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?
Why "True"
"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.
A Lamp and the Sun
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.
The One Coming into the World
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.
Not a Light Inside Everyone
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 Light That Shows People Up
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.
No Fence Around It
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.
Man Exposed, God Revealed
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.
Summary
- 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.