Wisdom Wednesday: Wisdom in John’s Gospel Part 7 (of 8)
Chapters 9-12 Spiritual Light and Blindness
Submitted by Debbie’s Dad
“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” John 12:46 (NASB 95)
In this series, we continue to examine the wisdom of God, which is presented throughout the Gospel according to John. In the previous parts of this series, we saw the emphasis on Who Jesus was (chapters 1-3), the spiritual truth He brought (chapters 3 and 4), how He validated His claim to be God’s Son (chapter 5), His way of teaching that amazed His hearers (chapters 6 and 7) and His claim to be the Light that illuminates truth (chapter 8).
In Chapter 9, Jesus returned to the temple to teach and again explained that He was proclaiming the truth about spiritual reality. The chapter is entirely focused on the healing of the man born blind, the resulting unbelief of the Jews (spiritual blindness), and the subsequent belief of the healed man. Jesus repeats his claim to be the Light of the World (v.5), but the religious devout responded:
” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (John 9:40–41)
In chapter 10, Jesus continued on the theme of belief, explaining He is the Good Sheperd, in contrast with other shepherds (e.g., the Pharisees and Scribes) that failed to keep Israel in God’s way. The controversies over Jesus’ teachings continued, and when Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the dead, just outside of Jerusalem in Bethany in Chapter 11, the controversies changed to a conspiracy to kill Jesus (John 12:47-53).
In chapter 12, Jesus entered Jerusalem at the time of the Passover feast and continued teaching on His role as Light of The World (See also John 1:4,9:8:12; 12:46):
So, Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.” Jn (12:35-36)
Jesus clearly taught that He was God incarnate (embodied as the Son of God):
- Belief in Him is belief in The Father (Yahweh), and seeing Him is seeing Yahweh (12:44-45)
- Seeing (experiencing) Jesus is the same as seeing Yahweh (46)
- Jesus came to provide light to reality; belief In Jesus will remove spiritual darkness (46)
- Rejection of Jesus will result in judgment on the last day (12:47-48; cf. 5:22-27)
Following his narration of Jesus’ teaching, John reverted to a commentary to compare how Jesus was indeed the Messiah, as revealed in the prophet Isaiah. The table below shows how Jesus revealed God’s Glory (the full weight of God’s character), but it was rejected because of the spiritual darkness of the audience – just like Isaiah.
As believers in Jesus, we have come into the Light to live as lights to the world. Paul encouraged us, “. . . for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. “(Ephesians 5:8-10)