VIsual Theology: Jesus is the Light of the world

Chris Powers is creating visual resources for the global church. His resources are free and meant to be shared. Chris creates tract cards, visual exegesis that can be shared separately or through his book Visual Exegesis Vol. 1, study guides and lessons, animations, and more. Please visit his website at fullofeyes.com. He is also on Patreon, and you can donate to his ministry just once or on a recurring basis. He needs $2,000/month to be self-sustaining, and currently the level of giving is $1,947. Won't you consider being the patron who puts him over the top?

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Here's Chris' explanation of the drawing:

This verse picture is drawn from John 8:28 which has HUGE implications for our understanding of God....essentially, Jesus says that His divine identity will be made known to the world WHEN He is lifted up on the cross.

John 8:28, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He..." 

When Jesus says that He's the Light of the World in John 8:12, I think we are to understand that most primarily as Him being the one who communicates God to the world. Why do I say this? Because in John 1:4, we are told that the (eternal) life that has forever been in the Son is the "light" of mankind. So there we see eternal life and light linked.

Well, what is eternal life? Jesus defines that for us in John 17:3, it is to know the only true God and to know Jesus (which, as John 8:19 or 14:9 make clear, is not knowledge of two different beings, but to know Jesus rightly IS to know God). So, eternal life is to know God, and this knowledge of God--John 1:14 says--is the light of mankind / the light of the world.

This is why I say for Jesus to be the "Light of the World" means that He is the revelation of God to humanity. He is the one who communicates God to us. And in John 8:28, Jesus is saying that we will know Him most perfectly as this revelation of God when He is lifted up on the cross....that is where we will know that He is "I Am" (the "he" is added in English texts, the Greek simply says "εγώ ειμι" which is the wording that you'll find in the Greek Old Testament's recounting of Moses meeting YHWH at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).

So--as I hope I will never tire of saying--if we want to know God, we look to His Son, and if we want to know the Son, we look most definitively to the climactic work of revelatory redemption: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

click to enlarge