John 4: The Light and the Witness

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, PART 4, THE LIGHT AND THE WITNESS

By Dr. Stephen Jones: Sep 12, 2019

Blog Post Date:  12-6-2019

Another main theme in John’s gospel, which he introduces in John 1:4, 5 is that the living word was light:

⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Light dispels darkness. To John, walking in darkness was to live without the truth, because light is truth. More specifically, John was referring to the truth of creation and the re-creation. In both cases, the light of God overcomes the darkness.

Christ’s purpose was to manifest the glory of God in the earth. The glory is seen first in the light that was spoken in Genesis 1:3. Without light, there is no glory for the earth to reflect. Yet “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Therefore, Christ came into the world as a Reflector to bear witness of the light of His Father.

The First Creation

In Genesis 1:1, 2 we read,

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was [became] formless and void [tohu va bohu], and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Isaiah 45:18 tells us that God “did not create it a waste place [tohu] but formed it to be inhabited.” Hence, we ought to understand from Genesis 1:2 that it BECAME a “waste place” at some point AFTER God created it. In the original creation, God “formed it to be inhabited,” which seems to imply that men lived on earth in a previous civilization. From the archeological and historical clues that yet remain, that civilization was quite advanced.

Yet some disaster struck the earth, plunging that original civilization into chaos and back to the proverbial “stone age.” It appears that there were survivors in various parts of the earth, for when Cain was exiled, he was afraid “that whoever finds me will kill me” (Genesis 4:14). God’s response was to protect him, for we read in Genesis 4:15,

¹⁵ So the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him.

Was Cain afraid of his own family? When he traveled “east of Eden” (Genesis 4:16), did he expect to meet family members who had preceded him? That seems very unlikely. It is more likely that he found people from a prior civilization and that his name Cain, or Kina, or China, was named for him, as Mrs. Sidney Bristowe asserts in her book, Sargon the Magnificent.

Cain was married at some point and fathered children (Genesis 4:17). Where did she come from? Was she his sister? In fact, who did Seth marry in order to carry on the family line? Scripture is largely silent, but all of this points to the idea that Adam was not the first man on earth. There were others before him, but Adam was a special creation, given the calling to rule the earth and to bring order out of chaos, to reflect the image of God, and to shine the light in darkness. His sin, however, made him part of the problem, which required another “Adam” (i.e., Christ) to restore all things, so that the glory of God might fill the earth according to the divine purpose.

No time frame for the earlier civilization is given in Scripture, of course, because it was not particularly needful for us to know. Our focus should be on the present time since Adam, who was given the calling and authority to restore all things. History and Time, as we know it, properly began with the first Adam, and again with the Last Adam, for the re-creation of the heavens and the earth properly began with Christ’s resurrection.

The Light

In Genesis 1:3 we read about the first word (logos) by which the earlier chaos was brought back into divine order:

³ Then God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.

As we have already stated, Christ was “the Firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15), begotten by the Father. As the mirror Image of His Father, Christ was the double witness through whom (dia) all things were created. In other words, the Father created all things through Christ, who was the Memra, the personal embodiment of the living Word.

In the Word was life, which essentially defines personality by heavenly standards. One might say that the Word had a life of its own. The Word was not just composed of vibration or frequency in a clinical or scientific way of speaking. All spoken words are conveyed through frequency, as is light itself. Hence, the frequency of the first Word (Memra/Logos) also produced light.

John equates light with truth, anticipating John 14:6,

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through [dia] Me.

Even as all things were created through (dia) the Son, so also must all men approach the Father through (dia) the Son. Jesus is “the truth,” that is, the light. John 1:4, 5 introduces us to the idea that the Memra was life and that this life was also light. This set the stage for the sixth miracle-sign, where Jesus healed the man born blind (John 9:1). The key lesson in that story is found a few verses later, where Jesus says in John 9:5,

⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

In healing the man born blind, He manifested the glory of God in terms of light, because the blind man could finally see the light. His physical healing signified something much greater—healing spiritual blindness through the light of truth.

Likewise, in John’s first epistle, which in many ways was a continuation of his gospel, he defines light in terms of knowing truth and walking in fellowship with the Father through Christ, whose blood has cleansed us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Darkness, on the other hand, is the chaotic condition of an unregenerate man who refuses to acknowledge the truth of his sinful condition as well as the remedy that Christ has made for him (1 John 1:7).

Therefore, when God spoke “light,” the Son essentially said “amen,” and the perfect double witness established light (truth) in the world. This light was not merely words that were true. The light was a living Person coming into the world. Physical light thus provided earthly evidence of an invasion (or incarnation) of spiritual Light in the Person of Christ. This light opens the eyes of the blind, who walk in darkness. While healing from physical blindness is important and certainly has the power to change one’s entire life, healing spiritual blindness is even more important, for it establishes fellowship with God. Seeing one’s family and friends is good but seeing God (through Christ) is even better.

John the Witness

John 1:6-9 says,

⁶ There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through Him. ⁸ He was not the light but came that He might bear witness of the light. ⁹ There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

John’s calling and position was not to be the Christ, nor was he the Memra. He simply bore witness of Christ, who is the light. It is therefore self-evident that a double witness is not the same person as the one he is witnessing. Likewise, the same is true of the Memra, who bears witness to the Creator. Jesus Christ is the double witness of His Father; John bore witness of Christ. So John said truly in John 1:20, “I am not the Christ.”

Hence, John’s crowning achievement was to baptize Jesus, because baptism, as established in Leviticus 14:1-7, was where a priest bore witness that God had already healed a leper. The priest was not called to heal the leper through baptism but was called to baptize him “if the infection of leprosy has been healed in the leper” (Leviticus 14:3).

In other words, baptism was meant to provide an earthly witness to a heavenly reality. So when Jesus healed lepers, He told them to present themselves to the priest so that they could inspect him and bear witness that God had healed them already. Luke 5:14 says,

¹⁴ And He ordered him to tell no one, “But go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, for a testimony [marturion, “witness”] to them.”

Many picture this as a former leper giving his personal testimony to the priest. However, this is actually about the priest bearing witness to the congregation or community that he is no longer a leper and no longer needs to shout “Unclean! Unclean!” whenever someone approached him. The leper, being healed, was then cleansed for seven days and pronounced clean for the third and final time on the morning of the eighth day.

Baptism was a formal cleansing ritual that was used in other contexts as well. Priests baptized themselves at the laver before entering the sanctuary. Common people baptized themselves (hands) before each meal (Mark 7:3). Jesus needed no cleansing, yet He understood that the prophecy in the law required Him to be baptized (Matthew 3:14, 15).

So John bore witness of Christ, proclaiming Him to be “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29).

This set the stage for a later encounter with those who objected to His healing a man on the Sabbath. They said that He could not be from God, because He was "breaking the Sabbath" (John 5:18). The implication was that He could not be the Messiah, nor could He be the Memra, the Living Word. But Jesus countered this, saying in John 5:33-36,

³³ You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth…. ³⁶ But the witness which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.

John bore witness, but men might discredit John’s witness if they thought that Jesus was a lawbreaker. Jesus did not violate the law, for doing good on the Sabbath—even if it requires some work—is not a violation of the law, if one understands the purpose of the law. The people viewed the Sabbath in rigid terms that the rabbis had defined, but their views were not consistent with the mind of God. Hence, Jesus remained sinless, even though many of the Jews claimed that He was a law-breaker.

The irony was that the people believed John the Baptist to be a genuine prophet, but most of them, in the end, failed to believe his witness that Jesus was the Christ.

The Second Woe

THE SECOND WOE (1063-1453 A.D.)

12-1-2019

Revelation 9 speaks of three “woes,” all of them having to do with Islam which God raised up to judge the church for its refusal to repent. The first woe came through the Saracens, who swept through the Middle East, North Africa, and into Spain. Rev. 9:12-14 says,

¹² The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things. ¹³ And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, ¹⁴ one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

The second woe began with the Seljuk Turks, then extended through the Ottoman Turks, and finally concluded with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Rev. 9:12-21 describes this very well. It begins in verse 14 with the release of the “four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” These are not men, but angels, who are released to judge the Church through the Seljuk Turks and their successors.

The time begins with the death of Tughril Beg, who had been the head of the Seljuk Turkish Empire. He conquered Baghdad in 1055 nearly 300 years after it had been built. However, Tughril Beg died shortly afterward in 1063. Then his nephew, Alp Arslan succeeded him. This was the beginning of a 391-year period to the final overthrow of the prize—Constantinople in 1453 A.D.—which was taken in the 391^st year from 1063.

Arslan first conquered Georgia and Armenia from the Byzantines (i.e., the Eastern Roman Empire). Then as he prepared to conquer Egypt in 1071, a new Byzantine army marched against him, and he crushed it catastrophically. From this point on, the Eastern Roman Empire steadily declined while the Islamic forces increased in power.

The Great Schism

During this time in history, “the great schism” between Eastern and Western Christianity split the Church. This occurred in 1054, just a year before Tughril Beg conquered Baghdad in 1055. In the final analysis, “the great schism” in the Church between East and West, or between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Vatican, boiled down to the Latin word filoque in the creed.

In the original Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) the bishops had determined that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” In the 6^th century, the Church in Spain added to this, saying that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son (filoque).” The custom spread in the West, but Rome itself did not officially adopt the alteration until 936 A.D.

The Vatican accused the Eastern Churches of heresy for not using this innovation. The final break came in 1054 when Roman Cardinal Humbert excommunicated Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople. The Patriarch responded in kind. The Church has been split ever since, and it was not until February 12, 2016 that the two sides began to re-engage. Pope Francis met face to face with Russian Orthodox patriarch Kirill.

One can only imagine Jesus rolling His eyes over men’s stupidity and legalistic mindset. But this split was not so much over a point of doctrine as it was over who would submit to who. The split was over the leadership position in the Christian religion. It is fitting, in my view, that the second woe should be unleashed against the church shortly after this carnal fight over church leadership.

Nine years after “the great schism,” Alp Arslan came to power in Baghdad and was empowered by God to begin the first of three rounds of judgment (“woes”) upon the Church. Not that Islam was any more unified than the Church. There was as much infighting among them as in the Church, for both religions were ruled by carnal men driven by personal ambition.

The Rise of the Turks

Up to the tenth century, the Islamic Arabs had been a dynamic, well educated people, particularly after Baghdad became their capital in 762 A.D. But by the end of the tenth century, they had lost much of their “fire,” and a new force came into play—the Turks. In 977 a Turkish slave, Subuktigin, established a kingdom which spread over what is now Afghanistan. His successor expanded his kingdom into Iran and northern India.

However, in 1037 they were in turn defeated by another Turkish tribe, the Seljuks, under Tughril Beg. When he died in 1063, his nephew, Alp Arslan, succeeded him and began expanding his kingdom westward into Armenia, taking territory from both the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and from Constantinople, or “New Rome,” as it was called.

The rise of the Turkish Empire, however, was interrupted for a time by the Mongolian Empire, which began in 1206 when Genghis Khan was crowned as its leader. For the next century, the Mongols spread west into Eastern Europe and the Mideast. Their capture of Baghdad destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate and prepared the way for the later rise of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

The Mongol Invasion

By 1150 gunpowder had been discovered in China and was used in battle to frighten evil spirits and horses with the noise of the explosions. They never used it effectively, but in the 13^th century the Mongols, led by the grandson of Genghis Khan, swept west across Asia and conquered Baghdad on February 10, 1258. They massacred many citizens and destroyed the great libraries, including the one known as the House of Wisdom. Historians say that this effectively ended the Islamic Golden Age.

The Mongols captured Kiev and controlled territory from the Pacific to the Baltic by the year 1297. Although the empire declined steadily afterward, the West became aware that there were powerful and civilized lands east of “the known world.” This changed their world view. The “silk road” soon brought trade between East and West, but the overland route was long and dangerous. This motivated some to find a sea route to India, Indonesia, and China itself. Some sailed around the horn of Africa, while others sailed west in the attempt to go around the globe to India. They accidentally found the Americas.

The Mongol invasion of the Mideast brought the knowledge of gunpowder and the printing press. The Mongols eventually retreated, but their technological advances remained and had a profound effect upon the Western world, as we will see shortly. Islam despised the printing presses, which were considered to be irreligious, but they found gunpowder to be useful. Europe used both technologies but the printing press proved to be the key to education. Hence, while the Islamic civilization declined after the Mongols destroyed Baghdad, European civilization was revived by the printing press which the Mongols had brought with them.

When the Mongols retreated, the Osmani (or “Ottoman”) Turks came to power. Baghdad had been broken, and many of its educated class had fled to relative safety to Armenia, strengthening the Ottomans. It was not long before they learned to use gunpowder in a new weapon called the cannon. Their first great use of gunpowder came in the siege of Constantinople, where their cannons breached the walls of the city on May 29, 1453. Rev. 9:12-21 describes this very well, as we will see.

The 391-year Time Frame of the Second Woe

Revelation 9:15, 16 reads,

¹⁵ And the four angels who had prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they might kill a third of mankind. ¹⁶ And the number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.

Verse 15 gives us the time frame during which these four angels were to capture Constantinople. It is 391 years. A prophetic “year” is 360 days, or in this case, 360 years. A prophetic “month” is 30 days, or in this case, 30 years. A prophetic “day” is one year. An hour is 15 days, if we use the 24-hour model, or 30 days, if we use a 12-hour model. Adding these together, the time frame for the second woe is no more than a month beyond 391 years.

The time begins in 1063 A.D. with the crowning of Alp Arslan, and it ends in 1453 with the capture of Constantinople and the fall of Constantinople, the capital of what remained of the Eastern Roman Empire (i.e., Byzantium). Constantinople fell in the 391^st year, according to the time frame given in Rev. 9:15.

Neither the four angels nor the two hundred million in their army are literal people.

These are all pictured as coming from the river Euphrates, and all of them had been “bound” up to that time. It is an event occurring in the spirit that pictures spiritual beings, unclean spirits, who are empowered by God to judge the Eastern Roman Empire, using physical armies as proxies.

Recall that the Roman Empire was really divided into three parts: Europe, Africa, and the area controlled by Constantinople, including Greece, the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Syria-Palestine. The judgment of the second woe was loosed upon this Eastern “third” of the Empire. Hence, they were given authority to “kill a third of mankind.” From John’s perspective, “mankind” did not include all the people of the world, or those on yet-unknown continents, but those in the general sphere of the Christian Roman Empire.

The Fall of Constantinople

In Rev. 9:17-19 John describes the cannons they used to break down the walls of the city.

¹⁷ And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. ¹⁸ A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths. ¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads; and with them they do harm.

 

The old cannons used in the siege were shaped to have the heads of lions, out of which belched fire and brimstone every time the cannons were fired. Howard Rand, who personally saw some of these cannons in London after the British had captured them many years later, writes of these cannons in his 1959 book, Marvels of Prophecy, pp. 81-82, saying,

“Anything with four legs used in war, John would designate as a horse. He beheld men astride these iron horses. He watched them ramming in the powder and the shot. He observed the burning of the old-fashioned fuse, serpent-like, with its sputtering flame of fire at the tail, or touchhole, of the cannon. This was followed by the fire, smoke and brimstone issuing out of the mouths of these iron horses with lion’s heads, for the cannon used in the siege of Constantinople were cast in the form of lions.”

The cannon pictured earlier is taken from the cover of Marvels of Prophecy. These canons still stand as silent witnesses to what John saw in Revelation 9. The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 is one of the great moments in history that has changed the world.

The Eastern Orthodox Church lost its main power base in 1453. Although the technical head of the Orthodox Church is still the Patriarch of what is now Istanbul, the real seat of power moved first to Kosovo and later to Moscow.

With the fall of Constantinople, many Greek-speaking doctors of the Church fled into Europe, bringing with them Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. At the same time, the printing press had been discovered, and in 1452 the Gutenberg Bible was first printed, bringing the Scriptures to the common people which is the subject of Revelation 10.