SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/3/2015
10:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Looking at John 1:4-5 (The Light)
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 1:4-5
Message of the
verses: “4 In Him was life, and the
life was the Light of men. 5 The Light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
We are looking at our third SD on these two verses and as
I stated in the first one some of the things I write may be repeated as I am
trying to use the helpful commentaries of both John MacArthur and Warren
Wiersbe to better understand John’s Gospel.
As mentioned we are going to take a more extensive look
at light in this SD. MacArthur writes “The
light combines with life in a metaphor for the purpose of clarity and
contrast. God’s life is true and
holy. Light is that truth and holiness
manifest against the darkness of lies and sin. Light and life are linked in this same way in
John 8:12, in which Jesus says: ‘I am
the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will
have the Light of life.’ The connection
between light and life is also clearly made in the Old Testament. Psalm 36:9 says: ‘For with You is the fountain of life; in
Your light we see light.’”
Let us look at a few verses in w Corinthians chapter four
to see what the apostle Paul can add to what we are looking at: “3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is
veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has
blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory
of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but
Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, "Light
shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to
give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
John MacArthur writes “So light is God’s
life manifest in Christ.”
Not only does light have a connection to life, it also
carries its own significance, and that is with its contrast between light and
darkness, and this is a common theme in Scripture. I have a Thompson Chain Reference Bible that
I have had for many years and when you look up light it has a section on “Light—Darkness
and there are almost a full page of references that go along with this subject,
so to say that it is a common them in Scripture is a fact. It would be hard to give all of the
references from that section, but trust me there are many to see. What I will do is quote from John MacArthur’s
commentary on this subject: “Intellectually,
light refers to truth (Ps. 119:105; Prov. 6:23; 2 Cor. 4:4) and darkness to
falsehood (Rom. 2:19); morally, light referrers to holiness (Rom. 132:12; 2
Cor. 6:14; Eph. 5:8; 1 Thess. 5:5) and darkness to sin (Prov. 4:19; Isa. 5:20;
Acts 26:18). Satan’s kingdom is the domain
of darkness’ (Col. 1:13; cf. Luke 22:53; Eph. 6:12), but Jesus is the source of
life (11:25; 14:6; Cf. Acts 3:15; 1 John 1:1) and the ‘Light’ that shines in
the darkness’ of the lost world (8:12; 9:5; 12:35-36, 46).”
Now we want to look at verse 5b “and the darkness did not
comprehend it.” In spite of Satan’s
furious assaults of the light as seen here the darkness did not comprehend
it. John MacArthur writes on the word
comprehend. “Katalambano (comprehend) is better translated ‘overcome.’ Evan a small candle can drive the darkness
from a room; the brilliant, glorious ‘Light’ of the Lord Jesus Christ will
utterly destroy Satan’s realm of darkness.
Since He came into the world, ‘the darkness is passing away and the true
light is already shining’ (1 John 2:8).
One may think that this verse could mean that the
darkness has failed to understand the truth about Jesus, but the opposite is
true and this can be seen while Jesus ministered on planet earth and cast out
demons repeatedly and had conversations with Jesus as they knew who He was, so
we can determine that the demons not only know the truth about Jesus, but they
also believe it. James wrote “You
believe that God is one, you do well; the demons also believe, and shudder
(James 2:19).”
We know that Satan has tried many times to kill the “life”
and to extinguish the “Light” but their attempts have failed. Ever since we read “And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise
you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel’ (Genesis 3:15),” Satan
had done his best to stop the Seed of the woman to be born. As we go through the OT history we can see
there were times when Satan tried to stop this line that leads to the birth of
the Messiah to be stopped, but it never happened as we can read the genealogy
of Jesus Christ in both Matthew and Luke, and in Luke’s writing it goes from
Jesus all the way back to God. Then in
the New Testament we can see that when Jesus was born that Satan tried to have
him killed, actually he was probably about two years old when this
happened. We also see that Satan tried
to stop Jesus from dying in the cross on the Passover day, the day that He had
to die to pay for our sins, but this too failed and Jesus died at the precise time
that the Passover Lambs were slain because He was the true Passover Lamb.
In today’s world we see Satan’s attack on true believers
that is going on all around the world, and just happened yesterday in
California. We will see in the future as
we just finished our study in Revelation how Satan will try and stop the second
coming of Jesus Christ in order so that the Millennial kingdom will not take
place and thus prevent the fulfillment of God’s prophetic Word, but we know
from history and from the promise of God that this will never happen.
Unbelievers are eternally lost not because they do not
know the truth, but because they reject the truth, they reject the life and the
Light: “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in
unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known
about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His
invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen,
being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God,
they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their
speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:18-21).”
John MacArthur writes the following as he completes this
section: “No one who rejects Christ’s
deity can be saved, for He Himself said in John 8:24, ‘Therefore I said to you that
you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in
your sins.’ It is fitting, then, that John
opens his gospel, which so strongly emphasizes Christ’s deity (cf. 8:58;
10:28-30; 20:28), with a powerful affirmation of that essential truth.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am so glad that
I realize the truth about Jesus Christ, that He is and always has been God, and
that believing on His name, and accepting His work on the cross to pay for my
sins that I have been saved.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to tell others of this truth that
will change their lives and have them set free.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Judges” (7:15).
Today’s Bible
question: “In Genesis 15, God promised
Abram that his seed would be as numerous as what?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/3/2015 12:02 PM
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