Light of the World
What would the world be like without light?
The short answer is that there wouldn’t be a world! Light is necessary for life. This is why, when God created the world and was readying it for the plants, animals, and humans He would create to inhabit it, light was the first thing He spoke into existence.
Light is also necessary for spiritual life. Sin is equated with darkness; in darkness there is no life, and so appropriately, sin leads to death. In contrast, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). God is the source of all knowledge and all goodness. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
In the Bible, Jesus is clearly defined as God in flesh, coming to earth in human form. He intimately revealed God to humanity and provided the way to eternal life. This revelation is also described as “light”: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).
Jesus Himself announced that He was the “light of the world” (John 8:12). This announcement came when He had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. In that day, the celebration included the bright light of oil lamps filling the temple courts. The light represented two ideas: the very presence, or glory, of God that had once manifested in Solomon’s Temple, and the “Great Light” that would come to give hope to those living in spiritual darkness and the “shadow of death,” in prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah 9:2 (see also Luke 1:79).
When Jesus stood before those crowds on this momentous feast to which people came to celebrate from far and wide, He was announcing unequivocally that He was both of these lights.
While Jesus was in the world, He was the Light of the World (John 9:5). When He walked the earth, he urged people to recognize who He was and why He had come: “While you have the light, believe in the light” (John 12:36).
Today, we are still called to put our trust in the Light, and we, too, are urged to do so while there is still time. We receive this light when we trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Then, He shines the light through us to the world:
“You are the light of the world,” Jesus said. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:14,16).
—Tricia Kline