This disciple whom the Lord loved was closer to the Lord than the others during the time when the Lord hid His glory in His flesh. Recall that he was the disciple who leaned on the Lord's breast. After the Lord's resurrection, he did good works for the Lord for several decades, and the Lord especially used him to write an epistle which specifically talks about fellowship and particularly about the love of God and the light of God. Humanly speaking then, if this disciple saw the light of God, he should not have been so fearful as many others. Yet recall that on the island of Patmos he described the Lord Jesus revealing His glory with the words, "His face shone as the sun shines in its power" (Rev. 1:16); and when he saw Him, he "fell at His feet as dead" (v. 17). There is no one who has seen the light of God who will not fall to the ground.
Not only do we see in the Scriptures how biblical men humbled themselves, confessed their sins, and obtained self-knowledge through seeing the light of God; even from church history, we see that many of the truly holy saints discovered their own weaknesses and corruption because of their closeness to God's light. Of the persons that we are about to cite, who can deny that they are the most outstanding people in the church? Yet how humble is the view they had of themselves. This is due to no other reason than that the closer we come to God, the more we discover our weaknesses. The more we receive the light of God, the more we realize our corruption. Those who are proud and self-approving are that way because they have not seen the light of God.
When he was locked up in prison, he wrote a letter to one who was very powerful in the Roman church, saying, "Probably you may think that I am powerless now. The emperor can easily prohibit the petition of a pitiable monk such as I. However, you have to know that I will surely fulfill the responsibility which the love of Christ has placed upon me. I am not the least afraid of the power of Hades, let alone the Pope and his bishops." But when he saw himself in the light of God, this bravest of all reformers could not help but cry: "I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his bishops. Within me there lies the biggest Pope—the self!"
This Scot, for the sake of Christ, was a teacher, evangelist, prisoner, slave, wanderer, reformer, and statesman; at the same time, he was a saint of the rarest kind. In his very last prayer, he said: "This prayer is what I, John Knox, with my dying tongue and my whole mind, request of my God." In this prayer, there are the following sentences:
O Lord, have mercy on me, do not judge my innumerable sins; amongst them, may you forgive especially those sins which the world cannot reprove. In my youth, my middle age, and until now, how much conflict have I passed through. I have discovered that within me there is nothing besides falsehood and corruption. O Lord, only You are the Lord who knows the secrets of man's heart. Please remember that of all the sins which I mentioned, not one of them is pleasing to me. I often grieve over them: they are deeply hated by my inner man. Now I weep sorrowfully for my corruption. I can only rest simply in Your mercy.
This is the prayer of a man who has been shined upon by God.
John Bunyan was put in prison for thirteen years because he wanted to preach the gospel. In prison he wrote the well- known book, Pilgrim's Progress. Except for the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress may have the most translations in the world. Spurgeon said of him, "In my view, the style of John Bunyan most resembles the style of the Lord Jesus; no man can come close to him." But when Bunyan wrote about himself, he said,
After my previous repentance, there is again one thing which makes me sad; that is, if I most severely examine the best thing I am now doing, in it I discover sins, new sins mingled in the best thing I do. Therefore now, I cannot help but conclude that no matter how proud of myself and how idealistic I was concerning myself and my work, and even if my former living were without blemish, yet the sins that I commit in a day are enough to send me to hell.
In such a deep feeling of sins, he cried out: "Unless He is such a great Savior, He surely cannot save such a great sinner as I."