John 8:12

12. Light of the world What suggested this topic will appear from the following statement in Stier’s Words of Jesus, vol. v, p. 314.

“There was, originally, on the evening of the second (not the first) day of the feast a peculiar festive illumination observed; according to Maimonides it was repeated on each of the remaining evenings, and the pleasure which the people would take in such things renders his word very probable. In the court of the women, where the treasury (John 8:20) was, and so on the spot where the Lord was now speaking, there stood two colossal golden LAMPS, which were ascended by steps; their light, kindled after the evening sacrifice, diffused its brilliance, it was said, over the whole of Jerusalem.

With childlike merriment (John 5:35) they held a dance with torches around these luminaries, in which the most reverend men, suppose, the liberal accompaniment of shouting and singing on the part of the people.

“The meaning of this symbolical rite was similar to that of the pouring out of the water, with which the account of that ceremony places it in connection. The people had indeed forgotten its significance; but its meaning was there, and that manifold; it had reference, most obviously, partly to God’s former mercies to Israel, and partly to His merciful designs in the future. The water poured out at the Feast of Tabernacles reminded them of the rock in the wilderness, and the brilliant light reminded them of the pillar of fire which guided them; but even as the water spoke also of the fountain which should pour forth its streams at the Messiah’s coming, so also did the light speak of the promised shining forth of God out of Zion. It is not improbable that there was even a more distinctive reference in the evening illumination to the promise of Zechariah 14:7; since, in the fourteenth verse of that chapter, that time is specified as the Feast of Tabernacles for all people.

“It was not indeed into the midst of the tumultuous whirl that Jesus sounded forth his testimony I am the true Light! But it is sufficiently obvious, nevertheless, that he does refer to the festival, though past; for the minds of the people were full of the ideas connected with it, long after it was over. Even if the gorgeous illumination occurred on the second day only of the feast, yet an allusion to it would fall in with the people’s thought readily enough; the lamps were not yet removed, and in their near neighbourhood the Lord now spake.”

Certainly it was suitable that the real Light should succeed the symbolical, as the real Sacrifice succeeded the typical.

The lofty strain of self-announcement as the world’s Light, with which the discourse here commences, is forthwith broken off by the malignant interruption. No less than seven such interruptions occur in the discourse, giving it a variety of unexpected turns, and changing, to a great degree, its entire train. In this first half, (John 8:12-30,) Jesus asserts his own and his Father’s attestation, John 8:14-19; the fatal effect of rejection, John 8:21-24; the sure evidence of the attestation, John 8:25-29. conversation, (John 8:31-40,) and Jesus meets them with a firm reply. Formerly he accepted the human maxim that self-attestation is not to be received as true, and in compliance with the maxim he quoted three witnesses. Now he places himself above the maxim, and gives his own word as authoritative and final. His own I know is ample assurance to the world.