The Sent Man and the Self-Existent Light Text: John 1:6-8
Introduction: The Crisis of Authority
We live in an age that is drowning in a sea of self-appointed experts, influencers, and gurus. Every man has his own platform, his own brand, and his own truth. Our world is not suffering from a lack of voices, but from a desperate lack of authority. Everyone wants to be the light, but no one knows where the switch is. Men build their little kingdoms of thought on the shifting sands of personal experience, subjective feelings, and popular opinion. The result is a cacophony of confident assertions, a marketplace of competing narratives, and a profound spiritual darkness.
Into this confused and arrogant darkness, the prologue of John’s gospel cuts with the clean, sharp lines of divine revelation. After establishing the eternal, uncreated reality of the Logos, the Word who was with God and was God, the apostle pivots. He moves from the throne room of eternity to a dusty riverbank in Judea. He introduces a man. And in doing so, he establishes the fundamental pattern of all true ministry and all true witness. God does not send a committee. He does not conduct a survey. He sends a man. And the man He sends has one, solitary, all-consuming task: to point away from himself and toward the true Light.
John the Baptist is the ultimate anti-influencer. He did not come to gather followers for himself, but to prepare the way for another. He was not building a brand; he was a voice crying in the wilderness. His significance was found entirely in his subordinate relationship to the one he announced. This is a profound offense to the modern mindset, which tells us to "find our own light" and "speak our own truth." John the Baptist teaches us that our truth is worthless unless it is anchored in The Truth, and our light is a delusion unless it is a reflection of The Light. These verses are not just historical background; they are a permanent and necessary lesson on the nature of revelation, witness, and faith.
The Text
There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him.
He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light.
(John 1:6-8 LSB)
The Divine Commission (v. 6)
The apostle begins by establishing the origin and identity of this pivotal figure.
"There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John." (John 1:6)
Notice the immediate and stark contrast with the preceding verses. The Word was eternal, without beginning. But John? "There was a man." He had a beginning. He existed in time. This is the absolute Creator/creature distinction, which is the bedrock of all sane theology. The Word is God; John is a man. The Word is the sender; John is the one "sent from God."
This is crucial. John did not just show up. He did not decide to start a ministry because he felt a vague spiritual yearning or saw a need in the market. He was commissioned. He was an apostle in the truest sense of the word, apostolos, a sent one. His authority did not derive from his own charisma, his powerful preaching, or his ascetic lifestyle. His authority was entirely derivative. It came from the One who sent him. If God had not sent him, John would have been just another lunatic yelling at people in the desert. But because God sent him, he was the hinge of redemptive history, the greatest man born of women, as the Lord Himself would later say.
This demolishes all modern notions of self-made spiritual authority. The world is full of men who have sent themselves, and their ministries are built on the flimsy foundations of their own personality. But true authority comes from above. God sends, and the man goes. This is the pattern for prophets, for apostles, and for every faithful minister of the gospel. We are not entrepreneurs; we are ambassadors. We carry a message that is not our own, under an authority that is not our own, for a kingdom that is not our own.
The Singular Purpose (v. 7)
Verse 7 lays out the precise job description that God gave to John. It is a threefold purpose: to be a witness, to testify about the Light, and to be the instrument of faith.
"He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him." (John 1:7)
First, "he came as a witness." A witness is someone who testifies to something outside of himself. He reports what he has seen and heard. He is not the subject of the story; he is the narrator pointing to the protagonist. In a court of law, a witness who begins talking about himself is quickly told to stick to the facts. John’s entire existence was defined by this task of bearing witness. He was not the event; he was the announcement of the event.
Second, what was the content of his witness? He came "to bear witness about the Light." The apostle John has already established that the Light is the life of the Logos, Jesus Christ (John 1:4). John the Baptist’s job was to point to Jesus. "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" That was the sum and substance of his message. He was a signpost, and a signpost by its very nature must be clear, unambiguous, and pointing in the right direction. A signpost that draws attention to its own elegant calligraphy has failed. John the Baptist did not fail.
Third, what was the intended result? "So that all might believe through him." John’s witness was not an end in itself. It was instrumental. It was the God-ordained means to a glorious end: faith. People were to hear the testimony of John and, on the basis of that testimony, place their trust in the one John pointed to. Notice the scope: "that all might believe." This doesn't mean every single person without exception would believe, but that the invitation was to go out to all kinds of people, Jew and Gentile alike. John’s ministry was the great summons, the call to come and see the Light of the world. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ, and John was the first great preacher of that word in the new covenant.
The Necessary Clarification (v. 8)
Lest there be any confusion, the apostle John adds a crucial, emphatic clarification. This is a piece of theological guardrail.
"He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light." (John 1:8)
This might seem repetitive, but it is absolutely essential. The human heart is an idol factory, and we are constantly tempted to worship the messenger instead of the King. John the Baptist was so powerful, so compelling, that it was necessary to state plainly what he was not. He was not the source. He was not the Messiah. He was not the Light.
He was a lamp, to be sure, a burning and shining lamp, as Jesus said. But a lamp is not the sun. A lamp can be lit, and it can be extinguished. A lamp is a creature. The sun is in another category altogether. This verse establishes a permanent, non-negotiable distinction between Christ and even the greatest of His servants. John reflected the Light, he spoke about the Light, he pointed to the Light, but he was not the Light.
This is the constant danger for the church in every age. We are tempted to fall in love with a particular preacher, a gifted teacher, or a dynamic ministry. We begin to follow the man instead of the Master he serves. But every faithful servant, like John, must constantly be about the business of pointing away from himself. The moment a ministry becomes about the minister, it has become idolatrous. The moment a church becomes about its own programs or its own reputation, it has ceased to be a witness and has become just another religious club. John’s greatness was found in his glad acknowledgment of his own smallness in comparison to Christ. "He must increase, but I must decrease."
Conclusion: The Witness and the Light Today
The pattern established here with John the Baptist is the pattern for the Church. We too are sent. We too are witnesses. And we too must be absolutely clear that we are not the Light.
Like John, the Church is a body of men and women "sent from God." We have been given a divine commission, the Great Commission, to go into all the world and bear witness. Our authority is not our own; it is derived from the one who sends us. We go in the name of Jesus.
Like John, our purpose is singular: "to bear witness about the Light." The world is dark, lost in its sin and rebellion. It is full of false lights and deceptive ideologies that promise life but lead only to death. Our task is not to offer our own clever solutions or to blend in with the darkness. Our task is to point relentlessly, clearly, and joyfully to the one true Light, Jesus Christ. He is the only hope for this world.
And like John, we must constantly remember and declare that "we are not the Light." The church is not the savior. Our traditions are not the savior. Our good works are not the savior. We are simply the witnesses. We are the moon that reflects the light of the sun. The moon has no light of its own, but on a dark night, its reflected glory is a beautiful and powerful testimony to the sun that is momentarily out of sight. Our job is to reflect the glory of Christ into the darkness, so that through our witness, many might believe and be saved.
John the Baptist was a man, sent from God. His name and his mission were given to him. He knew who he was, and he knew who he wasn't. May God grant us the same clarity, the same humility, and the same unwavering focus on the Lamb of God, the true Light of the world.