The Identity of Christ as the Light of the WorldSýnishorn

Day 2 Devotional

The Revelation of the Identity of Christ

In the first seven verses of John 9, Christ’s response to the blind man shows us that, when He looked at the blind man, He saw an opportu­nity to do the work of God. He saw a child of God who needed to be delivered from blindness. He saw, and He was moved to take healing action.

In giving sight to this man, Jesus revealed Himself as the Messiah who brings a new quality of life to human beings. He brought light into this man, both physically and spiritually. In verse 5, Jesus confirms this by saying: While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Light is a source of illumination and clarity that makes things visible to us. The light of the sun is a source of warmth and life; this is why plants need sunlight to grow.

When we say something has come to light, we mean that something has now become known or evident to us or, something has been revealed to us. When we say there is light at the end of the tunnel, we mean that there is an indication that a long period of difficulty is nearing an end. When we say, I now see the light, we mean that we now understand or realise something after a period of not understanding something.

When Christ declares that He is the light of the world in John 9, He is saying that He is the one through whom God becomes visible to us. Through His work on the cross for our sins, we see and experience the warmth of God’s love for us. When Christ comes into our lives we no longer walk in the cold darkness of sin and confusion.

The bright light of God’s life shines into our hearts by the Holy Spirit when we repent of our sin and we place our faith in what Christ did for us on the cross. So, through Christ, we see light at the end of the tunnel of our lives because we know that when we leave this world, as people in Christ, we will go to be with God forever.

We can summarise our first R from this passage by saying that John uses this miracle of the healing of the blind man to present to us the revelation of the real identity of Christ as the light of the world.