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And we're going to read the first 18 verses. It said, "...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him.
And apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In 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. And there came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
And he came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which was coming into the world and enlightens every man.
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came unto His own, and those in His own did not know Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, but not of blood, nor the will of flesh, but the will of God.
And the Word became flesh, and it dwelt among us. And we saw His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. And John testified about Him, and he cried out, This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is higher ranked than I, and He existed before me.
For of His fullness we have received grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses. But grace and truth were revealed or realized in some translation through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
The chapter is God becomes a man, or becomes human. This in redemptive history is probably the culmination, with the exception of the death, burial, and resurrection, the culmination of all the Old Testament.
This is what all the prophets prophesied about the coming of. So as we are going to do our line again, we have the garden. I'm going to put David here, because of the Davidic promise. And here we are, the promised Messiah.
The idea of God becoming a human being, was that fathomable to the Jewish people? Did they comprehend that? No, and why? That's right, they didn't see God as being transcendent, although they did see God as somehow dwelling among them, because it would be here where the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God, was recovered from what happened in the fall in the garden.
So Moses, under the Mosaic legislation, the dwelling place of God was there, but who could approach it? Only the priest. A high priest, actually, in the Holy of Holies. But that little perimeter, you have a little box here, where the Holy of Holies, you have the holy place here, and then you have the Holy of Holies here.
But right out here, who could come in this area? Only priest. That's it. So there was only one person that could enter the place of God, one time a year. And it was in that Holy of Holies. But when Jesus comes on the scene, what does it say here?
In John, it says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That points back to this. It points back to the fact that Moses said that God's going to dwell among His people, and He's going to be in the midst.
But not only is He going to be in the midst where it can be surrounded, now Jesus comes on the scene, and He's actually going to be God in human flesh, and He's going to be in the midst of His people doing His messianic work.
Now, the prologue of John, which we just read, makes some clear distinctions. It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. So do you see the distinctions been made between what? God and the Word.
So we know these are two different persons. And the Word was with God. So it's saying here that this Word that was in the beginning with God is dwelling with God. And all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing that came into being came into being.
Now, if we go down to verse 14, what does it say? It says, The Word became flesh. So now we know who this Word is that was in the beginning with God. Who is it? It's Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.
So now we know that this is going to define the Trinity. And I don't know if Luke remembers me doing this as a kid, but for him and Zach and Luke, I mean and Jake, the Trinity, let me just say, every analogy breaks down, okay?
So I just want you to know. God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Same circle? Is it the same circle? Is there a distinction? Don't talk about my lines. I know it's a little crooked there. See, the analogy breaks down.
Is that the same circle? Yes. Are there three circles on that circle? Yes. But it's still the same circle. What's the distinction between the three circles? Color. But they are the same circle. Now, I know the analogy can break down because mine's crooked, but the idea is it's the same circle with distinction between the colors.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the Godhead. Jesus is God in human flesh. Is there any attributes of Jesus? It's an intricate question. It's a sincere one. Is there any attributes of Jesus that the Father does not have?
Flesh. God is Spirit. Has anybody seen God at any time? Yes? But He's part of the Godhead. So what is Jesus? He is God. But He is the exact representation of the expressed God. If you go to Hebrews, that's what it says.
It says He is the exact representation of this. And that's why when Philip, on the night in which Jesus was betrayed, he says, well, will you show us the Father? And he said, Philip, you know, how long have I been with you?
Do you not know if you've seen me, you've seen the Father? That's what he is saying. Same? Yep. Different? Yes. God the Father is Spirit. Jesus becomes man. Jesus becoming flesh does not mean that Jesus was created.
That's more so for the children. Jesus was not a created being. Jesus became flesh in time and space on our line of redemption. He existed in eternity past. But this will be the first time that God becomes something that He was not.
And that's flesh. And it's very important. Because what happens in the line of redemption is under the Mosaic legislation, what did God say? All of this must be fulfilled, or man is accursed. So Jesus Christ comes onto the scene to fulfill the just demands of God's law.
Understand? Not understand? Okay. That's why Jesus became a man. Jesus didn't come down on a time capsule and to be crucified. He had to fulfill the just demands of the law, and it had to be fulfilled in a man.
Because therefore, He could be the mediator between God and man. That's why Jesus is the God-man. Because He is fully God, but fully man. Do I understand that? No, I don't. And if anybody says that they understand the full deity of Christ and the full humanity of Him to its fullest extent, they're lying.
Because there's nothing in this finite mind that the infinite God would fit. Now, we try to explain that in such a way that we understand it. Sure. Just like there's nothing that the Trinity fits in with in our mind.
Because we think of three persons, we think of three different individuals, which they are, but they're the same. That's why any time you try to explain the Trinity, you have to be very careful that you don't step off into modalism.
Correct, Andy?
Good. And I was also thinking, as we've been putting out this, in the fullness of time, to me, it helps me understand the framework of the Bible. Because, again, that's what we've been trying to look at.
How it all fits together. And if you think about it, in the fullness of time. So all those other things, in a sense, were preparations for that fullness of time when God would become a human being.
Yeah, because it actually says in that passage, I think it's in Galatians 4, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman. Born under what? The law. So that He could do what? He could redeem those who were under the curse of the law.
What was the curse of the law? Anybody remember what the curse of the law was? Death. The law could never give life. That was the problem with the Pharisees. They thought that if they did enough of the law, that they would be righteous.
And it didn't. And even Paul says in Romans 7, Hey, I didn't even know that I was covenanting until the law told me. And then when the law told me I covenanted, I was dead. Paul knew he was dead. So the law never had the ability to give life.
It only had the ability to give death. And if you don't understand that part of it, all you've got to do is look at the sacrificial system. The sacrificial system was the just demands of the law being extinguished on loss of life.
What's that? That's in Hebrews. Go ahead, I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say he did those things in Hebrews. Oh, Paul did. Yes, he did. He was talking about when he did what he did, going out and dragging off the Christians into slavery, putting them into prisons.
What he did, he did with zeal, and he did it in ignorance, thinking that what he did was right. Yeah, Paul thought what he was doing was right, but it was wrong. There's a way that seems right in a man, but in the end it leads to death.
The law could lead you to life. The law is to point us. Could lead you to life. That's the purpose of the law. Patagogos. That's the word that's actually used. Some translations say schoolmaster or teacher.
Those are really not good translations of that word because when I think about teacher or schoolmaster, I think about Mrs. Johnson in second grade with her hair all up looking crazy and her little beady eyes and her glasses cracking her ruler for us to pay attention.
That's not what it is. The schoolmaster, the word that's there is patagogos, which means basically corrections officer, and in history the patagogos was the slave within the house that carried the birch switch that if you did something wrong, crack.
That's what it is. So the law is to go, oh, you're out of line, whack. Go that way. It's supposed to point us to Christ. You're right. It's correct. It's the schoolmaster to point us to Christ. So Christ comes on the scene.
He becomes flesh. Andy, our red marker is forever trinitized. It has black and green in it. This lists some attributes of Jesus. That's a loaded question. We'll answer that. Sometimes. Yes. Did Jesus come into the world as a baby, nursing on Mary's breast, knowing everything there was?
He learned. The Scripture says He learned. But was He part of the omniscient God? Yes, He was. But in time and space, Jesus, the Son of the living God, God in human flesh, gave up the prerogatives of deity to become a man.
That's what He did. Hebrews says that He was tempted in all ways, just like you and I, yet without sin. I, that is absolutely unfathomable to me, is that He was tempted in all ways like me. One, all of my sin, temptations come from where?
My wicked heart. I've said this probably, if I've said it once a hundred times, Jesus was never tempted to ride His motorcycle with my wife on the back at 140 miles an hour by a police officer running the radar.
He was never tempted to do that. So when I think of Jesus being tempted in all... I did that. Yeah, and to watch them go. And to think that He was still tempted in all points. Yes, was He tempted with lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and the pride of life?
Yes, He was. And did Jesus overcome those temptations? Yes. Were they real temptations? Yes. Do I understand how they weren't from within? So I don't understand all facets of this temptation, but they were real.
Him being undefiled, they could have been certainly more pressing, but He was tempted in all ways just like us. But He was not omniscient when He came into the world. He learned under the grace and knowledge of the Lord under God.
It says, even if you remember when they went back to Jerusalem to find Him when He was 12 years old, what did it say He did at that point? They come in and say, hey, where have you been? He's like, I've been here doing my father's business.
And what did it say? It says that He then submitted Himself to His parents. And that's the last time. That's the only time we see from His birth, I mean from His circumcision until He was 12, and we don't hear anything about Jesus from 12 until He's 30.
So we assume, Scriptures tell us, that He would have been under the authority of His parents, taking care of Mary. So, is He omniscient? He is now as a resurrected God-man. Yes. Did He know all things in His humanity?
No. He learned them in time and space. What else do we know about Jesus? Yes, sir. I thought, I just want to make sure, did I say prerogatives of deity, or did I say He gave up His deity? Okay. Okay, I just want to make sure, I was like, uh-oh.
I'm a heretic. There's so many people that either go to one side... Yes, sir. ...or go completely to the other side, and as the chapter God became a human being, the deity or the humanity, that those two natures were distinct, and yet they were in that one person?
Yes. A lot of people get messed up, right?
Yes. Alright, it's called the hypostatic union, just the technical term, and Andy says all these big words, that's how I learned it. So, hypostatic union. And this was... Lee, I know you know this, obviously.
This was something that Jesus gave up when He came into the world. He gave up His omniscience in the sense, the prerogative of knowing everything so that He could learn what it was like to be a man. Look, when Jesus was...
When He was... Before He became flesh, did He get hungry? No. Do we see Him in the Old Testament eating? In His pre-incarnate state? Yeah, we do with Abraham. Okay? But that was just a part of communing.
Did Jesus in His pre-incarnate state, did He get tired and go, check this out, I'm going to go lay down in the bottom of this boat and get some rest? No. But He did in His humanity when He come into the world, subjected Himself to the flesh, which gets hungry, it gets tired, it gets weary.
Take Him to the cross, it bleeds. He cried. He cried. He wept.
He sighed. Yes, He did. And yet, He stilled the wind. What's that? And yet, He stilled the wind. Yes, He did. So He's sleeping in the boat. They get all twisted up. And He says, He's stilled, in that sense, again, it has to be that distinct and not get them, not cross wires.
Yeah, and that's an interesting passage that here He is, He is sleeping in the bottom of the boat on a pillow. The tempest is throwing the boat all over the place. These guys thinking they're going to die and Jesus is just snoring like a baby.
And they wake Him up and He just gets up and says, pssh, stop. Going about His business. But in my mind, I go, God blew up the storm, created the storm to scare the disciples so that Jesus could display His deity.
Because what did they say? Oh, just a normal man can't do this. This is the Son of God that did this. Who can tell the wind to stop? Only God. That was funny. He said, you don't have to pay the tax either, but we're going to.
He said, we don't have to do this, but we're going to. He said, we don't have to pay this tax, but we're going to. And I'm going to provide it through the mouth of a fish. So once again, like Andy said, you have His humanity and His deity working together.
What are some other attributes of Jesus? What are some attributes that the prerogative of He laid aside? Yes, it is. How was Jesus obedient? I think we missed this through the power of the Spirit. Jesus' obedience in His messianic work was done through the power of the Spirit.
The Spirit descended on Him at the time He was baptized and prepared Him for the messianic work. What was the immediate thing He did after He was baptized? Where did He go? Into the desert to be tempted.
How was Jesus able to overcome the temptations as a man in the wilderness? Through the power of the Spirit. Yeah, and the Word. That's right. Through the power of the Spirit and the Word. So Jesus' obedience can't be disconnected through the power of the Spirit nor can it be disconnected from God.
What else did Jesus... His attributes? He at times gave up this. He gave up the prerogative of putting this on display at all times. One of the passages where He gives up the prerogative of His omnipotent power is in the garden.
And when the garden comes, and I probably shouldn't say this because it's an illustration in my sermon today, but they come to get Him. And Peter takes the sword. He tries to whack off Malchus' head and catches his ear.
And what does Jesus say? Don't you know that I could dispatch 12 ,000 angels and just take all this away? But He didn't. All powerful. All powerful. But He gave up this prerogative to be like human flesh to deal with the toils and the curse of sin, but yet Him not be a sinner.
Look, Jesus got tired because of the fall. Jesus got hungry because of the fall. So He gave up these two as its prerogative. What else? Perfect love. Perfect love. Perfect love. Love incarnate. Jesus Christ.
How did He display that perfect love? No greater love than this, than a man lay down his life. Hey, if anybody ever tells you that Jesus loved everybody the same, they're a liar. He says, know what? Greater love.
Greater. That means there's a greater love and a lesser love. I'm not saying Jesus didn't love everybody, but He certainly didn't love them the same. Because He says, hey, no greater love than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
And what does He say right after that? And to you, I'll call you friend. And it was in the upper room discourse at that point that He said that. And then He was fixed to be betrayed and to be led off to a cross hours later.
What else? I think that all the things, prerogatives that Jesus laid down, He laid down this, that, and all He could have done, but that He didn't do, is really an illustration not only of His obedience, but His love.
Because He could have said, I'm not doing this anymore, this is ridiculous, you know, what He had to put up with. But He stayed the course and we can always look to that. It's because He was this.
He was submitted. Probably can't see that, can y 'all? I've already got out. Do you need black? Can't see it? We trust you. We want to verify. Submission. Who was He submitted to? Do I need bigger? Good?
Submission. Jesus being deity, did this make Him, because this can lead into heresy if you're not careful, did this make Him inferior to the Father? No. Explain. Explain. I agree with you.
And yet, God the Father has given Him, He has given Him a mission, He's given Him the job to come and to save a people unto Himself, to lay down His life for those who, we hated Him.
So your question was? That's right. He was submitted, not inferior, because God, okay, God decreed that He would save sinners. Who's going to execute that decree? Jesus. He's going to be the executor, basically, the one who's going to carry out that, like you said, mission, and I do like that word, because it was a mission.
He had to come and accomplish. So, Jesus, it comes and does, you spell Jesus, Jesus does what the Father tells Him to do. When? Always. Always. Always, always, always. Yes, sir. So, I think part of it is, we look at submission,.
We look at submission, hey, submission doesn't always mean anything. Think about it, it's a willful, it's a willful, again, I think we struggle because, again, if you say to someone, you're going to submit to me,.
Usually, that makes people's heads stand up. Kind of like a husband and wife. Kind of like a husband and wife. Yeah. But hey, I'll say this, just in mine and Andy's relationship, me and Andy both, and Keith all work together, there's no, there's no head elder.
But Andy will attest to this. Andy, how many times do I say, do whatever you want me to do, I'll do it for you? He says never. No, I'm kidding. No, hey, just, if you need me to do something, just tell me what I need to do for you and I'll do it.
Just tell me what it is. Well, it's not, it doesn't make Andy, me inferior to Andy. My love for Andy, I just want to please him and make him, hey man, if it'll help you out, then that's what I'm going to do.
Now, that would be a negative. So, need to remember that submission does not mean inferiority. It does not. In the Godhead, God sent the Son, Jesus Christ. When Jesus ascends to the Father after the resurrection, who does He send in His place?
And here's the reason why I think we forget. They're sitting in the upper room, I think it's in 14 .7, 14 .6, the upper room, and He says, hey, it's, I got to go. I got to get away from here. I got to get away.
I got to go back. And they're going, well, wait a minute. And Jesus says, you don't get it. It's to your advantage that I go. And He says advantage. Imagine this. You've been with this man for three, three and a half years.
You didn't have to run, you didn't have to worry about where your tax money was coming from because He'd tell you to go get a lot of fish. You didn't have to worry about where your food was coming from because either He'd create it out of five loaves and two fishes, or He'd say, hey, just cast the net over to the other side and you'd drag in three, four hundred fish.
You didn't have to worry about the storm on the Sea of Galilee killing because Jesus would just go out there and go, shh, and it'd stop. Or when you were scared, you'd go, oh no, how are we going to get this?
And here comes Jesus walking on the water and then all of a sudden this man who has provided everything for them for three and a half years goes, it's to your advantage that I go. They were dumbfounded.
And you and I would be too because what did He say? I'm sending someone just like me, but different. Just like me. Jesus in His corpus, meaning His body. Can He be with every one of us in His body? No.
He can't. Jesus is not able to duplicate Himself with billions of Christians across the world. In His corpus, understand what I'm saying, in His body, in His flesh and bone. So what does He do? He sends forth the Spirit because the Spirit can do what?
It can dwell in everyone. Therefore, when it talks about the Spirit of Christ, that's what's dwelling within us. Sometimes we struggle with going, okay, is Jesus ascended to the Father? Yes. Is He sitting at the right hand of the Father?
Yeah. Was He sitting there in His body? Well, yes! Jesus is sitting there in His flesh and bone to the right hand of the Father. That is where He's at and He's seated and He's ever waiting for the return to gather His people together.
That's where He's at. Now, how do we experience Christ? It's through the power of the Spirit. That's why I was to His advantage. I have to go. If I don't go, the Comforter or the Holy Spirit or the Paracletos is actually what it's called in the Greek, it won't come.
So He has to go. And they did not understand that until it came on the day of Pentecost and they started speaking in tongues and tongues of fire and all that stuff and they were filled with the power of the Spirit.
They were no longer hiding in fear. They were filled with the boldness and the power of the Spirit to go out and preach the Gospel. They knew then that it was their advantage that Jesus go away. So submission, Jesus' submission to the Father doesn't make Him subordinate.
And the people that come knock on your door on Saturday mornings sometimes, they still ride around on bicycles and stuff, they will say that Jesus is subordinate to the Father and that is not true. He submitted Himself to the will of the Father to carry out the purpose by which He came.
He is not inferior. He is not a created being. Jesus became flesh. Yes, did Jesus have a beginning in the sense of time and space of flesh? Yep, sure did. And it was in His humanity but not in His deity.
Riots or demonstrations? Disagreements? Andy, comments? No, I was just thinking when you said that how in a sense becoming, God becoming flesh, He submitted Himself to time and space which if you think about it as an attribute of God is that He is eternal and yet Jesus put Himself in that position because He aged, right?
Yep. Older. So He subjected Himself willingly to time and space which is mind-boggling to me that He would willfully put Himself in that position.
I believe that was part of His suffering. My personal, you know, as Ms. Anne said, you know, you think about from our perspective, Jesus is going, you know what man, this is ridiculous. I'm done. And our understanding because that's how we would be.
We would be frustrated because we would go, you know what, I can do all things. Why am I doing this? It's long suffering. Very long suffering. Very long suffering. He's long, long suffering because He didn't have to do it in the sense of He was not forced.
Jesus was not forced against His will to do it. He did it willingly. And He did it for the salvation of His people. And understanding that Jesus' suffering did not begin at the night He was betrayed. His suffering began the day He was burst into the world and laid into that manger.
That is the time of His humility. It was 33 years of humility. Now it culminated in the passion of the Passion Week and on the cross. But Jesus was subjected to humiliation His entire life. And He did that willingly for the glory of the Father and the redemption of His people.
Any other questions? His royalty? Yeah. I agree with that. But remember there is a difference of how His kingship was once He was resurrected. He had not yet received His kingdom. I understand what you're saying.
But we need to make the distinction that Jesus did not receive a kingdom of king of kings and Lord of lords until after His glorified body. Yes. Was He royalty? Was He king of glory? Yes. But He did not receive a kingdom until Jesus was resurrected.
I think it's in Daniel 9 where we see that, where we have the resurrection. Let's go to that passage real quick. I think it's in chapter 9. The Ancient of Days. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's 7. Chapter 7, yep.
He says, I kept looking until thrones were set upon and the Ancient of Days took His seat. His vesture was like white as snow. His hair on His head was as pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames.
His wheels were like a burning fire. In a river, a fire was flowing. Coming out from Him were thousands upon thousands that were attending Him. Myriads upon myriads were standing before Him and the courts sat and the books were open.
And I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which were being spoken. And I looked and kept looking until the beast was slain and its body was destroyed. And it was given to be burned with fire.
And as the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away, but the extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. And I was looking. And the night vision, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, was one like the Son of Man who was coming.
And He came up to the Ancient of Days. So here it is. The picture of Christ coming up to who? God the Father. The Ancient of Days is God on His throne. And He was presented before Him. And to Him was given a dominion and glory and kingdom that all peoples, nations of men from every nation, tribe, and tongue might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away. And His kingdom, which shall never be destroyed. That was after the resurrection. Why? The plain direction in which Jesus was going. Was He coming down or was He going up?
He was going up. It said He went up to the Ancient of Days. So yes, did He give up His royalty as a king, as being King of Glory? Yes, ma 'am, He did. And then once He was resurrected as the glorified God-Man, He became King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And one day He will descend with power and glory and He will judge the living and the dead. And when He comes, He will be in a robe drenched with the blood of His enemies and on His leg will be tattooed King of Kings, Lord of Lords.
And in His eyes will be that of fire. And out of His mouth will come a sword, which is the word of the Lord. You want to start preaching? You want to pray us out of here? You don't mind, do you? Good.