In him was life, and that life
was the light of all mankind.
—John 1:4
The last prophetic voice of the Old Testament belonged to Malachi. There wouldn’t be another until John the Baptist, four hundred years later.
Malachi is a somber book—God’s people had become spiritually comatose.
Yet, it isn’t all gloom. There were a faithful few whom God called “my treasured possession” (3:17). To them he promised, “The Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings” (4:2).
Christ would one day come as the sun to bring light to a dark world and as the healer to bring health to a sick world.
Sure enough, four centuries later, he came: “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind . . . The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world” (Jn 1:4, 9).
Light and life. Without him, we have neither.
With him, we have both.