Multiple people by now have (jokingly) told me that these devotionals are too long. But how can anyone be brief in their reflections when God’s Word is this beautifully rich? This one little passage describes in Jesus’ own words how he is the culmination both of God’s perfect justice and his perfect love, the saving light for the world that desperately needed it, all ultimately for the great glory of the Father. It’s no mistake that verse 16 is perhaps the most memorized verse in all of Christendom; it’s the full great story in a single sentence! How can you not be enamored by God’s Word?
One of John’s favorite recurring themes is light. Jesus is himself the light, as John constantly describes, and his work of salvation is a work of bringing light to those living in darkness. And darkness is a good way to describe our default dispositions. We stumble around as though blind, acting with irrational appetites, pleasuring in what we secretly know is evil, blaming anyone else for negative consequences and delusionally denying our own fault. We can probably easily recognize that darkness in other people; it’s a little harder to recognize it in ourselves! But we all gravitate to darkness, and so Jesus’ salvation is really saving us from our own evil will.
So truly, what else can save us? It can’t come from ourselves, so where can our salvation and light come from? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Our hope is in him alone. To live by the truth, to walk in the light, to never perish but have eternal life and stand uncondemned before a holy God is nothing else than to believe in and obey the name of Jesus Christ.
The light has come into the world. We who walked in darkness are restored to the light through Jesus alone, and all things in the world are set right and made righteous by the light that overcomes all darkness. Consider the depth of your former darkness, and the brilliance of the light in which you now walk, and realize that your Father in Heaven loves you more than you could ever imagine! He loves you so much that he sent his own Son to illuminate your darkness and give you true eternal life. No other light will do. Walk in the light that has come from Heaven into the world.
