What does it mean that Jesus is the true light (John 1:9)?

If, however, God sends the forerunner, He carefully guards the glory of Christ. Great as John may be, there is only One Who is the Light. John, indeed, was "the burning and shining lamp" (John 5:35, N.Tn.), but the Word was the Light that coming into the world lightens every man. The Light had a twofold effect: it exposed man, but revealed God. Truly the Lord "went about doing good," but the motive in all that He did was to make God known. 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.

If, however, God sends the forerunner, He carefully guards the glory of Christ. Great as John may be, there is only One Who is the Light. John, indeed, was "the burning and shining lamp" (John 5:35, N.Tn.), but the Word was the Light that coming into the world lightens every man. The Light had a twofold effect: it exposed man, but revealed God. Truly the Lord "went about doing good," but the motive in all that He did was to make God known. 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.

(John 1:10-11). Then we are told the effect of the Light upon man when left to himself. The world did not know Him, and His own, the Jews, would not receive Him. The Light reveals that man is not only utterly insensible to what is good and perfect, but absolutely opposed to the One in Whom all this goodness is displayed. Left to himself the condition of man is hopeless.

Coming into the world, Jesus was the true Light. Divine light was seen without a shadow in Jesus, it was unmixed, pure and undimmed, transparent and perfect. There was nothing in the life of Jesus to give the slightest false impression of God, for He perfectly revealed God as none else could for He was God. In the believer, who has the divine life in the Son, the light shines, for he is “light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:8), but as still having the flesh in him, there is that which is of the flesh which mingles with the light, so that we give a very imperfect presentation, at the best, of what God is. How different it was in Jesus: all was perfection, and the light that shone so perfectly in Him was for every man. It was now possible for man to know what God is in His nature of love.

Israel, as having the oracles of God, was not in the gross darkness in which the heathen lived, and they could look forward to the day spoken of by the prophets when Jehovah would be their everlasting light; but when Jesus came into the world, the true Light, He was such for “every man.” God was no longer confining His activities to the favoured nation of Israel, but dealing with all mankind, and revealing Himself for the blessing of all who had faith in Him. Whatever the disposition of men towards God might be, there was now no doubt as to what God’s disposition to man was, for in His Son He plainly declared what He was in Himself in all the grace and love of His heart.

Thus vividly did Jehovah, while prescribing for the solemn separateness of an Israelite under this fell disease, look onward to the discovery of what every man is in the light of Christ. For He alone gives us the full truth of every one and of every thing. It is not that the law did not indicate much that was true, and the prophets yet more. But, as John 1:9 so strikingly tells us, the Word, even Jesus, is the true light, which, coming into the world (for this is the only legitimate rendering), pours light on every man. It is not limited like the law to Israel. It shines on Gentile as well as Jew. It is no lightning flash as of death like the effect of the same law; yet it discovers, fully and at once, the true state of each. No prince is exalted above its penetrating power, any more than the most abject slave is beneath it. It was the Word incarnate here below, divine light yet in man, having its range universal on the race here below. Far from any boasting of Him as Light of east or west, north or south, such was the unbelief that not even Palestine owned Him, though born its King with a title pure, perfect, and indisputable, alike human and divine, Immanuel. He was in the world and the world had been from Him, and the world knew Him not. He came to what was His own, and His own people received Him not, guiltier than the besotted world. Yet was He love, as well as light; grace and truth (in contrast with the law) came into being through Jesus Christ; and thus was "every man" the less excusable. None received Him but such as were born of God; only these were enlightened by Him.

When light is introduced the darkness is dispelled, but it was not so in regard to the spiritual darkness that marked this world at the coming of the Son of God, and this proved the incorrigible state of man in sin as under the influence of the powers of darkness. John Baptist, as a true servant of God, bore witness to the Light; but the true Light was God's own Son, and, coming into the world, He was light for every man. It was impossible to confine the shining of such a light to the nation of Israel. The Lord will indeed be an ever-lasting light for Israel in the coming day, but when God's Son entered this world it was to bring the knowledge of God within the reach of every man.

The word "true" is in itself a certain confirmation of the finality of the revelation of the Father. In this Gospel of John, apart from the expression "the true worshippers," there are four examples of its use: the true Light (John 1:9); the true Bread (John 6:32); the true Vine (John 15:1); the true God (John 17:3). In these examples the word signifies the substance in contrast with the shadow; the final rather than the temporary; the complete instead of the partial. In each case what is of Israel (including John Baptist) and therefore partial, shadowy, and incomplete, stands in contrast with what Christ has brought; and in the last and greatest is the final and complete revelation of God as the Father in distinction from the partial revelations of Himself under His Old Testament names.

Then we find John brought in. The reason why he is singled out from all others I believe to be this: he was the immediate forerunner of the Lord Jesus. He would surely not have been named here if it were not, because he was the moon that derived its light from the sun - from the Lord Jesus just about to come. His was only a derivative light, and he seems brought in here because of that peculiarity. Other prophets were too distant from Christ, but John was near enough to be an immediate precursor of the Messiah. "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe." It is no question of law-testing or proving. All this was very important in its place; but the glory that the law had is completely eclipsed by a brighter glory. Scripture therefore takes pains to say, John "was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light." He might be a burning and a shining lamp (as it ought to be in chapter 5), but he was only an earthly and derived light. "He was not that light." "That was the true light"; Jesus is the light, the true light, which (as rightly rendered) on coming into the world lighteth every man. It is speaking of the effect of Christ's coming into the world. It is not every man that cometh into the world; but that, when He comes into the world, He is the One that casts His light on every one here below. There had been a time when, as it is said in the Acts, God winked at the ignorance of men; but now everything must appear in its own light or rather darkness, because the true light was come; and therefore when He comes into the world He lights every man there: all are brought out just as they are and none can escape. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him"; and the awful result of this darkness was that "the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not."

The true light was that which, coming into the world, shines upon every man. This has nothing to do with the conversion of men, but refers to our subject; that is, the outward lighting up of men. Do not talk of "inner light," or any such thing, but rather contemplate with wonder the presence of the Son of God upon earth, in the midst of the prevailing darkness, and see everything illuminated by that presence, though the darkness comprehended not the light. What a field for study are the eighth and ninth chapters of John, and indeed the whole book!

“That was the True Light, which lights every man that comes into the world.” This light means external illumination; that is to say, 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 repentant and loving. Their relation to Him showed up where each one was.

John was not the Light, though a faithful witness to it. “ That was the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world ”. This does not mean that every man has been enlightened, but the Light shines upon all. Alas! it does not shine into the hearts of all, for they won't let it in. The statement should read, “The true Light was that which, coming into the world, lightens [or is light to] every man.” The Light is the Word, but now He is not creating, but shining for the blessing of His creation. He came into it for that purpose. Yet, though He was in the world, and that not for judgment but for blessing, men neither perceived it, nor desired to. “ He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came to His own, and His own received Him not .” How dense must the moral and spiritual darkness be in which the devil holds the world! How complete must be the alienation from the life of God in which men are by nature! Such a statement as this reveals it all to us. The world did not know its Creator when He came into it. The elements owned Him, for the winds and the waves obeyed His command, and the fish of the sea knew His voice. It was men, made in the image and likeness of God, that did not recognize Him and did not obey Him; and, worse still, His own, that favoured nation to whom God had spoken in the law and by the prophets, who boasted that they were God's people, they received Him not when He came to them. They loved the darkness and not the light, because their deeds were evil. The Creator was a rejected stranger in His own world, and not rejected only but hated.