Gospel of John

The dual symbols of light and darkness appear throughout the Gospel of John and comprise one of the main figurative expressions by which John explains the impact of Jesus’s ministry. These juxtaposed symbols appear as early as the opening prologue: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1:5). Later, in Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus, he brings up the same symbols again: “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light” (3:19). Before his death, he repeats the same imagery several times in his address to his disciples, identifying himself with the symbol of light. The clearest and most pointed use of this symbol, however, comes in the central section of the gospel, when Jesus has gone to Jerusalem for the celebration of a religious festival. There, in the midst of the crowds of worshipers gathered in the temple courts, Jesus boldly proclaims, “I am the light of the world” (8:12, 9:5).

The implication of these statements is that Jesus is the means by which God provides salvation and illumination from the darkness of sin. The close association of the light/darkness symbology with the

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