The Word of Life

Thank you for remaining standing and turn to the first epistle of

John.

1st John and.

Chapter 1 this is God's

holy and infallible word.

That which was from the beginning.

Which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes.

Which we have looked upon and our hands have handled.

Concerning the word of life the life was Manifested and we have

seen and bear witness and declare to you.

That eternal life with which was with the father and was manifested to us.

That which we have seen and heard we declare to you.

That you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship

is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ and These things we

write to you that your joy may be full.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him

is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness We

lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light We have fellowship with one another and the blood of

Jesus Christ his son Cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin We deceive ourselves and the truth

is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us

from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar

and his word is not in us.

The Lord be pleased with our Consideration of his word.

Please pray with me.

Oh Lord Jesus we Ascribe majesty to your holy name

for you are the eternal word of God.

Come in the flesh.

We thank you Oh Lord that you have procured and secured our salvation.

You have crushed the enemies of sin and death and Satan and you have made

us your people alive.

And in this we rejoice Lord I pray that you would allow our

hearts to soar heavenward with holy affections when we consider

Who Christ is?

We ask Holy Spirit that you would supply both light and heat and we ask all

this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

I'm excited to start a new book with you and over the next several weeks

I of preaching it I will be supplying more introductory and thematic

Information today.

We're going to jump right into it.

There's two things that I want to point out to you.

The first is this When we read just now in first John chapter

1. I want you to look again at verse 4.

We're not going to be preaching on verse 4 today.

But we see a clear purpose in John's writing here in

chapter 1.

He's writing these things that our joy might be full.

Now that's encouraging to me because I want to experience the fullness of joy.

I think you do too and a great overarching theme within John is

assurance of salvation if you or someone you know Has struggled with assurance of

salvation in Christ?

First John is a tremendous antidote to that fear.

John so characteristically seems to be completely

engulfed entrenched and enamored with the

eternality of Christ and in this Beginning part

of chapter 1 we have a message that sounds a lot like his gospel in

the first chapter in the prologue to the gospel of John.

He's going to argue here that that Jesus Christ is the eternal

Son of God the eternal word the the embodiment the personification

of divine wisdom.

And this is going to be needful because of the error that resides

within the first thing I'd like us to do is I'd like us to take up the hymnal and

turn to page 846.

I'd like us together as part of the sermon to recite the

second Paragraph the larger section of the Nicene Creed.

This is going to serve us well when we consider Who Christ is?

The.

Christological controversies of the early church have their root here

in first John.

There are those who would deny that Jesus Christ would come in the flesh.

The denial of Jesus Christ coming in the flesh means there can be no

salvation.

If.

Christ the Living God the second person of the Trinity does not come in the flesh.

We would not be saved.

So John is very eager to to quench out this error and the Nicene Creed is going

to help us Articulate the person of Christ.

Let's read it together as a congregation beginning with and and in

one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God begotten

of his father before all worlds God of God light of light very

God of very God begotten not made being of one substance with the

Father by whom all things were made.

Our salvation.

Came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary

and was made man.

Was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate

rose again according to the scriptures.

Sended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father and he shall come again

with glory.

Judge both the living and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end.

Thank you.

Would you look and turn over to chapter 2?

I'm going to identify the error.

That John seems to be writing again, at least in the first part of the epistle look

at verse 18 and following this is why I believe he starts His

epistle in much the same way that he starts his gospel.

It says Little children.

It is the last hour and as you have heard that the Antichrist

is coming.

Even now many Antichrists have come by which we know that it is the last

hour.

They went out from us.

But they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that they might be made manifest.

That none of them were of us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things.

I Have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you

know it and There is no lie.

That no lie is of the truth.

Who is a liar?

But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ.

He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.

He who acknowledges the Son.

Has the Father also?

To deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

Maybe hearkening back in hopes of a an Old Testament Judaism.

John says that you don't know the Father.

The Jews today who claim to know the God of Abraham do not know the God of

Abraham if they do not know the Son.

The great challenge in every generation is for us to get Christ right

to have a biblically informed and defined doctrine of

Christ.

Let's look at it again beginning at verse 1.

It says that which was from the beginning.

Children, I want you many of you may have learned this.

It came to my mind a couple of days ago.

When you're learning numbers, they sometimes teach you about the number line.

Have you seen that?

Do you remember that parents?

And it has arrows going in both directions the

beginning in the beginning and providentially today.

We were reading in Genesis chapter 1 that could be the first dot on the number line.

But there's an arrow pointing in the other direction.

And in the middle of that number line there could be another dot and that would be the arrival the

Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That would be the dot in the middle and the third dot Would be the dot of the

last day the great judgment the last day of the world as we know it.

And the consummation of Christ's kingdom and there's an arrow going beyond it.

The straight number line has two arrows and what John is saying here very clearly is

before the first dot.

Before when Jameson read Genesis 1 1 before there was a Genesis 1 1 there was

an eternal word of God the second person of the Trinity the Lord Jesus

Christ that

Divine Lagos, which was from the beginning and here's the part that is so startling.

John says.

We the Apostles the early disciples the early followers of Christ.

We have heard his voice.

We have seen him with our own eyes.

We.

Have looked upon him our hands have laid hold of him and and handled him

the divine Lagos the the truth

Has been revealed in the person of Christ.

I'd like you to turn back with me to John's gospel.

In John chapter 1.

Another side observation, I think it's Interesting that John is

so taken with Christ in his

Divinity a big theme in his gospel, but also in his

eternality in the past.

When the Sun was shining as Jameson read chapter 1 and the night is falling

There is the accounting of what we understand to be time.

And before there was time as we know it there was a a second

person of the Trinity himself very God of very God begotten

not made.

It says in his gospel beginning at verse 1.

In the beginning was the word

the Lagos and The word the Lagos was with God and

Here's the startling revelation and.

The word the Lagos was God.

He was in the beginning with God all

things were made through him.

Without him nothing was made.

That was made.

We often think about that creation account of being about God the Father and maybe

the Spirit.

But we forget that Jesus Was an agent the agent of creation.

I Want you to contemplate that for a moment?

The Divine Word of God

Existing in eternity past.

The one whom we read about in John's gospel and epistle.

This one this second person of the Trinity He was present and

he is the agent the operator when it comes to creation

This one is going to rescue his creatures from their soul

death.

He's going to come in the flesh to make them right with God.

It's absolutely amazing to consider What Christ has done?

The great sculptor the great fabricator the great maker comes to

retrieve and rescue his creation from Destruction.

In our text the idea of word and life are so Strongly linked and this is

consistent in.

In John's gospel it says in verse 4.

And him was life and the life was the light of men

and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not

comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

This man came for a witness To bear witness of the light that all through him might

believe.

He was not that light But was sent to bear witness of that light.

This was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

I want you to pause here.

He was in the world and the world was made through

him and the world did not know him.

He came to his own and his own did not receive him.

This refers to of course Israel.

But as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of

God.

To those who believe in his name who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will

of man.

But of God.

John continues.

And the word became flesh And dwelt among us

and we beheld his glory.

The glory is of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and.

Truth.

John bore witness of him and cried out saying this was he of whom I said he who comes after me is

preferred before me for he was Before me.

And of his fullness we have all Received.

And grace for grace for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through

Jesus Christ.

No one has seen God at any time.

The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father

Has declared him.

Now let's go back to our text.

And first John

we cannot be.

Unmoved.

About these things John says this

idea the reason the divine

wisdom the divine truth is not an ethereal

concept.

But is.

Corporeal Truth and wisdom and

divinity and humanity reside in one person

the Lord Jesus Christ.

Invariably the question about what the word means Has to be

answered the last half of last part of verse 1 of 1st John.

The word.

The logos Makes salvation possible.

If there is no divine word if there's no incarnate word as I stated at the outset there

can be no salvation.

To deny that Jesus comes in the flesh Or to deny that he is

himself divine removes the possibility of a person's

salvation.

He must be divine.

He must be human.

He must come in the flesh or we are still in our sins.

The father and the son are Inseparable.

They are one God not two.

One is not lower or lesser than the other.

The son is not a creation of the father But has always existed

with the father and is co -equal with him.

Children, I Want you to imagine and understand and lay hold of.

There was no time When he was not.

We think about Jesus coming in the middle of that timeline that dot in the middle in the incarnation.

But he exists on the other side of the arrow.

On both sides of the arrow.

Before he came in the flesh.

He was still the eternal word.

He was still the second person of the Trinity John

and his great wisdom teaches us That the divine wisdom

the divine truth the word the logos.

Has.

Come in the flesh logos appears about

330 times in the New Testament and

It's a concept word in the Bible, which is symbolic of the nature and function

of Jesus Christ.

And it's also used to refer to the revelation of God in the world.

But usually in its ordinary sense, it's translated word or speech or

utterance or message.

But I'm here today to tell you that divine truth divine wisdom

terminates in the person of Jesus Christ.

We can esteem the philosophers and all their contributions.

We can listen to guys on the podcast today who aren't Christian who affirm

masculinity or something like that, but until we acknowledge the

source and origin the Revealer of truth to be Jesus Christ.

We lack wisdom divine truth and wisdom.

Find their resolution.

They find their source.

They find their origin in the person of Jesus Christ.

It's not merely Ethereal, it's not wispy.

It's not airy.

It's not floating in the atmosphere amongst the nebula.

Truth resides in a person the Lord Jesus

Christ.

The truth is tangible.

The the truth is Holdable.

The truth is Accessible.

God in his great love for us has brought the truth to bear in the person of

Jesus Christ.

The word the eternal word has an entire book written about him.

The truth of the revelation of the canon of Scripture is the articulation of the

person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You remember his discussion with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Beginning at Moses.

He taught them all the ways in which the scripture was

about him and reveals him.

The word is Used in this way that God speaks the creation into existence.

It's very interesting because this speech this divine logos Is identified as

a person.

Jesus is the creator.

Jesus is the Redeemer.

The whole world belongs to him for everything Consists and finds their value and connection

to him.

He holds it all together.

How could we reject?

His incarnation.

How could we reject his divinity?

Well.

The logos and its standard meaning Designates very simply a

word a speech The act of speaking its

reference there in Acts chapter 7 with Stephen and his speech.

In the second instance logos and its special meaning there's a standard meaning a word a

speech the act of speaking.

And There's a secondary more special meaning it refers to

special revelation Of God to his people.

The divine logos is God's special revelation to his people.

But here and in John's gospel, we find the third and most unique meeting.

And it's really confined to these two sections of scripture with an illusion again in John in

revelation 19.

Logos in its most unique and perfect sense personifies the

revelation of God as Jesus the Messiah.

You and I.

There's probably no New testament subject that is more controversial than

What does the logos mean?

We can be enamored with the idea of the logos.

But we have to get the message that John is conveying to us.

We need to be enamored not with the varied uses of the logos.

But we need to be enamored with the person The word himself the Lord Jesus Christ

that needs to be what captivates our greatest interest.

John says I know him

I've heard him I've seen him with My own eyes

I've looked upon him My hands have handled and touched him.

This is the word of life.

This chapter introduces again the idea that Jesus is.

The word.

The word that existed prior to creation The word that only

exists in connection with God the the word that is himself God and the word that became

human by putting on flesh And dwelt among us

And who possessed a glory that can only be described As the glory of

God.

John is an interesting figure.

He is the youngest of the disciples.

He seems to be the one who was in closest proximity to Jesus

Relationally, and I think he followed him around very closely.

He's present to see a lot of miraculous things in the life of Jesus.

But but what's most striking to me is on the day of crucifixion John

himself stood at the foot of the cross.

And Jesus commanded him to look after his mother mary and john Is an

eyewitness not only to the ministry and life of Jesus But the

crucifixion.

The other disciples aren't there but but john is there.

He's the first of the disciples.

You'll remember from the easter season.

He's the first of the disciples to see the empty tomb.

It seems fitting that he would be the one to receive the apocalyptic vision of the end of all

things in revelation.

John is consumed with the idea of the eternality of the son of

god the divine nature of christ, which is perfectly united to his human

nature and the hypostatic union existing Not as a bifurcated person, but one

person who is fully god and fully man And the only

possible Source of life in

revelation 19 the returning messiah again authored penned by

John is called the word of god

In reference to both his person and work As the one who has been long

awaited and revealed.

And also the one who is the revealer.

The one who makes himself known christ shows us the

father he allows us to peer into the godhead he himself Is

the revelation of history?

He's the the great subject matter of the holy scriptures.

He is the one who holds it all together.

It all belongs to him and he's also the one who reveals.

The truth.

In the septuagint the greek translation of the old testament

It's regularly used this word logos to specify the

word of the lord.

Places like isaiah 1 10.

And this of course relates to the special proclamation of god in the world.

It refers broadly to the dynamic active communication of god's purpose and plan

to his people.

What we may be most interesting is.

And in the old testament, there's not a direct personification Of the logos the closest

approximation we get to it is found in proverbs 8.

Where wisdom is personified?

This of course leads some to believe this is a precursor to the unique technical use

of logos and john's new testament writings.

I like to see continuity between the old covenant and the new.

But oh the rapturous delight Of the revelation of the

word of god bursting onto the scene in the incarnation.

The.

Jewish mind cannot conceive in its natural sense of god and man in one person.

It causes their heads to spin.

But at that time the centerpiece of human history Jesus christ comes in

the flesh born of a virgin.

Lives a sinless life perishes on the cross bearing your guilt and shame.

He rises again on the third day.

He's seen by many witnesses and 40 days later. He ascends to the father on high

Returning to his throne in his home.

We've thought too little of the word of life.

We've thought too little of The eternal logos

of god.

Much of what john says about the logos Was

found in the jewish literature about Divine wisdom, this would be extra biblical

literature.

The idea of a person of personified wisdom Was

beginning to circulate more frequently in anticipation, I believe.

Of the arrival of jesus christ the word of the lord.

D .a. Carson said God's word logos

in the old testament Is his powerful self -expression and

creation? revelation and salvation.

And the personification of that word Makes it suitable for him to

apply it as a title to god's ultimate self -disclosure.

The person of his own.

Son brethren.

The gospel is a person It's christ.

The good news isn't that there's just salvation in the world.

The good news is there's salvation in christ.

In christ alone.

Truth is not floating in the air like ether.

It's corporeal it's bodily it's personal it dwells and resides

and And finds its terminus in christ.

Jesus Who himself is the only

way? of salvation.

The source the author the creator the the substance of truth

Is also the word Of life.

Let's look at the last part of verse two of first john.

The life was manifested.

Jesus christ has been revealed.

John again Affirms it with great credibility.

His witness his testimony.

We have seen we bear witness.

And declare to you that eternal life Which was with the father

Was manifested to us.

That which we have seen and heard.

We declare to you That you may have fellowship with us.

And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son

Jesus christ.

And these things we write to you that your

joy May be full

christian today.

Are you properly Reveling and rejoicing That

you have been united to the word.

Are you looking for truth out there?

Somewhere other than the person of christ.

Everything else is a delusion.

The lord has created an orderly world.

The enemies of god want to believe lies and propagate and promote them.

He created men and women male and female think of the perversions of that idea.

He says there is no salvation To be found apart for himself.

And the humanist manifesto says there is no god who can save us.

We must save ourselves.

The battle lines are clearly drawn.

And it's black and it's white.

It's right or it's wrong.

It's the truth the way the life in christ and everything else

John is going to teach us That we have assurance of god's love

because we've been united To the word himself.

Is there a more compelling drama in the universe.

And the creator himself comes and rescues his creation for a certain

death.

That the divine husband rejoices to Recover his

wayward wife and to bring her in to draw her to himself.

This is how john starts his first epistle.

Today I ask you are you filled with joy knowing christ you ought to be.

May the lord be pleased to have john help us Achieve that end.

Let's pray together.

Oh lord, we again acknowledge your

preeminence over all things.

You are.

The divine word the word made flesh.

Oh lord, we thank you for Revealing yourself to us

bringing us in.

We pray now.

Oh lord that that we would see this concept Of your incarnation your flesh and

your blood and and all of the implications as we approach the table.

And that this will be glorifying.

To you we ask this all in jesus name.

Amen.

To leave you with A word from the book of hebrews.

I want you to think about these points in history.

There's going there's a speaking the world into existence.

There's a a last day.

Declaration the arrival of the king.

Hebrews 1 says god who at various times In various ways spoke in

time passed by the prophets.

Has in these last days spoken to us By his son

whom he appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds.

Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things

by the word of his power?

When he had by himself purged our sins.

Sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Hallelujah amen.