Jean 1:9

That was the true Light

The true Light which lighteth every man

I. CHRIST IS THE TRUE LIGHT. This is seen when we reflect that

1. He is the source of all the knowledge we have of the Divine Being--His relation to us, His infinite love, and the wonderful plan of salvation He has devised.

2. He is the source of all the knowledge we have of the life beyond.

3. He is the source of all the consolation we experience under the pressure of trial.

II. HE LIGHTETH EVERY MAN.

1. The general direction which the beams of the true Light are here directed to take is a marvellous instance of His condescension. The noble chandelier which floods the throne-room of the palace with its dazzling light throws not a single ray into the murky gloom of the squalid courts not far away. That Christ, the true Light, should dart His beams downwards to this abiding-place of sin is part of the wonderfulness of the gospel which we preach.

2. To Him we owe the gift of reason, which is one of the two great foundation stones of natural religion.

3. He has placed within us the gift of conscience--God’s eye and voice, a witness against ourselves.

4. The proclamation of the gospel in every land.

III. THE TRUE LIGHT IS MADE EVIDENT FROM THE WORKING OF HIS SPIRIT AND GRACE. (H. W. Price.)

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Christ’s light is

I. The light of NATURAL REASON, which He has given us to cultivate and improve, for the benefit of ourselves and others, especially in the great concerns of religion. This light, which even the Gentiles had, was sufficient to have led them to the knowledge of the true God, and, by the visible works of the creation, to understand His “eternal power and Godhead” Romains 1:10).

II. The light of REVELATION. By this light His will has been made known to us in the Holy Scriptures; the religion of nature commenced revealed; and the lesser light of natural reason was not extinguished by, but absorbed in, revelation. This further light was typified to us by the Shechinah in the tabernacle, and by that bright cloud by day and pillar of fire by night which conducted the Israelites through the wilderness.

III. The light of the GOSPEL: and this is represented by that noblest and brightest of all the heavenly luminaries, the Sun; Christ Himself, who is therefore styled “the Sun of Righteousness,” having now arisen on His Church “with healing in His wings.” This is the light which constitutes our present day.

IV. The last and most perfect light of all will be that of GLORY, which shall never set, nor ever change. But this light none shall ever behold who neglect the use of those lesser lights, who advance not gradually from reason to revelation, from revelation to faith, from faith to glory. (Wogan.)

The arrival of the Light

I. Its NATURE. “True,” not the genuine as opposed to the false, but the substantial, the essential, the original, the permanent, as opposed to the shadowy, phenomenal, derived, transitory.

II. Its INFLUENCE. Set forth

1. Intensively, it lighteth.

2. Extensively, as reaching to every man, i.e, to all mankind, in the sense that its light exists for all, and to some degree shines on all, and to all souls who inwardly admit its beams.

III. Its CONDITION, described as

1. Coming into the world, i.e, in process of passing from a Divine and Eternal into a human and temporal mode of existence, and

2. Coming into His own, i.e, as unfolding His glory before the theocratic people. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

The true Light

I. He is UNDECEIVING light, the true light in opposition to all the false lights of the Gentiles.

II. He is REAL light, true in opposition to ceremonial types and shadows.

III. He is UNDERIVED light, true in opposition to all light that is borrowed, communicated, or participated from another.

IV. He is SUPEREMINENT light, true in opposition to all that is ordinary and common. (Arrowsmith.)

Christ the Enlightener

Jesus Christ enlightening every man

I. FROM WITHIN, i.e, in the intuitive conceptions of the mind.

1. This light is internal, shining in the mental constitution of every man. What was life in the Word pre-incarnate was light or reason in men.

2. This light is innate in every man. “That was the true Light which lighteth every man as he cometh,” etc., is a translation of many scholars. God takes care to write His name on the soul of every man; human nature bears the sign-manual of its Maker in its deepest constitution (Romains 1:19, “in them”).

3. This light is Divine, the same in its nature as that which illuminates God Himself. The light proceeding from the sun is the same as that which resides in the sun.

4. This light is persistent. It continues to shine notwithstanding the Fall and its consequences “lighteth,” present tense.

II. FROM WITHOUT, in the revealed doctrines of Christianity.

1. It is a supernatural light: not unnatural, or contranatural, for the most perfect correspondence obtains between the natural and the supernatural. Railway companies often possess running powers on each other’s property, and the natural and the supernatural often run their trains on each other’s lines. The latter is only an extension of the former.

2. It is a perfect light: true, i.e, the complete as opposed to the imperfect, the full as opposed to the partial. Christ is this; not a ray wanting. You may see God through the creation, but you may see Him in Jesus Christ.

3. It is a universal light.

(1) It enlightens every man that cometh into the world. The perfect is always universal. “Go ye into all the world.” The Sun of Christianity is as all-pervasive as the sun of nature.

(2) It enlightens every man that goeth out of the world. It can penetrate the blackest recesses of the dark mountains along which you are descending, and dissipate the mist of the swelling flood, and illumine your way right into the unseen.

(3) It enlightens the world into which you are going. “ The Lamb is the light thereof.” (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)

The Light of the world

There has been a threefold revelation of the Word.

I. THROUGH NATURE. “In the beginning,” before there was ear to hear or mind to understand--the mind of God was speaking with itself. There was a Word. Then

1. The Word is spoken of as bringing the world into being, i.e, God’s Word found utterance in creation. A word is an expression or a work. The most expressive of all are not those which the lips speak. The American sculptor gazed upon the sky upon a summer’s morning. He went about haunted with the memory of it. It was a necessity for him to express it. Had he been a poet he would have thrown it into words; a painter, on canvas; an architect, into a building; but being a sculptor his thoughts and syllables were expressed in stone. This world is God’s sculptured work whereby He speaks out Himself.

2. This creation is a pervading immanence. “ He was in the world.” Creation is not the work of a Divine watchmaker, who winds it up, leaves it to go by itself, interfering now and then in great emergences called miracles. He is in the world, the life of all that is. The world is the form of which Christ is the Personality. The beauty of the sea-shell and of the field-flower is the loveliness of God. The world is an everlasting anthem hymning God’s secrets.

II. THROUGH MAN.

1. Universally: “lighteth every man.” Just as the sunlight shines on all, more intensely in the tropics, more feebly at the poles, yet shines on all. Your reason and conscience are the God within you. Thus the Fathers spoke of the wisdom of Plato and others as the unconscious Christ within them. Thus, too, in the Old Testament rulers and judges are called “gods” Jean 10:35).

2. Specially: “He came to His own.” The distinction is between those who received the light common to every man and those who received the special illumination which entitled them to be His own--the Jewish people, the inspired people. Inspiration is God’s acting on man’s higher spirit--his worship and reverence. There is an inspiration of genius, but the inspiration of the prophet is another thing altogether. The Jews were not great statesmen, artists, scientists; but the thought of God, the sanctity of duty, moral and spiritual truth were in them as in no other nation on earth.

III. THROUGH THE INCARNATION. God manifested Himself not through what Jesus taught or spoke, hut through what Jesus was and did.

1. Christ was not a transient theophany like the burning bush, the Angel of the Covenant, or the Shechinah glory.

2. But God Himself in man and with man for ever. The application is

(1) That all that can be known of God is through a revelation. The light of revelation is not contrary to, but complementary of, the light of nature.

(2) That revelation is progressive. In the world; with the world; made flesh. In the world unconsciously in nature; nearer in man; nearest in Christ; the time is coming when He will be still nearer, “when we shall see Him as He is.” (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Christ the Light of all the living

I. EVERY MAN COMES INTO THE WORLD WITH A LIGHT IN HIM. Dim in infancy, but ready to be fanned by educational influences; dark in heathenism., but glimmering amongst fogs of superstition. This light reflects

1. On social obligation. Every man has the sense of right and wrong.

2. On religious worship: the sentiment of a God is universal.

3. On future retribution: reference to a future life of reward and punishment instinctive. That all men have their light is clear

(1) From history. Its rays may be seen in the best heathen, in their sacred books, and even amongst the most degraded tribes.

(2) From the Word of God (Romains 1:1.). It is absurd to deny its existence because it burns dimly under the glass of ignorance, and never throws a false hue on duty and destiny, etc. Any light is better than darkness. A manuscript may contain truth, although part may be torn away.

II. THE LIGHT IN EVERY MAN IS FROM CHRIST. This fact

1. Exalts Christ as the Creator of souls (Jean 1:2). He puts this inextinguishable light in them.

2. Reveals the responsibility of heathens. They are not in utter darkness. It is amongst them in these elements of truth by living up to which they may be accepted of God. Thus heathen salvation is not independent of Christ.

3. Furnishes an argument for the congruity of Christianity with human nature. Both the natural and the gospel light come from one source in Christ and harmonize with each other.

4. Supplies a motive to extend the light of the gospel Although Christ gave men natural light, He saw their need of a higher light, and became flesh and died to give it. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Christ our revealing Light

I once spent a night on Mount Righi, and there was nothing visible for a rod from my window. But when the morning broke, the icy crowns of the Jungfrau and the Schreckhorn began to glitter in the early beams. They had been there all the night, waiting for the unfoldings of the dawn. Even so have all God’s laws of the material universe and all His purposes of redeeming mercy through Jesus Christ been in existence from the beginning. They only waited for the dayspring of discovery. And one of the most delightful occupations of a devout mind is to watch the unfoldings of God, and to drink in new truths as He gradually reveals them. (Theodore L. Cuyler.)

Jesus our Light

A visitor went one cold day last spring to see a poor young girl, kept at home by a lame hip. The room was on the north side of a bleak house. It was not a pleasant prospect without, nor was there much that was pleasant or cheerful within. Poor girl I what a cheerless life she has of it, he thought, as he saw how she was situated; and he immediately said to himself, what a pity it was her room was on the north side of the house. “You never have any sun,” he said; “not a ray comes in at these windows. That I call a misfortune. Sunshine is everything; I love the sun.” “Oh,” she answered, with the sweetest smile, “my sun pours in at every window, and even through the cracks.” The visitor looked surprised. “The Sun of Righteousness,” she said, softly--“Jesus. He shines in here and makes everything bright to me.” Who could doubt her? She looked perfectly happy. Yes! Jesus shining in at the window can make any spot beautiful and any home happy.

Christ the interpreter of human life

I. HOW FAR IS THIS TRUE? Is it not rather sin which explains it? Its facts meet us everywhere, and sum up the life of the individual and the nation. We see them and feel their curse. But do they explain all? Are there not stirrings of the awakened conscience, longings of the soul for its lost innocence, better hopes, holier resolves, efforts to lay hold of God? Whence have these come? From the Light. Sin, so far from interpreting life, is its confusion. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” But sin has obscured it all; caused its power and promise to be wasted, changed its blessing into a curse, quenched its light in darkness. A saved soul--that is consistent; a lost soul--there is bewilderment in the very thought. We cannot understand our own being till Christ gives us light; then our darkness passes, and the true light shineth.

II. It is not only true that salvation in Christ is the end which alone makes human life intelligible--THE LAW OF LIFE IN CHRIST IS THE LAW ACCORDING TO WHICH WE WERE MADE. The self-devoted Saviour is “the Light which lighteth every man.” Men resolve every motive into selfishness. Men are always seeking, it is said, to please, themselves. But this only confuses. There is an impulse of self-denial which cannot thus be explained away. The father labouring for his little ones, the mother watching over her sick child’s couch, do this for love’s sake, and not to please themselves. The patriot denies himself for his country’s good; we are often ashamed of our comforts when we reflect on the wants of others. The impossibility of living a life wholly selfish, the inspirations of pity, the passion for self-devotedness find their explanation in Christ. In Him we see the self-devoted life, the only true and blessed life for man. As Christ was it would be well for us all to be; that is what God would have us all be. All falls into harmony now; this is the true light.

III. If we turn from the quenchless impulse of devotedness to the QUENCHLESS IMPULSE OF WORSHIP; if we ask how it was that amidst the degradations of heathenism and the corruption of the Jews, faith itself did not die out; if we ask how it was that though philosophers often seemed on the verge of proclaiming that all religion was only a fiction useful for civil government, men could not rid themselves of reverence; if we ask how it was that in even the worst superstitions of idolatry something may be often seen which strangely suggests to us the gospel revelation; again we are reminded that Christ, “the true Light which lighteth every man,” was in the world. He would not let them sink into utter godlessness. He preserved in them some little longing for the true, awoke in them some dissatisfaction with the false.

IV. FROM THE CROSS COMES THE LIGHT WHICH INTERPRETS THE DEEPEST AND MOST MYSTERIOUS FACTS IN HUMAN LIFE. The selfishness of pride is crushed as we recognize ourselves saved not by our own righteousness, but by Him that bore our curse. We have murmured that we should bear a doom for Adam’s sin: Christ bore the doom for Adam and for us. We have murmured at our birth into a state of sin and suffering. But Christ was born into it for us. Our Christian life is interpreted here. If we are restless amid our pleasures, if we cannot be happy, if we are yearning to be better, it is because the Word is within us pleading with us to receive Him. If we have not been allowed to sink amidst temptations, to rest in a life of ungodliness, and if there be in us purer feelings and holier aspirations, these seek their fulfilment in Christ. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)

The natural light in man

God prints His own name, He stamps some great universal truths on the mind of every man as he cometh into the world. Men are like so many volumes, continually issuing from the Divine press; and if nothing else be written on them, the name of the Author and Printer is indisputably engraved on the title-page. I do not say that the name is very legible at first, especially since the soul has been soiled by sin, but that it is there is to me a demonstrated truth. Take a sheet of white paper; write on it your own thoughts--your good thoughts or your bad thoughts, just as you please--and underneath your own signature and address. Is that all that is to be read off the paper? Nay; hold it up to the light, and you will behold the name of the manufacturer in watermarks. You may write on it what you like and as you like; but you will never rub off the name of the maker. Your name is on it, but his name is in it. Thus God has written His name in watermarks on the raw material of the soul. You may write on it, the world may write on it, the devil may write on it; but God has written in it--He has deeply stamped His name into the soul in its first make. The idea of God is a lighted lamp hung up in the dome of every man’s soul as he cometh into the world, a lighted lamp flashing forth its penetrating and comforting beams in all directions. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)

Light before Christ came

We must not suppose that all light of faith, of hope, of justice, of purity, of truth, first dawned on the world when Christ came. God has been in the world ever since there was one, and whatever there is that is noble and good proceeded from the inspiration of the Divine mind working upon the human soul, on all nations, in every age, and under the ministrations of the truth as it is in Jesus. He that brought life and immortality to light was neither supine nor slumbering, but was working everywhere before His appearance, and whatever light of truth there has been at any time has come from Him. When, however, He came in bodily form, He came to interpret what only life and conduct can interpret. (H. F.Beecher.)

Christ the efficient Light

The earthly sunlight only illumines eyes that see, but Christ the true Light enlightens the eyes of the blind; He is at once the Eye and Light of the world. (Brenz.)

Light dawning upon man

Standing far down in the darkness of an icy valley, I once witnessed a sunrise in the Alps. The first beam struck the summit of Monte Rosa, and looked like a vivid crimsom spot amid a deep gloom; and then the rising dawn fired the summits of mountain after mountain, and floated in a river of broadening gold down through snowy slopes, until at last the hills and the valleys and the pine forests seemed to shout aloud, and clap their hands, as they were flooded irresistibly with the rejoicing light. Even so, He who is the Light which enlighteneth every man dawned with an infinitude of blessing upon a dark and guilty world. (Archdeacon Farrar.)

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Christ the true Light

That only is “light” which lighteth another; and that, therefore, which should “light” everybody is the True, Original, Primal “Light.” Nature teaches it. You cannot conceive of “light” which does not emit. It must propagate itself. The moment that “light” does not shed itself, it is gone out. There is no propagation in darkness. Darkness is naked. A dark room does not darken a light room; but a light room will lighten a dark one. And the more “light,” the more it brightens--up to that Perfect “Light” which “lights” everything. The sun “lights” the whole world. Christ is the Sun of God’s moral system. When the world was four days old, God gathered all the “light”--which vibrated and was diffused in the atmosphere--into one great centre: or, more accurately, He made for all that “light” one great reflector to “rule the day”; then He made another reflector for the sun--the moon, “to govern the night.” When the world was four thousand years old He gathered all moral and spiritual “light”--of the law, of prophecy, of grace, of love, of hope--which was scattered and indistinct before, into one grand depository; or, more accurately, He gave a perfect mirror, to give back all His own lustre and glory, to be the ruler and arbiter of the Gospel Day (Hébreux 1:1). And then God made a reflector of that Divine luminary--the Church; the Church, to catch and disseminate its rays in a dark world; the Church, to rule and govern the world’s night. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)

The safety of the Light

The night is of the darkest; the moon has hid her face behind the swift-rolling clouds, and not a star ventures to peep out upon what is going on far below on earth. Her anchor weighed and sails broadly spread, a noble ship moves steadily on her way, her captain on the bridge, her trusty steersman at the helm, the watch at their posts. We hear the low, firm word of command, and feel the movement of the vessel responding slowly to her rudder as her course is changed in obedience to the indications of the chart, or in consequence of the observations of the look-out. Now she rounds a rocky headland, and, passing from its shelter, enters a narrow strait, on which, in striking contrast to the gloom behind, a flood of brilliant light is cast from the lighthouse which stands in the centre of that short but dangerous channel, whence it sends forth guiding rays to help mariners who pass through from one great sea to another beyond. The light makes the channel safe; let it be removed, and, striking against the rocky isles which stud the strait, the brave ship, in vain effort to escape, will beat out its life. Do you ask me on what map you will find this channel marked? what are the names of the two seas which it connects? I will tell you. The name of the ocean on the one hand is Eternity; the name of the ocean on the other hand is Eternity; the name of the channel is Life, and its Light is Jesus Christ. Without Him we perish; but with Him, overcoming the perils of the passage, we reach at last the great and wide sea of the Father’s infinite love. (H. W. Price.)

Christ the Light of the future world

Into the impenetrable darkness of the hereafter He alone has entered; only His sacred feet have trodden that awful path of gloom. We read, a little time ago, of some of our English officers exploring a subterranean cavern never yet visited by man--how they groped, and climbed, and crawled for hundreds of yards into the darkness that was but feebly lit up by the glimmer of their tapers. They pressed onward in spite of every difficulty, till an impassable obstacle prevented their further progress, and the gallant explorers had to return. They might have perished in their perilous enterprise, and left their bones to moulder in their unknown charnel-house till the resurrection morn; or they might have threaded their way through mazy intricacies until, at last, they came again within the welcome sight of daylight, and emerged from their underground wanderings on the other side of the mountain. The Great Explorer passed right through! The Founder of our Faith came out of death into a fuller and more glorious life than He laid down when He yielded up His spirit. It is from Christ--messenger from the land of light and love, victor over death and the grave, that we learn all we know of the home beyond, of the many mansions, of the place prepared, of the thrones, and of the crown. (H. W. Price.)

Christ the Light of every man

How can this be true when there are, and always have been, so many who live on still in darkness? First, it was God’s intention that “light” should be all-pervasive, and it does not make that intention untrue if, through the negligence of His people--to whom it was committed to carry it out--it has not yet taken place. The orb of day is not less the “light” to the universe, because you choose to eclipse it with your little hand. Neither is Christ less “the true Light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” because they, to whom it was given, have not transmitted its beams. But, evil as things are now, it is impossible to calculate what may be the indirect rays of “light” which have reached, from the gospel, through the whole earth. There is a twilight of truth in almost every superstition and every error. Is that dim twinkle a refraction from the cross? (Sermons by the Monday Club.)

God the Light of life

When we grasp a truth, and the exquisite pleasure of knowing what is true abides with us like a noble guest; when we conquer a selfish or worldly desire and lie down to rest on the goodness we have won and feel at peace; when in the golden summer-time we pass through the happy woodland and hear the stream and the trees talk to one another, and the beauty that flows into the eyes and ears kindles its instructive fire in our hearts; when we give love or pity or kindness to those that need it, and the quick thrill of heavenly joy, such as the shepherd feels when he finds his lost sheep, swells the heart--what is it that we feel? We feel not only ourselves but God within us. His is the truth, the goodness, His the beauty and the tenderness, and His the joy. He is mingled with us then. His light and life make our light and our life. It is more or less in all men, it is of different kinds in different men, but it shines in all. One may hold it in a soul which is a palace for the crowned Truth to dwell in; another may keep it in a soul which is a ruined cabin where many an outlawed thought and many a felon feeling dwells: but its eternal fire burns in both--in one as brightly as the sun, in the other dimly as in the dying star. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)