John 8:12-30--I Am the Light of the World

John 8:12-30
English Standard Version

I Am the Light of the World
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.

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We are now moving along to Jesus' next "I AM" statement where today He will call Himself "The Light of the World."  Jesus still appears to be in the area of Jerusalem either during the Feast of Tabernacles (also known as the Feast of Booths) or shortly thereafter.  He starts to teach the people with this I AM statement which gets the religious leader's attention simply by the fact that Jesus is calling Himself I AM.

They protest that Jesus is bearing witness about Himself and that according to the Law, all testimony must be established by at least two or three witnesses--thought that stipulation really only applied to court, especially in death penalty cases (see Deuteronomy 17:6 and Deuteronomy 19:15).  Jesus is not on trial here and He has been charged with no crime, yet they try to use this part of the Law to say that Jesus shouldn't be believed since there is no one else (in their mind) giving corroborating testimony.

This is why Jesus starts off by saying that even if He was the only one saying these things about Himself, His testimony is still true and shouldn't be dismissed out-of-hand.  He knows where He has come from and where He is going, but they neither know where He has come from or where He is going.  This statement from Jesus is going to kick off what some call The Great Paternity Debate, which will take place between verses 13 and 59 (the rest of the chapter), and we'll be covering this over the next several articles, Lord willing.

Jesus then addresses what the issue is--they are judging Him according to their flesh.  That is that they have sinful, evil desires at the heart of their judgment that are causing them to not see who He truly is and what is truly going on.  Jesus follow that up by saying, "I judge no one."  We talked about that yesterday and how Jesus did not come during His first advent to be Judge, but to be by judged and condemned in our place for our sins.  He had a right to judge everyone and one day will be the Righteous Judge of both the living and the dead, but at this time, that was not the role that Jesus was supposed to play.  Jesus says that if He were to cast judgment, His judgment would not be His alone, but would be in concert with the Father who tells Him everything He knows and tells Him everything He is to do.

Jesus then correctly applies the passages from Deuteronomy that I cited before.  Because He's talking about judging them for crimes that would be punishable by death (and they probably wouldn't miss the inference by His alluding to the passages in Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15), then even God would not break that Law and there would be the testimony of both the Father and the Son.

He then returns though to the testimony about Himself and said that even if it was true that such testimony needed to be corroborated, then it would not be His testimony about Himself alone, but the Father has also given testimony about the identity of His Son (as His baptism and we'll see it happen again at the Mount of Transfiguration in a little bit).  We also know that Jesus would argue other places that John the Baptist corroborated the testimony that Jesus as giving and all the Law and the Prophets also corroborate Jesus' testimony--we'll see some specific reference in the coming days to both Abraham and Moses as eyewitnesses.

The Pharisees know exactly what Jesus is saying by saying that the Father has corroborated His testimony, but they decide to take it in another direction and through innuendo (and later by no innuendo at all) say that Jesus is by no means the Son of God and is instead a illegitimate child with a deadbeat dad (a "bastard" child).  This is what they mean when they say that no one knows who Jesus' father is, but they will later directly say they think that Jesus was born of fornication and that this sin would disqualify Him from being Messiah or Son of God.

Jesus doesn't take the bait and instead says the issue is that don't know God the Son because they don't really know God the Father.  Jesus said that if they knew God the Father they would recognize God the Son, would love God the Son, because God the Father loves the Son, and they would listen to and obey the Son, because that is the will of the Father.  Jesus is standing next to the very place where they are going to take the money from to bribe Judas to betray Jesus--I think that's probably why John mentions the treasury here.  John likes to use foreshadowing.  However, no one lays a hand on Jesus, even though they are really upset with Him right now, and we are told once again this is because His hour had not yet come.

Jesus doesn't let it go though.  He could have stopped there.  He had won the debate, but He is going to take it to the next level.  He's already said that these religious leaders don't know the Father, but now He's going to say that He's returning back to the Father in heaven, and that they will look for Him and won't find Him, on earth, because He will be gone and because they will not be able to follow where He is going.  Yes, Jesus just said that they Pharisees weren't going to make it to heaven--the kingdom of God that is to be ruled by Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  That sounds like "judgment," but Jesus has already told them multiple times over that they already stand condemned without Him passing judgment on them.  They have had the Law and the Prophets and they are supposed to be the ones that know and teach God's Word to others, and yet they do not know, understand, or believe the Scriptures.  They have instead twisted the Scriptures to manipulate the people of God, make themselves look better, to gain and maintain power, authority and wealth.  They are evil shepherds that are simply there to fleece the sheep, but do nothing to protect the people of God from the real enemies--and in fact they will be identified later as the wolves that the people need to be protected from.

Jesus tells them they don't understand because they are of this world--meaning that they are of the kingdom of darkness and the devil that has been given dominion over this world for a time is their king.  Jesus is of another kingdom and another world, He comes from God, and that is why they don't know Him or believe in Him.  Jesus then reminds them that He's told them all along that their eternal destiny is determined by whether or not they believe in Jesus as the Son of God.  Unless they believe that, they will die in their sins (and be condemned and suffer the punishment reserved for the devil and his angels).

Their reply was probably less of, "Who are you?" and more of "Just who do you think you are getting off on talking to us like that?"  They have already stopped up their ears to what He has to say because it is offensive to them.  Instead of listening to the message they will try to attack the messenger in the upcoming verses (quite literally, as this section of Scripture will end with them trying to pick up stones to stone Him to death while He is there teaching in the Temple).

Jesus basically responds with "I've already answered your question, and you haven't been listening to Me," or "That's what I've been trying to tell you."  Jesus says that He has much to tell them and much to judge (lots of things that He wants to say to them), but Jesus says that He is only going to say to them exactly what God the Father tells Him to say.  The Father is True and His words are true and as Jesus will say of Himself later in Joh, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No man comes to the Father except through Me."  Jesus is starting to say this here.  He is the Truth because He speaks only the things that the one who is true (the Father) tells Him to speak.  Jesus says that this is what He has heard from the Father since "the beginning" claiming that He is coeternal with God and probably taking them back to Genesis 1:1 and Jesus saying that He was there and an active participant in creation.

John makes clear to us that they did not understand that Jesus was talking about God the Father when He said these things.  Jesus knows they do not understand now, but He tells them that when the Son of Man (Jesus' favorite title to call Himself) is "lifted up" (this should take us back to John 3 where Jesus talks about the serpent being lifted up in the wilderness and how He too must be "lifted up") that they will finally realize who He is, but that it will be too late at that point.  They will understand that Jesus did not speak or do anything on His own authority, but did everything with that the Father commanded and said the words that the Father gave to Him and that everything that He did pleased the Father.

Even this Roman centurion at the foot of the cross will exclaim, "Surely this was the Son of God" when he will see the way that Jesus died and the way that heaven and earth responded to His death.  (See Matthew 27:54 and Mark 15:39 and Luke 23:47).  Strangely enough, John is the one gospel writer that won't include this declaration, even though John would be there at the foot of the cross and see and hear everything, and I think that's because he wants his readers to come to that conclusion on their own and have the same kind of reaction that the centurion did.  Remember the key verse for the book is that John wrote all these things that we might know and believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that in Him we might have eternal life.  That's what Jesus is telling the Pharisees here.

Many heard the words of Jesus here and believed, and I think it was for their sake that he continued this debate.  Jesus knew that the Pharisees had made up their mind long before and He knew from the beginning which sheep belonged to Him and which didn't, yet He would still preach the truth to all and call them to repentance--even one like Judas Iscariot who was the "son of perdition" and Jesus knew that he was predestined to betray Jesus (though that didn't necessarily mean that he was predestined to go to hell).  Jesus knows when He prays in the Garden in John 17 that He is not praying for Judas as Judas has made his choice and that Jesus has not really lost any of the ones that belonged to Him--in fact, we'll see that Jesus knows Judas and His role even earlier at the Last Supper and probably before that

The Gospel of John is written unlike any of the other gospels.  It only contains 21 chapters and we are already within the last six months of Jesus life by chapter 7 (only a third of the way through).  When we get about halfway through we're going to start dealing with the last week of Jesus' life (what people call the Passion Week).  So much of this gospel is dedicated to Jesus' final words and deeds right before He goes to the cross.  He knows that His time is short and He has much to say to the people, even the Pharisees, in that time, but especially His disiples.