In part one, we saw that John 1:5 harkens back to the Light’s penetration into the darkness on creation’s first day. In this verse, John succinctly condenses and anticipates a dominating theme in the Gospel’s plotline. Light versus darkness (e.g., John 8:12; 11:10; 12:34, 46) invokes a cluster of imageries: day–night (e.g., John 9:4) and sight–blindness (9:1–40), all present in Isaiah’s prophecies to which John’s prologue alludes (Isa. 9:2; 42;6–7; and 60:1–3). The Evangelist masterfully compresses profound theological claims concerning the commanded Light on the first day of creation. He foreshadows the arrival of the True Light—the Messiah—in the Last Days, the Light that shines and cannot be extinguished. Consider, then, how this one verse in the prologue condenses the storyline of John’s Gospel even more densely than 1:9–11.[1]
With luminary imagery harking back to Genesis 1:3, the Evangelist subtly but unmistakably speaks of the Word’s advent (John 1:5). He shrewdly prepares attentive hearers and readers for the much more explicit announcement of the Word’s incarnation in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”
Modern English Bibles translate 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome [katalambanō] it” (emphasis mine). As one reads and studies the Greek text of John’s Gospel, one sees that on occasions, John uses words with two meanings, intending both. The KJV’s “comprehended it not” hints at this, but the ASV’s “apprehended it not” effectively captures John’s intended dual sense of katalambanō. The darkness neither understood the light nor overpowered the light.[2] Thus, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not apprehend it.” A minor expansion on this assists in showing how the plotline of John’s Gospel is compressed in 1:5—“As day emerged from night when the Word spoke Light into darkness in the beginning, so the darkness did not apprehend the True Light, the Word incarnate.”
Twice, Jesus explicitly presents himself as “the Light of the world”: once publicly at the Festival of Tabernacles (John 8:12), and again privately to his disciples while still in Jerusalem following the festival (just before he gave light to the blind man when he gave him sight in John 9:5). During Israel’s festival commemorating the Lord’s covenant mercies in the wilderness with water from the rock and the protecting pillar of fire at night, Jesus presents himself as greater than the rock, the one who quenches true thirst and banishes darkness (John 7:37–38; 8:12; cf. 1 Cor. 10:4). Similarly, with the lighting ceremony, Jesus boldly announces that he displaces the ball of fire in the sky, “I am the Light of the world. The one who follows me will not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Belief acknowledges that Jesus is the one who gushed water and provided protection day and night. Later, Jesus privately repeats this bold claim while still in Jerusalem, when he and his disciples come upon a man living in darkness from birth, for he was born blind. About to perform an uncommon miracle, Jesus prepared the Twelve by announcing, “We must accomplish the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. When I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:4–5). Yes, the sun that lights the world is but a created imitation of the original— the True Light shining in darkness.
Clustered imagery in two prominent passages develops John’s light-darkness motif, echoing John 1:9, “the True Light was coming into the world,” and John 1:5, “the darkness did not apprehend it.” In both, Jesus ascribes to Light a titular function as in the Gospel’s prologue; Jesus is the Light. The initial passage, John 3:19–21, echoes the phrasing of John 1:9 as it announces,
Now, this is the judgment: the Light has come into the world, and humans loved the darkness instead of the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light, lest his deeds be exposed. But the one who does what is true comes to the light that it may be obvious that his deeds have been brought about by God. (emphasis added)
Jesus, “the Light of the world,” divides, prompting evildoers to retreat into darkness and doers of good to embrace him, the Light, testifying that what they do “has been done through God” (John 3:19–21).
In chapter 12, the culmination of the light-darkness theme (John 12:35–36, 46) coincides with the climaxing of three other core themes with their own supporting images:
- “glory”–“glorified” (John 1:14; 2:11; 5:44; 7:18; 8:50, 54; 9:24; 11:40; 12:41, 43),
- “my hour” (John 2:4; 4:21, 23; 5:25, 28; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27), and
- “lifted up” (John 3:14; 8:24; 12:32, 34).[3]
Chapter 12 is the structural and theological hinge on which the entire Fourth Gospel turns. Here, John reflectively summarizes the escalating conflict between Jesus and his religious opponents in Jerusalem, the zealous guardians of Israel’s traditions and Temple, throughout chapters 2–11, the “Book of Signs.” This conflict intensifies when Jesus’s giving sight to a blind man on a Sabbath day blinds those who claim to see.[4] The blind rulers threaten to banish all who believe in Jesus from the synagogue (John 9:22). Jesus, after he raised Lazarus from the dead, returns to Bethany, where he is anointed for his own burial (John 12:1–8). Drawing a large crowd, the tension intensifies such that the chief priests conspire to put Lazarus to death in addition to Jesus (John 12:10). With hostilities peaking against him, Jesus carries out his final public prophetic act, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, an act even his disciples did not comprehend (John 12:12–19) but which increases the Pharisees’ ire and jealousy over his popularity (John 12:19).
Likewise, in chapter 12, John’s account anticipates and foreshadows chapters 13–20. When Philip and Andrew tell their teacher about Greeks who want to see Jesus, he explicitly announces, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23). Following this utterance to his disciples, Jesus announces the same to the crowd, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (John 8:27–28). The hearing and sight-impaired crowd interpret the Father’s audible approval as thunder (John 8:28–29). Jesus explains the voice is one of “judgment of this world” and the defeat of “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), effects to be accomplished by his being “lifted up from the earth” (John 12:32). This announcement of being “lifted up,” which the unbelieving Jews understand to mean “crucified,” does not deter the crowd. Instead, presuming to pass judgment on Jesus, they add this to their interrogation repertoire, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” (John 8:34). They sustain their prosecutorial dispute over Jesus’s identity (e.g., John 6:14, 42, 60; 7:15; 8:48, 52–53; 9:29; 10:19; 11:37), even to the cross. They misjudge the crucifixion as vindicating them, but truthfully it indicts them.
1. “The True Light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:9–11).
2. Katalambanō bears these senses: (1) “to grasp with the hand to make something one’s own” (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:24; Phil. 3:12); (2) “to grasp with the hand to gain control of someone in pursuit” (e.g., Mark 9:18; John 12:35; 1 Thess. 5:4); and (3) “to grasp with the mind, to comprehend” (e.g., Acts 25:25; Eph. 3:18).
3. From this point in John’s narrative, two themes continue: (1) the “glory” theme ends with Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer” (John 17:5, 21, 24), and (2) the “my hour” theme continues at the opening of Jesus’s “Farewell Discourse” and ends with his “High Priestly Prayer” (John 13:1, 16:2, 4, 21, 25, 32; 17:1).
4. “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39).