In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John has just said that the Word was with God and made all things. Now he tells us what the Word holds in Himself: life — and that life reaches men as light. Two questions follow. What life is this? And why does John move from life straight to light?
John does not say that someone gave the Word life. He says life was in Him.
"In Him was life" — life that no one gave Him, life that is His own by nature, life with no beginning. "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20). He is the Fountain of life. He is the Source of life.
Because "in the beginning was the Word," there is no point at which this life started.
Life was always in Him, the Word. There was never a time when He did not exist — "in the beginning was the Word." So there was never a time when life was not in Him. Who could imagine the Word — the One who expresses God — without life?
Verse 3 has already covered creation. Verse 4 says something new, and commentators press the difference.
He made all creation, but creation does not exist in Him. In Him was life, and in this He stood in relation to one special part of creation — the part God had in His thoughts and purposes. This life was the light of men. It showed itself as a witness to the divine nature, in direct connection with men, as it did with no other creatures at all.
Some read "life" here as life of every kind, plant and animal included. The second half of the verse is what rules that out.
Many take life here in the widest sense, "the Word being the Source of all life to the creature." But everyone admits that the last part of the verse can only mean spiritual life. How could such life be put in the same class as the life of a plant or an animal? Or be said to be in Him? … Life in Him, the Eternal One, is surely eternal life… Only the eternal life could be the light of men.
Adam had life. But the Bible never says that life was in him.
Angels were not its sphere, and it was not limited to one chosen nation: "the life was the light of men." Life was not in man, even before he fell. At best, the first man, Adam, became a living soul when God breathed into him. And it is never said, even of a believer, that life is or was in him, though he does have life. He has it only in the Son.
Believers have life, but they do not hold it in themselves. Only One with life in Himself can give it to others.
Life was in Him as part of His very being. The words "In Him was life" (John 1:4) belong with His eternal existence… We have it only as something passed on to us. Only life that is held in one's own right, as part of one's own being, can be given to others.
Light here is not general information about God available everywhere. It is the life in the Word making the unseen God known.
This life was the light of men. The Lord can say, "Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). The life in the Word was the perfect revelation to man of the invisible God. The light of nature will not reveal the heart of God. The light of reason cannot find out God by searching. It is only the light of the life in the Word become flesh that can declare God.
That leaves no room for any claim to an inner light of our own.
"The life was the light of men." The statement works both ways: nothing else was the light of men. This was the true light. The "light within" is not that, but the power of darkness in the human soul.
Without this life, a person has no light at all.
For man there is no spiritual light apart from this life. Without it he is in darkness, and walks in darkness (1 John 2:11).
Where the light does land, life and light come together.
The very beginning of all God's ways of grace with us has been the giving of divine life, along with the nature that cannot be separated from it. Precious truth! We see these two things, life and light, bound up together. Wherever there is life in a soul, there is light.
- Source. Life is in the Word Himself, with no beginning and no giver — He is the Fountain, not a channel.
- Stream. What we have is given to us; only life held in one's own right can be handed on to others.
- Sphere. This life is aimed at men — not angels, not one nation — and it reaches them as light.
- Standard. Nature, reason and any supposed "light within" cannot show God's heart; the life in the Word alone declares Him.
- Sign. Wherever that life is given, light comes with it — the two are never found apart in a soul.
And the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.
John's opening moves from the Word who is life to the Word who is light, and verse 5 is where that light meets the world. In nature light always beats darkness, so why did this light meet a darkness that neither took it in nor gave way?
John uses the present tense, and commentators press that point. The verse is not a report of one past moment. It describes what light always does against darkness:
Here I come to the judgment of the world, and of "His own." "The light shines in darkness." In nature that is impossible. If light shone into darkness there, no darkness would be left for it to shine in. The judgment of the world follows, for "the darkness did not take it in." Notice also that "the light shines in darkness" is a general statement. He does not say "shone."
In the Bible's first chapter, light breaks on darkness and the darkness goes. Here that pattern breaks. One writer sets the two scenes side by side:
When the Word appeared, the light shone. But the scene He came into was one of darkness. In Genesis 1 we read how by the divine word the light of creation burst upon the darkness; and the darkness vanished. Here we have light of a far higher order. It shines in the middle of moral and spiritual darkness. Only grasping the light could clear that darkness away, and men did not grasp it. Yet though the darkness remained, there was no other light for men than "the life."
Older translations end the verse with "comprehended." Writers explain the word as "apprehended": the darkness did not take the light in. One writer then sets this darkness beside the gloom over the unformed earth:
But men were in fact in a fallen condition, far from God. So the verse hints at a darkness worse than the gloom that covered the deep before the six days of creation began.
That darkness is not a rival god or a first principle of the universe. It is a condition, and only one thing meets it:
Some ancient religions called darkness the mother of all things, or an evil god locked in endless war with the good Lord of light. It is neither. It is the moral condition of fallen man. It is the absence of light, and quite different from physical darkness, because light itself has no effect on it. Grace alone can deal with the difficulty.
One writer puts the failure down to what man is, not to what he did. Man had nothing in him to answer the light:
Man was not light. He was darkness, without any glimmer of the nature of God. More than that, he had no power to receive this light. His whole nature stood against it. They saw no beauty in Him to desire Him. Here was the display of the divine nature itself, and nothing could go further than that. In the natural world, where there is light there is no more darkness. In the moral world it is not so. The light is there, pure in itself and showing up everything. Yet no one sees who is there.
Commentators differ over where the weight falls. Some put it on what man cannot do, others on what he will not do. The second view makes the darkness a choice, not an accident:
Anyone with eyes to see and a heart to understand can tell that the world is in darkness, that is, in ignorance of God. And the world has only itself to blame, for the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not take it in (John 1:5). This is not because men cannot see the light that shines. It is because they will not, for "people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil" (John 3:19). They stay in the darkness by choice, and so they lie under condemnation.
The verse records a refusal, not a defeat. The shining continues, and it has an end in view:
Light finally triumphs and darkness passes away. The process that will reach that happy end is going on now. "The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (1 John 2:8).
- Shines — the tense is present, not past. This is what light always does, whether or not anyone receives it.
- Shines in darkness — in nature that is impossible, since light would leave no darkness behind. Here the darkness stayed.
- Darkness defined — not a rival power, but the moral condition of fallen man. Light itself does not touch it, and it is worse than the gloom over the deep at creation.
- Darkness refuses — man has no power to receive the light, and his nature stands against it. As writers show from John 3:19, the blindness is also chosen. That is why it carries condemnation.
- Darkness passing — grace alone deals with the difficulty, and the process is already running: the true light is already shining.
There was a man sent from God, his name John.
The chapter has been speaking of the eternal Word, who was with God. Now it narrows to one ordinary man with a name. Why did the Light need anyone to announce it, and what does it mean that this man's whole identity was "sent from God"?
The verse begins with a verb that means "became." The same verb covers the making of the world and the Word becoming flesh.
The first change is from "was made" to "became." The same Greek verb appears five times in the same form in verses 1 to 14 of this chapter. … There was (became) a man sent from God. The world was made (became) by Him. "The Word became flesh."
The phrase is not a detail added to a biography. It is the description of the man himself.
He was a man sent from God. … A man sent from God was what he was. Being a man on a mission from God was what described him.
Daylight needs no announcement. That God sent a messenger at all says something about the world he entered.
Men must be stirred to look at it. That takes the voice of someone nearer to them, more on their level and easier to understand, echoing the voice of conscience in their hearts. Such indeed was the "man sent from God, whose name was John." … What a sign of a world far away from God! The Light must have someone to proclaim it. The Creator must have someone to introduce Him into His own world. And then it is necessary to say, "He was not that light," in case men mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to!
Other Gospel accounts tie this man to the law and to practical advice for crowds. Here his mission answers to something larger.
God, who is Love, was active in His goodness to draw attention to the Light, because man's need was deep. … His mission here relates to the Light, not to the law or any legal purpose. So its scope goes far beyond Israel. He came to witness concerning the Light, so that all might believe through him. It is a question of personal faith in the Saviour. It is not merely moral advice for the crowd, tax collectors, soldiers, or anyone else, as in the Gospel of Luke.
What this Gospel leaves out of his story matters as much as what it keeps.
Not only does God give the light, but He sends a forerunner to call man's attention to the light. No details are given of John the Baptist's connection with the Jew or things earthly. Here he is viewed as "sent from God," and as a witness to that which is entirely new — the Light.
His whole mission comes down to three steps — and to one picture from the night sky.
The moon which shines in the night bears its witness to its lord, the sun. It has no light in itself, but as it catches the light of the sun it sheds it on the earth. So it was with John. His soul was enlightened by the glory of the One who was coming after him, and of Him he spoke. His was a great mission. He came from God — that was the source of his mission. He spoke of Christ — that was the object of his mission. His disciples who heard him speak followed Jesus — that was the result of his mission.
Scripture has to say plainly what this man was not. That denial shows how great he was.
The Holy Spirit introduces a man on the scene whose mission set him apart from all other men — "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." Then He describes him by a negative sign — "He was not that Light." Think what the personal worth of this man must have been, for the Holy Spirit to declare that he was not what God Himself is in His essence! … As a lamp, he shone so brightly that his coming brought almost as much joy as the morning star brings. … Except Christ, there was never anyone in this world greater than he.
- Source. "Sent from God" is not background to his story; it is the description of the man — a man in mission from God was what he was.
- Reason. The Light needed someone to proclaim it. The Creator needed introducing to His own world. That shows how far the world had drifted from God.
- Reach. He points not to the law or to one nation, but to the Light, so that all might believe. It is a call to personal faith in the Saviour.
- Limit. Scripture must say what he was not, in case men mistook the witness for the One he witnessed to. A lamp is bright, but it is not the Light.
- Result. He came from God. He spoke of Christ. Those who heard him followed Jesus. Source, object, result.
He came for witness, that he might witness concerning the light, that all might believe through him.
John's Gospel opens with the eternal Word. Then it turns to a man with a name and a mission. Verse 7 tells us why he was there: not to draw eyes to himself, but to point them somewhere else.
Nobody announces the sunrise. That God sent a man to announce the Light says something about the state of the world.
Do you not think it is a wonderful thing that God should send a person to bear witness about light? reason placeholder — "What is it, man?" the people would say. "Look," he says, "there is the sun, and light coming from the sun," and he keeps on saying it. Why, you would think the fellow had gone out of his mind.
Being a witness was his whole job. That job carries a built-in danger, and the next verse shuts it down at once.
God sent him, a witness to bear witness concerning the truth, that all might believe through him. What a sign this is of a world far away from God! The Light must have someone to proclaim it. The Creator must have someone to introduce Him into His own world. And then it is necessary to say, "He was not that light" — in case men mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to!
In the other Gospels John speaks to a different audience. Here the frame is wider.
No details are given of John the Baptist's connection with the Jew or things earthly. Here he is viewed as "sent from God," and as a witness to that which is entirely new — the Light. In other gospels he witnesses to the King and His kingdom for repentant Israel: here he witnesses to the Light for all people.
The shift changes the reach of the mission and the response it asks for.
His mission is seen here in relation to the Light, not to the law or any legal purpose. So its reach goes far beyond Israel. He came to witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. The point is personal faith in the Saviour. It is not just moral advice to the crowds, tax collectors, soldiers, or anyone else, as in the Gospel of Luke.
Does "that all might believe" mean that everyone did? One writer treats the words as the aim of the mission, not a promise of success.
Was not the object of John the Baptist's mission "that all might believe through him"? Does that mean the actual effect of his mission would be that all men would believe in Christ? Did the command to John to go on this errand carry a promise that he would succeed? No one imagines this for a moment. God sent him to give adequate ground for faith, and the chance to believe, to everyone his mission actually reached.
The verse leaves a pattern: where the mission came from, who it was about, and what it produced.
He was a burning and shining light, but he was not the Light. The moon that shines in the night bears its witness to its lord, the sun. It has no light in itself, but as it catches the light of the sun it sheds it on the earth. So it was with John. His soul was enlightened by the glory of the One who was coming after him, and of Him he spoke. His was a great mission. He came from God: that was the source of his mission. He spoke of Christ: that was the object of his mission. His disciples who heard him speak followed Jesus: that was the result of his mission.
- Sent. The mission starts in God, not in the messenger — "a man sent from God" is the source of everything that follows.
- Witness. His entire assignment was to point away from himself; the word "witness" is both his title and his limit.
- Light. Like the moon, he had no light of his own; he only passed on the sun's. That God had to send a witness at all shows how dark the world had become.
- All. The reach here is not one nation but everyone — not moral advice for crowds, but personal faith in the Saviour.
- Believe. That was the aim, not the guaranteed result. God gave adequate ground for faith to everyone the mission reached.
*He* was not the light, but that he might witness concerning the light.
The opening of John's Gospel moves from the Word to a man sent to point people to Him. Verse 8 then draws a firm line: the messenger is not the message.
The difference rests on two different words. One commentator gives both in the original Greek, and shows how far John's mission reached:
God, who is Love, was active in His goodness to draw attention to the Light, for man's need was deep. So there was a man sent from Him — his name John. As we are told elsewhere, he was the burning and shining lamp (ho luchnos); but the Word was the Light (to phos) about whom he came to bear witness. Here his mission stands in relation to the Light, not to the law or any legal purpose. So its scope reaches far beyond Israel. He came to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. It is a question of personal faith in the Saviour.
A denial only makes sense where a mistake is possible. One writer asks what it took for men to notice the Light at all:
Men needed rousing to see it. The voice that roused them came from one nearer to them, more on their level, easier for them to understand, echoing the voice of conscience in their hearts. Such was the "man sent from God, whose name was John." … What proof that the world was far from God — the Light had to have someone to announce it, and the Creator had to have someone to introduce Him into His own world! And then it becomes necessary to say, "He was not the light," in case men should mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to!
If John shone at all, the light was not his own. One writer takes a picture from the night sky, then names three things in John's mission:
The moon which shines in the night bears its witness to its lord, the sun. It has no light in itself, but as it catches the light of the sun it sheds it upon the earth. So it was with John. His soul was enlightened by the glory of the One who was coming after him, and of Him he spoke. His was a great mission. He came from God — that was the source of his mission. He spoke of Christ — that was the object of his mission. His disciples who heard him speak followed Jesus — that was the result of his mission.
Later, officials came to question John. He said about himself what verse 8 says about him:
Who is this man? He has no human credentials, no authority from either Jews or Romans, no advertising, no public display. John's answer is short: "I am not the Christ." He had no interest in talking about himself. What did it matter who he was? He was not the one Man of importance. Christ was the burden of his testimony, not himself.
Jesus praised John in the highest terms. One writer weighs what that praise meant, and where its limit lay:
God had shown John the Baptist great favour, as a man and a prophet. The Lord's own testimony about him was remarkable: "Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist." But John's greatness was relative, not absolute; official, not personal. He was a light-bearer (John 5:35), but not the Light itself, though he bore witness to the Light. He still stood first among all the prophets and messengers of God since the world began, because he alone saw his own predictions about the Messiah come true. As the great forerunner, he could point to One standing in front of him and say, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" Yet, the Lord added, "the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
How John treated his own disciples sets the measure for anyone who speaks for God:
John contemplated Him as He walked, and he wanted his disciples occupied with Him. It did not matter to John if his disciples turned away from him, so long as they followed Jesus. … This is the effect of all true ministry. The eye is directed to Him alone, and the heart is engaged with Him only. A ministry that has its power in the flesh draws the hearer after the minister. … John preached his congregations away from himself, and he did not turn them to the Pharisees, lawyers or scribes — he turned them to the Son of God.
- Sent — John's mission came from God, spoke of Christ, and ended with his hearers following Jesus.
- Lamp — John was the burning, shining lamp. The Word was the Light itself. Two different Greek words mark the two apart.
- Guarded — the denial here guards Christ's glory, so that nobody mistakes the witness for the Christ he witnessed to.
- Confessed — questioned about himself, John gave one answer: "I am not the Christ."
- Measured — his greatness was real, but official rather than personal. The same test still holds: true ministry points away from itself to the Son of God.
The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man.
John's Gospel has just introduced a witness named John, and now it turns to the One he pointed to. Calling Him "the true light" raises two questions: what does "true" add, and who comes into the world — the light, or every man?
"True" here is not set against lying. It marks the real thing against the mere sketch of it. John uses the word in a set series.
John's Gospel uses this word four times, besides the phrase "the true worshippers." There is the true Light (John 1:9), the true Bread (John 6:32), the true Vine (John 15:1), and the true God (John 17:3). In each case the word means the substance, not the shadow. It means the final thing, not the temporary one. It means the whole thing, not the part.
The verse comes right after the man sent from God. The order matters. Naming the witness first sets up the difference between him and the One he announces.
He was the immediate forerunner of the Lord Jesus. He would not have been named here otherwise. He was the moon that took its light from the sun — from the Lord Jesus, who was about to come. His light was only borrowed... He might be a burning and shining lamp, but his light was only earthly and borrowed.
Older English versions attach "coming into the world" to every man, so it describes human birth. Many commentators attach it to the Light instead. They argue from how the phrase works elsewhere.
The phrase "coming into the world," and other phrases like it, appear very often in the New Testament, and they are used of the Messiah. In fact, John 3:19 uses the expression of Him in this very same connection, as the light: "the light has come into the world"... And again in John 12:46, "I have come into the world as light."
Read that way, the verse is not describing something that happens to each baby. It describes what happened when Christ arrived.
If the Light lights every man, does every man have some spark of it within? Commentators here say no. They warn against turning the verse into a teaching about a light inside us.
This has nothing to do with the conversion of men... the outward lighting up of men. Do not talk of "inner light," or anything like it. Instead, wonder at the presence of the Son of God on earth, in the middle of the darkness all around. See everything lit up by that presence, even though the darkness did not grasp the light.
The Gospel story itself shows what the shining did. How people stood in front of Him showed what they were.
The Lord Jesus Christ showed up everybody. He was the Test of everything and everybody. Think of the treachery of Judas. Think of the Pharisee, and of the woman, who came into the Pharisee's house. The light showed up the heart of the Pharisee, and it also showed up the heart of the woman. The Pharisee's heart was cold and dead. The woman's was repentant and loving. Their relation to Him showed up where each one was.
The law was given to one nation. The word "every" breaks that boundary, and it breaks every boundary of rank as well.
The Word, that is, Jesus, is the true light. Coming into the world (this is the only right way to translate it), He pours light on every man. It is not limited like the law to Israel. It shines on Gentile as well as Jew... it reveals the true state of each one, completely and at once. No prince stands above its searching power, and no slave, however low, stands beneath it.
Exposure is only half of what light does. The same shining that uncovers what people are also uncovers what God is.
The Light had a twofold effect: it exposed man, but revealed God... He did not simply open blind eyes to relieve blindness, but to make known the love of God in relation to man's need. Light is the revelation of God in love according to the full truth of man's condition and God's holiness.
- Real, not partial. "True" ranks Him as substance against shadow — the true Light, true Bread, true Vine, true God.
- Sun, not lamp. John the Baptist shone with borrowed light; the Light Himself needs no witness to make Him shine.
- He came, not us. Commentators here read "coming into the world" as Christ's arrival. The Gospel uses that phrase of Him elsewhere too.
- Outward, not inward. The shining lights up every man; it does not put a light inside every man, and darkness can still refuse it.
- Exposing, and revealing. The same beam that shows up a Pharisee and a repentant woman, a prince and a slave, is the beam that makes God known.