The Light & the Darkness

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
- John 3:17-21

This is a hard passage for me to write about. Does it truly condemn everybody who doesn't believe? There's the inevitable question: what about people who've never heard of Jesus? What about all those people brought up to a different belief? I don't think this brilliant gospel, written so profoundly and beautifully, could have been written in ignorance of these questions. So I will set down for myself here that the assumption of the ignorance of the most simple and immediate questions on the part of the evangelist just won't wash. I have a pet peeve in those who assume that the age of these books means their authors were some sort of primitive idiots; this is a text written for the Hellenized world which had reached its zenith in philosophy, science, architecture, art and the search for truth in many ways, addressing those for whom intellectual prowess was far more important than it is to many of those who read this book today. No, that decision just won't wash.

So let us assume then, that the writer is fully aware of these questions we raise for ourselves. Indeed, it is written at the time of the beginning of evangelization, when the church was in its birth and the word beginning to spread. Today we can find Christian broadcasting in every corner of the world; this was not at all the case at the time this gospel was written. It was the job, the purpose, of writing this scripture to help spread it to the world, to all the peoples as diverse as any we have encountered and moreso, because a central broadcasting or common medium the way we understand it today was impossible to conceive. So let us put aside assumptions as well that the evangelist found himself in some sort of homogeneous world. We can see that already from the gospels themselves and all the different peoples Jesus comes in contact with, given the great mixture even in the Galilee itself, and the Jews who would come from different countries given the great mixture of and flux of religious and cultural life of the time, particularly in the context of an immediately post-Hellenistic world.

So when John writes here: those who do not believe in the name are condemned, that those who reject the light are condemned, how can he make such a sweeping statement? I don't have all of the answers to this question but I can venture a partial answer for myself, and that is in the nature of the light. For this light is not merely a man walking in a temporal time and place in the world, but it is the light sent into the world that all might hear and all might be saved through him. This is the light that is the Word, the Logos, from whom we learn not only truth and beauty but whose spirit is poured out upon all flesh. This is the light that teaches that all the law and the prophets are wound in two great rules: to love God with all your heart and mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

I think it is impossible to assume that the evangelist is condemning billions of human beings who may not have heard the name of Jesus Christ, I will not make such an ignorant assumption about the awareness of the gospel writer of his world, and even of ours. No, I believe the evangelist is writing of those who must know better: who hear and yet reject. Elsewhere we are told that the only unforgiven sin will be blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, another hard saying. But to witness the reality of spirit, something that has come through spirit, through love, through this other dimension of spiritual reality, and to call it evil is the great sin. And I do believe there is a level of rejection of love and of the ways of love that might be based on deliberate ignorance, on the rejection of a better way. I do believe it is possible to reject right relatedness quite consciously, knowing what harm and grief we cause to others. Beyond that there is another level of rejection that comes so deeply within the self we may hardly be aware of it, and this is the intention to reject to serve what is good, what is true and what is beautiful. This is the intention to reject right relatedness in determination that selfishness is a better way.

My words may be harsh, you may call them judgmental - please do not assume that I am so ignorant I do not understand the circumstances in which people find themselves, or the things to which they may have been exposed in their lives, or the lack of opportunity to understand a better way for all kinds of reasons. But on the other hand I have faith that all human beings have the capacity to understand how they themselves would wish to be treated, and what it is to open one's heart to an internal message of love. I can't judge of myself - so the evangelist also teaches us. But I can understand a sense of relatedness to something beyond myself, that asks me to come to the light and not to assume I have all the answers and need not seek a better way.