Life at Creation and at Salvation

John 1: 6-14                                                    January 21, 2021

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

            A witness.  That’s our call.  He testified to the light.  We are called to testify to the light.  He came that all might believe through him.  Well, that gets a bit big to consider.  Isn’t it arrogant and presumptuous to consider that all might believe through us?  We are going to pick that up tomorrow, where the Gospel writer specifies that John was NOT the light. 

            What is the light?  We know two things from verses 1-5, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it and the light is the life that came into being through him (the Word-not John, got to watch the pronouns) for all people.  This is what John is testifying to, the light that came for all people.  John is testifying to the life that came for all people.  John is testifying to the life that came into being through Jesus.

            Who loves a double entendre?  And I will admit, the double entendre is not the first thing I think about when considering how to interpret Scripture.  It is the double meaning.  It is a favorite ploy in movie scripts when someone says something that can be interpreted in a ‘normal’ fashion and in another, usually sexual, manner.  Thankfully, those kinds of references occur only rarely in the Bible, most often in the Old Testament (seriously).

            We have walked through these steps, using the Bible’s words to interpret the Bible, which IS one of the first things we should think about when considering how to interpret Scripture.  The Light is a title of Jesus.  What does it mean?  The life that came into being through Jesus.  Yes, I know, redundant, said it a couple times now.

            The life that came into being through Jesus comes first at the act of Creation.  Verses 1-4 set that up.  Then verse 5 speaks of the light, identified with the life, shining in the darkness.  I would suggest that the double meaning here is the second time that life came into being through Jesus for all the people.  I mean Jesus’ resurrection.

            What does it mean, generally, to testify, to witness to Jesus Christ?  That is He is our Lord and Savior.  Why?  Because of the event of salvation, Jesus’ death and resurrection.  When Jesus arose, He brought the gift of new life by the free gift of salvation from our God.  That is the heart of the message. It is not the bumper sticker “What WOULD Jesus do?”, but it is the reality “What DID Jesus do?”, for us all.  He brought new life through the punishment of death that all people deserve for their sins.

            So the double entendre, the Light is the gift of life for all people at the creation event AND at the salvation event.  Is that what John meant?  Well, it is not like we have a book called “What I Meant, A Guide To Reading My Gospel” by John (or whoever I really am that wrote the Gospel of John).  What we have instead is our ability to read the Gospel and draw out the truth invested in her pages.

            I am harping on this because the life that came into being through Him for all people, that is the recorded act of creation, is rebranded as ‘the light’ which shines in the darkness.  What was a universal (at creation) was spoiled by sin but has now become a beacon of hope (at salvation).  The Gospels are here to tell us the story of Jesus, and the salvation he wrought for us all.  And I think it infuses everything in the Gospel story.

So…from creation, we have the foundation of salvation.