The bread of life (john 6:48.)

The light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5.)

The door (John 10:9.)

The good shepherd (John 10:11.)

The way, thje truth, and the life (John 14:6.)

The vine (John 15:5.)

“I am the light of the world." "The feast of tabernacles had just passed when our Saviour uttered these words in the temple at Jerusalem. Around the court were the golden lamps whose brilliant light had illuminated the city. Pointing to these, and beyond them to the glorious sun just risen in full-orbed splendor above the Mount of Olives, He declares Himself to be the light of men.”—The Review and Herald, January 24, 1882.

In order to have an idea of why Jesus made this comparison, we must first understand what light is, what makes up light, and its most common properties.

We can’t touch, taste, hear, nor smell it. We can’t even see light. We see light only as it is filtered through the atmosphere and reflected off different surfaces! We can see the results of light but not light itself. We catch glimpses of its nature when a sunbeam angles through a dust-filled room or when a rainbow appears after a storm.

Visible light is a very small segment of what is known as the electromagnetic wave—the part of the wave that is visible to the human eye.

Unlike water waves or sound waves, light waves follow more complicated paths, and light does not need a medium (water or air) through which to travel. It stands on its own. (Christ is self-existing.)

What is visible to the human eye, though, is just a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum which includes, for example, gamma rays (the product of radioactive atoms), x-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared rays, radar (microwaves, cell phones, garage door openers), radio waves (radar, airplane radio, TV, FM radio, model airplane signals, CB radio, shortwave, and AM radio.

All portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including light, are waves. The higher the frequency, the higher the energy; or the whiter the light the higher the energy.

All electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed, known as the speed of light (186,000 miles per second in a vacuum). Another property of light waves is that they can use the same space.

Light has always been considered to be something that travels faster than anything in the universe. However, in 1999, researchers at Harvard University were able to slow down a beam of light to a mere 38 miles an hour by passing it through a state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. That is almost 18 million times slower than normal! (Christ was made flesh so that the human race could see the glory of God).

When you look at the sun’s visible light, it appears to be colorless, the light we call white. Although we can “see” this light, white isn’t considered part of the visible spectrum. That is because white light is made up of three basic colors.

Red is the lowest-energy visible light, so in a red-hot object the atoms are just getting enough energy to begin emitting light that we can see. Once you apply enough heat to cause white light, you are energizing so many different electrons in so many different ways that all of the colors are being generated. They all mix together to look white.

The electromagnetic wave is composed of electricity and magnetism, which are related, traveling together in the same direction and perpendicular to each other.

Another interesting fact is that in 1905, Albert Einstein introduced to the scientific world the idea that light has a dual nature. That is, light is composed of wave and particle. Today, physicists have embraced this idea.

“God is light; and in the words, ‘I am the light of the world,’ Christ declared His oneness with God, and His relation to the whole human family. It was He who at the beginning had caused ‘the light to shine out of darkness’ (2 Corinthians 4:6).”—The Desire of Ages, p. 464.

This dual nature is also illustrated as Jesus explains, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

We can describe, with great accuracy, three well-known light phenomena (properties) of light: reflection, refraction, and scattering.

Depending on the composition of the object exposed to light, some of the colors that make up light can be absorbed, thus removing them from the white light combination. The absorbed colors are the ones you don’t see—you see only the colors that come bouncing back to your eye. This is known as subtractive color.

The surface molecules absorb specific frequencies and bounce back, or reflect, other frequencies to your eye. The reflected frequency (or frequencies) is what you see as the color of the object.

For example, the leaves of green plants contain a pigment called chlorophyll, which absorbs the blue and red colors of the spectrum and reflects the green.

It is only when light is reflected or absorbed by the objects that are exposed to it, that we can appreciate its properties. And objects can only be perceived as they reflect light.

Without the properties of light, the splendid hummingbird would be dull; flowers would have no color. Without light, our eyes could not perceive colors or shapes. We would have to touch an object to perceive its shape, but not the colors. Light is truly the glory of creation.

What is more amazing? The properties of light, or the fact that our eyes can capture this information and our brains process it?

What do we need to do in order to be able to capture such beauty? Open our eyes!

What do we need to do in order to be able to appreciate the Light that emanates from the cross? Open our hearts!

Jesus prayed to His Father in our behalf, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:21–23).

“Were it not for the communication between heaven and earth there would be no light in the world. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, all men would perish beneath the just judgment of God. But the world is not left in darkness. The long-suffering mercy of God is still extended to the children of men, and it is His design that the rays of light which emanate from the throne of God shall be reflected by the children of light.”—In Heavenly Places, p. 70.

May the Lord enlighten us to this great privilege!