Light and Judgment

"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21)

I sense something here I have not noticed before but do not yet see most of the implications. Because of the mostly external nature of my religious upbringing it has always been assumed that the Light referred to here was mostly correct knowledge and religious facts. Of course we also gave credence to the fact that Jesus was labeled the Light of the world but somehow that was more of just an aside rather than a central reality for us personally. We mostly talked about the light of truth and truth, like light, was more focused on what we believed about doctrines much more than how we felt about Jesus.

But John's perspective was radically different at the time he wrote this then when he experienced these events with Jesus originally. All of the disciple's views of reality were radically altered over a couple of months following the death and resurrection of Jesus and continued to be challenged even for years after that. But for most of us it is difficult to discern the real underlying messages contained in many of their writings because our own view of reality is nowhere close to that embedded in their thinking when they wrote the books of the New Testament.

My own understandings and perceptions from what I read in the Bible have been undergoing a great deal of shifting for a number of years now. That is primarily due to a growing realization that true religion must be founded solidly on an intimate relationship with my Father in heaven rather than an accumulation of religious knowledge and/or seeking to control my behavior to get rid of sin in my life. Because of this dramatic difference in focus I now see far more things in the Bible than I ever imagined were there and each time I read I am surprised by so many things I never caught before. I have to honestly say that the Bible really has come alive for me personally and that I genuinely enjoy listening to the Spirit interpret the Word and apply it to my heart as well as to my mind.

Again I find myself wondering what is hidden in these three verses that seems about to explode into a mountain of fresh revelations for me. As I read these verses with new understandings and deeper definitions of the terms used, the first thing I notice is that if the Light referred to here is more about Jesus than it is facts and beliefs, that has potential to change all kinds of assumptions about what these verses really mean. I am not saying that is the only meaning of these verses, but it is certainly a way of looking at them that I have not seriously considered before.

Most religious people will agree that what this first verse is referring to is the fact that Jesus came to this world as a Light to expose the darkness of sin. But subtly and strangely the conclusions drawn from that observation often directly contradict what is stated so plainly just a few verses previously – that God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world but to save it. This problem of course is rooted in false assumptions about the meaning of the word judgment. And to further complicate matters the Bible sometimes uses this word to imply different meanings just as we often do with words. So to correctly assess which meaning of the word should apply in different places has to be guided by a more complete picture of God's motives as demonstrated in the whole life and teachings of Jesus who came to reveal that very thing to us.

At this point in time I feel that when Jesus stated that He was not sent to this world to judge it He was using the word in the way we most often use it – as meaning that He did not come to condemn us but to transform us. But that is not to say that condemnation will not occur as a result of His presence. Just because He did not come to condemn us does not mean that condemnation will not happen in much greater intensity than before. And this is due to the very nature of light itself which is what I believe is being explained in the verses I am now considering.

The true nature of the word judgment primarily means to expose out into the open the secret things and motives of the heart. But it is also very important to realize that this is not done under duress or by the use of coercion and force as we are so often familiar with in human judgments. God's ways are not our ways and God does not use force to accomplish His purposes, though at times it appears to be that way. For real love to be able to flourish it must always have the opportunity to grow and flourish in the atmosphere of freedom of choice. God is only interested in genuine love, never in forced love – which is really an oxymoron itself. So if Jesus came to this earth to induce sinners to love God more it would be completely counterproductive to ever use force or condemnation to accomplish that purpose.

But when sin causes us to resist the advances of God's heart seeking to draw us into relationship with Him, that resistance to love will always produce feelings of condemnation in our own hearts. But just because this condemnation is always triggered by the approaching presence of God does not mean, as we almost always assume, that it is God who is condemning us and not something that is created by our own internal mechanisms.

I learned a few years ago that the feeling we call guilt, which is also condemnation is really the tension that happens when the left and right brain are unable to agree with each other about something. This can happen in various ways so there is potential for various forms of condemnation or guilt. But until the left and right brain come into agreement and synchronize with each other, that feeling will remain and will cause discomfort for us internally. The intensity of that discomfort will be directly related to the seriousness of the problem causing the internal conflict. When it is the presence of God drawing our hearts to synchronize with His heart of perfect love that we are resisting, then the closer that love comes to us the more intense will be our feeling of condemnation and guilt.

This is perfectly in line with the illustration given in these verses about light and deeds of darkness. The closer that light comes to an area of darkness the more things hiding in that darkness are going to be exposed. If the things dwelling in darkness resist or resent being exposed then hearts and minds desiring to maintain that cloak of darkness are going to experience condemnation and fear as a result of the approaching light.

But much of the confusion surrounding these verses in my opinion involves what is really meant by the Light as well as what it means when it talks about deeds, either dark deeds or practicing the truth. Because of the generally external focus of most religion, these phrases tend to cause us to think more about our behavior than about the condition of our hearts and minds. These is the parts of these verses that I desire a clearer understanding about.

I have observed over the years that people who claim to have all the right facts, who claim to have the truth and the light but who do not have a heart relationship with Jesus personally, these people will most often view these verses as a confirmation that we must have intellectual truth and be living it out in our lives if we want to be ready to meet Jesus at the Second Coming. Their focus is largely upon learning doctrines comprehensively and getting all the facts about religion hammered out accurately. These people almost always insinuate that once we have most of our facts corrected in our minds that only then will we be able to enter into a deeper relationship with God – whatever that means to them. I know personally because I have been one of those most of my life. And my mind still tracks down that road of logic quite easily.

Since I grew up with this approach to religion I was diverted from finding a satisfying relationship with God for many years. That does not mean that it was not talked about frequently. But the basis of that relationship always included a great deal of effort to get my life in line with the many requirements of the Bible if I ever hoped for God to accept me fully and approve of my life. Because I always felt so much condemnation whenever I came closer to God I believed that He was condemning me and was disapproving and unaccepting of me as a person until I would get my act together better. The way to do that was to learn more truth and to beg God for more help and strength to get rid of more sin in my life so He could love me more.

This of course becomes an endless routine of circular thinking that gets one nowhere except into deeper and deeper frustration and despair. This is one of the devil's most effective counterfeits for the real truth of the gospel and I have lived in it for many years. I see many around me in various versions of this trap still and I get a little bit angry about it at times because of the debilitating effects this kind of religious thinking will produce in a person's heart.

What I am now seeing a little more clearly is that the reactions of condemnation that I feel as I sense the truth about Jesus through revelations of the Spirit are related to lies about Him inside of me. If I resist the fresh revelations about the compassion, love and true nature of Jesus as seen in the stories of His life or the explanations of Him in the New Testament, then my heart is going to feel condemnation as a result of that resistance. On the other hand, if I lay aside my preconceived ideas about God accumulated through years of tradition and culture and embrace each revelation about Jesus as it is presented to me by the Spirit, then instead of condemnation I find myself wanting to come even closer to Jesus in my own spirit and actually looking forward to more convictions by His Spirit. This is the process of coming to love the Light Himself, seeing the inner beauty of Jesus and God that can draw me into a real loving and saving relationship with Him.

Conviction by the Spirit of God is not something to be resented or resisted but is really just a sign that there is something inside of me out of harmony with the original design God created for me. As I choose to surrender to the convictions of the Spirit of God and come into alignment with His way of thinking and viewing reality, instead of experiencing increasing guilt or condemnation I experience a deepening connection at the heart level with God's heart and with all those who are likewise following on to know God more deeply. It is then that I begin to know what true fulfillment and satisfaction really feels like.

Right now it seems like this would fit into the meaning of the phrase, practices the truth in these verses, but that phrase seems somewhat awkward. Maybe it is an issue of how the translator's chose to word the original meaning – that is certainly often the case. But it is clear that there is two distinct and opposite mindsets in relation to the presence of Jesus as a Light that exposes what is hiding in our hearts. My decision as to how to respond to that uncomfortable exposure will determine whether I experience condemnation or whether I experience increased growth and am able to mature more into truly living in Christ.