The Lamp
Luke 11.33-36: 33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of the lamp shines on you.”
The general context of this passage is polemical. The parable is addressed to listeners who are ill-disposed toward Jesus and who demand a sign. Luke 11.29-30, 32: 29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. 32 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”
As everywhere else in the Gospels, the expression “this generation” refers here the the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus, the generation of the passion and of the destruction of the Temple. It is a racial as well as a chronological designation. Jesus has the right to call this generation wicked and to blame it for demanding a “sign from heaven” (Luke 11.16), some spectacular supernatural act by which the Father would confirm Jesus’ divine mandate. There have already been more than enough miraculous signs to open their eyes to the light, but the Jews are not satisfied. Their demand for more signs appears clearly as an effort to embarrass Jesus and as proof of their unbelief.
What is this sign of Jonah that Jesus promises to this generation? Evidently, Jesus is himself, in person, the sign that God offers to his contemporaries. The sending of Jonah to preach repentance was a sign for the Ninevites, a warning of judgment to come. Jonah 3.4-5: 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” [Jesus says forty more years, before the end of this generation.] 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. The people of Nineveh believed Jonah; hearing his message was all it took for them to repent. They needed no other sign. In the same way, Jesus, by his preaching, will be for his generation a sign of impending judgment.
It is in a figurative sense that the Lord sets up the Ninevites as judges of his unbelieving Jewish contemporaries “at the judgement”. The judgment in question will be consummated by the fall of the theocracy in 70. Jesus will explain later that if the sign of his public ministry (and resurrection) is not enough for the Jews, his coming from heaving in 70 to judge Jerusalem will be all they need to make of him a sign they cannot ignore. Matthew 24.30: 30 “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” (See also Luke 13.35; Mark 14.62).
The parable of the lamp is composed of two comparisons: the lamp on its stand (Luke 11.33) and the lamp of the body (Luke 11.34-36). The key to understanding the parable is the necessary uniting of these two lights: the exterior light of the lamp and the interior light of the body. Jesus is operating on the Greek conception of vision as a current that runs between the interior light projected by the eye and the light projected by exterior sources. To express the same idea in Johannine vocabulary: Whoever wants to see the light must himself be light.
The lamp on its stand corresponds to Jesus and to his prophetic proclamation of the Messiah’s reign. Jesus is himself the light of the (Jewish) world. God had not hidden this light in a corner or under a bowl; it shines for all of Israel, as Jesus travels to all the towns and villages preaching the good news. To realize that Jesus comes from God, all you have to do is look at him, listen to him. The evidence is there, as visible and as obvious as a lamp to someone entering a house. The truth of his message speaks for itself. Thus the lamp illustrates the obviousness of Jesus’ divine mission. Those who have eyes to see cannot help but recognizing it.
And yet, the Jews do not believe, they want another sign. How can it be that they miss the obvious? Is it possible to enter a house where a lamp is shining on its stand, and to not see the light? The sayings of Luke 11.34-36 explain the reason for this strange situation. If someone’s eye is sick, no matter how bright the light is shining on the outside, he will remain in the darkness. The lesson is found in Luke 11.35: 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.
The Jew can blind himself to the lamp shining on the outside and become incapable of discerning the sign that God has given. How can he blind himself? By convincing himself that he is living in God’s will and that he is judging what he sees according to the mind and thought of God, whereas in reality he is guided by purely human religious thinking, deformed religious ideas that are making him blind to the truth.
In John 9, Jesus accomplishes a sign which accredits him manifestly as a prophet sent from God (John 9.30): he heals a man born blind. The Pharisees react by saying: John 9.16, 24, 29: 16 “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” 24 “We know this man is a sinner.” 29 “We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.” They are judging Jesus by the standard of their own religious lights, which are in reality sickness and darkness. John 9.40-41: 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
The parable of the lamp is thus a warning against a Jewish religion that is sick and distorted, a religion that blinds its followers and turns them away from the kingdom rather than bringing them to the kingdom (Matthew 5.20). The light of the Pharisees is really darkness and will blind all those who follow them, the blind leading the blind. The true Jew, however, has in himself the true light because he has been attentive to God: he has listened to the voice of God in the Old Testament and judges everything in the light of God’s eternal purpose revealed in Scripture. His religious works are done “in God”: John 3.21: 21 “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” The true Jew will necessarily come to the light so that his whole body will be completely lighted.