So John is saying: ‘Into this world there comes Jesus, the light of the world; there is a darkness which would seek to eliminate him, to banish him from life, to extinguish him. But there is a power in Jesus that is undefeatable. The darkness can hate him, but it can never get rid of him.’ As has been truly said: ‘Not all the darkness in the world can extinguish the littlest flame.’ The unconquerable light will in the end defeat the hostile dark. John is saying: ‘Choose your side in the eternal conflict and choose aright.’
(2) The darkness stands for the natural sphere of all those who hate the good. It is those whose deeds are evil who fear the light (3:19–20). The person who has something to hide loves the dark; but it is impossible to hide anything from God. His searchlight sweeps the shadows and illuminates the skulking evils of the world.
(3) There are certain passages where the darkness seems to stand for ignorance, especially for that wilful ignorance which refuses the light of Jesus Christ. Jesus says: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness’ (8:12). He says to his disciples that the light will be with them only for so short a time; let them walk in it; if they do not, the darkness comes, and those who walk in darkness do not know where they are going (12:35). He says that he came with his light that men and women should not abide in darkness (12:46). Without Jesus Christ, we cannot find or see the way. It is like being blindfolded or even blind. Without Jesus Christ, life becomes lost. It was the German poet Goethe who in his dying words cried out for ‘Light, more light!’ It was one of the old Scots leaders who said to his friends towards the end: ‘Light the candle that I may see to die.’ Jesus is the light which shows us the road and which lights that road at every step of the way.
There are times when John uses this word darkness symbolically. He uses it at times to mean more than merely the dark of an earthly night. He tells of Jesus walking on the water. He tells how the disciples had embarked on their boat and were crossing the lake without Jesus; and then he says: ‘It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them’ (6:17). Without the presence of Jesus, there was nothing but the threatening dark. He tells of the resurrection morning and of the hours before those who had loved Jesus realized that he had risen from the dead. He begins the story: ‘Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came’ (20:1). She was living at that moment in a world from which she thought Jesus had been eliminated, and a world like that was dark. He tells the story of the Last Supper. He tells how Judas received the piece of bread and then went out to do his terrible work and arrange for the betrayal of Jesus; and he says with a kind of sinister symbolism: ‘So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night’ (13:30). udas was going out into the night of a life which had betrayed Christ.
To John, the Christless life was life in the dark. The darkness stands for life without Christ, and especially for that which has turned its back on Christ.
Before we leave this passage, there is one other thing to note. The word which we have translated as put out is in Greek katalambanein. This word can have three meanings.
(a) It can mean that the darkness never understood the light. There is a sense in which the man or woman of the world simply cannot understand the demands of Christ and the way Christ offers. To such people, it seems sheer foolishness. You cannot understand Christ without first submitting to him.
(b) It can mean that the darkness never overcame the light. Katalambanein can mean to pursue until one overtakes and so lays hold on and overcomes. This could mean that the darkness of the world had done everything possible to eliminate Jesus Christ, even to crucifying him; but it could never destroy him. This could be a reference to the crucified and conquering Christ.
(c) It can be used of extinguishing a fire or flame. That is the sense in which we have taken it here. Although some people did all they could to obscure and extinguish the light of God in Christ, they could not quench it. In every generation, the light of Christ still shines in spite of such efforts to extinguish the flame.
THE WITNESS TO JESUS CHRIST
John 1:6–8
There emerged a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, in order to bear witness to the light, that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; his function was to bear witness to the light.
IT is a strange fact that in the Fourth Gospel every reference to John the Baptist is a reference of depreciation. There is an explanation for that. John was a prophetic voice; for 400 years the voice of prophecy had been silent, and in John it spoke again. It seems that certain people were so fascinated by John that they gave him a higher place than he ought to have had. There are, in fact, indications that there was actually a sect who put John the Baptist in the highest place. We find an echo of them in Acts 19:3–4. In Ephesus, Paul came upon certain people who knew nothing but the baptism of John. It was not that the Fourth Gospel wished to criticize John or that it underrated his importance. It was simply that John knew that there were certain people who gave John the Baptist a place that encroached upon the place of Jesus himself.
So, all through the Fourth Gospel, John is careful to point out that the place of John the Baptist in the scheme of things was high, but that nonetheless it was still subordinate to the place of Jesus Christ. Here he is careful to say that John was not that light, but only a witness to the light (1:8). He shows us John denying that he was the Christ, or even that he was the great prophet whom Moses had promised (1:20). When the Jews came to John and told him that Jesus had begun his career as a teacher, they must have expected John to resent this intrusion. But the Fourth Gospel shows us John denying that the first place was his and declaring that he must decrease while Jesus increased (3:25–30). It is pointed out that Jesus was more successful in his appeal to the people than John was (4:1). It is pointed out that even the people said that John was not able to do the things that Jesus did (10:41).
Somewhere in the Church, there was a group who wished to give John the Baptist too high a place. John the Baptist himself gave no encouragement to that but rather did everything to discourage it. But the Fourth Gospel knew that that tendency was there and took steps to guard against it. It can still happen that a congregation may worship a preacher rather than Christ. It can still happen that people fix their attention upon the messenger rather than upon the king whose coming is announced. John the Baptist was not in the least to blame for what had happened; but John the evangelist was determined to see that no one should push Christ on to the sidelines.
It is more important to note that in this passage we come upon another of the great keywords of the Fourth Gospel. That is the word translated in the Revised Standard Version as witness. The Fourth Gospel presents us with witness after witness – eight, no less – to the supreme place of Jesus Christ.
(1) There is the witness of the Father. Jesus said: ‘The Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me’ (5:37). ‘The Father who sent me bears witness to me’ (8:18). What did Jesus mean by this? He meant two things.
He meant something which affected himself. In his heart the inner voice of God spoke, and that voice left him in no doubt as to who he was and what he was sent to do. Jesus did not regard himself as having himself chosen his task. His inner conviction was that God had sent him into the world to live and to die for all humanity.
He meant something which affected people. When people are confronted with Christ, there comes an inner conviction that this is none other than the Son of God. The nineteenth-century Roman Catholic theologian Father George Tyrrell has said that the world can never get away from that ‘strange man upon the cross’. That inner power which always brings our eyes back to Christ even when we wish to forget him, that inner voice which tells us that this Jesus is none other than the Son of God and the Saviour of the world is the witness of God within our souls.
(2) There is the witness of Jesus