Sep 18

Part 3: The One True Light

Todd Pruitt |Series: The Gospel of John |John 1:6-13


John begins this section of his prologue with something like an aside concerning John the Baptist. It seems there were some who were blurring the lines between this “man” and the Messiah. This aside is in keeping with John’s overall purpose to show that Jesus is the one true light, the Christ. The goal of John’s witness, like that of all proper witness to Jesus, is that all might come to believe.

Though the world is filled with many different religions and philosophies, only Jesus Christ is “the true light,” the only Savior of sinners. The exclusivity of the gospel – that salvation is found only in Christ – is perhaps its chief offense in the world. But the necessity of faith in Jesus is essential to very nature of the gospel. Sinners are saved in the only way that sinners can be saved, by the dying and rising of Jesus apart from which there is no remission of sin.

The world suffers from a crisis of identity in that it has sought to disconnect itself from its Maker. But the Creator is not done creating! There is a new creation to come but also a new creation happening every time a sinner believes. God gives sinners “the right” to be children of God through the means of faith. The use of the term “right” is important because it indicates the new status received by the believer. And this new identity as sons and daughters of God purchased by Christ and accessed by faith has the fixedness of an inalienable right.

The term “believe” is of massive importance in John. He uses it 98 times. The right object of our belief is Jesus (“the name”). In the ancient world, a name was more than a mere label but a representation of the character of the person. How true this is of the Lord Jesus whose name highlights his character as the Savior. Indeed, the name of Jesus encompasses the whole of the gospel itself. So to believe in “his name,” is to invest all of one’s trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.


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