John 12:36

John 12:36. As ye have the light, believe in the light. Nay, not only let them come to the light, but let them take a higher step and ‘believe in' the light, that is, commit in trust their whole being to the light.

That ye may become sons of light, light your father, the element of your being, and no darkness at all in you. Such are the last words of Jesus which the Evangelist, in describing His active ministry, has thought fit to record. How strikingly do they remind us of the opening of the Gospel, and, after the manner of our Evangelist, bind apparently far distant parts of His work into one! In the Prologue we read of the Word that ‘it shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not (John 12:5). Now that Word has become incarnate, has lived, has suffered, has been condemned to die, and for what? that we believing in Him, embracing Him in a true communion, taking His life, His light, into ourselves, may also become sons of light, shining in the darkness, and the darkness overcoming us not.

These things spake Jesus, and having gone away he was hidden from them. In chap. John 8:59 we were told that ‘Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple.' Here, as became the moment that closed His public ministry, the departure is more complete, marked by a finality which had no existence then. It is supposed by many commentators that He went to Bethany, and it may have been so. But the fact to be mainly observed is the fresh illustrations supplied by John's silence of the manner in which, to his mind, the ideal surpasses the historic interest. The departure itself and the consequent close of Israel's probation is the main point. All else passes out of view before sad reflection upon the unbelief which Israel has exhibited.