John Pt. 4 | John 1:14-18

All right, if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to the Gospel of John.

This is our fourth message in this Gospel, and we will be today

considering verses 14 through 18.

The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 14

through 18.

Let me pray.

Father, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ,

and by the power of your Spirit, speak to your people

this day through me, I pray.

In the beloved name of Jesus Christ, amen.

All right, so our theme for this Lord's Day is the divine word takes on flesh.

All right, it's just kind of following that sequence that we've been going through.

Now I've mentioned something like this before, and I feel like at this moment I should mention it again,

that this is either true or it isn't, right?

Jesus either left heaven, the Christ left heaven, Jesus Christ

left heaven and took on flesh, or he didn't.

And if this isn't true, no matter how much we have come to love one another,

we should load up and go home, because that means there's no hope for humanity.

If God hasn't condescended to us, right, and

spoken to us his truth, what salvation is, we should load up and we should

go home, because there is no hope for us.

There's no hope.

If this is true, which it is, and the divine word has taken on flesh, then

our being here today has a greater purpose than you and I or any theologian who has ever

lived can imagine.

That our being here today, gathering today as the Lord's people in the church, has great

significance for us.

That God is actually using this to grow us

in such a way that we can't even imagine.

I mean, we understand the means of grace, but it's so much deeper than we can understand,

because if it's true, then there is hope for humanity.

We walk out in the world, we see what's going on in the news, and we think there's no hope.

Listen, ladies and gentlemen, if it's true, and it is, there's hope, and a

great sacrifice that we should all be willing to make is, if this is true, and it is,

is that when this book is open, we offer a sacrifice of listening.

And I believe that listening to the word of God, the word of God will fill us with a sacrifice.

Of praise.

If you feel like you've never praised him with your lips, maybe you're not listening as the word of God is opened.

And I say this to my own shame.

So join me in our text.

Again, we're in the Gospel of John, chapter one, we'll consider verses 14 through 18.

But since this is our last message in the prologue, I again want to read the entire prologue, and I'll

recognize once we get to 14.

So if you look back at verse one, verse one, in the beginning was the

word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

Then all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was.

Made.

In him was life and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

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

He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light, the true light that gives light to everyone was coming

into the world.

He was in the world, but the world was made through him.

And yet the world did not know him.

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

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children

of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,

but of God.

John 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among

us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father full of

grace and truth.

John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes

after me ranks before me because he was before me.

For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace for the law was given through

Moses and grace and truth came through Jesus

Christ.

No one has ever seen God, the only

God who is at the father's side.

He has made him known.

In our outline today, we will see the Logos revealed in four ways.

In glory, in a testimony, in grace, and in God.

So he's revealed, point number one, in glory, point number two, in a testimony, point number three,

in grace, and point number four, he is revealed in God, speaking of

the Logos.

And two weeks ago, we saw that the word, the Logos was in the beginning

and that he was with God and that he was God and that the Greek actually translated that God was the word,

God was the Logos and that this word,

this Logos created all things and that without him was not

anything made that was made and that in him was life and that life was the light

of man.

And last week, we focused on this light and we saw that this light was the message by which

we receive salvation.

This message was about the life of the word.

Two weeks ago, our theme was the divine word of God.

Last week, our theme was the divine light of God and this week, our theme is the

divine word takes on flesh.

So we see that the word that was in the beginning, which was God, that is the light and that this

word, this Logos that was in the beginning, that is the light.

This message takes on a human form, human body,

takes on flesh.

So we get to our first point, the Logos revealed

in glory, the Logos revealed in glory.

And it's just verse 14, so it says, and the

word, remember the word here is Logos, became

flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace

and truth.

So the word here, Logos, it says that he became flesh.

Now, we looked at this some last week while we were covering verse 11, if you remember, let me go back to verse 11

real quick, I'm going to give us just a tad bit of commentary.

With it.

It says that he came to his own, so that he here is speaking about the word, the Logos, he came to his own,

his own people here, his own would be the Jews.

He came to his own, remember he had to be made like his brothers in every way in order to

become a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, the book of Hebrews.

He came to his own and his own people, the Jews, did not receive him.

Now, how did he come to his own through the incarnation?

We looked at that last week and came to his own in the incarnation as a Jew for the Jews

and his own people did not receive him.

They cried out, crucify him, give us Barabbas, give us this

troublemaker.

You take the king of glory and you nail him to the cross.

They rejected Jesus Christ.

He came to his own, but his own people did not receive him.

His coming again was in the incarnation and his coming through the incarnation brought about a change

in the covenants.

At this time, we have the establishment of the old covenant system.

Jesus comes and he ushers in the new covenant.

The old covenant said, so if you

continue to read, verse 12 and

13, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of

God, who were born out of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So the old covenant said of blood and the old covenant,

ones being a part of the kingdom was passed down through heritage.

If you were a descendant of one of the 12 tribes of Israel, you were born into the earthly kingdom

of God's people.

So this was the Jews, right?

The Israelites, you had to be born into it.

The will of the flesh, if you were a Gentile and you wanted to be a part of the Jewish kingdom,

you could choose.

You could make a decision to become a convert.

And that was through ritual washings and baptisms, such as baptisms, different

kinds of baptisms.

There's some where you would just baptize yourself.

You would dunk yourself in water as a ritual cleaning.

There were some where you were dunked into water and some where you just wash off.

There was different kinds of washings.

But most important, circumcision.

You could be circumcised through ritual washings and circumcision.

You could become, if you were a Gentile, you could become a part of this kingdom of

God.

We see that argued in Galatians.

In order to be a Christian, the Judaizers, these heretics, were preaching that

in order to be a Christian, you had to first become a Jew, meaning that you had to go through these ritual washings

and circumcisions.

And we know what Paul says about that.

You're preaching a false gospel.

The will of man under the old covenant kingdom, if you had a

son, only a son here, if you had a son, he was to be circumcised on the eighth day

and that it was a sign of the covenant made with Abraham, made with

Israel.

All three of these things that I just mentioned of being a part of the covenant are physical.

And earthly.

When Jesus came, these three ways of being a part of God's people changed.

And it changed because Jesus brought in the new covenant.

Again, I'm going to read verse 12 and 13 again.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he

gave the right to become children of God, who were born not

of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of

God.

So the new covenant right here, it's not of blood, right?

We saw this last week.

It's not of heritage or descent.

You cannot be born into the new covenant, nor is it the will of the

flesh.

It's not of effort, dealing with moral or spiritual effort.

This is not something that you could make yourself enter into, nor is it something that I could

con you to enter.

You cannot morally make yourself in the covenant, and I

cannot convince you that you should enter into the covenant.

It's your effort, nor my effort cannot get you into the covenant, nor

is it the will of man.

This is not something to where you can be circumcised into, nor can you

be baptized.

Into.

And this will be our differences with our Presbyterian brothers when it comes to baptism.

When an infant is baptized, they would say that they are in the covenant.

We would say, no, no, no.

The new covenant entrance is the new birth.

You have to be born to enter the covenant, but it's the will

of God.

You must, listen, you must be born again.

So we looked at it last week.

Every one of us, when we're born, we're born under the covenant federal head of Adam.

And that's why we must be born again.

We need to be clothed in Christ.

The only way to enter the new covenant is to be born again.

And I think we might need to write something up as a church of what me and my wife was talking about this

last night, of certain things that our confession doesn't really clarify a whole lot of

what we believe that is.

A lot of people, when you hear them talk about the new birth, a lot of things that are said, a lot of which is just you

keeping commandments and stuff like that.

You're living the holy life, which is nonsense, right?

So I have to live a holy life to see and enter the kingdom of God?

Like that doesn't make any sense.

It's faith.

It's you being given faith to believe.

And so maybe we as a church need to come together and write something up about this new birth

because it cannot be anything else.

It's you not believing.

And the next thing you know, you hear the word of God proclaimed.

And like Romans chapter 10, 17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of God,

the message of Christ.

You don't believe.

You hear a message.

And all of a sudden you do believe.

You believe something that's scientifically impossible that God,

the creator of all things, becomes a part of the creation.

He takes on flesh.

God entered creation.

The infinite became finite and he died.

And guess what?

Three days later, he rose from the dead and he went and descended.

He's in heaven at the right hand of the Father.

Like these are things that don't just happen.

One second you don't believe it.

The next second you hear a message and you do believe it and nothing can change your mind.

That's faith.

And that is a gift.

And if you've been gifted this gift, guess what?

You've been born again.

You have entered the new covenant.

And as reformed believers, we believe that the covenant sign is baptism.

Not circumcision.

And again, as Baptists, we believe that the birth comes before the baptism.

The birth comes before the sign.

The word becoming flesh is the light that interrupted the darkness that

was in his people.

And it's in our world today still.

Remember that when Jesus came in, he is beginning the new creation.

And it's not a literal seven day, six day creation, but it's from first advent

to second.

Advent.

First coming of Jesus to second coming of Jesus.

So what does it mean that the word, the logos became flesh?

And like a couple of weeks ago, I gave a bad analogy of the Trinity to explain to you

the Trinity.

I want to give to you today a bad analogy of the hypostatic union

to give you a greater understanding of what actually took place.

And I'll say this analogy because a part of it fits, right?

The way your hand fills the glove.

So when you have a glove, you put your hand into the glove, the way your hand fills the glove.

God filled a human body

and that's a bad analogy.

Now in one sense, it's a good analogy because it shows that God put something on,

took on.

Something.

He did not remove a part of himself to become man,

but him in full deity added something to himself.

Where it falls in its analogy, where the analogy falls short is that the hand,

whenever you put your hand into a glove, the glove does not become your hand.

The glove is still separate from your hand.

So that's where the analogy comes short.

It's true that God put on something the same way when you would put on a glove.

He added, when I put on a glove, I add something to myself, but it falls short in the

sense that the glove does not become my hand.

Jesus Christ in his manhood, him being truly man was truly God,

God in and of himself.

Jesus as truly man is God.

I want to take a second again, and I did this a couple of weeks ago and I looked at the

knife, I mean the Affination Creed, and I want to read the bottom part of it this time.

I read the top portion of it last time, or the middle portion, I want to read the bottom portion

of it where it talks about the right faith.

Listen to this.

The right faith then is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus

Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.

Perfect God, perfect man, in ritual so in human

flesh subsiding, equal to God as touching the Godhead

and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood, whom although

he be God and man, yet he is not two, but one

Christ, one, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh,

right here, listen, but by taking of the manhood

into God.

God did not, Jesus did not empty himself of Godness

in one sense.

He added something to it, and that was the human flesh.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

God became flesh and dwelt among us.

I mentioned it earlier, we looked a few weeks ago, two weeks ago I believe it was, about the

doctrine of the Trinity, and we saw that there's two popular heresies, modalism which

come from Sabellianism.

We might need to do some kind of a Sunday school class or something to where we walk through the history of

the church and the heresies of the church, and kind of walk through all of them dealing with

the doctrine of God, Christology, justification, and just look at all the things that

have tried to interrupt the Orthodox faith, and that way we can all be aware of it, so when we

hear something, we'll be able to notify it.

So we saw that there was, the two popular, most popular ones would be modalism and partialism.

Modalism is where God manifests himself into the three persons, so the Father, Son,

and.

The Holy Spirit.

One God, and this one God can only be one of the persons at a time, so

in one moment he's the Father, then he's the Son, and then he's the Holy Spirit.

I kind of give you the idea of playing the hypocrite, the role, I told you about a play that I was in where I played three

different parts, well it's kind of what one of us Pentecostals see when it comes to God, which,

you know, Jesus saying stuff like, you know, in Matthew chapter 7,

all those who say to me, Lord, Lord, will not enter the kingdom, but only those who do the will of my Father,

different person, who is in heaven, different place.

So Jesus says, my Father, who is in heaven, Jesus being another person on earth.

Like, stuff like that doesn't make sense whenever you understand the doctrine of modalism, Sabellianism.

And then there's the doctrine, and I give another analogy of the water, ice, and steam.

You know, you take a pot of water, or if you take a pot, put ice in it,

turn the pot on, put it on the stove, turn it on, it turns to water, next thing you know it's steaming.

That's kind of like an analogy they'll give for God.

Another heresy was partialism, and I gave the analogy of the earth, that the earth

is water, sky, and land, and that it takes water, sky, and land to make

one earth, right?

So if you remove the sky, there is no earth.

You remove the water, there is no earth.

If you move the land, there is no earth.

It takes all three components to make one earth.

Well, that's not how God is.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not make one God.

If you remove the Son, then there is no God, type of a thing.

But the Son, in and of Himself, is God.

The Spirit, in and of Himself, is God.

And the Father, in and of Himself, is God.

They don't depend on one another to be God.

They are God.

They are deity in and of themselves.

So when Christ takes on flesh, He adds to Himself.

The Jesus in flesh is just as much God as the Father is God.

But also, today I want to kind of look at Christology.

So Christology, I'm just going to give a one -sentence understanding

of it.

And again, there's much ink that's been spilt on this.

And I'm not doing it justice, just bringing it down to a sentence.

But it's Jesus is the Christ, the Christ took on flesh.

So this is the beginning of the understanding of Christology.

Who is Christ?

Well, Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ took on flesh.

There was a heresy, an early heresy, that's called docetism.

Docetism, which taught that Jesus Christ did not, listen,

did not take on flesh.

They saw the flesh as a bad thing.

Why would God, perfect God, put on, take on, add to Himself

something like flesh?

Something nasty, dirty, right?

They couldn't understand Jesus pooping His diaper, right?

Like to them, this was Jesus crying, Jesus laying down drooling.

They did not understand Jesus having to use the restroom.

If He's God, right?

How can God have to struggle with some of these things?

And so they saw the flesh as filthy, and they said that Jesus

Christ only gave an illusion of Him being in the flesh.

That He didn't actually take on flesh, we just perceived Him that way.

And that heresy is called docetism.

And so, if you would turn to your Bibles to 1 John, we'll be there for a minute.

We'll look at verses 1 through 5 of 1 John.

1 John, beginning in verse 1.

Now listen to how closely knitted it is to the Gospel of John.

Same writer, same author.

He says, that which was from the beginning, remember in the beginning was the Word, that which was from the beginning,

which we have heard, we heard Him speaking, which we have seen with our own

eyes, which we have looked upon, meaning that He's seen it with His own eyes, but He also

looked upon Him, like He saw Him in a distance interacting with other people.

Which upon and have touched, which we have seen, which we have looked upon, which we have

touched.

He's saying, man, I walked up and touched Him.

I laid my head on His breast.

I've hugged Him.

We have touched Him with our own hands concerning the Word, logos of life.

That life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and we and testify

to it and proclaim to you.

What do they proclaim?

The eternal life, which was with the Father and was made

manifest to us.

That which we have seen, we have heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you might

have fellowship with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus

Christ.

And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Verse five.

This is the message that you have heard from, that we have heard from Him, speaking of Jesus,

and proclaim to you.

Here's the message.

God is light, and in Him, there is

no darkness at all.

Remember, God has brought life and immortality to light, and it's

through the appearing of Jesus Christ, His life and message.

The message being the light.

1 John and 2 John is all about Jesus being the Christ who came in the

flesh.

If you look at 1 John 2, verses 18 through 23, John says,

little children, it is the last hour.

And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now Antichrist have, so many Antichrist

have come.

Therefore, we know that it is the last hour hour.

They went out from us, but they did not, but they were not of us.

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

But they went out that it might become plain that they are all not of us.

But you have been anointed by the anointed one, by the holy one, and you have

all knowledge.

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no

lie is in the truth.

We're supposed to find out what the truth is.

Verse 22, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the

Christ.

So, this is pointing back to the old covenant Jewish system.

They denied Jesus, they rejected Jesus.

This is the Antichrist, he who denies

the father and the son.

Now, how do you deny the father?

Listen, verse 23, no one who denies the son has the father.

Whoever confesses the son has the father also.

Chapter 4, verse 3.

Let's go to verse 2, chapter 4, verse 2 and 3.

By this we know the spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the

flesh is from God.

Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from

God.

This is the spirit of Antichrist.

Which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world.

Go to chapter 2, verse 7.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world.

Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus

Christ in the flesh.

Such a one is a deceiver and the Antichrist.

So who is a deceiver and Antichrist?

Those who do not confess, those who reject that Jesus

Christ came in the flesh.

If you reject that Jesus is the Christ or that he took on flesh, docetism, you are an

Antichrist, John says.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 19 says this.

For in him, speaking of Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased

to dwell.

Speaking of the one, the word who took on flesh, the one who took on flesh, he was walking around with

flesh whom they heard, whom they seen, whom they perceived with others, whom they touched.

God was pleased fully.

He was fully in him.

All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

Colossians 2, verse 9 says this.

For in him, Jesus, the fullness of deity, listen, dwelled

bodily.

The fullness of deity dwelled in the body, the flesh.

Isaiah 7, verse 14 says this.

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall

call his name Emmanuel.

What does Emmanuel mean?

God with us.

So when you look at our text, and the word

became flesh and dwelt among us.

God is with us in Christ.

Look at 14b.

And we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 17, verse 5 says this.

And now, Father, this is Jesus praying in the high priestly prayer.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence

with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Going back to John 1.

In the beginning, the word was with God.

In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God.

Jesus, in his prayer, is telling the Father to give me the glory that I had with

you before the world existed.

And by that, we can conclude from this verse that Jesus, in his incarnation, when God

took on flesh, in this incarnation, Jesus was not walking around with his glory on

display.

Imagine if he would.

Who would have rejected Jesus?

No one. No one.

The flesh, in a way, veiled the glory.

Didn't take away from deity.

And yet, his beloved disciple John said, we have seen his glory.

The we here, I believe to be Peter, James, and John.

Now, I believe the disciple, I believe the beloved disciple here is speaking about what took place on the Mount of

Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah.

And right now, I want to turn to Exodus chapter 33,

beginning in verse 18.

Exodus 33, beginning in verse 18,

says this, Moses said, please

show me your glory.

Speaking to God.

Please show me your glory.

And he, God, said, I will make my goodness pass before you and I

will proclaim before you my name, the Lord, Adonai,

Yahweh.

The glory here and the good can be translated, the shame of Hashim.

The shame of Hashim.

And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious to.

And I will show mercy on whom I show mercy.

But he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me

and live.

And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the

rock.

And while my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock and I will

cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back.

But my face you shall not see.

Also, look with me at First Kings chapter

19, beginning in verse nine.

First Kings chapter 19, beginning in verse

nine, speaking of Elijah.

There he, Elijah, came to a cave and lodged in it.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him.

The word of Yahweh came to him.

And he said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah?

And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.

For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenants and thrown down your altars

and killed your prophets with the sword.

And I, even I alone am left.

And they seek my life to take it away.

So he's hiding in this cave, fear for his life.

And God said to him, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord.

And behold, the Lord passed by.

So it's going to give some illustrations here of what happened when the Lord passed by.

A great strong wind tore the mountains and broke to

pieces the rock.

Before the Lord.

But the Lord was not in the wind.

And after the wind, an earthquake.

But the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake, fire.

But the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper.

And Elijah heard it.

He wrapped his face.

He's hiding himself.

He wrapped his face in the cloak and he went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And behold, there came a voice to him and said,

what are you doing here, Elijah?

This low whisper caused the rocks to break, caused the

earthquake, caused fire.

God was not in that trembling.

He was the voice.

Moses saw God after he walked away.

God was with Elijah in the sound of a whisper.

They were both unable to truly see God.

I just read it in Exodus.

For man cannot see God and live.

Yet in Matthew chapter 17, verses 1 through 9, listen to this.

Then after six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James and John, his brother.

And he led him up to the mountain.

The John here is the John that's writing the Gospel of John.

And led them up to a mountain by themselves.

And he was transformed before them.

Remember, I just said, what if he walked around in this glory?

Right here, I'm going to tell you what it is.

His face shined like the sun and his clothes became white

as light.

And behold, there appeared to him Moses and Elijah talking with him.

And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we are here.

If you wish, we will make three tents or tabernacles.

It can be translated three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.

And he was and he was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud

overshadowed them.

And the voice of the cloud said, this is my beloved son in whom I am

well pleased.

Listen to him.

And while he and while when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.

But Jesus came and touched them, saying, rise and have no fear.

And when they lifted and when they were lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus

only.

Moses and Elijah in Christ were able

to see the face of God.

They could not see the face of God and live.

But Moses and Elijah in this

moment right here at the mountain of transfiguration, they were

able to see in Christ the face of God, the glory of God can only

listen to me.

The glory of God can only be seen in Christ without

dying.

If you see the face of God without Christ, you will die.

That's what the scripture says.

You cannot see my face and live.

And yet we know the word became flesh.

Jesus is God.

Moses and Elijah and as well as his disciples saw his glory.

They saw God and lived.

When it comes to the glory of God in Christ, Jesus says,

fear not.

We have no fear in Christ.

Point number two, the logos is revealed in the testimony.

Verse 15 of our text.

The rest of these will go pretty fast.

John bore witness about him and cried out.

This was he of whom I said he who comes before me ranks before me because he

was before me.

Again, this is just pointing to his deity.

This is pointing to the pre -existence of Christ.

John would have been older than Jesus.

John's mother, Martha, was already pregnant when Jesus's mother, Mary, became pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

So John, when he when he says, speaking of the Messiah who is coming after him, who ranks

before him, he says this because he was before him and talking about the pre -existence that that the word

became flesh before he became flesh.

He was the word.

He was already in existence.

And again, all of this is just to point out the deity of Christ.

So this this testimony that John is bearing witness to, it's that the Messiah who comes after him, who

is older than him, is before him.

Why?

Because he is deity.

He comes from eternity past.

So that's the witness of John.

The one who is coming after me is before me.

Point number three.

The Logos is revealed in grace.

Verses 16 through 17.

For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Right here where it says grace upon grace, this can actually be translated.

Probably a better translation would be grace over grace.

We should really understand these two verses like this.

That which was I mean, that there was grace in the old covenant, the covenant of

Moses.

But there was a greater grace in the new covenant, the covenant of Jesus.

God given the law to the Jews through Moses was a gracious gift.

He did not give that law to all the other ones.

They did not have this this law given to them.

Again, we could argue that it's the transcendent law.

They knew it.

Even though it was if it was the wrong was done to them, they knew wrong was done to them.

They did not have it in a written form to abide by like the Jews.

This was a gracious gift.

God gave them a law.

And if they broke it, he also gave them a sacrificial system through which they could still prosper.

Remember, keep the law, live in the land.

But a greater grace, grace over grace, grace upon grace

is Jesus coming and keeping the law.

In our place.

The grace of the law was the grace of the law was through Moses.

But a greater grace that kept the law in our place is through

Jesus.

Grace upon grace, grace over grace, grace.

But then a greater grace is given to us in the new covenant through

Jesus Christ.

Point number four, the Logos is revealed in God.

Look at verse 18.

No one has ever seen God right here.

I want you to thank the father.

The only God, thank the son who is at the father's

side.

He has made him known.

We read this earlier, Exodus 33, 20 says, but he

said, you cannot see my face and live.

Now, we don't have time, but we can go through so many passages of scripture where people saw God.

Isaiah saw God high and lifted on the throne.

I saw Yahweh on the throne.

We go to John chapter 12.

John tells you that that was Jesus.

All right.

Jesus is the creator of all things.

We see that in John chapter one, Hebrews, Jesus.

I mean, God walked with Adam.

Adam and Eve saw God.

Ladies and gentlemen, Adam and Eve saw Jesus.

No one can see the father and live.

He says right here, no one has ever.

Listen, no one has ever seen God, the father.

No one has ever seen the father.

The only God, Jesus, who is at the right side of the father, has come to make him

known.

We could spend sermon after sermon walking through this portion of scripture.

I want you to look with me at John 14 real quick.

For some reason, I didn't mark it in my Bible.

So John 14.

Verses six through nine.

A lot of people have great trouble with this with these verses.

So verse six is one of a very adverse.

I love to preach on when I'm on the street corners.

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life.

So he's speaking to his disciples.

I'm the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

Speaking of the exclusivity, Jesus is the only way to the father.

Verse seven.

If you had known me, you would have known my father also.

And from now on, you do know him and listen right here and have seen

him.

Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father and it is good enough for us.

Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long

and you still do not know Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the father.

How can you say show us the father?

Now, this is not speaking of the persons.

Remember when I was explaining the Trinity, I talked about the three what's and the one who.

The three what's being the persons, the one who being the being.

But this is but rather this is speaking of the one who.

The doctrine of the Trinity, right?

One God, one being, three distinct persons.

The being, the one God, they all all three persons are the one

God, same essence.

But they are three distinct persons, father, son, and the Holy Spirit.

And our text where it says he has made him known.

Speaking of Jesus has made known the father, the NASB translation translates it this way.

He has explained to him.

The Greek word here is as is ex agamai.

And it's where we get the word exegesis from.

So Jesus came to exegete, to explain, to make known to us

the father.

So when the divine word takes on flesh, he does so to reveal to us

the glory of God, which no one can see without dying unless they

see in Christ.

And ladies and gentlemen, if you have seen Jesus, you have seen God,

right?

That's what the gospel is about.

He is reconciling.

God is reconciling us to himself through his son by the preaching of his message applied by

the Holy Spirit.

I'm available to anyone who wants to talk.

Pastor Kyle as well.

Join me in prayer.

Father, Lord, we love you and we thank you.

Please, in Jesus name, be gracious to us.

Have mercy on us.

And Lord, right now, as we prepare ourselves to partake in the Lord's Supper, Lord, use it in such a

way that you grow us in holiness.

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.