The Right to Be God’s Child

“But as many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name.”
John 1:12

Up to this point, John has stated who Jesus is (the God who created the world and everyone in it) and how the world treated Jesus when he came (they rejected Him). But this verse is a turning point: it shows how we can be accepted as God’s children. This fits right in with John’s point in this book: Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, God’s Son, and we must believe on Him (cf. John 20:31).
What does it mean to “receive Jesus”? This is especially striking since John has just said that the world that Jesus created did not receive him. However, for those who do “receive Jesus,” God will adopt them as His children. At the end of the verse we learn that those who receive Jesus are those who “believe on His name.”
Believing on Jesus Christ means accepting the truth about who he is (He is God come to earth) and what he has done (He came to earth to save sinful man by dying on the cross). It doesn’t mean simply believing that Jesus existed; everybody in John’s time knew that He was a historical figure. It involves putting your trust for your eternal salvation solely in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
For those who received Jesus Christ by believing in Him, John says that God will make them His children. He grants that right to become His children. You cannot become someone’s child unless they adopt you. John says that God, because of who Jesus is and what He has done, will adopt those who believe in Jesus as His very own children. This is the answer to man’s biggest problem ever since the Garden of Eden: how can we be right with God? The answer is straightforward: put your faith in Jesus Christ.

A Stranger in His Own Place

“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him,
and the world knew Him not.
He came unto His own, and his own received Him not.”
John 1:10–11

There is probably nothing worse in this world than the feeling of being rejected. The very worst kind of rejection is when friends and family who should love you most, turn on you and despise you. That is exactly how John describes Jesus’ time on this earth.
John has already told us that Jesus, who is 100% God, created the universe, and was sent by the Father to earth to bring life the world. We might expect that the world would be awaiting its Creator and Redeemer with open arms, but the exact opposite was true. The men and women whom Jesus created rejected him. The irony could not be more striking: His very creation turned its back on Him. He came to his creation, to his people to whom he had given life, and they refused him. They treated him as an outcast. They didn’t recognize him as their Creator; they acted like he was just one more reject.
Two things in these verses are particularly noteworthy. First, Jesus did not come to earth to vacation or party—his incarnation was a humbling descent from the glory he eternally enjoyed with His Father in heaven. And when he came to earth, he did not come as royalty or a celebrity; rather, he came in the lowliest of circumstances and suffered the full gamut of human hardship. Second, we need to keep in mind that we, in our natural state before salvation, also rejected Christ. We may think that since we were not profane and outspoken before we were saved, we were not really that bad. But just “living life” without regard to Jesus Christ who gave us that life is rebellion of the first order. We were once part of the world, although created by Him, that refused to acknowledge Him.

The Light of the World

“That was the true Light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”
John 1:9

This verse encapsulates John’s point in his entire gospel account. Jesus of Nazareth is more than a good man, a teacher, or a dynamic leader. He is the Messiah, God’s Son, and we must believe on Him (cf. John 20:31). Jesus always existed as God, created the universe, and was sent by the Father to earth. God sent John the Baptist ahead, not as the Messiah, but to prepare the way for Jesus.
Now John gets to his point: Jesus is the True Light of the World. He brings light to every human being in the world. John already said that Jesus is the “Light of Life” who, as Creator, gives and maintains the life of every human (John 1:4). But this is more than just being the Creator of Life—John says that Jesus came as the Redeemer of Life.
God created Adam and Eve without sin, but they chose to disobey God, rebelling and plunging the entire human race into sin. Every human being since Adam was born a sinner, with the result that he committed sinful acts, attitudes, and thoughts. While he enjoyed physical life as a gift from God, he was separated from God—spiritually dead. But God sent His own Son to earth (the Son who created every living thing!) to bring spiritual life to His creation. Jesus came into the world to redeem fallen man and give him spiritual life.
This is what John means when he says that Jesus is the True Light. The light comes into the world to dispel the darkness of sin and death. Jesus came not to be praised and acclaimed and followed, but to do battle against the darkness of sin and death. He was the Light of the World, making it possible for man to enjoy spiritual life, rightly related with his Creator once more.