Boston Baptist College

An Exposition of the Gospel According to John

A Picture in Words: The Light of Men

Cameron Szwed

BSTH 321

Professor Vivek Arora, Ph.D.

20 December 2022
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An Exposition of the Gospel According to John

A Picture in Words: The Light of Men

Introduction

What is light except the source of life? And what is darkness except the absence of life?

In the prologue to his Gospel account, the Beloved Apostle John writes of a Word, a Word which

is both God and Man. In this God-Man is life, John declares, and this life is “the light of men”

(The Holy Bible KJV, Jn. 1:4). What is John’s precise meaning when he writes that the Word is

the “light of men” and that said light is a light which the darkness cannot even comprehend?

What is the significance of a light which cannot be snuffed out by the darkness? What is the

measure of the power of such a light, and what can compare to it? What is man to do?

There is but one thing that man can do: submit. Man can either submit to the power of

the light, and receive the life of it, or deny it and face the due despair of the darkness. Despite the

stark contrast given, the intention is not to set forth a tone of gloomy depression, but rather to

inspire a hopeful disposition toward the future. The gift of life, only given by the Word which is

life itself, is freely given to those who stand in the light. Those who stand in the light have

nothing to fear because, once in the light, man can never be loosed from the grasp of the One

who is the light. Frédéric Louis Godet, one of the most prolific biblical commentators of all time,

wrote in his commentary on The Gospel of John that, “Life, indeed, is more than existence. It is

existence saturated with force, existence in its state of normal progress towards the perfect

destination of being” (Godet, 251). In other words, man does not merely exist in the presence of

the light of God, but is inclined toward the vigor of life; and not just “life” in the general sense,

but a life which, like the light, will never cease or subside. The life which God supplies to man

cannot ever be shaken nor taken away, hence Jesus’s saying, “And I give unto them eternal life;

and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (KJV, Jn. 10:28).
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The Curse of Death

While the light which emanates from the Word (and also is the Word) is the very essence

of life, darkness is the representation of the “distortion of creation and the chaos of unbelief and

alienation from God - the results of the fall” (Kysar, 30). Robert Kysar, a noteworthy Johannine

scholar, extrapolates from this explicit contrast between “the light and the dark” a profound truth:

“The darkness of unbelief has neither understood nor mastered the Word. And yet the darkness

continues even though the Word brings light into its midst. The revelation does not eliminate the

reality of unbelief and evil” (Kysar, 30). There is a certain duality to the light and the darkness -

good and evil - in which neither is fully extinguished, yet there is a distinct hierarchy to be sure.

The light is never overcome by the darkness, but the darkness is always ever-present.

The duality of the light and the dark plays directly into the metanarrative of Scripture:

Jesus Christ, who is the light, has come into the world to save it… Yet, the darkness subsists.

However, the darkness will not persist forever. According to the testimony of Jesus Christ, there

will one day be a time when the darkness is gone completely, a day when the light will consume

the whole world (KJV, 2 Pet. 3:10). The hope of Christians is this: that Jesus - “the light of men”

- has overcome the world. The eternal life which is provided to the Christian believer is not an

inconsequential gift, though; it is a necessary charity which without man would remain in eternal

despair and torment. Therefore, the light and life of the Word - Jesus Christ - is the power by

which the curse of death is overcome. It is only by this gift that death is ridden; there is no other

manner by which man could escape the penalty of the fall - the fall of man from the light of God.

And, though the curse of death is strong enough to abide over man’s base nature from the

moment of conception, the light of God is immeasurable… The darkness cannot exist in His

presence because His light consumes all that draws near.

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The Downward Trajectory

Because the light of God is given to all that draw near, it must also be said that His light

is not given to those that turn away from Him into darkness. The question arises, then, why

would God create a man with the propensity to turn toward evil? Indeed, this is a faulty question.

The appropriate question would be, “Why would man, created with a good nature, prefer evil?”

Augustine of Hippo answers this quandary in his classic work City of God, in which he writes:

It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the wickedness of the devil,
that we are to understand these words, “This is the beginning of God’s
handiwork;” for, without doubt, wickedness can be a flaw or vice only where the
nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it
cannot but damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice,
unless in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the
wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But God, as He is the
supremely good Creator of good natures, so is He of evil wills the most just
Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use of good natures, He makes a good use
even of evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good by God’s creation,
wicked by his own will) to be cast down from his high position, and to become
the mockery of His angels—that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those
whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when He created him, was
certainly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw the good which He
Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, “This leviathan
whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein,” that we may see that, even while
God in His goodness created him good, He yet had already foreseen and
arranged how He would make use of him when he became wicked.
***
For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even man, whose
future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known to what uses in
behalf of the good He could turn him, thus embellishing the course of the ages,
as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses. For what are called
antitheses are among the most elegant of the ornaments of speech
(St. Augustine, 361-362).
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Therefore, it is understood that it is not the creation of God which is evil, but the will of the

creation which turns to evil. The will of man corrupts his own nature, and only the light of God

can restore it to the glory in which He created it and intended it to remain. The nature of man,

when overcome by the light of God, is restored to goodness; but it is only by this light that this

can occur, for the natural trajectory of man who is apart from the light of God is necessarily

downward into darkness. The obvious conclusion of Augustine’s analysis of the intersection of a

good nature and corrupted will is that man is in desperate need of a Savior, a Savior that will

provide them with a new (enlightened) nature. Luckily, the Christian has received this Savior -

and His name is Jesus Christ.

The Reason to Abide

The Light of Men has bestowed upon man the ultimate gift - Himself. He is the light,

which is the life; and this life redeems the dead. There need be no other reason to abide in the

light - to abide in Christ - than because He has saved us from the darkness. The very mode by

which we are saved is too the reward for our perseverance in this life (i.e. Christ not only gives

us new life, but is the reason that we live… He is the joy that we will bask in for eternity).

Dr. Archibald T. Robertson, former professor of New Testament interpretation at the Southern

Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville, Kentucky, wrote in his work Word Pictures in the

New Testament an intriguing take on the meaning behind the Apostle John’s opening christology.

He writes, “Usually in John zoe means spiritual life, but here the term is unlimited and includes

all life; only it is not bios (manner of life), but the very principle or essence of life. That is

spiritual behind the physical… It is also personal intelligence and power” (Robertson, 6).
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The life of Christ is our source of eternal bliss not only because He saves us from hell,

but because He is literally the source of our being. Christ, the Word, does not only give us eternal

life in the physical sense, but even our minds are given life by Him. This is what is meant by

man being made “in the Image of God.” Christ is the perfect Man, and man is made particularly

to live after Christ’s example. This is why the Christian can have full assurance in the words of

Christ; because He is wholly perfect and we were designed (as Augustine said) to abide with

God for ever and ever. The hope of the Christian doesn’t rest in salvation from the flesh and then

dissipate when we die; our hope is alive and active and has its gaze fixed on Heaven. The life,

which is the light of men, is meant for man’s spirit in addition to his body. The purpose of the

quotation from Dr. Robertson is to illustrate how life is more than just physical; it is meant to last

forever. This is displayed in its clearest form in Jesus’s discourse with Nicodemus in John 3

when He speaks of being “born from above “ (ἄνωθεν), but Nicodemus understands it as being

“born again.” This dialogue is indicative of man’s essential folly in regards to our understanding

of Christ and His promises: while He is speaking of the spirit, we only understand the flesh. The

common misconception of the self-anointed “scholars” of the atheistic secular realm is that,

because Christians still die, Christ is a fraud. However, they conflate the death of the body with

the death of the soul. Though all men must die in the body, the gift of Christ to His elect is

eternal life of the soul: Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son

of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is

real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the

living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live

because of me” (KJV, Jn. 6:53-57).

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Bibliography:

Godet, Frédéric Louis. Commentary on the Gospel of John: with an Historical and Critical

Introduction. Funk & Wagnalls, 1886.

Kent, Homer A. Light in the Darkness: Studies in the Gospel of John. Baker Book House, 1982.

Kysar, Robert. Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: John. Augsburg Pub. House, 1986.

Meyer, F. B. The Life and Light of Men: Expositions of John I-XII. Fleming H. Revell, 1892.

Robertson, Archibald Thomas. Word Pictures in the New Testament Volume V: The Fourth

Gospel & The Epistle to the Hebrews. Broadman Press, 1932.

St. Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods, The Modern Library, 1950.