Walk While You Have the Light
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
I trust by now we remember that Christ has been clear. He's been clear. He has been clear about where He was heading. He's told us, He's told the people back then, He's going to die. He's going to the cross. In fact, He's been clear enough that the crowds understand that He's talking about dying, about His crucifixion. And He's been clear about the fact that this hour that has has come has been preordained. He's been appointed for this hour.
And this hour, He's been clear about this hour, that it's deeply troubling to Him. He's not just going to die. He's going to die a death unlike any death ever experienced before or since on Calvary's cross. He's going to die as the Lamb of God slain for sinners. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's going to die as the sin bearer. God's sin sacrifice to save His people from their sin. And yet, He does not ask to be delivered from it. He doesn't. He makes it plain that even though this troubles Him, His spirit, His soul is dismayed, yet He has chosen to do it. He has chosen it. This is voluntary. He has come to this hour not only according to the will of the Father, but by His own choice.
"I lay down My life of My own accord." (John 10:18) And He looks into the face of the suffering that is looming, that is coming, and He chooses it deliberately. His one desire is that the Father is glorified. That His name will be glorified. That the Father is exalted. And the Father here, you remember, affirms. He affirms His Son's desire by saying in verse 28 (John 12), from heaven, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."
Let me pause here and really ponder this together. Isn't it wonderful to know that the glory of God is not depending upon the will of man? Now think about this. Isn't that wonderful? The glory of God doesn't depend on the will of man. God is able to say, "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again." God will glorify God.
Christ has also made clear that the outcome of His death is already settled. There's no ifs and buts. Settled. It will mean the judgment of the world as we saw last time. It will mean the casting out of the ruler of this world, the defeat of Satan. It will mean salvation of the world, because as He's lifted up, He will draw all people to Himself. That is, men and women, boys and girls, will be saved from all over the world, all without distinction. Again, this isn't dependent upon the will of man. This has been determined by the will of the sovereign God, by the sovereign will of God.
Christ speaks in settled terms. This will take place. Period. Paragraph. He's been clear, but in spite of His clarity, in spite of His clarity, you find confusion on the part of the crowd. Those who are listening to Him now, I mean, they're confused. They're confused. Look at the text. “The crowd then answered Him,” verse 34, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how do You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up?’” How can you say that? How can you say you must die? Our understanding is that the Son of Man, that the Messiah, the Christ, is going to remain forever. How can you say He must die? “Who is this Son of Man?"
Now, we should understand the crowd's response in verse 34 to be a defiant challenge. Not a sincere question. This is not a sincere question. It's a defiant challenge. Look at this. The we and the you are emphatic in the Greek text, pitting them against Jesus. That they answer Jesus, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how do You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'?"
This morning, in the context of their confusion, there are four lessons that I want us to see together. A lesson about spiritual darkness, a lesson about spiritual light, a lesson about spiritual opportunity, and a lesson about spiritual judgment. Let's begin.
Spiritual darkness, verse 34. The first thing that we see here has to do with darkness. This has to do with unbelief. John is setting before us once again—and this is not the first time he's done this, John the Apostle, under inspiration; it won't be the last time—he's setting before us the complicated reality of unbelief. That from a human point of view, unbelief can be very confusing. Very confusing.
Back in verse 18 in this text, when you look back at verse 18, you remember that what takes place as Christ makes His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we're told that the reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they had heard that He had done this sign. Remember the sign, right? The raising of Lazarus from the dead? And now it seems like, it appears as if they're convinced. He's the one. He's the Messiah. They've understood the sign that Jesus has wrought in raising Lazarus from the dead, and so they go out to meet Him. It seems because they believed in Him. He's the one.
In fact, this is how the Pharisees interpreted it. Look at verse 19. So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing; look, the world has gone after Him." It seems that they have understood. It seems that they have rightly interpreted the sign. It seems that they have understood that He's the Messiah. But now, in light of His teaching, they're confused. They cannot reconcile belief in Him with what He said about dying. Now they don't know who He is now. You're confusing us, Jesus. Who is the Son of Man? Who is the Son of Man who's going to be crucified? We thought you to be the Messiah, but now you're talking about dying? Who are you?
Beloved, despite some encouraging signs, despite from our vantage point what would have seemed to be encouraging signs, the unmistakable theme of these verses is that these people don't see. They don't see. Verse 37, "But though He had done so many signs before them, they still were not believing in Him." See that? So for a time, you see some encouraging signs. They come to meet Him. They come out to greet Him. They're waving palm branches, declaring Him to be the Messiah, and it's not long after that, that when He's taught them the truth about His death, about His crucifixion, now they don't believe anymore. Now they're unsure. Now they're doubting.
Do we realize this morning that non-saving faith can look encouraging at certain points and still not be saving faith? Or to say it another way, do you realize that unbelief wears more than one face? And it can be deadly. It is deadly. Unbelief has more than one behavior. It has more than one behavior. Sometimes unbelief is antagonistic. Sometimes it is indifferent. Indifferent. There were people who opposed Christ, and there were people who just didn't pay Him any attention.
Sometimes unbelief can show initial interest. In fact, sometimes it can show extreme interest in Jesus. Example? Exhibit A, the rich young ruler. Remember him? Running to the Lord Jesus. I mean, he falls down on his knees before Jesus. I mean, publicly. I mean, think of this. This is this noble, rich, young ruler with all the pride that he has. He comes, and he falls on his knees before Jesus publicly, unashamed to fall down on his knees before Christ, and he asked this question, “good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18) Sounds like a great question, doesn't it? Extreme interest. Yet the Bible says he walked away from Jesus grieved, because he had much wealth, unwilling to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the extent that he would leave, turn away like the Thessalonians, turn away from his idol, his wealth, to follow Christ.
Sometimes unbelief is like that. It shows extreme interest. Sometimes it is revealed by unmistakable hostility, the Pharisees. Sometimes it wears the face of friendship. Sometimes unbelief shows up at the point where it's offended. It follows for a while, interests for a while, but then comes that truth that drives it away, the truth that brings offense, that stumbling block that it cannot get over. What? Messiah dies? Sometimes it's not revealed by offense, it's revealed by sorrow, again like the rich young ruler, because it has other loves, things too precious to let go of in order to follow Jesus. Darling sins.
So what I'm saying to us this morning is this. Unbelief is something that from our vantage point is very confusing at times. Ultimately what marks the true believer, the true child of God, the true safe person, is that they believe the truth, they believe all of the truth, and they persevere in the truth. They hear the truth about Christ, all the truth about Christ, they receive the truth about Christ, and they follow Christ, and they keep on following Christ.
They follow Him daily. Unbelief, a false belief, is temporary. And what you also find many times in unbelief is a mixture. Spurgeon calls it an unprofitable mixture. It's a mixture of knowledge and ignorance. In unbelief—again I will say this—many times you'll find a mixture of knowledge and ignorance at the same time. There's some truth in the unbeliever's mind, but there's also darkness, lack of understanding.
You see that here in the text, don't you? You see that what they're stumbling over? Look at that what they're stumbling over. Verse 34, “the crowd then answered Him, ‘We have heard from the law.’” We have heard from the law. In other words, we've heard from the Scriptures, God's Word. "We've heard from the law, from the Scriptures, that the Christ is to remain forever." The Messiah will remain forever.
Now question, question: were they altogether wrong in their mind? Were they altogether wrong in their thinking? Did the Old Testament teach—does the Old Testament teach—that the Messiah will remain forever? Well, you can see where they got that from, right?
Isaiah 9, verse 7: "There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this."
Ezekiel 37, verse 25: "They will inhabit the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, which your fathers inhabited, and they will inhabit it, they and their sons and their sons' sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever."
Psalm 89, verse 35: "Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and he's thrown as the sun before Me. It shall be established forever like the moon, and the witness in the sky is faithful."
So as you can see, the people know these verses and verses like them, and so they say, wait a minute, wait a second, wait a second, Jesus, You're talking about being lifted up from the earth, You're talking about the manner in which You're going to die, and our understanding from the Scriptures, from the law, is that the Messiah is going to remain forever.
What they didn't understand, however, were the Old Testament passages that spoke just as clearly about the suffering and the death of the Messiah. They had a part of the story, right? Part of the story—they didn't have it all—they had part of the picture, they didn't have all of it. They couldn't see a crucifixion and a resurrection and an ascension and then a second coming and then the establishment of a kingdom that is forever and ever and ever. They couldn't put the two together, and yet it was something that was available for them to know.
In fact, you don't have to go outside of our context here to see some some verses that they should have been able to know and should have been able to see and recognize. Look at our text—just the chapter, actually—verse 37, we'll get to it: "But though He had done so many signs before before them, they still were not believing in Him, so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke, 'Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'" Well, that's from Isaiah 53, verse 1. This is what He's quoting here, and that whole section, Isaiah 53, you know it speaks of the suffering Messiah, and we're told in advance that they won't listen, they won't hear, they won't believe, they won't come.
Verse 39: "For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 'He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and return and I heal them.'" That's Isaiah chapter 6. And we can think about Psalm 22, other places like that in the Old Testament where the Bible clearly spoke of the suffering Messiah and the rejection of the Prince of life—the fact that He would be pierced for our transgressions, for our iniquities, and that He would not be abandoned, however, to Sheol, that that He'd be raised from the dead—Psalm 16:10. All of these are Old Testament passages that the New Testament writers, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, end up quoting, and the children of Israel had those verses, those passages, available to them, but they did not see them, they did not understand them.
So they had only partial understanding of the Messiah, partial understanding—that is, some knowledge—but it was mingled, mixed with ignorance, mixed with darkness. And doesn't that continue even to our own day? Doesn't it? Doesn't it continue even to our own day? I mean, that's not foreign to us, is it? When it comes to sharing the gospel, when it comes to evangelism, we meet with people all the time who don't have a saving knowledge of Christ, they don't have a saving understanding of Christ. But we also meet with people who know part of the story, right? They have a partial understanding of Jesus, but they still don't have it straight in their thinking.
Someone says, well, you know, I believe in Jesus, but I'm also a good person. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God, but I'm a good person also. How are you going to heaven? Well, I believe that you have to, of course, believe in Jesus, but you also must live a good life. You have to believe in Jesus, but you have to keep the Ten Commandments. Look, you can't have two more contrary thoughts, can you? Can you? Why must we believe in Jesus? Because we are wretched rebels, we're wretched sinners. There's none good, no, not even one. There's none who works righteousness. We've all sinned, fallen short of the glory of God.
That's why Jesus had to come. That's why He lived the life that He lived, that perfect life that is required of us that we can never, ever live, and die the death that we deserve to die on our behalf, as our substitute, to pay for our sins. If we could be good enough to go to heaven, there was no need for Jesus Christ to come. So when someone says, I believe in Jesus plus I'm a good person, I believe in Jesus plus I live a good life, I believe in Jesus plus I keep the Ten Commandments and that's how I'm going to heaven, they have no understanding of Jesus at all and why He came.
Someone says, I know I'm going to heaven because Jesus died to pay for all of our sins. And some people get this sin part right, but then they think of His death as producing universalism—everybody's going to heaven because Jesus died for all of our sins. That's how some people think. And again, they don't understand that there's no salvation apart from repentance and personal faith and personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know who Jesus died for on the cross? Let me put it this way: in the language of the Bible, really, that's the meaning—He died for sheep, for believers. He died only for believers. He died only for those who repent of their sins and personally commit their lives to Him. He died for those unbelievers who will believe—that's what I mean—they will they will believe, they will come to saving faith, they will come to repentance and faith. There will be no salvation apart from faith, personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And where there's personal faith, there's what? Repentance. There's repentance from sin, and repentance is what? Turning from the way I thought about God, the way I thought about myself, the way I thought about getting to heaven all my life—which is what? The airpoint system, right? The air mile system works, doing good. I must turn from that, all of that, and put my trust, the weight of my soul, exclusively on the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and Christ alone—His merit, His doing, His dying on Calvary's cross.
Salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, plus nothing. And until that's my vision of Jesus, until I understand He came to die for sinners who would trust in Him, I don't understand Jesus. Some people still have a more generic view than even that. They say, I believe in God. Do you believe in God? Yeah, I believe in God. I'm going to heaven because I believe in God. In fact, they don't understand that there's no coming to God apart from Jesus: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6) You can't go to God directly because your sin prevents that.
There must be a mediator, and there's only one mediator given who will bring men to God. That's His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—1 Timothy 2:5. It's by His cross, it's by His death, it's by His shed blood that men and women are reconciled to God by the payment of their sins, justified by His being raised from the dead. A living Christ saves us. And we come to Him, for He brings us to God.
So someone who just approaches God in this generic fashion and says, I believe in God, they don't understand. They don't understand who Jesus is. Now, we could go on, go on with other viewpoints like that. But the point, beloved, is this: if what you have is a partial understanding of Jesus and you hold—and I'm talking about the essentials, the essentials, the things that are indispensable, necessary for salvation—if you only have a partial understanding of Jesus, you have a damning understanding. You will not be saved.
And something you'll notice is that all of these partial views of the gospel, all of these partial views of God and of Christ, they all have something in common. And this is really important. They all appeal to the sinful nature of man. All of them. They appeal to the sinful nature of man. These partial gospels reflect—they have their source in—the sinful perspectives of the fleshly mind. And what is that? Well, men want to believe that they're good. Men want to believe that they have a part in their salvation. They play a part in their salvation. Men want to believe that there are many ways to God. Men want to believe that there's some system that they can live out in order to achieve salvation.
These partial gospels are another of a different kind. Ἕτερον (heteros) gospel, not an ἄλλο (allos) gospel. It's not another of the same kind, but another of a different kind. And they all have an appeal to the sinful nature of man. And they all also agree with the blinding suggestions of Satan, because Satan has a lot of different gospels to offer you. And you can always find one that appeals to your particular taste.
What all this gets to is, beloved, if people are left to their partial views of Jesus, they're going to perish. They're going to perish, and they can be blinded by their partial views. And let me say this: in order to receive Christ, you're going to have to abandon your partial view of Him and to embrace the total view of Him—the biblical view of Him, which is a saving view of Him—the biblical Christ.
These people here had a partial view of Messiah. They understood that He was to be a ruler forever. But to be saved, they were going to have to abandon their partial view of the Messiah to embrace the total view of the Messiah, which is He's also going to suffer for sinners on a cross, die on the cross, and be raised from the dead. And they're going to have to abandon their partial view to embrace the total view in order to be saved by Him. And as long as they were unwilling to do that, as long as they are going to hold on to their partial view, they were going to be blinded from the total view.
If your view is Jesus plus works, Jesus plus baptism, Jesus plus the Ten Commandments—oh, dear one, listen—until you're willing to let go of your partial view of the gospel and to embrace that it is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, you're going to be blinded by your religion. Christ can't benefit you at all.
Remember the book of Galatians? There in the book of Galatians, Paul had a presentation of the danger of some who only embraced a partial view of Jesus, a partial view of the gospel. They were reverting to that. They were saying that you had to believe in Jesus, but that wasn't really quite enough. It has to be plus something else. They said, what's plus circumcision? Be circumcised. You had to believe in Jesus plus keep the law of Moses. We'll include Jesus, you know. He's important. We'll include Him. We believe in Him, but we won't embrace the total view, which is He became a curse for us to deliver us from the curse. We won't embrace that.
And what Paul's take on it was—remember what it was? Galatians 5 verse 2. He says, "Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision"—if you buy into this partial view of Jesus, in this partial view of what His death accomplished, and you say you've got to add to it circumcision—"if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you." He says in verse 2, "Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ,” you cut yourself off from Jesus. “You who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace."
You've separated yourself from the grace of God when you want to substitute with your works. You're going to have to abandon your view of the gospel—your view of the gospel—and embrace the true gospel and receive the Christ of the Bible for all that He is and all that He's done.
There's a lesson here about spiritual blindness. Sometimes it looks encouraging from a human point of view, but then where the rubber meets the road, it's exposed as what? Just simply unbelief. Unbelief. Initial interest, maybe even extreme interest, but then comes that truth that challenges it in terms of what it really believes, and there's what? The departure. Right? Like we've seen earlier in the Gospel of John, right? Many, many of His disciples walked with Him no more because they'd found His teachings so hard to swallow. And they walked away.
Sometimes it's a mixture of knowledge with ignorance. You have a partial view and everything else is mixed in ignorance. In order to be saved, you have to abandon that partial view in order to accept the whole truth. So that's the first lesson, spiritual darkness.
The second one I want us to see together is spiritual light, spiritual light. How would Jesus respond to their confusion? Look at verse 35. So Jesus said to them, "For a little while longer, the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that the 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."
So how did our Lord respond to their confusion? How? And I have to say, this is almost startling to me when I really was studying it. You would think, I mean, you would expect that what Jesus would do is say something like this: “Wait a second. You only have a partial view of the Old Testament. You only have a partial view of the truth concerning Messiah. Well, let me tell you what the rest of the story is. Let me shed some light as to the rest of the story.” But He doesn't do that. You see that? He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that. He doesn't even engage their questions straightforwardly, does He? He doesn't. He doesn't.
Jesus realized that answering their question would not get to the root problem. If their problem had been theological, Jesus could have replied, “Haven't you heard Isaiah 53 concerning Messiah dying for the sins of His people? Well, let me exposit Isaiah 53. Haven't you read Psalm 22 about Messiah's death? Well, how about Daniel 9:26, which says that the Messiah will be cut off?” But beloved, their problem was not theological. It was moral. It was a moral problem. They were walking in spiritual and moral darkness.
They say, who is this son of man? Well, He doesn't even go there. He doesn't even address that. He doesn't address them based upon what they wanted Him to talk about. He addresses them rather from the standpoint of His authority. And He says, in effect, “I'm not here to debate with you. I'm here to demand your allegiance. You don't need more information. You've had enough information. You must follow Me.” That's what He's saying.
John puts it this way, verse 37: "But though He had done so many signs before them, they still were not believing in Him." These people want to debate Old Testament passages, Scripture about the Messiah, and they had already seen more than enough to know that He is indeed the Messiah. And if you can't understand Him, all that means is that your understanding—your understanding—is deficient. The deficiency is not in Him. You've seen enough to know the deficiency is in you.
So just follow Him. Listen to Him. Obey Him. Submit to Him. This is what you must do. That's what He's saying. And again, that's not at all removed from what we deal with every single day in evangelism and witnessing to others and sharing the gospel. I know this offends the sinful nature of man, but it is the truth.
There comes a time when you, when you have heard the gospel, you've been exposed to the truth as it is given in God's Word. You know what it means to be a Christian, to be converted, to be a child of God. That your need is not to listen again and again and sit down and have someone discuss with you one more time the truthfulness of the gospel. If that's you, your need is simply to repent of your sins and follow Christ—and follow Christ. You've heard enough.
How many people are like that? They sit service after service after service after service. They grew up in a Christian home. They attend a Christian school. They've been to Sunday school. They've read the Bible. They've heard the Bible. Heard enough. You know enough. You don't need another Bible study. You don't need another religion discussion. You need to repent and obey the gospel, turn from your sin and follow Christ. And that's what must you do. And recognize that the deficiency is not in Jesus. The deficiency is in you. In you.
If you can't make sense of it all, if you can't understand it all, what you can understand is that God has given you the gospel and given you the opportunity to come to His Son. Now follow His Son. Follow Him. Isn't it amazing? After someone is saved, how clear everything becomes for the first time. Isn't it amazing how the clouds all of a sudden roll away and the sun shines through, and now we could see, now we understand, now it makes sense? And all that was so confusing, so troubling to us—as soon as we come to Christ, as soon as we follow Christ—all that troubled us, what? Melts away. It's gone.
So He gives them here a reminder. He's spoken about this before, but He reminds them again of the fact that He's what? The light. He's the light. He reminds them of it. And He's spoken to them before about this. He's the light. And there are three definite articles here used, by the way, in this text when speaking of the light. And you know what that means? All in reference to Christ. He is not just a light. He is the light. He is the light.
Look at the text: "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; and 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." Who is Jesus? He is the Light. He's the Light.
The Apostle John emphasized this already in his gospel, all the way back in the opening chapter. Chapter 1, verse 4: "In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone." Who is Jesus? Oh, He is the true Light. He is the Light of the world.
Jesus said this in John 3, in verse 19, in that conversation with Nicodemus. Verse 19: "And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God." Christ is the Light. And what does someone do when the Lord saves them? Well, they come to the Light. They come to the Light.
And John 8, verse 12—you remember that passage? "Then Jesus again spoke to them again saying, saying, 'I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.'" And John 9, verse 5: "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." And John 12, this chapter, in verse 44: "And Jesus cried out and said, 'He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.'"
He is the Light of God's life. He is the Light of God's wisdom. He is the Light of God's truth. The Light of God's holiness. The Light of God's righteousness. He is a Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overwhelm it, cannot put it out. He has come to be the Light of the world. He is the Light of the world. And He said it before, and He's saying again here.
He's also reminding them of something else. He's just going to be here—to use this language here—a little while longer. A little while longer. His time is short. Brief. Verse 35: "For a little while longer the Light is among you." Just a little while. And then the day of salvation for that generation of Jews came to an end.
And so He reminds them. Not only He reminds them, He also challenges them. And there are two imperatives here in this, in these verses.
In verse 35, there's an imperative—a command. He says, "For a little while longer the Light is among you." Here's the imperative: walk. That's the first one. “Walk while you have the Light.” Walk. This is a challenge to act on what they have already seen, what they have already witnessed, what they have already heard. Don't debate with Me. Don't question Me. Don't spar with Me. Walk. Follow Me. That's what He's saying.
To walk is to move, to take action. To walk is to act. To walk is to follow. To walk is to do something. What's the action that I'm to take? Verse 36: “while you have the Light.” Here comes the second imperative. Here's the action: believe. “Believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.” It's a command. Believe in the Light.
Remember back in John chapter 6, verse 27: "Work for the food which endures to eternal life." What should we do so that we may work the works of God? And Jesus answers and says—He says to them what? "This is the work of God. You want to do the work of God? Here's the work of God. You want to do something? Here's what you need to do. believe in Him. Believe in him. whom He has sent." He's saying to these people, you've seen enough, you've heard enough. I'm not going to debate your view of the Messiah. I'm telling you simply: follow Me. The Light is going to be here just a little while longer. Time is short. Walk. Believe.
So there's a reminder of who He is, and His time is short. There's a challenge, and there's also a warning. There's a warning—a warning about the fact that they have limited opportunity. They have limited opportunity. For a little while longer, He says, I'm here. I'm here for a little while longer.
In verse 36: “while you have the Light, believe.” While you have the Light. While He's here. While He can be followed. While He can be responded to. And if you won't follow Him when He's standing right there before your eyes, what makes you believe that you will follow Him when He's gone?
Now you might be asking in your mind: Jesus speaks in terms of limited opportunity. Would they have no further opportunity? Listen. Listen. No opportunity that they could presume upon. I can't tell you that everyone who heard Him on this day is in hell today. I can't tell you that. What I could tell you is that not one person listening to His voice that day had the right to presume that they would have another opportunity. Which is why He says: believe now. Believe. Come to the Light. Come to Christ. You become a child of Light, a son of Light. You don't have much time. Receive Him while you are able. Receive Him. He is the Light. But the opportunity is coming to its end. The Light is here. Now is the time to believe.
And there may be people who are sitting under the sound of my voice this morning, that you've heard the gospel multiple times—multiple times, multiple times—and you're not a Christian. And you keep presuming that there will be another day, another Sunday—another Sunday. You have no right to presume such a thing. Which is why you are commanded by the Scripture: "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." If today you hear the gospel, repent and follow Christ. Walk. Believe.
But He also mentions something else in the way of warning. He tells them of the devastating consequences of rejection. And this is really a warning. He reminds them, He tells them of the devastating consequences of rejection. He says in verse 35, "Walk while you have the Light, notice, so that the darkness will not overtake you; and he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes."
So what is the judgment for rejected Light? What is it? Here it is: the judgment for rejecting the Light is intensified darkness. Intensified darkness. What happens when there's Light set before you and you say, no—but no thanks? And you won't walk into it? And you walk away from it? What happens is that darkness overtakes you, and you find that you are lost. You don't know where you're going. You're groping in darkness.
I love what Spurgeon said concerning this: "What a sad condition to be in. What a sad condition to be in, not to know where you are going. Are there not some of you whom I am now addressing," he says, "who do not know where you are going? Yet if you would but take the trouble to look, you might easily know that. So long as you continue in the paths of sin, you are going down to the chambers of death. Oh that God's Holy Spirit would give you sufficient light to enable you to see where you are going. You surely do not want to take a leap into the dark. Oh that you may have the grace to turn from the downward way and to seek the heavenward road," end of quote.
May I tell you something? Some people—some people ought to be deeply troubled that they are not more troubled. They were troubled in the beginning, but they're not so troubled anymore. You know what's even more tragic? They almost congratulate themselves on it. I think, you know, I've become more intellectual about this. I've become more mature about this, and I think that all the Christianity stuff is simply a myth, and at one time it troubled me, but now I'm at a place where it just doesn't trouble me anymore. You know, oh how I see now. No, no—oh how more darkened you become, how more darkened you become. It's not that you walked into greater Light, it's that you walked into greater darkness, and what should trouble you doesn't. What once troubled you doesn't. That's not progress, that's descent, and apart from the grace of God, apart from repentance and faith in Jesus, you will descend all the way to hell and discover that you've lost your way.
Spiritual darkness, spiritual light. There's a third thing that I want us to see, I want us to notice: spiritual opportunity. I've alluded to it very briefly.
Verse 36: "While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light." What a gracious invitation, isn't it? What a gracious invitation, what a gracious, loving, merciful promise. "Believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light." Can you imagine? Trust in Christ and you will be brought into the light, you will walk in the light, you'll follow the light, you'll follow Him who is the Light, you'll become a son of light—that is, His light will be in you. His light will be in you.
Isn't it wonderful, isn't it amazing to recognize that salvation is nothing artificial, and it's nothing merely external, that when God saves a sinner, He makes them indeed a new creature in Christ, and they go from darkness to light? Not only in terms of a kingdom, not only in terms of a realm—He transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the marvelous light of the Son—but in addition, we, we become light. God floods us with light, He gives us life, Christ's life is a light of men, and we see, we see.
Today, if you're outside of Christ, you can go from darkness to light. Today, you can go from under Satan's realm into a kingdom ruled by God's Son. Will you believe? Will you walk? Will you act on what you've heard and what you're hearing?
Spiritual darkness, spiritual light, spiritual opportunity, and finally, spiritual judgment. Spiritual judgment.
Verse 36: "These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and He went away. This is no accidental language here. He went away and hid Himself from them. Isn't that powerful language? You only have the light for a little while, and He says to them, walk, act, listen, obey, believe, and they hear Him. But if we take verse 37 seriously, and we must, they did not believe. They heard, but they did not believe. And He went away.
ἀπέρχομαι is the Greek verb. ἀπέρχομαι —He departed, He withdrew Himself, and the language chosen to express this is, notice the next few words, "and hid Himself from them." What a—what a sad, tragic statement.
Would you like for Jesus to go away? Some of you, you have people who love you. They witness to you. They pray for you. They continue to set the light before you, and it troubles you. It offends you. It bothers you. You wish they would stop. How many times you've met with somebody, a family member, a friend, and you're trying to share the gospel with them, and they tell you, could you please stop? Can you not talk about this?
So here's the question to ask. Do you really wish they would stop? Do you want Jesus to leave you alone? I want to ask them that. Do you really want Jesus to leave you alone? Would it be okay with you if He just hid Himself, never to trouble you again for the rest of your life here on earth? Do you realize what the consequences of that will be?
Do you know that there's not going to be a single person—not a single person, not one—who doesn't one day bow the knee and confess with their mouth that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father? You will either know Him as Lord in this life and then in heaven, or you will know that He is Lord one day when you are in hell.
Do you want Him to just leave you alone? If you say no, that's not what I want, then let me ask you, what will you do with the light that He has already given you? What will you do with it? Will you walk in it? Will you believe in Him? Will you act on the light now?
Do you really need another Bible study? Do you really need another discussion on religion? Do you want to debate things that really aren't that meaningful to you anyway? It's just one of the ways that you use to escape the truth? Or will you repent of your sins and come to the Son of God?
And do you understand, unbeliever, if that's you, that your opportunities are limited? Limited! Who limits them? God Himself does! And we're going to see this next time, Lord willing, that God actually sends judicial blindness upon people. What will you do with the opportunity you have this day, this day, today?
And then, I want to talk to us believers for a moment. Oh, beloved brothers, sisters, you've seen, you've seen, you've beheld the light! You are sons and daughters of light! Do you realize what a miracle this is? Are you gripped by that? Aren't you dumbfounded? Do you realize that, that if but the grace of God, right here is all of us. All of us, all of us, all of us, every single one of us. Partial knowledge, which would have been damning knowledge, hostility, or indifference, or initial interest, or even extreme interest, that fell short of true belief. That was every single one of us, child of God.
And the only explanation for the fact that you are a son or daughter of light, and you have seen the light, have trusted in God's Son who is the light, is simply the grace of God. That's all. God's grace. It's called regeneration. It's called the granting of eternal life, so that in this room there is no room whatsoever for pride, there is no room for boasting. And we must all fall on our knees before our Sovereign, saving God, and bless His name, and give Him thanks that He's allowed us to see and sing with all of our hearts: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretched, vile, rebel, sinner like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see." Amazing grace.
Amazing intelligence. Is that what it says? Amazing soft-heartedness. Amazing wisdom. You know, if I believe what Armenians believe, that's how you ought to sing the song. Oh, how intelligent I was. How soft-hearted. How good nature I had. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. Listen. Amazing grace. Amazing grace that God would save someone like me.
Let's pray.
And this hour, He's been clear about this hour, that it's deeply troubling to Him. He's not just going to die. He's going to die a death unlike any death ever experienced before or since on Calvary's cross. He's going to die as the Lamb of God slain for sinners. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's going to die as the sin bearer. God's sin sacrifice to save His people from their sin. And yet, He does not ask to be delivered from it. He doesn't. He makes it plain that even though this troubles Him, His spirit, His soul is dismayed, yet He has chosen to do it. He has chosen it. This is voluntary. He has come to this hour not only according to the will of the Father, but by His own choice.
"I lay down My life of My own accord." (John 10:18) And He looks into the face of the suffering that is looming, that is coming, and He chooses it deliberately. His one desire is that the Father is glorified. That His name will be glorified. That the Father is exalted. And the Father here, you remember, affirms. He affirms His Son's desire by saying in verse 28 (John 12), from heaven, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."
Let me pause here and really ponder this together. Isn't it wonderful to know that the glory of God is not depending upon the will of man? Now think about this. Isn't that wonderful? The glory of God doesn't depend on the will of man. God is able to say, "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again." God will glorify God.
Christ has also made clear that the outcome of His death is already settled. There's no ifs and buts. Settled. It will mean the judgment of the world as we saw last time. It will mean the casting out of the ruler of this world, the defeat of Satan. It will mean salvation of the world, because as He's lifted up, He will draw all people to Himself. That is, men and women, boys and girls, will be saved from all over the world, all without distinction. Again, this isn't dependent upon the will of man. This has been determined by the will of the sovereign God, by the sovereign will of God.
Christ speaks in settled terms. This will take place. Period. Paragraph. He's been clear, but in spite of His clarity, in spite of His clarity, you find confusion on the part of the crowd. Those who are listening to Him now, I mean, they're confused. They're confused. Look at the text. “The crowd then answered Him,” verse 34, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how do You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up?’” How can you say that? How can you say you must die? Our understanding is that the Son of Man, that the Messiah, the Christ, is going to remain forever. How can you say He must die? “Who is this Son of Man?"
Now, we should understand the crowd's response in verse 34 to be a defiant challenge. Not a sincere question. This is not a sincere question. It's a defiant challenge. Look at this. The we and the you are emphatic in the Greek text, pitting them against Jesus. That they answer Jesus, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how do You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'?"
This morning, in the context of their confusion, there are four lessons that I want us to see together. A lesson about spiritual darkness, a lesson about spiritual light, a lesson about spiritual opportunity, and a lesson about spiritual judgment. Let's begin.
Spiritual darkness, verse 34. The first thing that we see here has to do with darkness. This has to do with unbelief. John is setting before us once again—and this is not the first time he's done this, John the Apostle, under inspiration; it won't be the last time—he's setting before us the complicated reality of unbelief. That from a human point of view, unbelief can be very confusing. Very confusing.
Back in verse 18 in this text, when you look back at verse 18, you remember that what takes place as Christ makes His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we're told that the reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they had heard that He had done this sign. Remember the sign, right? The raising of Lazarus from the dead? And now it seems like, it appears as if they're convinced. He's the one. He's the Messiah. They've understood the sign that Jesus has wrought in raising Lazarus from the dead, and so they go out to meet Him. It seems because they believed in Him. He's the one.
In fact, this is how the Pharisees interpreted it. Look at verse 19. So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing; look, the world has gone after Him." It seems that they have understood. It seems that they have rightly interpreted the sign. It seems that they have understood that He's the Messiah. But now, in light of His teaching, they're confused. They cannot reconcile belief in Him with what He said about dying. Now they don't know who He is now. You're confusing us, Jesus. Who is the Son of Man? Who is the Son of Man who's going to be crucified? We thought you to be the Messiah, but now you're talking about dying? Who are you?
Beloved, despite some encouraging signs, despite from our vantage point what would have seemed to be encouraging signs, the unmistakable theme of these verses is that these people don't see. They don't see. Verse 37, "But though He had done so many signs before them, they still were not believing in Him." See that? So for a time, you see some encouraging signs. They come to meet Him. They come out to greet Him. They're waving palm branches, declaring Him to be the Messiah, and it's not long after that, that when He's taught them the truth about His death, about His crucifixion, now they don't believe anymore. Now they're unsure. Now they're doubting.
Do we realize this morning that non-saving faith can look encouraging at certain points and still not be saving faith? Or to say it another way, do you realize that unbelief wears more than one face? And it can be deadly. It is deadly. Unbelief has more than one behavior. It has more than one behavior. Sometimes unbelief is antagonistic. Sometimes it is indifferent. Indifferent. There were people who opposed Christ, and there were people who just didn't pay Him any attention.
Sometimes unbelief can show initial interest. In fact, sometimes it can show extreme interest in Jesus. Example? Exhibit A, the rich young ruler. Remember him? Running to the Lord Jesus. I mean, he falls down on his knees before Jesus. I mean, publicly. I mean, think of this. This is this noble, rich, young ruler with all the pride that he has. He comes, and he falls on his knees before Jesus publicly, unashamed to fall down on his knees before Christ, and he asked this question, “good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18) Sounds like a great question, doesn't it? Extreme interest. Yet the Bible says he walked away from Jesus grieved, because he had much wealth, unwilling to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the extent that he would leave, turn away like the Thessalonians, turn away from his idol, his wealth, to follow Christ.
Sometimes unbelief is like that. It shows extreme interest. Sometimes it is revealed by unmistakable hostility, the Pharisees. Sometimes it wears the face of friendship. Sometimes unbelief shows up at the point where it's offended. It follows for a while, interests for a while, but then comes that truth that drives it away, the truth that brings offense, that stumbling block that it cannot get over. What? Messiah dies? Sometimes it's not revealed by offense, it's revealed by sorrow, again like the rich young ruler, because it has other loves, things too precious to let go of in order to follow Jesus. Darling sins.
So what I'm saying to us this morning is this. Unbelief is something that from our vantage point is very confusing at times. Ultimately what marks the true believer, the true child of God, the true safe person, is that they believe the truth, they believe all of the truth, and they persevere in the truth. They hear the truth about Christ, all the truth about Christ, they receive the truth about Christ, and they follow Christ, and they keep on following Christ.
They follow Him daily. Unbelief, a false belief, is temporary. And what you also find many times in unbelief is a mixture. Spurgeon calls it an unprofitable mixture. It's a mixture of knowledge and ignorance. In unbelief—again I will say this—many times you'll find a mixture of knowledge and ignorance at the same time. There's some truth in the unbeliever's mind, but there's also darkness, lack of understanding.
You see that here in the text, don't you? You see that what they're stumbling over? Look at that what they're stumbling over. Verse 34, “the crowd then answered Him, ‘We have heard from the law.’” We have heard from the law. In other words, we've heard from the Scriptures, God's Word. "We've heard from the law, from the Scriptures, that the Christ is to remain forever." The Messiah will remain forever.
Now question, question: were they altogether wrong in their mind? Were they altogether wrong in their thinking? Did the Old Testament teach—does the Old Testament teach—that the Messiah will remain forever? Well, you can see where they got that from, right?
Isaiah 9, verse 7: "There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this."
Ezekiel 37, verse 25: "They will inhabit the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, which your fathers inhabited, and they will inhabit it, they and their sons and their sons' sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever."
Psalm 89, verse 35: "Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and he's thrown as the sun before Me. It shall be established forever like the moon, and the witness in the sky is faithful."
So as you can see, the people know these verses and verses like them, and so they say, wait a minute, wait a second, wait a second, Jesus, You're talking about being lifted up from the earth, You're talking about the manner in which You're going to die, and our understanding from the Scriptures, from the law, is that the Messiah is going to remain forever.
What they didn't understand, however, were the Old Testament passages that spoke just as clearly about the suffering and the death of the Messiah. They had a part of the story, right? Part of the story—they didn't have it all—they had part of the picture, they didn't have all of it. They couldn't see a crucifixion and a resurrection and an ascension and then a second coming and then the establishment of a kingdom that is forever and ever and ever. They couldn't put the two together, and yet it was something that was available for them to know.
In fact, you don't have to go outside of our context here to see some some verses that they should have been able to know and should have been able to see and recognize. Look at our text—just the chapter, actually—verse 37, we'll get to it: "But though He had done so many signs before before them, they still were not believing in Him, so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke, 'Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'" Well, that's from Isaiah 53, verse 1. This is what He's quoting here, and that whole section, Isaiah 53, you know it speaks of the suffering Messiah, and we're told in advance that they won't listen, they won't hear, they won't believe, they won't come.
Verse 39: "For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 'He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and return and I heal them.'" That's Isaiah chapter 6. And we can think about Psalm 22, other places like that in the Old Testament where the Bible clearly spoke of the suffering Messiah and the rejection of the Prince of life—the fact that He would be pierced for our transgressions, for our iniquities, and that He would not be abandoned, however, to Sheol, that that He'd be raised from the dead—Psalm 16:10. All of these are Old Testament passages that the New Testament writers, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, end up quoting, and the children of Israel had those verses, those passages, available to them, but they did not see them, they did not understand them.
So they had only partial understanding of the Messiah, partial understanding—that is, some knowledge—but it was mingled, mixed with ignorance, mixed with darkness. And doesn't that continue even to our own day? Doesn't it? Doesn't it continue even to our own day? I mean, that's not foreign to us, is it? When it comes to sharing the gospel, when it comes to evangelism, we meet with people all the time who don't have a saving knowledge of Christ, they don't have a saving understanding of Christ. But we also meet with people who know part of the story, right? They have a partial understanding of Jesus, but they still don't have it straight in their thinking.
Someone says, well, you know, I believe in Jesus, but I'm also a good person. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God, but I'm a good person also. How are you going to heaven? Well, I believe that you have to, of course, believe in Jesus, but you also must live a good life. You have to believe in Jesus, but you have to keep the Ten Commandments. Look, you can't have two more contrary thoughts, can you? Can you? Why must we believe in Jesus? Because we are wretched rebels, we're wretched sinners. There's none good, no, not even one. There's none who works righteousness. We've all sinned, fallen short of the glory of God.
That's why Jesus had to come. That's why He lived the life that He lived, that perfect life that is required of us that we can never, ever live, and die the death that we deserve to die on our behalf, as our substitute, to pay for our sins. If we could be good enough to go to heaven, there was no need for Jesus Christ to come. So when someone says, I believe in Jesus plus I'm a good person, I believe in Jesus plus I live a good life, I believe in Jesus plus I keep the Ten Commandments and that's how I'm going to heaven, they have no understanding of Jesus at all and why He came.
Someone says, I know I'm going to heaven because Jesus died to pay for all of our sins. And some people get this sin part right, but then they think of His death as producing universalism—everybody's going to heaven because Jesus died for all of our sins. That's how some people think. And again, they don't understand that there's no salvation apart from repentance and personal faith and personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know who Jesus died for on the cross? Let me put it this way: in the language of the Bible, really, that's the meaning—He died for sheep, for believers. He died only for believers. He died only for those who repent of their sins and personally commit their lives to Him. He died for those unbelievers who will believe—that's what I mean—they will they will believe, they will come to saving faith, they will come to repentance and faith. There will be no salvation apart from faith, personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And where there's personal faith, there's what? Repentance. There's repentance from sin, and repentance is what? Turning from the way I thought about God, the way I thought about myself, the way I thought about getting to heaven all my life—which is what? The airpoint system, right? The air mile system works, doing good. I must turn from that, all of that, and put my trust, the weight of my soul, exclusively on the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and Christ alone—His merit, His doing, His dying on Calvary's cross.
Salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, plus nothing. And until that's my vision of Jesus, until I understand He came to die for sinners who would trust in Him, I don't understand Jesus. Some people still have a more generic view than even that. They say, I believe in God. Do you believe in God? Yeah, I believe in God. I'm going to heaven because I believe in God. In fact, they don't understand that there's no coming to God apart from Jesus: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6) You can't go to God directly because your sin prevents that.
There must be a mediator, and there's only one mediator given who will bring men to God. That's His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—1 Timothy 2:5. It's by His cross, it's by His death, it's by His shed blood that men and women are reconciled to God by the payment of their sins, justified by His being raised from the dead. A living Christ saves us. And we come to Him, for He brings us to God.
So someone who just approaches God in this generic fashion and says, I believe in God, they don't understand. They don't understand who Jesus is. Now, we could go on, go on with other viewpoints like that. But the point, beloved, is this: if what you have is a partial understanding of Jesus and you hold—and I'm talking about the essentials, the essentials, the things that are indispensable, necessary for salvation—if you only have a partial understanding of Jesus, you have a damning understanding. You will not be saved.
And something you'll notice is that all of these partial views of the gospel, all of these partial views of God and of Christ, they all have something in common. And this is really important. They all appeal to the sinful nature of man. All of them. They appeal to the sinful nature of man. These partial gospels reflect—they have their source in—the sinful perspectives of the fleshly mind. And what is that? Well, men want to believe that they're good. Men want to believe that they have a part in their salvation. They play a part in their salvation. Men want to believe that there are many ways to God. Men want to believe that there's some system that they can live out in order to achieve salvation.
These partial gospels are another of a different kind. Ἕτερον (heteros) gospel, not an ἄλλο (allos) gospel. It's not another of the same kind, but another of a different kind. And they all have an appeal to the sinful nature of man. And they all also agree with the blinding suggestions of Satan, because Satan has a lot of different gospels to offer you. And you can always find one that appeals to your particular taste.
What all this gets to is, beloved, if people are left to their partial views of Jesus, they're going to perish. They're going to perish, and they can be blinded by their partial views. And let me say this: in order to receive Christ, you're going to have to abandon your partial view of Him and to embrace the total view of Him—the biblical view of Him, which is a saving view of Him—the biblical Christ.
These people here had a partial view of Messiah. They understood that He was to be a ruler forever. But to be saved, they were going to have to abandon their partial view of the Messiah to embrace the total view of the Messiah, which is He's also going to suffer for sinners on a cross, die on the cross, and be raised from the dead. And they're going to have to abandon their partial view to embrace the total view in order to be saved by Him. And as long as they were unwilling to do that, as long as they are going to hold on to their partial view, they were going to be blinded from the total view.
If your view is Jesus plus works, Jesus plus baptism, Jesus plus the Ten Commandments—oh, dear one, listen—until you're willing to let go of your partial view of the gospel and to embrace that it is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, you're going to be blinded by your religion. Christ can't benefit you at all.
Remember the book of Galatians? There in the book of Galatians, Paul had a presentation of the danger of some who only embraced a partial view of Jesus, a partial view of the gospel. They were reverting to that. They were saying that you had to believe in Jesus, but that wasn't really quite enough. It has to be plus something else. They said, what's plus circumcision? Be circumcised. You had to believe in Jesus plus keep the law of Moses. We'll include Jesus, you know. He's important. We'll include Him. We believe in Him, but we won't embrace the total view, which is He became a curse for us to deliver us from the curse. We won't embrace that.
And what Paul's take on it was—remember what it was? Galatians 5 verse 2. He says, "Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision"—if you buy into this partial view of Jesus, in this partial view of what His death accomplished, and you say you've got to add to it circumcision—"if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you." He says in verse 2, "Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ,” you cut yourself off from Jesus. “You who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace."
You've separated yourself from the grace of God when you want to substitute with your works. You're going to have to abandon your view of the gospel—your view of the gospel—and embrace the true gospel and receive the Christ of the Bible for all that He is and all that He's done.
There's a lesson here about spiritual blindness. Sometimes it looks encouraging from a human point of view, but then where the rubber meets the road, it's exposed as what? Just simply unbelief. Unbelief. Initial interest, maybe even extreme interest, but then comes that truth that challenges it in terms of what it really believes, and there's what? The departure. Right? Like we've seen earlier in the Gospel of John, right? Many, many of His disciples walked with Him no more because they'd found His teachings so hard to swallow. And they walked away.
Sometimes it's a mixture of knowledge with ignorance. You have a partial view and everything else is mixed in ignorance. In order to be saved, you have to abandon that partial view in order to accept the whole truth. So that's the first lesson, spiritual darkness.
The second one I want us to see together is spiritual light, spiritual light. How would Jesus respond to their confusion? Look at verse 35. So Jesus said to them, "For a little while longer, the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that the 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."
So how did our Lord respond to their confusion? How? And I have to say, this is almost startling to me when I really was studying it. You would think, I mean, you would expect that what Jesus would do is say something like this: “Wait a second. You only have a partial view of the Old Testament. You only have a partial view of the truth concerning Messiah. Well, let me tell you what the rest of the story is. Let me shed some light as to the rest of the story.” But He doesn't do that. You see that? He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that. He doesn't even engage their questions straightforwardly, does He? He doesn't. He doesn't.
Jesus realized that answering their question would not get to the root problem. If their problem had been theological, Jesus could have replied, “Haven't you heard Isaiah 53 concerning Messiah dying for the sins of His people? Well, let me exposit Isaiah 53. Haven't you read Psalm 22 about Messiah's death? Well, how about Daniel 9:26, which says that the Messiah will be cut off?” But beloved, their problem was not theological. It was moral. It was a moral problem. They were walking in spiritual and moral darkness.
They say, who is this son of man? Well, He doesn't even go there. He doesn't even address that. He doesn't address them based upon what they wanted Him to talk about. He addresses them rather from the standpoint of His authority. And He says, in effect, “I'm not here to debate with you. I'm here to demand your allegiance. You don't need more information. You've had enough information. You must follow Me.” That's what He's saying.
John puts it this way, verse 37: "But though He had done so many signs before them, they still were not believing in Him." These people want to debate Old Testament passages, Scripture about the Messiah, and they had already seen more than enough to know that He is indeed the Messiah. And if you can't understand Him, all that means is that your understanding—your understanding—is deficient. The deficiency is not in Him. You've seen enough to know the deficiency is in you.
So just follow Him. Listen to Him. Obey Him. Submit to Him. This is what you must do. That's what He's saying. And again, that's not at all removed from what we deal with every single day in evangelism and witnessing to others and sharing the gospel. I know this offends the sinful nature of man, but it is the truth.
There comes a time when you, when you have heard the gospel, you've been exposed to the truth as it is given in God's Word. You know what it means to be a Christian, to be converted, to be a child of God. That your need is not to listen again and again and sit down and have someone discuss with you one more time the truthfulness of the gospel. If that's you, your need is simply to repent of your sins and follow Christ—and follow Christ. You've heard enough.
How many people are like that? They sit service after service after service after service. They grew up in a Christian home. They attend a Christian school. They've been to Sunday school. They've read the Bible. They've heard the Bible. Heard enough. You know enough. You don't need another Bible study. You don't need another religion discussion. You need to repent and obey the gospel, turn from your sin and follow Christ. And that's what must you do. And recognize that the deficiency is not in Jesus. The deficiency is in you. In you.
If you can't make sense of it all, if you can't understand it all, what you can understand is that God has given you the gospel and given you the opportunity to come to His Son. Now follow His Son. Follow Him. Isn't it amazing? After someone is saved, how clear everything becomes for the first time. Isn't it amazing how the clouds all of a sudden roll away and the sun shines through, and now we could see, now we understand, now it makes sense? And all that was so confusing, so troubling to us—as soon as we come to Christ, as soon as we follow Christ—all that troubled us, what? Melts away. It's gone.
So He gives them here a reminder. He's spoken about this before, but He reminds them again of the fact that He's what? The light. He's the light. He reminds them of it. And He's spoken to them before about this. He's the light. And there are three definite articles here used, by the way, in this text when speaking of the light. And you know what that means? All in reference to Christ. He is not just a light. He is the light. He is the light.
Look at the text: "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; and 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." Who is Jesus? He is the Light. He's the Light.
The Apostle John emphasized this already in his gospel, all the way back in the opening chapter. Chapter 1, verse 4: "In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone." Who is Jesus? Oh, He is the true Light. He is the Light of the world.
Jesus said this in John 3, in verse 19, in that conversation with Nicodemus. Verse 19: "And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God." Christ is the Light. And what does someone do when the Lord saves them? Well, they come to the Light. They come to the Light.
And John 8, verse 12—you remember that passage? "Then Jesus again spoke to them again saying, saying, 'I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.'" And John 9, verse 5: "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." And John 12, this chapter, in verse 44: "And Jesus cried out and said, 'He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.'"
He is the Light of God's life. He is the Light of God's wisdom. He is the Light of God's truth. The Light of God's holiness. The Light of God's righteousness. He is a Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overwhelm it, cannot put it out. He has come to be the Light of the world. He is the Light of the world. And He said it before, and He's saying again here.
He's also reminding them of something else. He's just going to be here—to use this language here—a little while longer. A little while longer. His time is short. Brief. Verse 35: "For a little while longer the Light is among you." Just a little while. And then the day of salvation for that generation of Jews came to an end.
And so He reminds them. Not only He reminds them, He also challenges them. And there are two imperatives here in this, in these verses.
In verse 35, there's an imperative—a command. He says, "For a little while longer the Light is among you." Here's the imperative: walk. That's the first one. “Walk while you have the Light.” Walk. This is a challenge to act on what they have already seen, what they have already witnessed, what they have already heard. Don't debate with Me. Don't question Me. Don't spar with Me. Walk. Follow Me. That's what He's saying.
To walk is to move, to take action. To walk is to act. To walk is to follow. To walk is to do something. What's the action that I'm to take? Verse 36: “while you have the Light.” Here comes the second imperative. Here's the action: believe. “Believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.” It's a command. Believe in the Light.
Remember back in John chapter 6, verse 27: "Work for the food which endures to eternal life." What should we do so that we may work the works of God? And Jesus answers and says—He says to them what? "This is the work of God. You want to do the work of God? Here's the work of God. You want to do something? Here's what you need to do. believe in Him. Believe in him. whom He has sent." He's saying to these people, you've seen enough, you've heard enough. I'm not going to debate your view of the Messiah. I'm telling you simply: follow Me. The Light is going to be here just a little while longer. Time is short. Walk. Believe.
So there's a reminder of who He is, and His time is short. There's a challenge, and there's also a warning. There's a warning—a warning about the fact that they have limited opportunity. They have limited opportunity. For a little while longer, He says, I'm here. I'm here for a little while longer.
In verse 36: “while you have the Light, believe.” While you have the Light. While He's here. While He can be followed. While He can be responded to. And if you won't follow Him when He's standing right there before your eyes, what makes you believe that you will follow Him when He's gone?
Now you might be asking in your mind: Jesus speaks in terms of limited opportunity. Would they have no further opportunity? Listen. Listen. No opportunity that they could presume upon. I can't tell you that everyone who heard Him on this day is in hell today. I can't tell you that. What I could tell you is that not one person listening to His voice that day had the right to presume that they would have another opportunity. Which is why He says: believe now. Believe. Come to the Light. Come to Christ. You become a child of Light, a son of Light. You don't have much time. Receive Him while you are able. Receive Him. He is the Light. But the opportunity is coming to its end. The Light is here. Now is the time to believe.
And there may be people who are sitting under the sound of my voice this morning, that you've heard the gospel multiple times—multiple times, multiple times—and you're not a Christian. And you keep presuming that there will be another day, another Sunday—another Sunday. You have no right to presume such a thing. Which is why you are commanded by the Scripture: "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." If today you hear the gospel, repent and follow Christ. Walk. Believe.
But He also mentions something else in the way of warning. He tells them of the devastating consequences of rejection. And this is really a warning. He reminds them, He tells them of the devastating consequences of rejection. He says in verse 35, "Walk while you have the Light, notice, so that the darkness will not overtake you; and he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes."
So what is the judgment for rejected Light? What is it? Here it is: the judgment for rejecting the Light is intensified darkness. Intensified darkness. What happens when there's Light set before you and you say, no—but no thanks? And you won't walk into it? And you walk away from it? What happens is that darkness overtakes you, and you find that you are lost. You don't know where you're going. You're groping in darkness.
I love what Spurgeon said concerning this: "What a sad condition to be in. What a sad condition to be in, not to know where you are going. Are there not some of you whom I am now addressing," he says, "who do not know where you are going? Yet if you would but take the trouble to look, you might easily know that. So long as you continue in the paths of sin, you are going down to the chambers of death. Oh that God's Holy Spirit would give you sufficient light to enable you to see where you are going. You surely do not want to take a leap into the dark. Oh that you may have the grace to turn from the downward way and to seek the heavenward road," end of quote.
May I tell you something? Some people—some people ought to be deeply troubled that they are not more troubled. They were troubled in the beginning, but they're not so troubled anymore. You know what's even more tragic? They almost congratulate themselves on it. I think, you know, I've become more intellectual about this. I've become more mature about this, and I think that all the Christianity stuff is simply a myth, and at one time it troubled me, but now I'm at a place where it just doesn't trouble me anymore. You know, oh how I see now. No, no—oh how more darkened you become, how more darkened you become. It's not that you walked into greater Light, it's that you walked into greater darkness, and what should trouble you doesn't. What once troubled you doesn't. That's not progress, that's descent, and apart from the grace of God, apart from repentance and faith in Jesus, you will descend all the way to hell and discover that you've lost your way.
Spiritual darkness, spiritual light. There's a third thing that I want us to see, I want us to notice: spiritual opportunity. I've alluded to it very briefly.
Verse 36: "While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light." What a gracious invitation, isn't it? What a gracious invitation, what a gracious, loving, merciful promise. "Believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light." Can you imagine? Trust in Christ and you will be brought into the light, you will walk in the light, you'll follow the light, you'll follow Him who is the Light, you'll become a son of light—that is, His light will be in you. His light will be in you.
Isn't it wonderful, isn't it amazing to recognize that salvation is nothing artificial, and it's nothing merely external, that when God saves a sinner, He makes them indeed a new creature in Christ, and they go from darkness to light? Not only in terms of a kingdom, not only in terms of a realm—He transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the marvelous light of the Son—but in addition, we, we become light. God floods us with light, He gives us life, Christ's life is a light of men, and we see, we see.
Today, if you're outside of Christ, you can go from darkness to light. Today, you can go from under Satan's realm into a kingdom ruled by God's Son. Will you believe? Will you walk? Will you act on what you've heard and what you're hearing?
Spiritual darkness, spiritual light, spiritual opportunity, and finally, spiritual judgment. Spiritual judgment.
Verse 36: "These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and He went away. This is no accidental language here. He went away and hid Himself from them. Isn't that powerful language? You only have the light for a little while, and He says to them, walk, act, listen, obey, believe, and they hear Him. But if we take verse 37 seriously, and we must, they did not believe. They heard, but they did not believe. And He went away.
ἀπέρχομαι is the Greek verb. ἀπέρχομαι —He departed, He withdrew Himself, and the language chosen to express this is, notice the next few words, "and hid Himself from them." What a—what a sad, tragic statement.
Would you like for Jesus to go away? Some of you, you have people who love you. They witness to you. They pray for you. They continue to set the light before you, and it troubles you. It offends you. It bothers you. You wish they would stop. How many times you've met with somebody, a family member, a friend, and you're trying to share the gospel with them, and they tell you, could you please stop? Can you not talk about this?
So here's the question to ask. Do you really wish they would stop? Do you want Jesus to leave you alone? I want to ask them that. Do you really want Jesus to leave you alone? Would it be okay with you if He just hid Himself, never to trouble you again for the rest of your life here on earth? Do you realize what the consequences of that will be?
Do you know that there's not going to be a single person—not a single person, not one—who doesn't one day bow the knee and confess with their mouth that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father? You will either know Him as Lord in this life and then in heaven, or you will know that He is Lord one day when you are in hell.
Do you want Him to just leave you alone? If you say no, that's not what I want, then let me ask you, what will you do with the light that He has already given you? What will you do with it? Will you walk in it? Will you believe in Him? Will you act on the light now?
Do you really need another Bible study? Do you really need another discussion on religion? Do you want to debate things that really aren't that meaningful to you anyway? It's just one of the ways that you use to escape the truth? Or will you repent of your sins and come to the Son of God?
And do you understand, unbeliever, if that's you, that your opportunities are limited? Limited! Who limits them? God Himself does! And we're going to see this next time, Lord willing, that God actually sends judicial blindness upon people. What will you do with the opportunity you have this day, this day, today?
And then, I want to talk to us believers for a moment. Oh, beloved brothers, sisters, you've seen, you've seen, you've beheld the light! You are sons and daughters of light! Do you realize what a miracle this is? Are you gripped by that? Aren't you dumbfounded? Do you realize that, that if but the grace of God, right here is all of us. All of us, all of us, all of us, every single one of us. Partial knowledge, which would have been damning knowledge, hostility, or indifference, or initial interest, or even extreme interest, that fell short of true belief. That was every single one of us, child of God.
And the only explanation for the fact that you are a son or daughter of light, and you have seen the light, have trusted in God's Son who is the light, is simply the grace of God. That's all. God's grace. It's called regeneration. It's called the granting of eternal life, so that in this room there is no room whatsoever for pride, there is no room for boasting. And we must all fall on our knees before our Sovereign, saving God, and bless His name, and give Him thanks that He's allowed us to see and sing with all of our hearts: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretched, vile, rebel, sinner like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see." Amazing grace.
Amazing intelligence. Is that what it says? Amazing soft-heartedness. Amazing wisdom. You know, if I believe what Armenians believe, that's how you ought to sing the song. Oh, how intelligent I was. How soft-hearted. How good nature I had. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. Listen. Amazing grace. Amazing grace that God would save someone like me.
Let's pray.
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