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 one, 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.

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.

And 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 wanna 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.

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.

Verse 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. Now 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 received 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 gonna give just a tad bit of commentary with it. It says that he came to his own.

So the 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, you must, 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 gonna 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. Like 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 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 that 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 and 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 wanna give to you today a bad analogy of the hypostatic union to give you a greater understanding, right?

Of what actually took place. And I'll say this analogy because like, 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 weeks ago, and I looked at 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, and 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.

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. And 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, I told you about a play that I was in where I played three different parts.

That's kind of what one is Pentecostal see when it comes to God. Which, you know,

Jesus saying stuff like, you know, in Matthew chapter seven, 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, and then Jesus being another person on earth.

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 that 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 many, there's much ink'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, it'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, like 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 was only gave an illusion of him being in the flesh, that he didn't actually take on flesh, we just perceived him that way.

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 one through five of 1

John. Verse John, beginning in verse one.

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 him 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. First John and second John is all about Jesus being the

Christ who came in the flesh. If you look at first John chapter two, 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. 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 four, verse three. Let's go to verse two.

Chapter four, verse two and three. 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 two, verse seven. 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 119 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 .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 .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.

And 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 .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 one, in the beginning, I mean, in the beginning, the word was with God, the word, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was

God. Jesus is in his prayers telling the father to give me the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

And by that, we can conclude that 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 wanna 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 1 Kings chapter 19, beginning in verse nine.

1 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 gonna 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 one through nine, 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.

So 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 just gonna 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 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 a 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' mother Mary became pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

So John, when he says, speaking of the Messiah who is coming after him, who ranks before him, he says this because he was before him.

Talking about the pre -existence. 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 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 law given to them.

Again, we could argue that it's the transcendent law, they knew it, even though if the wrong was done to them, they knew wrong was done to them, but they did not have it in a written form to abide by like the

Jews. This was a gracious gift. If 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 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 think 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.

You 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 these verses. So verse six is a verse

I love to preach 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 am 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 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, all three persons are the one

God. Same essence, but they are three distinct persons,

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. In 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 him.

The Greek word here is exegomai, 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 Cal 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.