who have been saved.”

 

HE OVERCAME DARKNESS

 

This is refereeing to sin, wrong doing and darkness has no power to suppress it. In the New Testament, light and darkness are common symbols of good and evil. The Eternal Word has come to shine His light to men sitting in darkness and death. Jesus gives light to a man who was blind from birth. John 9 Jesus brough Lazurus from the tomb of death and darkness.  John 11 And when darkness consumed Judas, he went out into the night of eternal darkness. John 13:30. Light and life are linked together Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12. Its this Light that has dispelled darkness, this means that darkness has no such power to suppress the Light. This has great significance in relationship to Satan who is the ruler over this present spiritual dark world. The natural heart of man [you and me before regeneration] have always been in darkness since the fall in the Garden. Paul wrote to remind us of where we lived “for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” Eph 5:8. See, darkness is a huge promoter or spiritual darkness and rebellion towards God. And especially towards the one who represented the Godhead in the flesh, Jesus the Christ. Paul wrote as well, “in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Eph 2:2-3

 

When the lights are turned on in a dirty, run-down unoccupied house, it displays the ugliness and dirtiness of the room. The same goes with the heart when the light of Incarnate Christ, turns on the light of our hearts, its to reveal the ugliness of our own sin. Just as a bright street lamp discourages criminal mischief at night, so the light of Christ dispels the darkness of sin in the world. Just as the sun first rises as it pierces the blackness of morning night sky, God’s light and His truth carry spiritual awakening to darkened hearts. See the natural man wants to flee from the light as a cockroach or the rat flees when the lights are turned on in a room. When darkness covers our part of the world, we are more likely to commit sin, not wanting our deeds to be revealed by the light of the sun. It’s not surprising that many acts of vandalism, robbery, and murder occur at night, when shadows offer “protection.”

 

The same thing happens to the unregenerate sinner who loves their sin as we will see in chapter three. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

 John 3:19-20

 

One of the greatest examples found in scripture is when sin entered into the heart of Adam and Eve. What did they do? They hid themselves from His presence! The same rule applies to the unregenerate person who hides in the dark because they love their sin. The unregenerate man says “Go away and leave me alone” While the regenerate man says “Lord please reveal my sin to me” See! Sin to the child of God is detestable, it tastes like vomit in their mouth. Let me ask you! Does your sin taste that way? Or does it taste good? J C Ryle said “The greatest majority of mankind have neither understood, nor receive, nor laid upon the light offered to them by Christ.” He is the eternal fountain of life He has been and always will be a constant shining light! As John wrote “light shines in darkness” literally means “shines continually” in the darkness of a world that refuses or rejects the idea of a Jesus or wanting a personal relationship with one.

 

This also means! Jesus is continually bombarding every corner of our hearts [His sanctified children] of darkness through the work of the Holy Spirit. But the sad reality is that this light will be met with resistance and opposition; but darkness cannot and will not “comprehend it” The word “comprehended” means, “to grasp” or “to understand” darkness cannot overcome it, final victory of the Light will always stand. This means despite what you see, hear, and read in the culture, it will never be able to suppress or distinguish the True Light. Here is a helpful reminder as we close from the writer of Hebrews! “For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, "I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise." And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again, "Behold, I and the children God has given me." Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Heb 2:5-18

 

Our mighty Incarnate Son of God Our God who became flesh to shine a light with the purpose of giving eternal life to a fallen and rebellious world. As John Piper said in one of his sermons, “Christmas is mainly preparation for Good Friday.” We need to understand and apply this truth to our lives “Sin thrives in darkness, but it dies in the Light.” Jesus the Christ came to give us life, by illuminating the blackness of our sin so that we would turn to Christ and live through the forgiveness of sin and follow Him by faith. In Christ, we don’t have to be keeping sin in secret. In Christ, we are now children of the light……..Let’s live like it. Jesus' light is as inextinguishable as it is unfathomable. This light, full of grace and glory, keeps shining. Nothing in Heaven, under the Heaven or under the earth can stop this Light from shining. No one can put out Christ’s… life-giving hope. No darkness can defeat His Light. So, let's walk in His light and find life in the radiance of His glow and eternal promises. Remember this the Light will judge this world and everything will be revealed. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” 

Heb 4:12-13