THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

'… I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in

darkness, but shall have the light of life.'—JOHN viii. 12.

Jesus Christ was His own great theme. Whatever be the explanation of

the fact, there stands the fact that, if we know anything at all about

His habitual tone of teaching, we know that it was full of Himself. We

know, too, that what He said about Himself was very unlike the language

becoming a wise and humble religious teacher. Both the prominence given

to His own personality, and the tremendous claims He advances for

Himself, are hard to reconcile with any conception of His nature and

work except one,—that there we see God manifest in the flesh. Are such

words as these fit to be spoken by any man conscious of his own

limitations and imperfections of life and knowledge? Would they not be

fatal to any one's pretensions to be a teacher of religion or morality?

They assert that the Speaker is the Source of illumination for the

world; the only Source; the Source for all. They assert that

'following' Him, whether in belief or in deed, is the sure deliverance

from all darkness, either of error or of sin; and implants in every

follower a light which is life. And the world, instead of turning away

from such monstrous assumptions, and drowning them in scornful

laughter, or rebelling against them, has listened, and largely

believed, and has not felt them to mar the beauty of meekness, which,

by a strange anomaly, this Man says that He has.

Words parallel to these are frequent on our Lord's lips. In each

instance they have some special appropriateness of application, as is

probably the case here. The suggestion has been reasonably made, that

there is an allusion in them to part of the ceremonial connected with

the Feast of Tabernacles, at which we find our Lord present in the

previous chapter. Commentators tell us that on the first evening of the

Feast, two huge golden lamps, which stood one on each side of the altar

of burnt offering in the Temple court, were lighted as the night began

to fall, and poured out a brilliant flood over Temple and city and deep

gorge; while far into the midnight, troops of rejoicing worshippers

clustered about them with dance and song. The possibility of this

reference is strengthened by the note of place which our Evangelist

gives. 'These things spake Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the

Temple,' for the 'treasury' stood in the same court, and doubtless the

golden lamps were full in sight of the listening groups. It is also

strengthened by the unmistakable allusion in the previous chapter to

another portion of the ceremonial of the Feast, where our Lord puts

forth another of His great self-revelations and demands, in singular

parallelism with that of our text, in the words, 'If any man thirst,

let him come unto Me and drink.' That refers to the custom during the

Feast of drawing water from the fountain of Siloam, which was poured

out on the altar, while the gathered multitude chanted the old strain

of Isaiah's prophecy: 'With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of

salvation.' It is to be remembered, too, in estimating the probability

of our text belonging to these Temple-sayings at the Feast, that the

section which separates it from them, and contains the story about the

woman taken in adultery, is judged by the best critics to be out of

place here, and is not found in the most valuable manuscripts. If,

then, we suppose this allusion to be fairly probable, I think it gives

a special direction and meaning to these grand words, which it may be

worth while to think of briefly.

The first thing to notice is—the intention of the ceremonial to which

our Lord here points as a symbol of Himself. What was the meaning of

these great lights that went flashing through the warm autumn nights of

the festival? All the parts of that Feast were intended to recall some

feature of the forty years' wanderings in the wilderness; the lights by

the altar were memorials of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by

night. When, then, Jesus says, 'I am the Light of the world,' He would

declare Himself as being in reality, and to every soul of man to the

end of time, what that cloud with its heart of fire was in outward

seeming to one generation of desert wanderers.

Now, the main thing which _it_ was to these, was the visible vehicle of

the divine presence. 'The Lord went before them in a pillar of a

cloud.' 'The Lord looked through the pillar.' 'The Lord came down in

the cloud and spake with him.' The 'cloud covered the Tabernacle, and

the glory of the Lord appeared.' Such is the way in which it is ever

spoken of, as being the manifestation to Israel in sensible form of the

presence among them of God their King. 'The glory of the Lord' has a

very specific meaning in the Old Testament. It usually signifies that

brightness, the flaming heart of the cloudy pillar, which for the most

part, as it would appear, veiled by the cloud, gathered radiance as the

world grew darker at set of sun, and sometimes, at great crises in the

history, as at the Red Sea, or on Sinai, or in loving communion with

the law-giver, or in swift judgment against the rebels, rent the veil

and flamed on men's eyes. I need not remind you how this same pillar of

cloud and fire, which at once manifested and hid God, was thereby no

unworthy symbol of Him who remains, after all revelation, unrevealed.

Whatsoever sets forth, must also shroud, the infinite glory. Concerning

all by which He makes Himself known to eye, or mind, or heart, it must

be said, 'And there was the hiding of His power.' The fire is ever

folded in the cloud. Nay, at bottom, the light which is full of glory

is therefore inaccessible, and the thick darkness in which He dwells is

but the 'glorious privacy' of perfect light.

That guiding pillar, which moved before the moving people—a cloud to

shelter from the scorching heat, a fire to cheer in the blackness of

night—spread itself above the sanctuary of the wilderness; and 'the

glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.' When the moving Tabernacle

gave place to the fixed Temple, again '_the_ cloud filled the house of

the Lord'; and there—dwelling between the cherubim, the types of the

whole order of creatural life, and above the mercy-seat, that spoke of

pardon, and the ark that held the law, and behind the veil, in the

thick darkness of the holy of holies, where no feet trod, save once a

year one white-robed priest, in the garb of a penitent, and bearing the

blood that made atonement—shone the light of the glory of God, the

visible majesty of the present Deity.

But long centuries had passed since that light had departed. 'The

glory' had ceased from the house that now stood on Zion, and the light

from between the cherubim. Shall we not, then, see a deep meaning and

reference to that awful blank, when Jesus standing there in the courts

of that Temple, whose inmost shrine was, in a most sad sense, empty,

pointed to the quenched lamps that commemorated a departed Shechinah,

and said, 'I am the Light of the world'?

He is the Light of the world, because in Him is the glory of God. His

words are madness, and something very like blasphemy, unless they are

vindicated by the visible indwelling in Him of the present God. The

cloud of the humanity, 'the veil, that is to say, His flesh,' enfolds

and tempers; and through its transparent folds reveals, even while it

swathes, the Godhead. Like some fleecy vapour flitting across the sun,

and irradiated by its light, it enables our weak eyes to see light, and

not darkness, in the else intolerable blaze. Yes! Thou art the Light of

the world, because in Thee dwelleth 'the fulness of the Godhead

bodily.' Thy servant hath taught us the meaning of Thy words, when he

said: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His

glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace

and truth.'

Then, subordinate to this principal thought, is the other on which I

may touch for a moment—that Christ, like that pillar of cloud and fire,

_guides_ us in our pilgrimage. You may remember how emphatically the

Book of Numbers (chap. ix.) dwells upon the absolute control of all the

marches and halts by the movements of the cloud. When it was taken up,

they journeyed; when it settled down, they encamped. As long as it lay

spread above the Tabernacle, there they stayed. Impatient eyes might

look, and impatient spirits chafe—no matter. The camp might be pitched

in a desolate place, away from wells and palm-trees, away from shade,

among fiery serpents, and open to fierce foes—no matter. As long as the

pillar was motionless, no man stirred. Weary slow days might pass in

this compulsory inactivity; but 'whether it were two days, or a month,

or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the Tabernacle, the children of

Israel journeyed not.' And whenever It lifted itself up,—no matter how

short had been the halt, how weary and footsore the people, how

pleasant the resting-place—up with the tent-pegs immediately, and away.

If the signal were given at midnight, when all but the watchers slept,

or at midday, it was all the same. There was the true Commander of

their march. It was not Moses, nor Jethro, with his quick Arab eye and

knowledge of the ground, that guided them; but that stately, solemn

pillar, that floated before them. How they must have watched for the

gathering up of its folds as they lay softly stretched along the

Tabernacle roof; and for its sinking down, and spreading itself out,

like a misty hand of blessing, as it sailed in the van!

'I am the Light of the world.' We have in Him a better guide through

worse perplexities than theirs. By His Spirit within us, by that

all-sufficient and perfect example of His life, by the word of His

Gospel, and by the manifold indications of His providence, Jesus Christ

is our Guide. If ever we go astray, it is not His fault, but ours. How

gentle and loving that guidance is, none who have not yielded to it can

tell. How wise and sure, none but those who have followed it know. He

does not say 'Go,' but 'Come.' When He puts forth His sheep, He goes

before them. In all rough places His quick hand is put out to save us.

In danger He lashes us to Himself, as Alpine guides do when there is

perilous ice to get across. As one of the psalms puts it, with

wonderful beauty: 'I will guide thee with Mine eye'—a glance, not a

blow—a look of directing love, that at once heartens to duty and tells

duty. We must be very near Him to catch that look, and very much in

sympathy with Him to understand it; and when we do, we must be swift to

obey. Our eyes must be ever toward the Lord, or we shall often be

marching on, unwitting that the pillar has spread itself for rest, or

idly dawdling in our tents long after the cloud has gathered itself up

for the march. Do not let impatience lead you to hasty interpretation

of His plans before they are fairly evolved. Many men by self-will, by

rashness, by precipitate hurry in drawing conclusions about what they

ought to do, have ruined their lives. Take care, in the old-fashioned

phrase, of 'running before you are sent.' There should always be a good

clear space between the guiding ark and you, 'about two thousand cubits

by measure,' that there may be no mistakes about the road. It is

neither reverent nor wise to be treading on the heels of our Guide in

our eager confidence that we know where He wants us to go.

Do not let the warmth by the camp-fire, or the pleasantness of the

shady place where your tent is pitched, keep you there when the cloud

lifts. Be ready for change, be ready for continuance, because you are

in fellowship with your Leader and Commander; and let Him say, Go, and

you go; Do this, and you gladly do it, until the hour when He will

whisper, Come; and, as you come, the river will part, and the journey

will be over, and 'the fiery, cloudy pillar,' that 'guided you all your

journey through,' will spread itself out an abiding glory, in that

higher home where 'the Lamb is the light thereof.'

All true following of Christ begins with faith, or we might almost say

that following _is_ faith, for we find our Lord substituting the former

expression for the latter in another passage of this Gospel parallel

with the present. 'I am come a Light into the world, that whosoever

believeth on Me should not walk in darkness.' The two ideas are not

equivalent, but faith is the condition of following; and following is

the outcome and test, because it is the operation, of faith. None but

they who trust Him will follow Him. He who does not follow, does not

trust. To follow Christ, means to long and strive after His

companionship; as the Psalmist says, 'My soul followeth hard after

Thee.' It means the submission of the will, the effort of the whole

nature, the daily conflict to reproduce His example, the resolute

adoption of His command as my law, His providence as my will, His

fellowship as my joy. And the root and beginning of all such following

is in coming to Him, conscious of mine own darkness, and trustful in

His great light. We must rely on a Guide before we accept His

directions; and it is absurd to pretend that we trust Him, if we do not

go as He bids us. So 'Follow thou Me' is, in a very real sense, the sum

of all Christian duty.

That thought opens out very wide fields, into which we must not even

glance now; but I cannot help pausing here to repeat the remark already

made, as to the gigantic and incomprehensible self-confidence that

speaks here. 'Followeth _Me_'; then Jesus Christ calmly proposes

Himself as the aim and goal for every soul of man; sets up His own

doings as an all-sufficient rule for us all, with all our varieties of

temper, character, culture, and work, and quietly assumes to have a

right of precedence before, and of absolute command over, the whole

world. They are all to keep _behind_ Him, He thinks, be they saints or

sages, kings or beggars; and the liker they are to Himself, He thinks,

the nearer they will be to perfectness and life. He puts Himself at the

head of the mystic march of the generations, and, like the mysterious

Angel that Joshua saw in the plain by Jericho, makes the lofty claim:

'Nay, but as _Captain_ of the Lord's host am I come up.' Do we admit

His claim because we know His Name? Do we yield Him full trust because

we have learned that He is the Light of men since He is the Word of

God? Do we follow Him with loyal obedience, longing love, and lowly

imitation, since He has been and is to us the Saviour of our souls?

In the measure in which we do, the great promises of this wonderful

saying will be verified and understood by us—'He that followeth Me

shall not walk in darkness.' That saying has, as one may say, a lower

and a higher fulfilment. In the lower, it refers to practical life and

its perplexities. Nobody who has not tried it would believe how many

difficulties are cleared out of a man's road by the simple act of

trying to follow Christ. No doubt there will still remain obscurities

enough as to what we ought to do, to call for the best exercise of

patient wisdom; but an enormous proportion of them vanish like mist

when the sun breaks through, when once we honestly set ourselves to

find out whither the pillared Light is guiding. It is a reluctant will,

and intrusive likings and dislikings, that obscure the way for us, much

oftener than real obscurity in the way itself. It is seldom impossible

to discern the divine will, when we only wish to know it that we may do

it. And if ever it is impossible for us, surely that impossibility is

like the cloud resting on the Tabernacle—a sign that for the present

His will is that we should be still, and wait, and watch.

But there is a higher meaning in the words than even this promise of

practical direction. In the profound symbolism of Scripture, especially

of this Gospel, 'darkness' is the name for the whole condition of the

soul averted from God. So our Lord here is declaring that to follow Him

is the true deliverance from that midnight of the soul. There are a

darkness of ignorance, a darkness of impurity, a darkness of sorrow;

and in that threefold gloom, thickening to a darkness of death, are

they enwrapt who follow not the Light. That is the grim, tragical side

of this saying, too sad, too awful for our lips to speak much of, and

best left in the solemn impressiveness of that one word. But the

hopeful, blessed side of it is, that the feeblest beginnings of trust

in Jesus Christ, and the first tottering steps that try to tread in

His, bring us into the light. It does not need that we have reached our

goal, it is enough that our faces are turned to it, and our hearts

desire to attain it, then we may be sure that the dominion of the

darkness over us is broken. To follow, though it be afar off, and with

unequal steps, fills our path with increasing brightness, and even

though evil and ignorance and sorrow may thrust their blackness in upon

our day, they are melting in the growing glory, and already we may give

thanks 'unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the

inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the

power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear

Son.'

But we have not merely the promise that we shall be led by the light

and brought into the light. A yet deeper and grander gift is offered

here: 'He shall have the light of life.' I suppose that means, not, as

it is often carelessly taken to mean, a light which illuminates the

life, but, like the similar phrases of this Gospel, 'bread of life,'

'water of life,'—light which is life. 'In Him was life, and the life

was the light of men.' These two are one in their source, which is

Jesus, the Word of God. Of Him we have to say, 'With Thee is the

fountain of life, in Thy light shall we see light.' They are one in

their deepest nature; the life is the light, and the light the life.

And this one gift is bestowed upon every soul that follows Christ. Not

only will our outward lives be illumined or guided from without, but

our inward being will be filled with the brightness. 'Ye were sometimes

darkness, now are ye light in the Lord.'

That pillar of fire remained apart and without. But this true and

better Guide of our souls enters in and dwells in us, in all the

fulness of His triple gift of life, and light, and love. Within us He

will chiefly prove Himself the Guide of our spirits, and will not

merely cast His beams on the path of our feet, but will fill and flood

us with His own brightness. All light of knowledge, of goodness, of

gladness will be ours, if Christ be ours; and ours He surely will be if

we follow Him. Let us take heed, lest turning away from Him we follow

the will-o'-the-wisps of our own fancies, or the dancing lights, born

of putrescence, that flicker above the swamps, for they will lead us

into doleful lands where evil things haunt, and into outer darkness.

Let us take heed how we use that light of God; for Christ, like His

symbol of old, has a double aspect according to the eye which looks.

'It came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and

it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to

these.' He is either a Stone of stumbling or a sure Foundation, a

savour of life or of death, and which He is depends on ourselves.

Trusted, loved, followed, He is light. Neglected, turned from, He is

darkness. Though He be the Light of the world, it is only the man who

follows Him to whom He can give the light of life. Therefore, man's

awful prerogative of perverting the best into the worst forced Him, who

came to be the light of men, to that sad and solemn utterance: 'For

judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see,

and that they which see might be made blind.'