This must be the most arrogant statement of identity ever to be spoken by any person on earth. If any of the folk up for election in Jersey this month included this identification of themselves in their manifesto, he or she would be certain to receive NIL votes at the polls.
Not just the light of AD 30 Jerusalem. The light of the world.
His manifesto was that the one following him “will not walk in darkness”. That implies that those not following him were unable to see where they were going. His manifesto was that the one following him “will have the light of life.”
It’s significant that John, the writer of this first-century eye-witness biography of Jesus, was a stickler for accuracy. The word for “life” which Jesus used was zoe in the original Greek. That word was used by him repeatedly to describe the “life” of the Lord God above, eternal life in fact. So the manifesto of Jesus, proclaimed by him, was that those following him would have the “light” of the eternal life of God.
So the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying concerning yourself. Your testimony is not true.”
This was a very understandable reaction from the Pharisees, a politico-religious party there in Jerusalem. How would Jesus respond?
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