John’s Testimony to the Deity of Christ: John 1:1-18, 8:24, 58, 20:28

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:38

Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're in the AO Max studios today.

00:43

We're going to be doing some some teaching. I listened to an exchange that took place sometime over the past number of weeks between Anthony Rogers and Officer Tatum as he is called.

01:00

The Officer Tatum, I think, on Twitter and was once again reminded of the need that we all have for basic foundational convictions in regards to the person of Jesus Christ, how very important it is.

01:17

So we're gonna be looking at that first. Before we dive into that, tomorrow I do intend on being in the other studio.

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There's obviously things that happen every weekend that catch our attention.

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The rise of the totalitarian state right in front of our eyes is something

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I just, I was getting out of the car and I heard, remember, it was, what, two weeks ago that another 1 .9,

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2 trillion dollars of funny money was erupted out of the bankrupt federal government in the

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United States. I realize most people, especially young people, do not understand that the

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United States government can't make money. And when this type of thing happens, our great -great -grandchildren are not going to be paying this because there won't be a

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United States for our great -great -grandchildren to live in. It will have collapsed. And you know, that used to be what

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I would hear when they were talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. But once you start talking about trillions of dollars, someone's trying to take the nation down and do so permanently.

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And so, I thought I had turned that off. And so, the, as I was getting out of the car,

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I literally heard someone saying, did you hear this? That they're now talking about another 3 trillion.

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That'll make over 8 trillion dollars in one year. And if you can't sit back and go, huh, 8 trillion dollars, vast majority of which is going directly into the pockets of the most radical leftist movements in the

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United States. I mean, it's all pork. Very few people in the United States are actually benefiting from this other than the ultra -rich as it is.

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If you can't sit back and go, what in December of 2019 could have ever been used as an excuse to produce 8 trillion dollars worth of debt all going to radical leftists?

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You know, there's an old saying, follow the money, and no one seems to want to do that because of the religion of safism.

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Yes. There are many people in our land today who have wholeheartedly converted to the religion of safism.

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And as long as the people printing the money say, we will use this to keep you safe.

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Now, they can't, and they're not, but as long as they say they are, everybody's good with it.

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We'll talk about that a little bit more tomorrow because we now have the vaccination passports coming, which

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I've been talking about for a long, long time, and now here they are, and a bunch of civil libertarians are going, if we dare go down that road, we're done.

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It's not just, there are your papers. It is, we own you.

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We own your soul. We own your body. We can put anything into your body. We can determine what you put into your body, where you go, who you see.

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We have 1 ,000 % control over you. That's where we're going, and it's happening.

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It, you know, calling it the social credit score is the really innocuous, nice, easy, simple way of doing things.

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It is total, it's totalitarianism. It's Orwell sitting back going, man,

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I never thought about the level of technology that could be used here, and that's where we're going, and the religion of safism is right at the beginning.

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I had a t -shirt on earlier, and I switched out to this because the fact of the matter is, you get to my age, t -shirts are tough.

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I can do it in the other studio because I can hide. But I had a real nice, and I appreciate the folks,

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I don't know if any of you saw last week when we were in this other studio, I had a nice t -shirt on that Jeffrey Rice had arranged to get for me.

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I guess the folks are going to be displaying at G3, so I'll get to run into them there, and I'll try to remember to bring my shirt then.

06:07

But it was that post mill thing last week, and I forgot to mention it. Sorry about that, and then another group sent me

06:15

Obey God, Defy Tyrants, and that's what I was going to wear today. It just didn't go with the cameras and things like that, but it's a really, really good statement, because we are going to be facing tyranny, and there are not going to be many people that are going to stand against it.

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They're just not. Because it's going to come fast, it's going to come hard, and most of us, myself included, honestly, it was one thing to defy tyranny when you lived on your own land and could raise your own food, and technology was such that you could fight off the local sheriff.

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That's not the case anymore. That's just simply not the case anymore. We live in cities. We're dependent upon transportation.

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Look at the disruption to the entire global economy over one super ship that gets blown sideways in a dust storm.

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I guess that's what I heard. It was a dust storm, and this thing Al Mohler was talking about today on the briefing is huge.

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I mean, it's just a floating city. It's much larger than even the largest cruise line thing.

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Well, it's longer than the Empire State Building laying down.

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It's just massive and huge. But good old weather system came through and turned that baby sideways, and look at the disruption to the world economy that's come just from something like that.

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It's a very fragile thing. Anyways, we'll talk about that tomorrow. I've already spent seven minutes talking about it today, though, so that's one of many things we'll be looking at, including the utter lack of transparency in the current regime, which you'd expect.

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Regimes are regimes. They're not administrations. They're not supposed to be transparent. That video of Ted Cruz at the border was...

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That woman would make the perfect Stasi prison guard.

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Okay, that's the mentality, the mindset of these people. They're sold out to totalitarianism.

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Those are the people we used to be fighting, and now they're in control. That's where we are in the

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United States. Sorry to the rest of the world that has been so benefited by our standing against this stuff.

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We're not going to be doing it anymore. That's all there is to it, and so we'll talk a little bit more about that. Now, defy tyrants.

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Obey God, defy tyrants. Why? How would you even know what God has to say? This is where the world is today, and so the theology that we're gonna be talking about today actually has great relevance to the defying of tyranny.

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Why? Because what concerns Big Brother about Christianity is what

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Orthodox Christians believe about who Jesus is. They are not concerned one whit about leftist liberal

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Christianity, because leftist liberal Christianity is their ally. Leftist liberal Christianity doesn't believe

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Jesus rose from the dead. Leftist liberal Christianity doesn't believe in the Trinity. Thus, leftist liberalism doesn't believe in the inspiration of the

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Bible. So, leftist liberal Christianity... Don't even count that. That's not even in the mix.

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It is old -style, historically Orthodox Christians that scare them to death, because we actually believe in the deity of Christ.

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We believe that God, we believe in Emmanuel, God with us. We believe that the Word became flesh.

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We believe that they crucified the Lord of glory. We believe with Thomas, my Lord and my

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God, which means that I have an authority above any magistrate, any

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Supreme Court, any president. I have a much higher authority to appeal to, that not only is higher to me, but the worst thing is, as Acts chapter 17 tells us, and again, this text amazes me, but as Paul said on Mars Hill, the resurrection is proof that God is going to judge by the one man he has appointed,

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Jesus Christ. And that means every magistrate, every soldier, every cop, every judge, every mayor, every governor, every president, every senator.

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Yeah, even Jerry Nadler. Jerry Nadler is going to stand before God someday, and God's going to play that video clip that God's will has nothing to do with this

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Congress. And Jerry Nadler gets to answer for that. Yeah, yeah.

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So there's the problem. And Caesar had that problem.

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Caesar was very concerned about this Jesus and about this idea.

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But what's at the foundation of that? I had somebody on Twitter yesterday. It's funny. I went ahead and I fought back to a few people on Twitter.

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Sometimes I just ignore it. Sometimes you have to. You don't have time to worry about it. But there are a few people making their nasty comments.

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And so I fought back against a few people. Why don't you back that up? Why don't you document your false accusations and your lies and things like that?

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And normally they run off with their tails between their legs because they're doing the things you do on Twitter.

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But this one guy was going, yeah, I used to appreciate all this apologetic material, but now all he does is talk about politics.

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Anybody who watches this program is going, really? Is that so? I think he started talking about the homosexual thing back in 2000, maybe a little bit before then, before he wrote the book on the same -sex controversy and warned that this type of revolution was going to have certain ramifications to it.

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Yeah, well, we did. But here is where all this meets, because the fact of the matter is there are people who are going to tell us that while Jesus was an important prophet or teacher or whatever terminology you want to use, that he certainly wasn't

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God. He was just God's representative, as many other men have been representatives of God.

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It is a belief in the historic understanding of the

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Christian people going back, as we have documented on this program for decades, to the very text of the

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New Testament. But it's also the fundamental assertion of the earliest documents of the

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Christian faith outside the New Testament. It is plain that for Clement of Rome, Jesus is

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God, as Ignatius calls him God 14 times. Ignatius is the one that has

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Trinitarian language. Ignatius approaches the Council of Chalcedon in the depth of his

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Christology of Jesus as the God -man, the hypostatic union, and that's in 107.

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It didn't take till 451 for that to develop. It didn't take till the Council that I see in 325. And so we have that historical reality, but Christians stand first and foremost upon that which is theanoustos, that which is

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God -breathed, and that is what is found in Scripture. Over the weekend,

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I had to run out and see the dentist. We had a crown.

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See, this makes sense. As a Calvinist, I found out the crown was a four -point crown.

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And there was the problem right there. If it had been a five -point crown, it would have been fine. But it became a little less orthodox about 10 minutes after the last dividing line.

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It became a three -point crown. So I got hold of my faithful dentist who's been keeping my teeth in my head for 20 years now.

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He had me come out Friday morning, and it didn't end up being any big thing. We just smoothed it down and said, yeah, you're getting sold.

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Let's just see if it lasts a while. It's the easiest thing to do when you've got this much white stuff on the beard.

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But anyway, as I was driving out and coming back, I listened a couple times to an exchange that took place.

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Anthony Rogers, a Christian Trinitarian, got hold of,

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I guess, Instagram and TikTok are two things I've never gotten into.

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I think it's just because of the, I don't know, the, you have to, if most of it has to be done on this,

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I'm just not interested in it. It's too small for folks my age.

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And I'm not interested in getting one of those phones that's the size of an iPad. So I'm just not getting into this stuff.

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But there ended up being a exchange on Instagram.

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And so I listened to it on that trip back and forth, and there wasn't anything new.

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I have yet to come to an understanding of where Brandon Tatum is as to a positive confession of faith.

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Aside from denying the doctrine of the Trinity, he quoted from people on the extreme opposites as to why they deny the

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Trinity. He quoted from Anthony Buzzard, and he quoted from Oneness Pentecostal sources like David Bernard.

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Now David Bernard and Anthony Buzzard do not believe the same thing. In fact, they believe the exact opposite thing. So if you're quoting from that wide a variety of sources, you may not really know why you're quoting from that wide a variety of sources.

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That's one of the issues. But at the same time, there was a great deal of discussion that I don't know that a lot of people would have followed.

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And so to my homeschooling moms, I'm hoping that your older kids will be able to follow this, honestly.

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We're going to be talking grammar. And we're going to be talking about the stuff that you guys talk about in your homeschools, because I know homeschoolers actually talk about grammar.

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They're concerned about the English language. And we're going to be talking about, for example, one fact.

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Well, I've told the story before. Let me tell it again. This is good for our homeschool families.

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And of course, my daughter homeschools my grandkids. And so hopefully, Cadence and Waylon and Clementine, minimally.

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Jannie, you can listen in too. But hopefully, they'll all get something out of this.

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But I remember in, I think it was eighth grade. It might have been seventh. It was junior high school,

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Deer Valley Junior High School. There were two English teachers. And I got the

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English teacher that graduated from Berkeley. So she was the quintessential 1960s hippie.

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Okay. And she was fun. Ms. Stickley, I think was her name. And so we got to do plays and Shakespeare and impromptu acting.

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And it was sort of fun. And at the time, we're all like, oh, the other teacher.

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We heard about the other teacher. She was old school grammar, just, and we're all like, oh.

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I'm going to tell you something. One day, the classes switched. And we got a taste.

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Of what it was like to be in the other teacher's class. And I remember to this day, what she taught us that day.

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To this day, I remember. Predicate nouns follow linking verbs.

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Predicate nouns follow linking verbs. Now, here is a predicate noun.

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Follow in English. But here's a, here's your, here's your predicate noun follows linking verbs.

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It doesn't follow in Greek, but it does in English. And I knew that was one truth of grammar.

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She drilled it into us in one day. And I'm going to tell you something. If there was anything

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I could change about my education, it would have been that year in junior high school.

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That at the time, I didn't know what was best for me. And having taught

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Greek for decades now, when people say, you know, people say to me, I'm going to be taking

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Greek this fall in seminary. What should I do? And I always say the exact same thing to them. Learn English.

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Learn English. Because the greatest struggle I had in teaching people the

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Greek language in seminary, because in seminary, you know, I was, I was blessed.

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I'm thankful to the Lord. I took Greek in college. And first year

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Greek was four days a week. First semester, second semester was three. So we did

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Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday for a semester. And then Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the second semester.

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Almost every time I've taught it, well, certainly on the seminary level, you have to cover all of, for example, the mounts textbook, if that's what you're using in one semester.

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So if you're teaching in an extension seminary, that means you have three hours once a week, functionally only 13 meetings to cover all that material.

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So in my experience, what I fought against in teaching Greek was teaching students to hate

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Greek rather than teaching them Greek. Most seminaries have given up on it. I'll just, I'll just be honest with you.

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Most seminaries have given up on it and you can get through your, your biblical requirements, your language requirements, but taking a

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Jan term class. In other words, you just learn how to use Logos or Accordance or whatever you're using.

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And they'll consider that to be good. I did my best to teach my students to love

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Greek, not to hate Greek, which is hard to do when you only have functional, functionally, it was 15 meetings, not going to get much done the first week.

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And you got a final on the last week. So it's basically 13 functional days, 39 hours grand total to try to learn an entire language.

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And the biggest struggle people had was they were learning English while they're trying to learn Greek. They didn't know what a predicate nominative was.

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They know what a direct object was or an indirect object was or participles and infinitives. And so you're, you're, you're trying to learn twice as much as you should be.

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If you know your own language, then it's like, Oh, that's how this language does that. And so it seemed to me, as I was listening to the conversation that took place, that the terminology was being used was probably left most everybody without a clue as to what was going on.

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So I want to look at the prologue of John and a few other passages in the gospel of John. We're going to be doing some teaching today, straight out of the text.

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And some people look at what's on the screen. It's just all Greek again. I'm not gonna understand it. Yes, you can.

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Yes, you can. I keep reminding people, I forget to grab it, but there's a, it was a pink cover when

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Soledad Gloria Publications did it. But it was a book from the late 1600s.

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And in England, while people are dodging the plague, the real plague, not the fake plague with a 99 .97

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% survival rate, but the real plague that had like, even later in later years, as much as, as a 20 to 25 % fatality rate.

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And when it first hit over 50%, now that's, that's a plague. Okay. That's a run for the hills plague.

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And so people still living in a day where you not only had cholera and things like that, but you had real plague and they're going in cities to learn this stuff.

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And by the third year of their education, they were not only expected to read what's on the screen.

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They were expected to be able to debate in the language on your screen.

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And that was in late 1600s. We are a bunch of wimps in the 21st century.

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That's all there is to it. So I do not buy into the, well,

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I just can't. Yes, you can. If you will apply yourself. Yes, you can.

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If you will turn off the music, if you will develop a attention span longer than, than CNN or Fox news thinks that you have an attention span.

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Yes, you can. I challenge you. You can understand these things and we will do our best to explain them.

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So we will begin with what's called the prologue of John. Now there, I will tell you right now, there are good solid scholars that would say nobody in early church thought this was a prologue.

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Okay. That's fine. But I think logically when you, when you look at the breakdown of the text and what's being discussed and you've got blocks of, of discussions and things like that,

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John 1, through 18 forms a logical introduction to the gospel of John.

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And it is plainly intended by the apostle as his means of giving you an interpretive lens through which to look at the rest of the book.

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If you miss what's in the prologue, then you may miss what's in the rest of the book. Now I want to remind everyone that skeptics, unbelieving skeptics like Bart Ehrman will say, well, it's obvious that John believed in the deity of Christ.

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His point is Mark didn't. And so therefore you shouldn't believe the Bible to be a consistent divine revelation from God.

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That's his argument. So that's, you know, that's why I've done an entire sermon series on the deity of Christ and the gospel of Mark.

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It's, it's right there on the surface too. But even someone like Ehrman will say, if you just, you just let

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John speak for John, it's pretty obvious what John is saying. See his ideas, his, his problem is the idea of an overarching concept of inspiration.

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But he recognizes, well, John says it rather obviously, doesn't he? Well, he does. But of course, various religious groups, anti -trinitarian groups of different, of very, very differing conclusions, have found ways to try to get around that.

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And the prologue of John is certainly one of those, those areas. I've told the story many times of meeting with some

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Jehovah's Witnesses in someone's home. I was a second year Greek student, so that would make this 1985 -ish.

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Might've been 84, either late 84, early 85. Met with some

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Jehovah's Witness ladies in someone's home. And a Jehovah's Witness lady gave me about a four or five minute pre -memorized speech about the, well, the significance of why there is a blank spot right there.

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Why there is no article before the word theos in John 1, 1c, which we'll get to in just a moment.

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And I had with me at the time, my Nessie Olin 26th edition, or the 28th edition, they just announced 29th edition and the 26th and the 6th edition of the

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UBS will be coming out a couple of years. They're working on that now. And so if you've looked at the

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Nessie Olin text, you know that it has no English in it. If you're familiar with Jehovah's Witnesses, you know that they have something called the

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Kingdom in Linear Translation, which is an interlinear. So you've got the New World Translation on one side, the

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Westcott and Hort 1881 Greek text on the other side. And so I handed my

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Greek text over to the lady across from me in the conversation.

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I had it open to John 1, 1, and I simply asked her, could you show me a Greek article? Now she had just given me maybe three, three to four minutes pre -memorized speech about the significance of the article at John 1, 1, but she didn't even know which way to hold the

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Greek text. She couldn't, couldn't read a letter of it, let alone a word. This is the problem that we face is that there are people who have an implicit trust in what they are told, but they can't check it out for themselves.

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And that's how these groups keep, keep a hold on people. We of course, invite people to check things out, but the

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Watchtower Society does not invite its people to critically analyze what it has to say.

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So let's, let's take a look at, at our text and let's break it down.

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Okay. Let's, let's start by breaking it down so that we can talk about what is called the, the clauses.

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Okay. So let's start with the clauses. So the first clause of John 1, 1 is right here.

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So that's, that's the A clause. All right. And so I'm going to do is

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I'm going to make them different colors here. The B clause is the longest right here.

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That's clause B. And we'll go with yellow for C and here is clause

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C. All right. All right. So there are your, are your clauses, uh, for John 1, 1.

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So N -R -K -A -N -H -A -L -A -G -O -S in the beginning was the word. That's, that's

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A. B -K -H -A -L -A -G -O -S -A -N -P -R -O -S -T -O -N -T -H -E -O -N - with God and C -K -T -H -A -S -A -N -H -A -L -A -G -O -S and the word was

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God. Now let's look at each clause. Let's make sure that we have a solid understanding of grammar and let's make sure a single sentence can only answer so many questions.

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This single sentence is not left alone. This single sentence exists in an entire book.

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And so the challenge is always to accurately handle what is in the sentence, but then to see how it relates to the entire context.

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The primary problem with cultic unorthodox interpretation is simple.

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The demonstration of the truthfulness of the orthodox understanding is found in the fact that I will use the same method of exegesis, interpretation, and translation for John 1 .1

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that I use for any other verse in the gospel of John, including verses that simply say that Jesus went from one place to another, verses that say that Jesus waited a certain number of days before going to raise

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Lazarus, for example. And the point is that the demonstration of divine truth will be found in its consistency throughout the text.

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And what you discover is that the people who try to come up with novel ways of looking at texts like this very often can't even translate another text in the gospel of John, let alone anywhere else in the

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New Testament. I have encountered innumerable Jehovah's Witnesses who could tell you an amazing amount of stuff about a verse like this, take them two chapters later, and they're lost.

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I have no idea. Very few of them can actually teach and preach through the entirety of the gospel of John, or Mark, or Luke, or Matthew, for that matter.

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So, in the beginning was the word. Now let's start with the beginning.

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So, N -R -K. And the vast majority of scholars will recognize that these are the same words that begin

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Genesis 1 -1 in the Greek Septuagint. And so there is a understanding that John is referring to the same beginning that Genesis does.

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There are others who would want to try to limit this and say, well, you know, it could be the beginning of the gospel, it could be the beginning of God's work with Israel, or whatever else it might be.

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But the fact that these are the same words used back in Genesis in the Greek translation is very, very important.

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Let's go ahead and look at logos for a second. Ha logos. Logos, as a

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Greek term, has what is called a wide semantic domain.

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Semantic domain. What does that mean? Well, there are some words that are extremely narrow in their semantic domains.

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They will have a very small range of possible meaning. And then there are other words that have a very large range of possible meaning.

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And what you have to do by looking at the form they're used in, the context, things like parallels that the author might provide, where here in this large domain is the author putting my particular usage here.

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Logos has a very wide semantic domain. And so there are, it can simply mean things and matters and all sorts of stuff.

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Now, you will be told, if you pick up any commentary, that logos has a great deal to do with Greek philosophy.

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And it does. The logos is the rational principle. The rational principle in numerous of the leading

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Greek philosophers of the day. And so you'll find this in Philo, a contemporary, and so on and so forth.

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However, if this came from the Greek Septuagint, we also need to realize that the logos likewise is found in the

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Memra, the Dvar, the words of Yahweh.

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And so there had developed during the, well, it's in the Old Testament, and then there has developed in the intertestamental period, this idea of the word of God, the revelation of God, the speech of God.

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You'll find this in Psalm 119 and other places like that. And so you'll find argumentation in the commentaries as to where John is deriving this.

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I think you always have to default first and foremost to the

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Old Testament, to the Hebrew scriptures, or in this case, the Greek translation, which of course is what

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John's going to be using all the way through anyways. As your primary source, you can give a nod to the logos and Greek philosophy you want, but to think that John is going to make that his primary source,

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I think is questionable, as popular as that might be. Now, let's look at the verb, and this is extremely important.

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Here is our verb, ein, ein. Now, remember the story that I told you, predicate nouns follow linking verbs.

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I've got to keep the whistle wet today. Predicate nouns follow linking verbs.

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There are two primary verbs of being in Greek.

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You have aimi, and you have aginomai, which very often is found the aorist in agenita.

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And you can see agenita right here, for example. There's agenita right there. These are the verbs of being, and in this instance, what's very fascinating is

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John very carefully in the prologue uses this form when he's talking about the logos, and then he uses agenita when he's talking about anything else.

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So, all things were made through him. So, when he's not talking about the logos, he uses agenita, which would have a point of origin concept to it.

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This does not have a point of origin concept. What do I mean by that? It's not saying the word began to exist in the past.

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Why? Because it's in the imperfect. Now, the simplest way in the

38:38

Greek language to express an action, I didn't want you to do that, is called the aorist.

38:46

The aorist is sort of your default. It seems to be the most ancient way in which the

38:56

Greek language expressed an action. So, the aorist frequently is a point action in the past.

39:05

Sometimes it's just an action, and it's not really defined. A present will have an emphasis upon continuous action ongoing as you're speaking.

39:21

The imperfect, which is what we're looking at here, is continuous action in the past, which can have different aspects to it.

39:35

So, you can have cumulative imperfects, and cumulatives, and ingressives, and iteratives.

39:46

So, you could say, he used to teach in the temple. Wherein, what you're saying is, he would teach the temple, but he wasn't teaching the temple 24 -7.

39:58

He was teaching in the temple a certain number of days, or weeks, or something like that, but that was a regular pattern that he was doing.

40:07

Or, in John 6, John uses the imperfect to say that Jesus was saying to them, over and over again, repetitively, you're not able to come to me unless the

40:20

Father enables you to come. So, these are different ways in which the language can express various actions.

40:28

And, what's fascinating is, you'll notice in the second clause, there's your aim, and the third clause, there's your aim.

40:38

So, when the logos is being discussed in relationship to the Father and the archae, the beginning, the imperfect is being used, which does not point to a point of origin, as far back as you want to push the archae, the logos already was.

40:58

Okay? The logos already was, as far back as you want to push this, however you interpret archae, the logos is in existence.

41:09

So, what does this tell us? What does the first phrase, the first clause, tell us about the logos?

41:20

The logos is eternal. The logos is not a created being.

41:28

The logos has not come into existence at a point in time. The logos has existence, we haven't defined it yet, but the logos was already in existence in the beginning.

41:43

Logos is eternal. So, the second phrase, be, the be clause here, is the longest of the three, and the word was with God.

41:56

So, we have the same verb now, and so if this is an eternal relationship, then this is an eternal relationship.

42:05

The logos, logos has an article, here is the word the, hot logos, just as you had an article here.

42:15

Hot logos, and by the way, we will have to, we'll expand upon this in a moment, but when you have a linking verb, and ain is functioning this way, and you have a nominative, and you have a second nominative, as we'll have in the third clause.

42:43

In Greek, the article tells you which word is the subject.

42:54

So, if you had God is light, all right, in Greek, the

43:02

Greek language can tell you the difference between saying all of God is all of light, or God, the subject, is light, and light's a predicate nominative.

43:19

How? Through the article. So, if neither noun, nominatives, remember, in Greek, you have what are called cases, and I'll just do this number here.

43:39

It's sort of fun to do, though I'm gonna have to clean the board eventually.

43:46

In the Greek language, you will be taught two different ways.

43:54

I was taught what was called the 8k system. I now teach the 5k system.

44:00

What's the difference between the two? Has Greek changed? No. In the, the 5k system is based upon the actual forms in the language.

44:11

The 8k is based upon the uses of those forms in the language. There are five forms, so it's easier to learn it that way and then learn the subcategories, but I didn't learn in the easiest grammar.

44:25

So, so there you go. So, you have the nominative, you have the genitive, you have the dative, and then underneath the dative, the subcategories of locative and instrumental.

44:41

You have the accusative and you have the vocative. Now, the nominative is the case of the subject.

44:52

The genitive is an oblique case, possession. It can also have categories of direction, directionality, partitive, genitives, things like that.

45:05

The dative is the indirect object when it's just being a dative, but then that same form can be locative, location, and instrumental, means by which something happens.

45:20

I think one of the clearest examples of this is in when Paul says, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

45:29

That doesn't mean God, as a person, was in Jesus, reconciling the world.

45:35

It was God by means of Jesus, instrumental, reconciling the world unto himself.

45:41

That's a good example of it. The accusative, which is what we will have right here, the famous, after my debate with Joe Ventilacion, the famous ton -tay -on is just simply the accusative form of theos.

45:59

And then the vocative was, you can sort of sort of draw a line there because there are very few pure vocative forms in the

46:10

New Testament, and most scholars recognize that the vocative was passing away during the

46:19

Koine period, during the first century. And so it was more of a classical thing, and it was it was being the function of the vocative was being taken over by the nominative, as we'll see in John 2028.

46:32

All right. So these are your cases. And so ha is just simply the singular article that go, the singular nominative article.

46:45

So ha, lagas, tu, lagu, to, lago, tan, lagon, et cetera, et cetera.

46:53

So you can, that's called declining, and then you have the forms. So you'd have hoi, if it's a masculine, and then there are feminine forms and there are neuter forms.

47:03

And this is why it's best to know English before you start trying to learn Greek, because once you start getting into all those, all those forms, it can, it can be, it can be somewhat challenging to English speakers.

47:16

So with that, so we have, and the word was, and so we can see this is a nominative.

47:24

It's coming before the linking verb. So it's the subject. And the word was, then following this, we have what is called, there you go, pros, tan, theon.

47:37

When you have prepositions, you have prepositional phrases, prepositional phrases in English under the table.

47:47

These are frequently providing location, direction of movement. They're very, very important.

47:56

Now pros, tan, theon could be translated as face to face with in relationship to, you've got to do something with it here because we're being told that the was, so there is existence.

48:13

The logos is in existence with God and God here is articular.

48:21

What does articular mean? Articular means has an article, has an article, that's all.

48:27

Most of the time, theos is hotheos and to theou.

48:33

And now there, there will find places where, because you have a preposition, the author doesn't bother with the article.

48:44

One thing you've got to understand, that you will be led astray if you do not hear what

48:57

I'm saying right now. The Greek article and the

49:03

English article are not the same things.

49:10

There are very few who teach and read Greek coming from an

49:17

English background who have a sound, functional, natural capacity and ability with the

49:28

Greek article. The only reason that I have any facility with it is because one of the, one of the projects, again, the advantage of doing this in college instead of seminary,

49:40

I had time to do projects, research papers, things like that. Learn the language more slowly, memorize vocabulary better.

49:50

And I did one, in one of my years, I did three years,

49:57

I did three or four years. I did a total of seven with Dr. Baird. He had hair when

50:03

I started and he didn't when I got done, so I felt really badly about that. But anyway, the others were in seminary.

50:10

Thankfully, I had the same professor in seminary as well. He taught for Fuller here in Phoenix. But one of the projects that I did was on what's called

50:19

Granville Sharpe's Rule. And Granville Sharpe's Rule is a syntactical study of a construction in the

50:28

Greek language, it's relevant at Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1, that really illustrates just how different the

50:36

Greek article is in the Greek mind than the the. It's much richer.

50:42

And there's so much more, we'll probably see as we go down through the text, we'll probably see examples where articles can function as relative pronouns.

50:54

And people who think that Logos on here, or Accordance on here, or PC Study Bible, or Olive Tree, or whatever, is enough to make them experts in the language, who don't read it, who don't sit down and read it.

51:17

One of my favorite ways of preaching, I've done this many times, it's my favorite way to preach, it really is, is to take a chapter.

51:26

I did John chapter 9. If you want to see how this works, go to Apologia, uh, I don't know, about two, three months ago.

51:36

And I think it was one of those situations where it was like a Saturday when Jeff needed me to fill in for him.

51:44

Didn't have time to do a bunch of preparation on something else, took

51:50

John chapter 9, plop the Greek text down, fresh read it from the stop, from the top, no notes, read it, then go back and use the text as the commentary.

52:01

That is, for me, the most enjoyable way of dealing with the text.

52:10

And if you can't do that, then you're not going to have an understanding of the range of uses of articles, when they can function as relative pronouns, how they're functioning in sentences.

52:27

You can always tell when someone is trying to live read something and they don't know about this because, well, sometimes there's nothing you can do, you're going to end up jumping around, but sometimes they'll end up just completely missing something because the article that goes with the noun is seven words, one direction or the other from where it's supposed to be, normally before, obviously.

52:51

Frequently, it just takes the place of the noun, becomes a pronoun. The Greek article is rich, it is deep, and hence is easily misrepresented, easily misrepresented by those who have an agenda in trying to insert something.

53:14

And so we'll see that in the third clause here, but just be aware that that's coming.

53:21

So the first clause in the beginning was the word, the word's eternal, and the word was with God.

53:28

So the word has been differentiated from tantheion. There is a relationship between the logos and tantheion.

53:39

We've only gotten through two clauses. We're not even at the end of the sentence yet, all right? So with that said, let's look at, in case

53:51

I want to make some notes there, the most, obviously,

54:00

I want something really red. There we go. There you go. Hey, there's supposed to be 16 million colors on this thing, right?

54:11

So let's, we're going to need some space over here, so we'll leave the eternal part there.

54:19

Oh, how'd that happen? I'm not sure how that happened. Might have been, that was probably my jacket. That's pretty cool.

54:24

Anyways, yes, I know, it doesn't even come off.

54:30

It's great. Not like the old, I'm old enough to remember chalkboards, folks. You youngins don't have any idea what it sounds like to scrape your fingernails on a chalkboard, but everybody who's as old as me just went, because we all know, and there is no sound like that.

54:48

I think it's just natural to the human being to go, when you think of scraping nails on a chalkboard. Anyways, and I don't think you can record it.

54:57

The sound of it on recording, it's like, yeah, big deal. But when it happens in, for real, oh, only in Jaws?

55:05

No. Oh, really? Thanks, Rich. I appreciate your adding, adding to my lecture here.

55:14

See, now you folks get to hear a little bit more of it because there's no glass between us. And so now you're starting to hear a little bit more of what

55:21

I have to deal with all the time. All right. So John 1, 1c, let's read it in Greek word order.

55:35

So, and God was the word. Now, if you encounter anybody who says, and God was the word, you immediately know you are listening to someone who cannot actually read

55:52

Greek. Just that bluntly, I got to put that, that bluntly.

55:59

Why? Well, like that eighth grade teacher. What if, what if we put an article in there?

56:15

Ky ha theos ein ha logos. What if we did that? Or what if we take that out?

56:25

And what if this wasn't here? Ky theos ein logos.

56:32

Those would be equivalent statements. They'd be equivalent statements. And what they would do is they would make these two nominatives, because notice logos is a nominative.

56:45

The os is a nominative. They are in the subject case with a linking verb.

56:55

And so if you take the article out or put an article before both of them, it turns the linking verb into an equal sign.

57:06

And so all of God becomes all the logos, all the logos becomes all of God. They become interchangeable.

57:13

They become interchangeable. So when people tell you, well, you know, there's no article before theos.

57:24

And so that means it's a God. That's someone who can't read

57:29

Greek. That's someone who can't read Greek because they don't understand this construction. Because if there was an article, it would be saying everything that the logos is,

57:38

God is, everything God is, the logos is. They're interchangeable. If there was an article there.

57:44

Well, there isn't an article there. And that's important to recognize.

57:52

All right. So you have what is called, and you know, half the time, it's all just a matter of terminology.

58:02

And once you understand the terminology, you discover that scholars are just saying simple things. It's good to demythologize scholarship.

58:09

And that's really what education is. It's a demythologizing of scholarship. So this, you ready for theos here?

58:18

This is an anarthrus pre -verbal predicate nominative.

58:28

Wow. That sounds like you're really a smart person.

58:36

All that means is it doesn't have an article. It's before the verb.

58:42

And it's a predicate nominative. That is, it's in the nominative. But since this is the subject, it is in the predicate, predicate, predication, the verbal aspect of the sentence.

58:55

Wow. That's not as complicated as it sounded, is it? And the problem is, very often, all of the conversation, people just sort of step away from and say, you know,

59:05

I'm just, I don't know. I don't know what anarthrus pre -verbal predicate nominatives mean.

59:13

But it's really not that difficult to figure out. So theos is anarthrus.

59:20

And the big question is, why did John put it before the verb rather than after the verb?

59:28

Why isn't it kai ha logos ein theos? Now, there are not a billion examples of anarthrus pre -verbal predicate nominatives in the

59:43

New Testament to draw examples from. But thankfully, this sentence doesn't exist as a fragment someplace without the rest of the prologue to go with.

59:59

And you can find enough examples in secular

01:00:04

Greek and outside of this particular example to make the assertion that the reason you have this form is that having said that the logos is eternal, and having said that the logos has eternally been in communion with Tom Theon, now what you're doing by putting theos over here is you're saying, and the word was eternally theos, deity.

01:00:34

You're not identifying who the logos is. You're identifying what the logos is.

01:00:46

And I believe that once you see this in light of the rest of the prologue, especially verse 18, this becomes clearly

01:00:57

John's intention. But remember, anybody who says, oh, there needs to be an article here does not understand the language.

01:01:05

They do not understand what they're saying. They're trying, if there was an article here, this would teach what's called

01:01:11

Sibelianism. It would actually conflate the persons of the

01:01:17

Trinity. This way it doesn't, and allows John to describe the nature of the logos.

01:01:25

Now there is no indefinite article in the Greek language.

01:01:31

We have a, an apple, a bat, a car.

01:01:37

We have an indefinite article. There is no indefinite article in Greek. And so when someone tries to say, well, it should be a god with a small g.

01:01:48

Well, any capitalization and non -capitalization in an

01:01:56

English translation is editorial. It's editorial. There, the, if I could pull up, well,

01:02:05

I don't have it queued up, so I won't do it right now. Well, hold on a second.

01:02:15

Yeah, let's see, Greek texts. Let me see.

01:02:24

Come on, why doesn't, I hate Windows. Let's see if, what this pulls up.

01:02:33

No, I didn't want you to put it over there. I wanted you to put it over here. And it gives me blank and spins.

01:02:41

Oh, there we go. Just took that a long, long, long time. So here's, here's what, this is

01:02:53

Codex Sinaiticus. This is what, what is called uncial or maguscule

01:02:59

Greek looks like. And you'll notice it is all capital forms.

01:03:06

They've actually put spaces between words here. That's not what you would have if I had just simply a graphic of Codex Sinaiticus.

01:03:16

So the point is it was all capitals for the first 900 years. There were no small letters.

01:03:23

So our utilization of these types of things does not make any difference whatsoever.

01:03:32

That is editorial all the way along, all the way along. So if you're going to say this is a god, then you have to be building in a huge amount of theology into John from the start.

01:03:50

And you have to explain how this a god is eternal and eternally in communion with Tantheon.

01:03:59

Now, what we're going to discover as we get through the prologue is this is referring to the father and the son, as we will see in a moment.

01:04:07

Wow. It's already after three o 'clock. All right. So I'm going to have to pick up the pace here if I want to get through the whole thing.

01:04:15

But I want people to understand. Now, then we have, and this has become an issue.

01:04:21

And so I want to make sure that we discuss this. It is common for some

01:04:28

Unitarians to argue that the use of this demonstrative hutas right here is somehow significant because they will say, well, you know, some older English speakers said it or something like that.

01:04:49

Look, hutas haute tuta, hutas haute tuta. Those are the masculine, feminine, and neuter forms of this particular term.

01:04:59

This is a masculine. Its antecedent is the logos. Now, if the prologue is going to tell us that the logos is personal, then there is no reason on the planet to render this as it or that thing or whatever else.

01:05:18

But notice what comes right after is our same verb, the imperfect of I, me, ein anarche prostantheons.

01:05:31

So this one, who is as to his nature theos, was in the beginning with God.

01:05:38

So what John 1, 2 does is it takes from the clauses of John 1, 1 and creates really a fourth clause.

01:05:48

Because remember, the verse divisions, that two first showed up between those two words in 1555.

01:05:57

All right, so it had been a long time since John had written these words. So this is really a continuation of what came before.

01:06:08

This one, the logos, who was as to his nature God, was in the beginning prostantheon.

01:06:18

This is the emphasis that is being made. So the logos is eternal.

01:06:23

The logos has always existed. The logos is not a creation.

01:06:31

So, panta, all things, di autu, by means of him, through him.

01:06:39

So this is one of those places where the preposition determines the use, the case of the following pronoun, autu, through him, agenata.

01:06:52

Now notice, this is the first time that we have a different verb. We've had ein up till now, because we were talking about the logos.

01:07:03

But now we're talking about panta, all things. We're talking about creation. And so John purposefully changes the verb.

01:07:11

He will do this all the way through verse 14. When he talks about the logos, the logos is eternal. He uses ein.

01:07:17

When he talks about John, when he talks about the creation, he uses agenata. He uses genomai, the aorist form of genomai is agenata.

01:07:25

And so all things were made through him. And then there are two ways of translating the last portion of this verse.

01:07:41

Now the Nessie Olin text puts a period right here. And hence

01:07:47

Nessie Olin editors are saying, and apart from him, nothing, udahen, not one thing was made, period.

01:07:59

Ha -geganen, what was made in him was life.

01:08:06

All right, so that's the Nessie Olin interpretation through punctuation of how this should be understood.

01:08:15

Now of course, punctuation is editorial as well. There was almost, almost no punctuation in any of the early manuscripts at all.

01:08:26

And it's just a long line of capital letters. So it can be translated, and apart from him, nothing was made, which has been made, period.

01:08:39

Then in him was life, and the life, got to scroll this up here, was the light of men.

01:08:48

So those are your two ways of translating this. But what's important for our purposes is here's agenata, here's agenata, we're no longer, the logos is no longer the subject.

01:08:59

What's being created is all things. And apart from him, nothing was made, which was made. So now we're talking about the origin of the physical universe or anything else, for that matter, all other things.

01:09:12

And these things are made through him, through the one who was with God.

01:09:20

So if you're going to say the logos is some inanimate object, then all objects came about from an inanimate object, because it's

01:09:29

D -I -O -2, it's through him. This is the problem that every denier of the

01:09:35

Trinity faces. They lose the creator, because the New Testament teaching over and over again, is that creation takes place through Jesus.

01:09:46

That's why the Jehovah's Witnesses have to put the word other into Colossians chapter one, and say all other things were made through him, because he himself has to be made.

01:09:56

I guess you have to do the same thing here. If all things, this pontile right here, can't really be all things, if the logos is a thing, an inanimate object, but it's not.

01:10:10

So, get rid of our marks there. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

01:10:22

And the light is shining in darkness, and the darkness is not.

01:10:29

Cateleben can be understood as overcoming or comprehending, and it's quite possible in light of the poetic nature of this text, that John wants the reader to struggle, and to consider both.

01:10:51

That's what he wants to do. That he uses a term, remember we talked about semantic domain?

01:10:57

And so, I think this is worth reminding you, remember the semantic domain. So, Cateleben, you could have, it has a wider semantic domain.

01:11:07

So, overcome would be over here, comprehend would be over here. Which one is it? Well, sometimes the author wants you to have to struggle with that, and sometimes the author wants you to believe both, to hear both, to interpret the text in light of both.

01:11:23

And that's actually a really good didactic way of doing things. All right, so, notice, agenita anthropos, there was a man, apestal menos paratheu, sent by God, and notice something, paratheu, no article.

01:11:47

It's not teutheu, that would be, have the article before the genitive form of theos.

01:11:55

Remember, the meaning of theos is not changed by what case it's in, despite what

01:12:02

Iglesia Ni Cristo would like you to believe. There is no difference whatsoever in the meaning, but this is paratheu.

01:12:11

And so, like I said, there are a number of places where the author doesn't use the article, because the preposition tends to particularize, it tends to make specific.

01:12:23

So, it can function, basically, as an article in that way. So, there was a man sent from God, whose name to him was

01:12:32

John, whose name was John. I don't know how to get rid of that thing, there we go.

01:12:38

This one came, Aes Matorian, for a testimony, for a testimony, in order that he might testify concerning the light, he might witness concerning the light.

01:12:52

Then we have a Hinnah clause, Hinnah Pontus Pistuosin Dei Altu, in order that all might believe through him.

01:13:01

Now, let me just mention in passing, John never left

01:13:06

Palestine. John, as far as we know, never left the

01:13:11

Jordan River Valley. So, you might want to recognize that paspasapan, the word all, has to be interpreted in context.

01:13:26

And the point is that God's purpose was that John's testimony would be believed, not that John would travel the world and everybody in the world would believe that testimony.

01:13:40

You would think that would be a basic thing, but it's not for a lot of folks.

01:13:47

Interesting, Uc Ein Ekinos Tafo, that one, John, was not the light.

01:13:55

It's pretty clear from the New Testament, both from John and from Acts, that there continued to be.

01:14:04

Either you're very interested or something's going wrong. You're specifically fascinated. Okay, good.

01:14:11

Rich is just, actually, Rich is getting old like I am, and so he's leaning forward right now to rest his back. So, that's actually what's going on.

01:14:18

There is that too, yeah. Once I lose

01:14:25

Rich, I figure I better start wrapping the whole thing up, because we're done. It's clear that from John and Acts, disciples of John continued for decades.

01:14:37

Remember, Paul, Acts chapter 19 runs into some of John's disciples far, far away from Israel.

01:14:44

So, there is a concern in the New Testament to witness toward their conversion.

01:14:51

That one was not the light, but he was sent, borrowing back from the preceding discussion, in order that he might testify concerning the light, which we're then going to get from John and which you get in the

01:15:07

Gospels as well. That was the true light, that which is lighting all men by coming into the world.

01:15:20

Now, that's a text that has been interpreted in a number of different ways.

01:15:28

Is he enlightening all men by means of coming into the world, or is it just describing the fact that it's that true light, which lights all men, that came into the world?

01:15:37

There are early church fathers... I'm going faster now, because we need to get to 118. I'll try to do it in 90 minutes.

01:15:45

I don't even get to the rest of the verses I wanted to get to, because I spent too much time in verse 1. He was in the world...

01:15:52

Now, notice, okay, so we're back to the true light. The true light.

01:16:00

So, John's testifying about the true light. So, who is this true light?

01:16:05

It's not John. Who did John testify of? Of Jesus. And so, this true light was in the world.

01:16:15

Oh, there's Aen again. That's interesting, but we're not talking about an eternal situation here.

01:16:20

We're talking about he was in the world, and the world was made through him.

01:16:27

So, you've got Aen and Agenata in the same verse. The world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

01:16:39

Now, there's a lot of discussion, and it'd be worthwhile spending time discussing it, but like I said,

01:16:46

I'm moving a little faster now. Is this a pre -incarnate discussion? He was in the world, because it's going to say he came unto his own, and we're really going to get to the incarnation in verse 14.

01:17:02

But could it be that verse 10, he was in the world, God was active in the world, through the son, and the world was made through him.

01:17:10

Who was the world made through in the previous verses? Through the Logos. The world was made through him, masculine, and the world did not know him.

01:17:22

He came unto his own, ta idia, his own, and that, you'll notice, has an alpha, ta idia.

01:17:32

That's neuter, his own things, and then it's hoi idioi.

01:17:41

Notice the Omicron, that's masculine. So, people recognize, he came unto his own things, the things he himself created, and his own people, because it's masculine, so it's personal, his own people did not receive him.

01:17:59

There was rejection. As many as did receive him, to them he gave, exousion, authority, technotheo genesai, to become the children of God, and then you have in a positive form, to the ones believing, aista anima autu, in his name.

01:18:24

So, obviously, you've got to see that the

01:18:30

Logos here has been personified as the person of Jesus, and we're going to see how in verse 14, but it's already taken place.

01:18:39

The idea that the Logos is some inanimate object, some inanimate thought, or something like that, has now taken on some kind of personal experience, that has a name that you can believe in, he can give authority to become the children of God.

01:19:00

These ones to whom authority is given to become the children of God, hoi, again, article now functioning as a relative pronoun, hoi, uc ex haematon, which ones, not out of bloods, literally, plural, neither ec thalematos sarcas, not by the will of the flesh, ude ec thalematos andros, neither by the will of a man, andros, normally, husband, but, so when you have, you have, uc, ude, ude, not by this, not by this, not by this, a law, adversative, not, but, ec theu egenei theison, but they were born of God.

01:19:57

Not of bloods, not of the will of the flesh, neither will the man, but of God.

01:20:04

So whatever you do with John 1, 13, it's very much the same thing that Paul said more than once, in regards to this particular issue of how one is born again.

01:20:18

A lot that we could talk about there, but we're focusing upon the identity of the logos.

01:20:24

So, verse 14, and the word became flesh, kai halagos sarx ageneta.

01:20:31

So notice, now we have logos, but now we have ageneta. Ain up till now, ageneta now.

01:20:40

Why? Because the word became flesh in time. The word became flesh in time.

01:20:46

The word entered into flesh. This is the incarnation passage par excellence, along with Philippians chapter two.

01:20:55

The word became flesh en eskenosen.

01:21:02

Now that was a very well -known verb that's used in the

01:21:09

Old Testament of the tabernacle, to dwell in a tent. And he dwelt en haimin, amongst us.

01:21:21

So there was a point in time when the logos became flesh and dwelt among us.

01:21:31

He did not simply look like he did, but we saw.

01:21:39

Etheasamitha, it is to see with the eyes. We saw his glory.

01:21:46

In fact, it's a glory hos monogenous para patras. Monogenes is the term for unique, only begotten.

01:22:00

Unique as in having that singular relationship that no one else has.

01:22:08

And here, this is a glory as of the monogenous para patras, the unique one para patras.

01:22:18

First point where John provides the beginning of our understanding of how to understand how the logos can be with God and be himself the us in his nature.

01:22:35

And it is not the father. He is the monogenous para patras. So you have to ask yourself a question.

01:22:46

If the logos is not personal, how can he be the monogenous para patras? How can that work?

01:22:55

This is personal language, very, very personal language. He has the glory.

01:23:02

Where's glory come from? God says he shares his glory with no one.

01:23:08

Isn't it interesting that Paul will quote from that very text and, and identify Jesus as Yahweh in Philippians chapter two.

01:23:17

He has a glory of the unique one para patras from the father, full of caritas kai ale theos, grace and truth, full of grace and truth.

01:23:33

This is what we have seen. John is now witnessing himself. John testified concerning him and cried out saying, this is the one of whom

01:23:45

I spoke. And if hutas is impersonal up above, why is it not impersonal here?

01:23:52

Well, because it's antecedents clearly personal, just as it was before. This one is the one of whom

01:23:58

I spoke. The one coming after me was before me because he was before me.

01:24:04

And he uses two different. He uses impras then and uses protos because he was before me as in temporally.

01:24:12

And yet Jesus wasn't not in birth. Even John recognizes that Jesus has an existence beyond his mere physical existence, which he has taken in the incarnation because from his fullness, we have all received and grace kaden ante caritas, grace upon grace, grace against grace, grace piled on top of grace might be one way of understanding it.

01:24:47

Because the law was given through Moses, grace and truth.

01:24:56

And notice it's, it's did to me for, for was given through Moses. It's again, it's all, which is the same word that was used for the creation, grace and truth come are made through Jesus Christ.

01:25:11

So now he uses the full name of Jesus Christ in making this assertion.

01:25:19

Now, here is the end of the prologue. And here's where we will go back to the board.

01:25:28

So here is, this is called bookending bookending.

01:25:35

So if John one, one is the start, John one, one is the start, then this is the end.

01:25:46

And so we have the assertion.

01:25:52

Now, let me talk about briefly about this use of the

01:25:57

OS right here. If you have the

01:26:03

King James, the new King James version of the Bible, you will have the monogamous

01:26:10

Huyas, the only begotten son. And we've gone over this in the past.

01:26:19

I won't go on over it today. I will just simply point out to you that the two oldest manuscripts we have of the gospel of John, p66 and p75, both have the word

01:26:39

God. It's also found the great unseal text as well.

01:26:45

It is a very, very early reading. And I believe it has the strongest backing behind it because it would be much more understandable why a scribe would stumble at this phrase monogamous

01:27:01

Huyas. I mean, that's just, you'll hear people say, by the way, some King James only us will say, well, that's what the

01:27:07

Gnostic said. No one has ever found anywhere in any Gnostic writing to my knowledge, the phrase monogamous

01:27:13

Huyas nowhere. It's it's that's been repeated so often by many of them that they, they think that that's there, but I've found no one who could show that to me.

01:27:24

So we're going with the reading that is found in SL and 28th edition, and almost all of your modern translations will be utilizing the same reading.

01:27:35

So we have Theon Udais Heorakon Popatae. Theon is in the accusative and has no article.

01:27:48

It doesn't say Taun Theon. It's just one of those places.

01:27:53

Again, you don't have to use the article. It doesn't mean a God.

01:28:00

If it means, if you, if you think that the lack of an article should be translated as a God, then this should be translated.

01:28:06

No one has seen a God at any time, which of course is nonsense.

01:28:13

No one has seen Heorakon God Popatae at any time.

01:28:22

Now, is that true? Not according to the Old Testament. Not according to the

01:28:28

Old Testament. There are a number of places in the Old Testament where God was seen.

01:28:36

Abram walked with Yahweh by the Oaks of Mamre. Isaiah saw

01:28:42

Yahweh sitting upon his throne. So what do you mean,

01:28:47

John? What do you mean no one has seen God at any time? Who has been seen?

01:28:58

Monoghanes Theos. Now, off the top of my head,

01:29:03

I think P75 has, is it Ha? I think it has the article.

01:29:11

I should have looked that up, but one of these two has the article. One of it has it, one of it does not.

01:29:17

But Monoghanes Theos, the unique God, Ha -on.

01:29:23

So here's where you have an article that is referring back to the preceding noun, noun phrase.

01:29:32

Then you have the participle of being, the one being Aiston Kolpon Tupatras.

01:29:40

So this is a, this is an entire phrase right here that is describing the

01:29:45

Monoghanes Theos. The one who is at the side, in the bosom of the father.

01:29:53

This is John 118's way of saying what is said above, the word was with God.

01:30:03

This is as personal and interpersonal phrase as can be.

01:30:11

And if this is the bookend, John 1 is the bookend on one side, John 118 is the bookend on the other side.

01:30:18

If this is repeating what's in John 1 ,1 and it is, then this is what it means for the

01:30:24

Logos to be with the father. Intimate, personal communion for eternity. Intimate, personal community and communion for eternity.

01:30:35

That's what it means to be the Monoghanes Theos, right there. Ha -on Aiston Kolpon Tupatras.

01:30:41

I almost never hear the deniers of the deity of Christ dealing with the entire prologue and I almost never hear them going here.

01:30:51

Most of them don't know anything at all about textual criticisms. They don't even know what to do with the textual variant, but they never see, how can you even begin to deal with John 118 outside of a

01:31:06

Trinitarian context? I don't know. I have no earthly idea. I don't know how you can do it.

01:31:13

No one has seen God in any time. Yes, they did. Who would they see? The Monoghanes Theos, the one who is at the right hand of the father, by the father's side, in the father's bosom.

01:31:24

That one, Ekainos, exegesata, to exegete, to explain.

01:31:32

He has explained him. He has made him known. He has revealed him.

01:31:41

Now you understand Genesis chapter 19. Yahweh is walking with Abram by the

01:31:48

Oaks of Mamre. He sends the other two angels on to Sodom and Gomorrah. They're the two angels that come to Lot.

01:31:57

And then what are we told in Genesis 19? Yahweh, the

01:32:02

Yahweh on earth who's been walking with Abram, rained fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

01:32:12

Who did Abram see? Jesus. Jesus. He's the

01:32:18

Monoghanes Theos. You will never make heads or tails out of the Bible as long as you hold on to cultic denials of who

01:32:27

Jesus is. You will never make heads or tails out of the Bible. And you will not make heads or tails out of the

01:32:33

Gospel of John. We doing okay back there, Rich? We're doing good? Because I don't feel like stopping right now.

01:32:41

Okay, because I got to do at least two others here. You want to see where John does this? Well, I'm not sure that I can go that long.

01:32:53

So let's be nice, okay? John chapter 12 will prove this.

01:33:03

John chapter 12 will prove this. Why? Because of this, this is at the end of Jesus' ministry, because of this they were not able to believe.

01:33:11

Now we could stop and look at that one and demonstrate that latent flowers is an error yet again, which isn't difficult to do.

01:33:21

Because again, Isaiah said, and then he quotes from Isaiah, he is blind their eyes, made their hearts hard, so on and so forth.

01:33:29

This is a quotation from where? Isaiah chapter six. What's Isaiah chapter six?

01:33:36

Isaiah chapter six is Isaiah's temple vision. And then we have these words and most people, honestly, just go flying right past this.

01:33:47

They don't even see it. Their minds normally on what you mean they couldn't believe. But don't miss this.

01:33:57

These things, these things, Isaiah said, what did we just quote from?

01:34:04

Isaiah chapter six. The temple vision. What happened to temple vision? I saw the

01:34:09

Lord lofty and lifted up. The cherubim surrounding, what were they saying? Holy, holy, holy is the

01:34:20

Lord of hosts. It's a picture of the worship of God in heaven. And then

01:34:29

Yahweh speaks to Isaiah, who will go for us? These things

01:34:37

Isaiah said, because he saw his glory and he spoke concerning him, yet even some of the rulers believed in him.

01:34:58

Who's the Aton? Who they believe in? Jesus. Jesus. Only person in the context.

01:35:06

But because the Pharisees, they weren't confessing him because they didn't want to be put out. These things

01:35:13

Isaiah said, because he saw his glory. Whose glory?

01:35:21

Well, in Isaiah chapter six, it's glory of Yahweh. So if you ask Isaiah, Isaiah, whose glory did you see in your temple vision?

01:35:30

Isaiah chapter six saw the glory of Yahweh. We slaughter that in English as Jehovah.

01:35:36

That's not how it could have been pronounced, but we're talking about the covenant God of Israel. John, John, whose glory did

01:35:46

Isaiah see? Jesus. Jesus.

01:35:54

Now you know how there is, there is absolutely no way around this.

01:36:01

And I didn't know this for a number of years. I didn't know this for a number of years. If you want a little more on this, last year, right before the world stopped functioning normally,

01:36:15

I preached a sermon at G3 from Isaiah chapter six and went over this.

01:36:22

So if you want a further version, and then when I got back, I did it again at Apologia.

01:36:28

So there's a couple of versions of it running around there if you'd like to take a look at it. But you know why this is absolutely positively certain.

01:36:41

Let me see if I can, if I can pull this up. Yep. It's down here at the bottom.

01:36:49

It just doesn't come up as fast as what I'm used to, but it'll get there eventually. And let's blow the, up nice and big.

01:37:02

I always got to remember to turn that mask off or it's going to look really silly. And let me take you to Isaiah because there is a fascinating reality.

01:37:21

Now we're looking at the Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This is what John quotes from.

01:37:28

He's writing to Greek speaking individuals. This is the Bible they have. And this is why most

01:37:33

English speakers miss John 12, 41 and what it's saying. It's because in the

01:37:44

Hebrew Masoretic text, Isaiah 6 -1 off the top of my mind, the year the

01:37:52

King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, Adonai, lofty and lifted up.

01:38:00

And to translate a different way, the skirts or the trains of his robe were filling the temple.

01:38:07

That's the Hebrew. The Greek's on the screen. It came about in that year when

01:38:14

King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord seated upon a throne, lofty and lifted up.

01:38:23

Let me make sure you see this.

01:38:34

All right. I already got you. And the house, ah, got to hear the whoosh.

01:38:57

All right. And the house, the oikos, the temple, was full, teis, doxes, autu, with his glory.

01:39:18

With his glory. So you see, the people to whom John's writing, who have the

01:39:25

Greek Septuagint, who've been following what he said, and they looked up the reference that he gave in Isaiah 6.

01:39:34

John then says, Isaiah said these things because what? He saw his glory.

01:39:41

This is the only place in Isaiah where he sees the glory using the exact same words.

01:39:51

So everybody that got John's gospel when he wrote it knew exactly what he was saying.

01:39:59

John said Isaiah saw Jesus on the throne in Isaiah chapter 6.

01:40:07

That is not even disputable. That's not even disputable.

01:40:15

Hence, it's not overly difficult then if we will just be fair.

01:40:23

I could have gone to John chapter 8. In fact, I will just for a second because I want to make a point.

01:40:32

Yeah. John chapter 8, verse 24.

01:40:42

What does Jesus say? Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins for unless you believe.

01:40:59

You need to believe. For unless you believe, Hati Ego Aimi, you will die in your sins.

01:41:11

This isn't just something to argue about on the internet. Jesus said to the

01:41:18

Jews who are no farther away from him than this desk is only a few feet away from me.

01:41:30

Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

01:41:40

Well, what does I am mean? Well, Jesus says it here and there's no great response immediately, but by the end of the chapter, you know what happens.

01:41:58

You go to the end of John chapter 8 and things get hotter and hotter and hotter and Jesus keeps pushing and pushing and pushing.

01:42:10

And finally, verse 53, you're not greater than our father Abraham who's died and the prophets who've died.

01:42:16

Who are you making yourself out to be? Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.

01:42:24

Is my father the one glorifying me? Is my father who is glorifying me whom you say he is our

01:42:37

God and you don't know him, but I know him. Jesus was not attempting to deescalate the situation.

01:42:47

You say that to religious leaders, you say, you know, God, I do. And you don't.

01:42:54

If I said I didn't know him, I'd be a liar like you, but I know him and I keep his word.

01:43:07

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad.

01:43:20

When did that happen? When did it happen? I'll tell you when it happened.

01:43:26

It happened in Genesis 18 and 19 and they knew exactly what he was saying because they knew who

01:43:35

Abraham saw in Genesis 18 and 19. He walked with Yahweh. Jesus said,

01:43:42

Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it. He was glad. Therefore, the

01:43:48

Jews said to him, you're not yet 50 years old and you've seen Abraham? I am.

01:44:11

And the Jews picked up stones, the stone. They knew it.

01:44:19

If you deny the deity of Christ, you're not as sharp as they were because they got it.

01:44:28

Before Abraham was, I am. Now, it's not my purpose today to go into all the

01:44:35

I am things because I go to John 13, 19, John 18, 5 -6. It's very plain. That's what John's presenting.

01:44:41

We go back in the Old Testament with Isaiah's use of ego, I, me. We can do all of that if we need to. I just want to get to one more text and we will call it a day on the program today on the gospel of John and its testimony to this issue.

01:44:55

We could have gone into John chapter 17 and the high priestly prayer.

01:45:01

There's a lot there. But after the resurrection, as you know,

01:45:09

Thomas 1 -12 called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came the first time.

01:45:16

The disciples told him, we've seen the Lord. He said to them, unless I see in his hands the place of the nails and put my finger into his side,

01:45:26

I will not believe. And then after eight days again, they're all gathered together,

01:45:34

Thomas with them this time, and Jesus comes with the doors being locked and stands in their midst and says, peace to you.

01:45:45

And he says to Thomas, put forth your finger.

01:45:52

Here's my hand, Thomas, and take your hand.

01:45:59

See, see where I've, I've been wounded in the side. Notice what he says.

01:46:10

And do not be apistos, without faith, but pistos, believing.

01:46:19

Do not be unbelieving, but believe. Then we have these words, which again,

01:46:28

I suggest to anyone that you ask a

01:46:35

Unitarian, an anti -Trinitarian, whatever you want to call yourself, to explain this text.

01:46:45

I have done so with Muslims, with Unitarians, with all sorts of folks, and they stumble all over themselves.

01:46:59

Thomas answered. So Thomas is the one who's been addressed by Jesus. He has said, here, here

01:47:04

I am. I wasn't here when you said you needed to see my hands and my feet and my side and so on and so forth, or you wouldn't believe, but I know what you said.

01:47:13

Not because somebody reported to me, because I'm God. And he says, do not be apistos, but pistos.

01:47:24

And Thomas answered. And here's the key folks. Thomas, ipen, he said, auto.

01:47:33

See this here? See that little iota subscript right there? That is the dative, and that is the iota subscript indicating the singular form.

01:47:46

So this, he said to him. Why is that important?

01:47:56

Because believe it or not, believe it or not, people will look at this next phrase.

01:48:03

Hakuriasmu kathiasmu. My Lord and my God. And if you want to see how this worked, you can go, for example, watch the debate that I did with a

01:48:15

Muslim apologist at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa a number of years ago on campus.

01:48:22

And he's standing there and he says, and so what Jesus does, he goes, my Lord, my

01:48:27

God. As if Jesus was going, my God. He said to him.

01:48:39

Now when you have ipen, there is no punctuation. So in English, this would be a quote.

01:48:47

Hakuriasmu kathiasmu. This is all said to Jesus. Auto, singular, right there.

01:48:55

This is not disjunctive. That is not breaking anything. Hakuriasmu kathiasmu.

01:49:08

My Lord and my God. Thomas identifies

01:49:14

Jesus as his kurias, yes, but as his theos.

01:49:22

My Lord and my God. Now if Jesus is what people keep telling us, you know, just a great teacher, moral teacher, whatever.

01:49:32

Then what he, the next sentence should be, and Jesus rebuked Thomas and said,

01:49:37

I am but Michael the archangel. I am but a moral teacher, whatever. Jesus says, auto, to him, to Thomas, because you have seen me, have you believed?

01:49:55

There's the verbal form of kistos. Because you've seen me, have you believed?

01:50:02

Blessed are those who having not seen, that's not on the screen, but have believed. No rebuke.

01:50:11

There is perfect acceptance on Jesus' part of the description of Thomas, of Jesus as his

01:50:20

Lord and his God. Now we've seen, Jesus is not the father. He is clearly differentiated from the father.

01:50:29

He says in his high priestly prayer in John 17 5, father glorify me with the glory which

01:50:34

I had in your presence before the world was. There is a clear recognition on the part of the

01:50:42

New Testament, John 14, John 17, clear distinction between father, son, and Holy Spirit.

01:50:49

How will Jesus come and make his abode in his believers according to John chapter 14, but by the

01:50:56

Spirit. The father and the son will make their abode with them by the

01:51:02

Spirit. There's no confusion of the persons, but there is no question.

01:51:09

None. John is presenting to us the fact that Jesus was the one seen by Isaiah.

01:51:19

Jesus, the logos, is the monogamous theos and monogamous quios.

01:51:26

He is both. And it was Jesus who said, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

01:51:35

A lesser Jesus cannot save you. A lesser Jesus can not save you.

01:51:44

That's the importance of understanding. Now let's circle, what's the term now? Circle back? Is that the new circle?

01:51:50

Yes, we've got a circle. Not here? Not allowed? We don't do that here? Okay, Rich says we do not do that here.

01:51:56

Okay. Let's go back to why is this important? We've done a lot of grammar and language and background and Greek septuagint and all the rest of this stuff.

01:52:12

Jesus was promised by the Father that the

01:52:18

Father would give to him an inheritance of nations. And Jesus said, upon his resurrection and his ascension to heaven, go, because all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth.

01:52:40

If he is who he claimed to be, if there is an empty tomb in Jerusalem, then every philosopher, every legal scholar, every military leader, every president, every king must recognize that he will someday stand before this one who rose from the dead.

01:53:05

And the church has been called to disciple the nation. And it is our responsibility to tell the nations,

01:53:16

Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. And he will judge judge by his law, his law.

01:53:33

See how it's important? There is a day coming. There's a day right now.

01:53:40

There is a, you know, we were so thankful to see Pastor Coates in his church on Sunday.

01:53:51

I made the mistake of following a tweet that a friend from up there tweeted from someone who's authority in the

01:53:59

Alberta area. These people hate Pastor Coates. They want that church destroyed.

01:54:06

They want it burned to the ground. They want every single person in that church in jail. The hatred of the world is astonishing.

01:54:14

That's what they want. Pastor Coates was in jail for a month. There are pastors in China that have already been in jail for years and will be for years more because they dared to tell the

01:54:31

Chinese communist government, you will be judged by Jesus Christ. And if Jesus Christ was simply a moral teacher, or if Jesus Christ was anything other than the

01:54:43

Lord of glory himself, then how can he be the one who will judge all people?

01:54:53

How can he be the Lord of glory? How can he be what the New Testament describes him as?

01:55:00

We have to accept all the Bible says, not just parts of it. And we have to be clear.

01:55:07

What gives the martyrs and the testifiers down through history the power to stand firm in the midst of that persecution, and yes, that imprisonment, is not that they're following a great moral teacher.

01:55:27

There have been people of other religions that did that, but they are following their very creator, the one that Isaiah saw sitting upon the throne, the one who was in the beginning with the

01:55:45

Father. That's why this is very important. So I hope this has been useful to you.

01:55:52

I hope it has helped you. I hope that especially those of you who deal with Jehovah's Witnesses and other groups like that will take the time to walk through this, make sure you're familiar with the information, be able to share it with others, and be able to share it not just simply in a mechanical way, but in a passionate way, in a way that connects together the beauty of all of this.