Sunday Morning Sermon, 7/27/08, PRBC

The Glory of Christ and the Doctrine of the Trinity

Bibles please, and turn with me to the Gospel according to John, John chapter 1. The Gospel according to John, John chapter 1. In the name of the Lord the Lord, let us once again pray for God's blessing.

Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we now beseech you to be with us by your Spirit. May you be honored in the proclamation of your word, and may we be an obedient people. Very quick to hear, quick to understand.

We thank you for this time. We thank you for your love towards us and the great message of your word. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. It was well over a decade ago that I stood in this pulpit and I preached a sermon from the book of Revelation.

Now, at that time I remember joking during the course of the sermon that we might have to look in the index to find the book of Revelation because it was so unusual to preach from it. Since then, of course, Pastor Fry has preached all the way through the book of Revelation so we all know where it is now.

But that evening I preached out of Revelation chapter 5 and the vision of the Lamb before the throne of God and how all of creation worships the Lamb with a sermon on the deity of Christ and presented Jesus Christ as God and as Lord.

Now, some of you who are new to our fellowship will not know the name Dave Crawford, but those of you who are old timers remember our elder who has gone to be with the Lord, Dave Crawford. And I remember it was right over here, right over in this section toward the wall where I normally sit, that after the sermon, Dave came up to me.

And if you didn't get to know Dave Crawford, you really missed meeting a saint of the Lord, a very soft-spoken man, never had good health or anything like that. But he came up to me after the sermon and he said, James, I really, really enjoyed that because I love to see Jesus glorified.

Because you know, I love Jesus. And those of you who remember Dave know how big a heart he had, even though his physical heart was never healthy. And he had tears in his eyes. He said, I love Jesus. And he loved to see Him glorified.

And I'll never forget that. I will never forget those, just those few words of encouragement from Brother Dave. Nor the text that I was preaching on. Because there is something in the Christian heart that loves to see Jesus glorified.

And it hurts us when we see Him disregarded, disrespected. It hurts us when we hear false teachings about Christ that robs Him of His glory, and robs Him of His right place as our Lord and our King. And so, as I have opportunity over the next couple of weeks, and then again a few months down the road when our pastor will be gone again for a period of time, I wanted to remind us of truths we already know, once again.

But to do so in light of the fact that there is such a general disregard for the glory of Christ in our day, and what calls itself the Church. You may notice in your bulletin, down toward the bottom, there is a basic definition of the Trinity printed there for you.

And I want to remind us once again of these words. What we believe about the nature of God. Within the one being that is God, there exists eternally three co-equal and co-eternal persons. Namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

If you want a longer discussion, see our confession. Chapter 2, section 3 is found in your hymnal if you want to look at that. That belief in what is called the Trinity, while it has historically marked the Christian faith, has fallen on hard times.

What I mean by that is, while many of the denominations today continue to at least externally confess this faith, the fact of the matter is, the only people who can take seriously the doctrine of the Trinity are those that have the highest view of the Bible as the Word of God.

If the Bible is not the Word of God, if it is not a revelation from God, there is no reason to believe in such things as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personhood and deity of the Holy Spirit, justification by faith, substitutionary atonement.

All of these things, sadly, in many churches in our land, are vestiges of a past day. A day when people believe that the Bible is the Word of God. They believe it is important that you believe everything that it teaches.

If you don't have the highest view of the Word of God, there is absolutely no reason to believe in these things any longer. And many in our day would present to us a Jesus who was a great teacher, a Jesus who was very kind and loving and told wonderful parables about trees and farm animals.

They'll present to us a Jesus who is very non-offensive, one who is not a threat to their autonomy, a threat to their simple lifestyles. And it's popular to talk about believing in Jesus. But we go against that trend.

We present a Jesus based upon Scripture. And we believe that this carpenter from Nazareth was truly a man. He truly existed. We can identify geographically where his ministry took place, where he was born, where he grew up.

We can identify historically who the Roman leaders were, who the leaders in Judea were. We actually claim that he was a true man. He ate food, he slept, he became tired. He was a true man. He wasn't just a phantom that appeared.

He was a true man. And yet we go beyond that. We confess that he was a prophet. We confess that he was the long-awaited Messiah, the Anointed One, prophesied in the Old Testament. But we go beyond that.

We confess that he was the very Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. He eternally existed in that relationship of Father and Son. He is not the Father. He is not the Spirit. We reject those who confuse the persons of the Trinity.

But we say that the eternal Son of God, the One who created all things, actually entered into human flesh as the person Jesus Christ. And we connect this to the entire Gospel itself. Without His perfect atonement, there is no forgiveness of sin.

And all still abide in the wrath of God. Now many would look at us and they would chuckle. Some would go so far as to say, so when are you going to get out the snakes? When are you going to start to do a little snake handling, a little poison drinking, a little dancing around the aisles?

That's for those types of people. Christianity has moved beyond all that. Well, I suggest to you that Christianity cannot move beyond its own definition for it ceases to be Christian. We need to know why we believe that Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God, the Creator of all things.

Because we must admit, it is an amazing statement to make, is it not? Think about what we're saying. We're saying the Creator Himself entered into His own creation. How absurd is that? We are saying that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

That you can't have true knowledge apart from recognizing who God is, who you are, and seeing that Jesus Christ is the one in whom all those treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. I'm not saying that people who are not Christians cannot have knowledge, but that knowledge will always be partial and perverted until they know themselves and their Creator.

We are actually saying that a man who lived and died under Pontius Pilate died in the most unimaginably horrible and disgusting way as one of the lowest of the lowest was actually your Creator. That as you sit here today, every breath you take, every beat of your heart comes from His hand.

That's what we're saying. That's radical. Many people that are so radical, that's too much. Many people who call themselves Christians say, you know, we need to be careful about the claims we make. Once again, the question becomes, what is our foundation?

From whence do we derive our faith? What do we stand upon? And so in these brief times we have together, I would like to remind us of what the Scriptures themselves teach concerning the One who is called the Lord of Glory, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, King of kings and Lord of lords, our God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

John’s Prologue as the Lens for the Whole Gospel

Here in the Gospel of John, John, most believe, writing after Matthew, Mark and Luke, a little bit farther down the road, wants to give to us a story of Jesus' appearance, His ministry, His resurrection into glory, and he wants to do so from an inside view.

Most believe, and John is well aware of the Synoptic Gospels, that he specifically and purposely chooses not to represent them, but instead as one who leaned back upon the Lord's breast at the Lord's Supper, one with a special relationship to Jesus, probably the youngest of the disciples, and having that at the youngest, now probably the oldest survivor, he has had decades to contemplate, to reflect, and instead of his memories becoming even duller, the reflection has only caused them to be all the more sharp, placed in clear relief.

This Gospel presents to us who Jesus is. It ends by telling us, I've written you this, that you may believe in the name of the Son of God, and in believing in that name you might have eternal life. But to believe in the name of Jesus, you have to know who Jesus was.

You have to know who it is you're believing in. So here in the very first chapter, I believe John gives to us what in essence might be called a lens. As some of you might notice, I'm getting closer to 50 to 40 now, and even though I had an RK, that means I can see those of you smirking at me in the back row.

It doesn't help me much with the Greek text right in front of me, and so I have these little things, and all of a sudden, there's the Greek text. My arms have gotten too short to get far enough away to see it, and get far enough away and now it's too small to read.

A lens has a specific purpose. It's supposed to bring things in focus. Sometimes if you're really into photography, you use certain kinds of lenses to come up with certain effects in taking a picture.

You'll have certain lenses that will filter out certain kinds of light, so as to produce a particular effect in a landscape or a sunset. Well, in the same way, a writer can begin his work in such a way as to provide you a lens, and the lens is meant to focus what comes after.

It's meant to give you guidance to understand what is coming after in the book. So often, the problems that people have when they approach the Gospel of John is they approach it peacefully. They don't see this is one presentation.

The author intends you to start here and to finish here. If you jump in the middle, it might be a little confusing. You might not have the lens you need, but when you have that proper lens, here at the beginning was called the prologue, the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John.

When you have that, it focuses the rest of the book, and it filters out many of the false interpretations of what comes hereafter. Now, some of you are well aware of the battlefield that is the prologue of John.

You know that in John 1 -1, you have certain phrases, and when certain people come to your door on Saturday morning and wake you up, and you try to talk to them, you know that there's certain conflicts that might come up because of John 1 -1.

But I'd like you to try to lay aside that background for just a moment, and ask yourself the question, what would the original readers of this Gospel have understood when they read this prologue? When they read of this word, this logos in Greek, who is this logos?

Could the words we're about to read have been written about a mere prophet? Could they have been written about a demigod? Could they have been written about a phantom who wasn't truly man? The prologue will give us the focus to understand the rest of the Gospel of John and its many testimonies to the deity of Christ.

Let's read these first 18 verses. I'm not reading from an English translation, so I will expand at some points a little bit, try to explain a few things as we go through it. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, face to face with God, and the Word was God, or the Word was as to His nature, deity.

This one, the Word, was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, or by means of Him, and apart from Him nothing has been made which was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of man, and the light has shined in the darkness, for the darkness has not either overcome it or comprehended it.

The Word could have both meanings, both might be intended. Verse 6. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This one came for the purpose of testifying, that he might testify concerning the light, in order that all through him might believe.

He was not that light, but he was sent in order that he might testify concerning the light, which was this light, that is, this light of man, which lightens or enlightens every man coming into the world.

He was in the world. The world was made through Him, but the world did not know Him. He came unto His own things, but His own people did not receive Him. But as many as did receive Him, to them authority was given, that they might become the children of God, that is, to those believing in His name, who were not born of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but they were born from God.

Verse 14. And the Logos, the Word, became flesh, and dwelt, made His home amongst us, and we beheld His glory, glory of the Unique One. Some translations say only begotten, the emphasis of the word is, the Unique One from the Father, full of grace, full of truth.

John testified concerning Him and cried out, saying, This is the One of whom I spoke. The One coming after me has a greater position than I have, because He was before me, He existed before me. Because of His fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace.

For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The Monogenes deos, the Unique God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He is close to the Father's heart, that One has explained Him, that One has interpreted Him, made Him known.

Thus the prologue of the Gospel of John. And in this prologue, you will note a kind of literary device called bookending, bookending. Now, there are a number of Calvinists amongst us. Calvinists are known for liking books.

And if you have a bookshelf at home, or a lot of bookshelves at home, you know what a bookend is. Because sometimes, especially up on the top shelf, if there's nothing at the side to keep the book from falling over, you need to have some type of a bookend.

Sometimes a horse head or something decorative to keep the books from basically falling over. It's the literary device where you state a thesis, you state a concept at the beginning, and then you restate it at the end of a body of text to re-emphasize it, frequently using different language, so that you make sure that not only are you holding it all together, but you make sure that point is gotten through.

And that's what we have in the prologue of John. If you look carefully at the first verse, you will see that the core of its presentation, the core of its message, is repeated for us in verse 18. And so let's make sure we understand what is being said by the Apostle here.

I believe every Christian has the glorious right and duty to know the Word of God as to what it says about who Jesus Christ is. Notice the two words I used there. We should always be thankful that God in His mercy and His grace has given us such a rich revelation of Himself.

God did not have to do this. But He desires His people to know Him. He desires His people to see His glory. And so it is not... Sometimes we talk about our duty. A duty is not necessarily something that is enjoyable to perform.

I believe it is our duty to know the Word of God. It is our duty to delve into the Word of God. If you are going to say to the world, I believe in Jesus Christ, I think the world has the right to say, and who is He?

And as a result, they should expect us to have some idea. Some clear idea. But that is not a duty that should be considered negative. That is a duty that should be seen as a great prerogative. As a glorious freedom of the children of God to have access to such truth.

And this is one of those places I have mentioned to you a number of others where for a brief moment God in His sovereignty draws aside the very veil of eternity and allows us to see into eternity past in the relationship of the Father and the Son.

You see this in John 1 .1. In the beginning was the Word. What beginning is this? Well, many have pointed out that when you look at the Greek Septuagint, Greek translation of the Old Testament, how did this start?

Well, it starts talking about the beginning. That is the beginning of creation. Is this telling us that the Logos, the Word, was created at the beginning of creation itself? No. Because if you will look carefully at the entire prologue, you will notice that the author is very specific in differentiating the verbs that he uses.

When he speaks of the Logos in the first 13 verses, he uses a particular form of the language which does not point us to a time of creation. It points us to continuous existence in the past. When he speaks of anything else, when he speaks of John, for example, there was a man, verse 6.

There he uses a different verb that does refer to createdness, to coming into existence. And when he talks about the creation of all things, he uses that different verb. But when he talks about the Logos, when he talks about the Word, he uses a different form that does not point us to an origin, to an act of creation.

And so you see, as far back as you want to push this beginning, as far back as you want to go, the Word already exists. Whatever beginning you want to posit, the Word pre-exists that beginning. That's John 1 1 A.

John 1 1 B. And the Word was with God. I remember very clearly speaking at a church once, and since it was the first time I'd ever been there, it was before the advent of YouTube, I could get away with doing role plays.

And so I went into a junior high school class, which in and of itself is a rather daunting thing, somewhat dangerous. And I played a Jehovah's Witness. And I was introduced to the students as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

And it's one of the only things I've ever found that can actually get junior high schoolers to sit still and to listen for more than about 14 seconds. And they sat still and they listened. Because I turned the poor young ministerial assistant guy, I never quite figured out why you take the least mature people and put them in charge of the least mature people.

I've not figured that particular idea out yet. But anyway, he was the one in charge. And we started role playing, without the kids knowing we were role playing. And it took me less than a minute to turn the man into a raving heretic based upon this text.

I got him to admit that Jesus is the Father. And how did I do it? Well, I went to John 1, 1b and said, well, you believe that Jesus being talked about in John 1, 1, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it says, and the Word was with God.

So God and the Word, they're the same person. Jesus is the Father, right? Yeah. Had him. From that point on, he was mobbed high and I was just able to run him around and spin him in circles until even he was looking forward to the end of the role playing.

When we announced to the kids who I really was, and then they stopped listening. The Word was with God. How can you be with yourself? The term with here normally is used to make face-to-face relationship.

The Word was with God. There is communication. There is communication between the two. So how do we understand this? Are we saying the Word was with himself? Are we saying that Jesus and the Father are just different manifestations like certain ancient heretics did?

We will see that the writer once again is very specific, very specific in the language he uses. He has said in verse, in John 1, 1a, the Word is eternal. The Word is always in existence. As far back as you want to push the beginning of the word there.

1, 1b, the Word, again using the same verb, has a relationship with Chaos, God. He hasn't defined all the terms yet. There are only a few words into the sentence. But there is a relationship and there is a distinction.

There is a differentiation. That differentiation is not contradicted by John 1, 1c. It would be if a certain non-Christian false religion and its claims were true, but they are not. Let me show you what I mean.

1, 1b, eternal relationship between the Logos and God, 1, 1c, and the Word was God. But did you notice what I did when I translated it? I said the Word was, as to His nature, Deity. Now you see, when those folks come to your door on Saturday morning, they want to tell you that because the word God, in this verse, this section of the verse, does not have the Greek article the in front of it, it should be translated a God.

The Word was a God. Well, that only proves that some people can't read Greek because there are many places in the New Testament where the word God appears without an article. If you translate it a God, it would make no sense at all.

In fact, if you look down at verse 6, it says there is a man sent from God. God doesn't have an article, so I guess if you just make up a rule when God appears on our bodega, that means John was sent from a God.

We're not sure what God it was, but he was sent from a God. Well, of course not. It doesn't make any sense. The reality is, there's a reason why the word God does not have an article in John 1, 1c. You see, if it did, it would be making the word and God interchangeable.

The same thing. We would be able to translate the phrase the word was God, or God was the word. They're interchangeable. They are coextensive. They're the same thing. That's not what the writer did. By placing the article with the word word, logos, he's telling us what the subject is.

By putting God where he does in the sentence, he's telling us he's describing the nature of the word, not telling us the identity of the word. So what John 1, 1c tells us is the word is as to his nature, deity.

So what does John 1, 1 tell us? The word's eternal. The word has a relationship with God that is eternal. There's a differentiation between the logos, the word, and God. But the word is as to his nature, deity.

And then we are told he was in the beginning with God. This is not a created being. The first people who read this epistle as it comes to them are not going to go, oh, we're talking about an angel. We're talking about a mighty prophet.

No. In fact, the Greeks used the term logos in their own philosophy. And some people said, oh, see, John's just borrowing. No. If you're writing to a people, you know what language they use, you know what terms they use, you're going to use terms they can understand.

It doesn't mean he's just capitulating to Greek philosophy and importing it. Because you see, the logos in Greek philosophy was an ordering principle. It made things make sense. But the logos was personal.

It was an impersonal principle. But this is a person. This person exists. This person is active. In fact, this person is the Creator. Look at verse 3. All things were made through Him, and apart from Him, aside from Him, without Him, nothing was made which has been made.

That's a description of the Creator. And given the fact that creation is one of the very means by which God differentiates Himself from the false gods in the Old Testament, then the person reading this, especially with its Old Testament background, cannot help but realize when you say someone is the Creator of all things, and then apart from Him, aside from Him, outside of His creative action, nothing is made that has been made, that person must be God.

And then when it says, in Him was life, well, who is God but the Creator of life itself. But I said we want to look at the bookend, right? And so, remembering what John 1, 1 and following says about the Logos, turn with me to verse 18.

Here we have a text that confuses a lot of Christians. It shouldn't. And my goal certainly is, within the next five minutes, you will feel very comfortable with this text and be able to explain it to others and see the glorious truth that it presents to us.

No one has seen God at any time. The monogamous Theos, the unique God. Now, if you're reading the King James or the New King James, it says the only begotten Son. Very briefly, though I address this in my book The King James Only Controversy, very briefly, the earliest papyri manuscripts we have of the Gospel of John.

P66 and P75. Both say Gahas, God. The earliest unsealed manuscripts, such as the one that made a big splash in the news this week, Codex Sinaiticus. It's now online. You can start to view it in high quality definition online.

These earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John say God. The monogamous Theos, only begotten Son, is the common terminology, what we find, for example, in John chapter 3. But the earliest manuscripts say God.

And I believe there is very, very good reason that that is the proper reading, not only externally in the manuscripts, but in the context as well. Where it says no one has seen God at any time, the unique God, God the only Son.

I like that translation best, personally. God the only Son, the one who is, and here we struggled a little bit to translate this. Literally, the one being at the side or at the bosom of the Father. Now you notice that John has just identified to us who it is who has never been seen.

Who does he mean when he says no one has seen God at any time? He's referring to the Father. He's referring to the Father. So how do we know anything about the Father? Who was seen of men in the Old Testament?

Because the Old Testament tells us men didn't see God. What's Isaiah 6 all about? You hear, the king's eye died. I saw Yahweh sitting upon his throne, locked and lifted up. Who did he see? John's going to tell us in John 12.

He saw Jesus. No one has seen the Father at any time. The only Son who is God, who is, and this is a free translation, I admit, but I think it explains what it means to be in someone's bosom. Who is at the Father's side.

In fact, that location that's closest to the heart. It speaks of intimacy. Isn't this what? And the Word was with God. It was all about John 1. Isn't the unique God what John 1 .1c is all about? How do we know anything about the Father?

It's because that one has reported. That one has explained. That one has interpreted. That one has described. That one has made known the Father. In the eternal counsel of the Triune God, it was determined that the revelation of God's purposes, revelation of His love, revelation of His mercy would take place primarily through the vitiation of the Son, Jesus Christ.

You cannot understand this text outside of the Trinity. You can't do it. Could a mere creature reveal to us with perfection the nature of God? Could even an archangel show us what God is truly like? Anything that's a creature remains creaturely fine enough.

You may be asking yourself this morning, I walked in here believing in the deity of Christ. I still do. Now I've even got more reasons. I knew John 1 .1 taught the deity of Christ. I knew about that, but does this really mean to me?

The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

In between the bookends, there is so much that we could not even begin to touch on this morning. But in between the bookends and the prologue, we have one of the most amazing statements in all of Scripture.

And I'd like to suggest to you as we come to the end of our time together that it is this statement that makes all of this have direct application to you and to me today. Verse 14 says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

I hope as a Christian you have had times where you shut the world out. You turned off the noise box, pulled the earbuds out of your ears, and turned off the iPod. You just contemplate what it means that the Word became flesh.

The very same Word that was used up in verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, ha-lagas. Verse 14, kai-ha-lagas. The Word became flesh. Remember I told you that a certain form of verb is used about the lagas, about the Word, in the first 13 verses, but it's in verse 14 that the writer now purposely switches and he uses the verb that speaks of an action in time because he sees the Word had not eternally been flesh.

There was a date. There was an hour. There was a minute when the Word became flesh. We're not talking about mythology. The current attack against our faith by scholars is to try to convince us Christians that you can have your religious beliefs just don't say that they're really true, that it has anything to do with history.

Leave it in the realm of mythology and you're fine. My friends, there is no Christianity that does not say that God has acted truthfully in history. The Word became flesh. He didn't act like He had flesh.

He became flesh. He didn't cease being the Word, but He became sars. The very term that would be used when you speak of your flesh. The Word became flesh. There is the scandal of Christianity. You can't understand the cross without the incarnation.

You cannot separate the two from one another. The one who died upon the cross truly died upon the cross. And the only reason He was able to do so is because of this. He became flesh. And He dwelt amongst us.

It's the term. Put up a tent. That's how He dwelt amongst people back then. He put up a tent. He tabernacled amongst us. Have you thought about how literally outrageous from the attitudes of the world our claims really are to say that the Creator of everything, not just this planet, but all things that exist anywhere, the Creator Himself entered into His creation.

This is the great scandal of Islam that says never, never. I debated a Muslim sheikh a few months ago over in California. We are angry. You are ascribing a son to Allah. And this is offensive. We're angry.

We reject this. ...mind is scandalous to the Muslim. It's scandalous to the Jew. Not because they would deny that God has the ability to do so, but because they rejected Him. As we read in Thessalonians this morning.

When you come into this place, you come with your burdens. You come with your trials and your difficulties. You come with your past. You come with your feelings of unworthiness. You go, what does God have to do with me?

Think of this verse. It's really easy to think of God and go, well, you know, He's so big. He's so powerful. Look at the universe. We've learned so much about the universe. It's so vast and huge. How could He possibly care about the puny little us?

The eternal Logos entered into flesh. We held His form. John's going to emphasize in 1 John, he's going to repeat this a little bit. He's going to say, we touched Him. He was real. He wasn't a phantom.

And what could cause the eternal Creator to enter into His own creation? He was accomplishing His purpose. He's continuing to accomplish that purpose. And that's why you and I are here today. Thousands of years later, on the other side of the planet, because at a certain date, at a certain time in history, the Word came into flesh.