Last time we looked at Jesus’ proclamation that He is the great I AM. He is God. He is Jehovah. Then we find, in the gospel of John, seven different times that Jesus came out very clearly and said, I am… These are pictures or metaphors that describe the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. They are very enriching and valuable for us to think about and meditate on. As I go through them briefly these next seven times, I hope you will take some time and go back and look at the context of these statements and spend some time meditating on them and praying about them and thanking the Lord for who He is and that He has come for us. These are wonderful statements that Jesus Himself made.
The first one is in John 8:12 which says, “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.’” As Jesus spoke this way, again He is talking to a Jewish audience, and the Jews have a background in the understanding of the ways and things of God. They know the Old Testament and they know what God did for the people of Israel in the Old Testament. One of the things that the Lord did in the Old Testament was to guide His people in a very physical way through the use of His own presence of what we call the Shekinah Glory. When He wanted the people to move, His cloud by day would guide them. At night, if He wanted them to travel, He would do so in a pillar of fire. At night, He would be the illumination for them to see the way of where they are going and know the direction that God wanted them. This is a picture linking back to that time in the wilderness as God led them. So, Jesus is saying here that He is the Light of the world. I am the illumination of the world. You can’t see where to go without illumination. You can’t see what is right without illumination and I AM that illumination and Light of the world . . .
