Light of the World
May 7, 2023
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 8:12-30
12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” 14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. 16 Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. 17 In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.18 I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” 19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” 25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” 27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. 29 And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” 30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
Let’s pray as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
This chapter ends roughly where it begins: with stones. First, a woman is caught in sin, and the religious leaders want to stone her, or, even more to the point, they want Jesus to stone her, so they can catch him in a trap. Either Jesus is faithful to God’s law or he believes in grace, but not both. That’s the trap. They make her stoning a pawn in their assassination game with Jesus. Yet, no one throws a stone.
Over the next four weeks we’ll take this one conversation, the rest of John 8—this one, heated conversation that Jesus has with the leaders—and we’ll break the conversation down into four manageable parts. Here’s how the conversation ends: “So they picked up stones to throw at him . . .” (8:59). Yet no one throws a stone this time either.
This is a repeated theme. The theme of “wanting to arrest and kill Jesus, but not doing so because his time or hour had not come yet” is a repeated theme (e.g., 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20). It comes up often. They want to arrest; they want to kill—but they can’t; they don’t.
According to chapter 7, we saw two answers why. The first we infer from the way it’s discussed that divine intervention keeps Jesus safe. The hand of God works in such a way that nothing thwarts God’s plans. Nothing can stop Jesus from doing what he’s going to do until he’s done what he was going to do. Divine intervention.
There’s a second reason given in chapter 7 why he’s not arrested. It’s not different than the first. Really, the second reason is one particular outworking of the first. How does the hand of God intervene to stop Jesus from being arrested? The religious leaders sent officers to arrest Jesus, yet the officers came back empty-handed. Why? That’s exactly what the religious leaders want to know. “The officers answered, ‘No one ever spoke like this man!’” (John 7:46).
I start here with a discussion of the words of Jesus because John 8:12–30 is a passage about the words and witness of Jesus. It asks us to consider, How do we respond to his words? How do we respond to the Word? And because this passage draws on the language of witness, testimony, judging, and law—in other words, this passage draws on the language of the courtroom—I’m going to frame our sermon in similar courtroom wording.
1. Calling the First Witness
Let’s describe our first point as “calling the witness to the stand.” The first witness is Jesus. Across the last few chapters, the witness of Jesus has resulted in a cluster of images emerging around themes from the book of Exodus, the story of the rescue of the Israelites from Egypt and their slavery to Pharaoh.
Back in John 6, you might recall the conversation about bread from heaven. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger” (John 6:35). In the Exodus story, God provided for the people he loved with bread they called manna. In John 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 people bread, which gets people talking about bread. And so Jesus, our witness, testified, I’m like that bread that came down from heaven, only better.
Then, in John 7, it’s the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. Basically, as Daryl said as he preached, it was a celebration of camping, a celebration of the way God protected them as they camped in tents in the wilderness. Near the end of the week-long festival of camping, there’s a prominent ceremony involving water. The ceremony reflects back on the way God provided water for the people he loves. So the people were thinking about water. And we read John 7:37–38, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’” Thus, our witness testified, I’m the water you need, only better.
Now, in John 8, it would seem that this same festival of camping is still going on or has recently wrapped up. And in the same way that water features prominently in the Exodus story and the celebration of camping, so also does light. When God leads his people out of Egypt, there’s a giant pillar of fire by night and a smoking cloud by day. Where it goes, they go. They never walk in darkness. To celebrate that, the Feast of Booths (the feast of camping) has a prominent celebration of light.
I’d like to read to you from what is called the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish traditions. Within the Mishnah, there’s a whole book about this festival. The writing dates to the second century, but we think it accurately describes the first century (see Kevin DeYoung’s summary in his sermon at Christ Covenant on this passage). On the temple grounds, younger priests climb huge tiki torch candles lit with sixteen gallons of oil.
[The young priests] would light the candelabra. And the light from the candelabra was so bright that there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not illuminated from the light . . . The pious and the men of action would dance before the people who attended the celebration, with flaming torches that they would juggle in their hands, and they would say before them passages of song and praise to God. And the Levites would play on lyres, harps, cymbals, and trumpets, and countless other musical instruments. (Mishnah, Sukkah 5:3–4).
Remember this is the context of John 7–8. And into this context, we read in John 8:12, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” For us it would be like after the hugest firework display, a display so bright and spectacular it feels like daytime, and after the grand finale, Jesus our witness saying, I’m that light you need, only better.
How should we respond to such testimony? Clearly, such intentional and provocative imagery demands a response. You can’t take the great Exodus deliverance in the Old Testament, say that’s all about you—indeed, that you are better—and not draw out a response. No one spoke like this then, and no one speaks like this now. Shall we worship him or stone him? How did the religious leaders respond to this testimony?
2. Objections, Your Honor.
I’ll titled the second point, Objections, Your Honor. They don’t like what he has to say. So, they go back and forth with three objections. I’ll frame it like this: an objection about bias, an objection about paternity, and an objection about origins. We won’t dive deep into the details, but let me offer a thumbnail sketch of each.
First, they say, “Objection, objection. Bias, your honor. He can’t testify about himself.” Look at v. 13. “So the Pharisees said to him, ‘You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.’” By true, I think they mostly mean valid. They don’t think Jesus is true, but their objection here is about validity. His word about himself doesn’t count for much. In other words, Objection, you can’t say so yourself. It’s like me saying that I think Community church is a pretty great church. I guess it could be true, but it might be more valid if that testimony was supported by others. Coming only from me, a testimony about our church could sound like biased propaganda.
If we go back to John 5:31, Jesus himself even said to the religious leaders, “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.” So Jesus even said it. This is why they jump up and shout, “Objection, your honor. Bias!”
I’m not sure what a judge in a courtroom would say, but here’s what I’ll say: this is a weird response. Or maybe I’d say, this is a telling response. We might say, your heart is on your sleeve. After an all-night dance party with glow sticks on church grounds, Jesus says, “I’m the light of the world.” And they say, “Technically, you can’t say that about yourself.” Weird, right? It seems like they are evading the truth. It’s seems like they don’t want to deal with the testimony of Jesus. That’s not a good place to be, church. It’s very, very dangerous to hear truth upon truth upon truth and not be willing to surrender to truth. That’s the dangerous place of these religious men. I’ll illustrate.
Imagine a world-renowned cancer doctor giving a press conference. At this point in his career, the famous doctor has mostly moved from practicing medicine in hospitals to research. He’s in classrooms, labs, and libraries. In the press conference he says, “I never do hospital visits.” Later, one of the journalists who was at that press conference gets cancer, the very cancer the doctor specializes in treating. The journalist goes to a hospital. The famous doctor finds out which hospital. Just as the journalist hears devastating news from the medical staff, in walks this doctor. The doctor says, “Listen, this is bad. But there is a cure; you have to trust me.” And the journalist shouts in a raspy voice, “You said you never come to hospitals. But here you are. You’re a liar.” Then the sick man looks at the medical staff and says, “Look at this doctor. He’s a liar. Don’t listen to a word he says.”
Weird, right? Jesus could say, “You’re crazy.” But he patiently goes with their objection. To paraphrase, he says, “Okay, your law needs another witness for my testimony to be valid. I call God, my Father, to testify with me. I only do what he does, and we judge together.” They don’t like that either.
“Objection, your honor. There’s some dispute about his fatherhood. He claims to be divine, but we know his father is Joseph, and we can’t go find him and ask him—and, by the way, there’s a little bit of a scandal regarding his birth, though it’s not polite to talk about here in the courtroom.” Jesus goes with that objection for a bit. For the sake of time, I’ll leave that one alone. Also, because paternity comes up again later.
Then we hear, “Objection, your honor. We don’t know where he came from.” I’ll read this part again. Look at vv. 21–24.
21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
They object, and Jesus essentially says, “As long as we are talking about origins, know that I’m from above, and you are from below. We’re not the same. This issue of your origins and your sin is very serious. But that’s why I came to the hospital. I went out of my way because I want to see you. Indeed, unless you let me treat you, you will die.”
3. Reading the Verdict
This brings me to our last point. We’ve heard from our witness, that he’s the bread of life, that he’s living water, that he’s the light of the world, that whatever rescue happened in the Exodus, a new and better rescue is here now. And we’ve heard the objections to that testimony. Now, we come to the reading of the verdict. I’ve already read some of the verdict, but I’ll read it and a bit more. Look at vv. 21, 24–26.
21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”… 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” 25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.”
I find this reversal interesting. Did you see it? The religious leaders assume the role of prosecutor. They have a problem with the person and testimony of Jesus—they have many problems, actually. So they assume they should prosecute him. They put Jesus on the stand as though Jesus were the one being judged by them.
And Jesus reverses this. “Actually, my Father and I judge you,” he says. “We don’t judge in the same way, on fleshly, superficial judgments, but we judge together based on truth.” What is their verdict? It’s devastating. “You will die in your sin,” he says. That verdict is the worst verdict you could ever hear. Feel it now as a sober warning.
We’re in a time when church is often fashioned in such a way as to be warm to outsiders, and not always wrongly so. And even our church has drums and guitars and our music is generally upbeat and sometimes I wear jeans to church—even sometimes when I preach. This can make it hard to hear the verdict from Jesus about dying in sins.
We can feel like this message belongs in a sermon to church people in the 1950s. Sure, that message about the seriousness of sin worked in Billy Graham’s crusades, back when society was earnest and concerned about God and morality and the big eternal questions. Now, preaching about people dying in their sins needs to be recast into something more manageable. Really, the thinking goes, we should be taking the phrase about “light and not walking in darkness” and then apply them to practical ways we should walk in light. We should talk about walking in the light as a husband or wife and in the workplace and in our singleness and how to walk in the light as we make decisions about college or about our retirement. Really, a good sermon on this passage should just give some practical lessons about following Jesus that we can all apply to our lives.
Well, I like practical ways of applying Christianity to my life. I’d like to be a good husband and follow Christ in my workplace. Yet, this morning our passage compels us to wrestle with the biggest question: When you die, will you die in your sin?
I’ll say it with different words to explain the meaning. When you die, will the consequences for your sins in this life follow you into the next life, the forever life? For these men, the verdict was, Yes. The doctor had arrived, ready to treat his patient, and they refused. They had their objections for not following. There are always objections. But are they good ones?
Conclusion
Here’s where this passage does get good. Jesus loves them. Yes, he is from above, and we are from below. Yes, he is the light of the world, and we walk in darkness. But, again, he is the light of the world. And he came to the world because he loves the world. And if you believe in him, you will never die in your sins. If you trust in Jesus, the consequences of your sins will never follow you into the next life.
I’ll put the good news like this: Christian, the worst thing that could ever happen to you (indeed, the thing you deserve to have happen to you), will never happen to you. If you believe in Christ, you will never die in your sins because Jesus died in your sins.
In v. 28, Jesus speaks of being “lifted up.” It’s something of a play on words. Jesus speaks three times in John of being lifted up (3:14; 12:32). To be lifted up was shorthand hand in the first century for crucifixion. By “lifted up,” Jesus means that, for sure.
But John, the author of this book, loves to play on words. Not only will Jesus be lifted up, but he will be exalted to the heavens through his resurrection and ascension. The biggest blessing Jesus offers you is taking from you want you could never fix and giving to you what you could never earn. After the Exodus, God led the people he loved by light all the way to the Promised Land. Even so, the light of Christ will lead us there too, that is, if we believe in him. Note the ending of this passage. John 8:30 says, “As he was saying these things, many believed in him.” May the same be said of us.
I’ll invite the music team forward so we can have a time of response through singing. Let’s pray. “Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
Have you ever resisted submitting to Jesus? Why? What changed your mind?
How do the “lift up” passages shed light on the work of Jesus (3:12; 8:28; 12:32)?
What things strike you about the way Jesus responds to their objections?
Will the consequences of your sin follow you to the next life? Why or why not?
