Prologue of John

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I think it's been quite some time since we looked at the Prologue of John and it just seems appropriate at this time of year to look at something that is directly relevant to what should be on people's minds, even though it very rarely is on people's minds.
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All sorts of other things are. But the
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Prologue of the Gospel of John is the first 18 verses and clearly it is
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John's intention that this set of verses function as the lens through which we are to view the rest of the
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Gospel of John. When you write a book, and obviously John writes his books so as to organize it in a particular way, you'll notice that, for example, through John you have certain signs and then you have certain themes that build on other themes and John's not attempting to give us a chronological, turn -it -in -as -a -piece -of -history type of book.
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He says at the end, these things I have written that you might believe. The name is only brought in the
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Son of God and in believing have eternal life in his name. This is his intention. And he clearly places these first 18 verses where he places them and forms them in the way he forms them to be the lens through which we are to interpret the rest of the book.
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And when we understand the Prologue, then we will have the proper foundation upon which to understand the rest of the book.
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But the Prologue likewise contains what I would call bookends.
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Now, there will come a day when that particular phraseology will not have as much meaning for people as it has in my generation.
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Even now, many schools are going to electronic books, electronic platform for textbooks and things like that.
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And I know that certainly over the past, probably the past three years, I would say, each year
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I buy significantly more electronic texts than I do paper texts any longer.
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And so the growth of my paper library has slowed a good bit. Every once in a while, there's still something that only gets published in paper format.
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It's frequently some absurdly ridiculous thing from Brill. There's this academic publisher called
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Brill. And sometimes you got to buy their books. But the cheapest, the absolutely least expensive book
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I've ever purchased from Brill was $69. And I have a number of $169, $269,
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I have a few 339s from Brill. They probably sit around going, these people are
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Brill. That's probably why they got the name. But they make some money. They really do. But anyway, the idea of bookends, you may recall if you have a shelf that doesn't have ends on each of the shelves, maybe you put up some of that shelving on the wall where it's just a piece of wood or something like that, and there's nothing at the ends.
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Well, you need something to hold the books up. The books, if you actually think that book's going to stay there,
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I guarantee you, about 2 .30 in the morning it's going to prove that it's not going to stay there and scare you to death in the process.
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And so sometimes you'll have the nice little horsey head bookends and, you know, or you've just got the super cheap ones you bought at Office Max, you know, that slide under the end and they're just metal or plastic or something and they hold the books up.
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Yeah, you're going, mm -hmm. Yeah, Sean's going, yep, those are mine. Those are mine. Yep, been to my house, huh? Okay. You can put the little horsey head ones on them.
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And that's actually the most effective way of doing it is because the cheap ones actually hold them up better, but the horsey head ones look better.
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So it's just, okay, how many of you have horsey head bookends? Come on. Okay, there's a few.
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All right. Thank you very much. We have a set of ones that are the thinker. The thinker, the thinker. Very good.
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We didn't really need to know that. But anyways, now bookending is actually a literary form where if you want to tie a story or a section together, you bookend it by having a section at the beginning and a section at the end that repeats the same themes and may cast light upon what each one is saying.
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And so this is a literary means of tying something up and saying, okay, here is a, it's called a pericope.
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Here is a particular story, a particular section that stands on its own. And that's what we have in the prologue of John.
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Most of you are familiar with the prologue of John. But specifically, when we look at verse 1 and we look at verse 18, we have a bookending device.
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So let's look at verse 1 and then compare it to verse, well, we'll look at some of what's in between, especially verse 14, but then see how 1 and 18 function together as a bookending device.
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And especially our focus this morning is on what John is telling us about who
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Christ is and what his relationship to the Father is. For certainly at this time of year, there is at least an acknowledgement on some people's part, it's becoming less and less and less.
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I don't know if you've noticed this, but less and less and less a part of the public discussion within our society.
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There is significant hesitation on the part of people to even use the name of Jesus any longer, even though this was much more common in the past than it is now.
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But certainly even when that name is being used today, there is a focus upon the
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Babe of Bethlehem rather than upon the Christ of Scripture, who in the book of Revelation rules the nations with a rod of iron and who is described here in John 1 .1
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as having eternally existed as God and entered into human flesh.
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So, when we look at John 1 .1, we see that there are three phrases, three sections,
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A, B, and C, I suppose, one, two, or three, depending on how you want to put it. Now, by the way, if you, after this
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Sunday school lesson, see some Jehovah's Witnesses running through your neighborhood, this is not the text
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I suggest you begin with in talking with Jehovah's Witnesses. The reason is not that it's not clear who it is.
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It's just that they are so accustomed to hearing it that they will just simply spout their responses to it without ever even hitting the ignition switch up here.
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You need to start independent thought behind, and this is not what you want to do.
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Now, obviously, you get into a conversation, you present what you want to present, eventually you get around to it, it's good to know, and to be able to explain their misunderstanding of it, but it certainly is not what
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I would suggest at the beginning. So, the first phrase, in the beginning was the word.
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Now, let's talk about the term word. It is the term logos in Greek.
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Logos. Now, you may hear people say logos.
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That causes my skin to crawl a little bit, but there are people who do that, and that's the modern
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Greek pronunciation. As long as you are consistent,
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I will smile, but if you ever say logos or logos,
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I will kick you in the shins, because that's the same letter in both, and so you've got to be consistent.
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So, you can either be the modern Greek person and say logos, the Erasmian Greek pronunciation logos, but if you say logos or logos, bad, bad, bad things will happen to you.
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So, anyways, the logos was a term well -known in two different categories, and what you'll hear a lot, especially you younger folks, you're going to university, you're going to college, what you're going to hear if you take a philosophy religion class or something like that, is that what
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John is doing here is he is basically stealing from Greek philosophy, because the logos was the rational ordering principle of the world.
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In Greek philosophy, you see this in Philo and in others prior to the time of Christ, the logos is what gives order and form and rationality to the creation.
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And so, there are those who are saying, oh, see, John's writing later, he's writing after the destruction of Jerusalem, he may be in Ephesus, there's all sorts of Greek philosophy and stuff around, and so he's wanting to make this connection.
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Well, I don't doubt that John would be aware in Ephesus of the use of this term, but I said that there are two sources from which this term could be seen, and I think a much more likely source for logos is to be found in the
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Old Testament usage of the phrase, the Word of God, the Devar or the
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Memra in Hebrew of God during the intertestamental period. So, between the last
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Italian prophet, Malachi, and Matthew, thank you very much, I appreciate the pity laugh there.
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In that intertestamental period, there was a great development in the thought of the
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Jews in regards to the Word of God, the Memra, the Devar, the speech of God, to the point where there were some
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Jews that were seeing the possibility of personality and things like that in regards to the
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Word of God. Now, it's important to remember that the logos in Greek philosophy was impersonal.
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It was just a rational ordering principle, and so what is important to see is that John is not going to leave us with either just the
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Greek philosophical view of the logos or just the Jewish speculative view of the logos from the intertestamental period.
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He's going to use this term, but he's going to fill this term with personality and meaning, and that's what he does in John 1 .1,
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and then he's going to expand upon that and define all of his terms, especially in John 1 .18.
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So, in the first phrase, in the beginning was the Word. Now, if you look at every description of the logos in the first 13 verses, when it makes reference to the logos, it uses, now get your grammar caps on because this is important, it uses what's called the imperfect form.
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Now, I know I have some Greek scholars in the room here, and so which
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Greek scholar would like to explain to me what the difference between the present and the imperfect is?
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Everyone's looking at Warren. Casey's looking at Warren, too. That's unfair. I think you've taken a
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Greek class, haven't you, there? Uh -huh. What's the present? What kind of action?
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Ongoing, continuous action in the present. Generally, I mean, there are different kinds, gnomic, present, things like that.
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Okay. How about the imperfect? Well, you two are looking at each other trying to pass it off.
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Nobody? Continuous action in the past. So, it's the present, but it's put into the past.
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So, the imperfect is, the present is I am eating, imperfect, I was eating, versus the aorist would be
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I ate, just a simple point action. Perfect, I have eaten, and I am still full.
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I had eaten. I ate in the past, fleet action, but now I might be full, might not be full, don't know, it's pluperfect.
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So, anyways, the imperfect is continuous action in the past.
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And so, what John does when he talks about the logos, he uses the imperfect form of the verb
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I need, which means I am. Then, when he talks about anything else, when he talks about the world, all things were made through him.
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There came a man named John. When he's talking about anything else, he uses a different verb, gnomai, in the aorist form of genitav, and he uses it in the aorist.
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The aorist is the simplest way of speaking about action in the
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Greek language. It's a point action, normally in the past. It can be in different syntactical constructs someplace else, but it's normally just point action.
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It's not telling you anything about it. It just happened. I ate. And the aorist would point to a point of origination, creation.
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And so, when he talks about everything's made, it has a point of origination. It comes into existence.
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All things were made through him. But, whenever he talks about the logos, he doesn't use that in the first 13 verses.
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Instead, he uses this imperfect. And so, you look at the first phrase, enarche enhalogos, in the beginning was the word.
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Well, what beginning is it? Well, a lot of people would say, well, it looks a lot like Genesis 1 -1, doesn't it? In the beginning,
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God created the heavens and the earth. Well, okay, let's say it's Genesis 1 -1, the beginning of creation itself.
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By using the imperfect, what he's saying is, at that beginning, the word was already existing.
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Well, what about a beginning before that? Well, the word's already existing. The point is, by using the imperfect, it's communicating to us that the logos has eternally existed.
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It has no point of origin. It's eternal. The logos is eternal. So, John 1 -1a, the first phrase is, the logos is eternal.
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All right? There's your first assertion. As far back as you want to push the, what?
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Well, I was writing fast, and everything's disappeared here. It's a long ways up there.
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Yes, well. So, the logos is eternal. So, then the next phrase, in the beginning was the word, and the word was pros -ton -theon, and the word was with God.
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Now, John's not going to tell us, in one sentence, everything we need to know about Trinitarian theology.
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What we're going to see, very clearly, especially in verse 18, is that theos, now, when you hear me use theos or theon, those are not two different words.
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Those of you who know other languages other than English know that there are such things as case forms, and so you have a genitive, you have a dative, you have an accusative.
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Theon is just the accusative of theos, which is a nominative. Theos is the word for God. So, logon would be the accusative of logos.
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So, what you have in the second phrase is the identification of, you have the word
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God. We're not told who this is. We will see in verse 18 that what is being discussed here, what is being identified here, is the
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Father. Specifically, the Father is in view when it says pros -ton -theon, because pros means face -to -face with.
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With someone. So, the word was with God, and it's the same was.
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So, as far back as you want to push the beginning, you have the same timeless was, and the logos is in personal relationship with theon.
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And like I said, once we get to verse 18, we're going to find out theon there is the
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Father who the logos reveals. And so, the assertion of the second is the logos is, well, there's really two things, really.
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You have the logos is personal, because this is not a thing.
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There is a personal relationship. And that personal relationship is eternally with, and we'll just put here theon for the moment.
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We'll, as I said, fill in the specifics when we get to verse 18. So, there is a personal relationship that the logos bears to God eternally that doesn't begin at a point in time.
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That does not begin at a point in time. So much for Arius. What was Arius' famous statement in church history?
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Those of you who remember church history, remember Arius, the famous early 4th century heretic from which we get
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Arianism today. What was his statement about the Son? Yes, sir.
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Exactly. There was a time when the Son was not. And this would say, no, there wasn't.
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Because the logos, as we'll see, is the Son, and the logos has eternally been in relationship to the
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Father, and so there never was a time when the Father wasn't the Father and the Son was not the Son. This also helps us to explain to Muslims, when we talk about Jesus the
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Son of God, we're not talking about God being married, having a wife, and having a kid, which is what the Quran understands, but that's not what the
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Bible teaches. So, the third phrase is, of course, the most disputed only because of Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Qaithaos ein ha -lagas. Qaithaos ein ha -lagas. So, qaithaos ein ha -lagas.
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Now, why do I put it up there in Greek? Because even the Jehovah's Witnesses who come to your door who could not read a word of Greek, if their life depended on it, will be able to often give you a pre -memorized speech about the significance of the lack of the definite article and the anarthorous use of qaithaos.
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Believe me, I've had it happen. I remember the first time I had it happen, I was a second -year Greek student.
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I had this woman, a housewife, give me about a three -minute pre -memorized speech about the Greek article in John 1, 1c.
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I had a Greek New Testament with me, not an interlinear, just a Greek New Testament, no English. I handed it across the room to her and asked her to show me a
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Greek article. She didn't even know which way to hold the book. But they believe so much what the society says that they'll give you that kind of thing.
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Here's what they say. This is the Greek article the. There's the word logos.
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So if you read it straight, it would be and God was the word. But the most unlike English element of Greek language is the article.
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It uses the article in a completely different way than English does. I mean, there just is hardly any parallel at all.
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And so here's that timeless was again.
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There's ain. This tells you that that's the subject. So you could not say
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God was the word. That would be inappropriate because we indicate by the beginning where we place things what the subject is.
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The word was, and then they say, since that doesn't have an article, it has to be translated a God.
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That is absurd. Anyone who says that has never read Greek has never read more than two sentences of Greek at best because about 94 % of the time, the
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New Testament does not have the article and it's not translate a God. An article may or may not make something definite, but it is not necessary to make something definite by any stretch of the imagination.
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And so what you actually have here is by put, this is called a predicate nominative by placing it before the verb.
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What John is saying is the word was as to his nature, the us deity.
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Now he's not saying the word is the same person as the one he is with eternally.
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But by placing it this way, he's saying the word is as to his nature deity.
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So the third point is the Logos is deity.
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Now, if there was an article here, like the Jehovah's Witnesses say there should be, this would be heresy.
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Why would it be heresy? Because if you have a construction like this where both have the article, the result is they're interchangeable.
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All the Logos is all of God and all of God is all the Logos. That would be something called modalism or civilianism.
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For example, the same writer, John, in his epistle will say God is love. But God has the article, love does not.
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If they both had the article, they'd be interchangeable. So all of God is love and all of love is God. So when your puppy dog licks you, that's
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God. Well, not quite. You may think so, but that's sort of heretical.
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Anyway, so what are the things that you, sorry,
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Sean, I don't mean to keep putting you into apoplectic shock up there. Anybody in the second row, no
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CPR? Just want to make sure we're ready to go. Okay, good, all right, good. So what do we see in John 1, 1?
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The Logos is eternal. The Logos is personal and eternally in relationship with theos, theon.
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And the Logos is as to his nature, deity. You have perfect balance.
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It's perfectly constructed. It's exactly what the author wishes to communicate to us. Now, let's look at the bookend.
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They're still boarding the plane, I see. Let's look at the, well, let's, let's, let's point out one thing before I look at the bookend.
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Look at verse 14. Verse 14 begins,
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Kai halagos sarx egeneta. And the word became flesh.
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So for the first time, John switches from the eternal ein to the eris egeneta and says the word became flesh.
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Why? Because the word has not eternally been flesh. There was a point in time in which the word entered into human experience, entered into human existence.
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And so at that time, you have John accurately changing.
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And now he uses the historical word that points to a point in origin. The word became flesh.
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And so this one, through whom all things were made, according to verses two and three, through whom life comes, who lightens the world, and et cetera, et cetera, all these things, the
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Logos became flesh and tabernacled, it's the term skenao, from which we get to dwell in a tent, tabernacled amongst us.
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And we beheld his glory, the glories of the unique one from the Father, full of grace and truth. And so here you have literally the incarnation.
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Incarne is the Latin term for flesh. The Greek term is sarx. And so here you have the entering into flesh.
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The word does not cease being the word, but the word becomes flesh, does not merely appear to be flesh, but takes on a human nature, as we see more fully expressed in Philippians chapter two especially.
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And so the Logos becomes flesh, and this happens at a point in time.
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This is not something that was eternal in the past. And so you have that assertion made in verse 14.
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Very important to notice that. And finally we get to verse 18.
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No one has seen God at any time. Managanes theos haon, the unique God, the one, aiston kolpan, in at the side of the
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Father, has exegeted or made him known. Now, if you have,
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I need to address very quickly, if you have the King James or the New King James version of the
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Bible, you do not have the unique God or the one who is
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God or the only Son who is God. You don't have the term God used there with reference to the term only begotten or unique.
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You have the term Son in the King James and the New King James. That's the Byzantine reading.
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That's the reading of what's called the Textus Receptus, upon which the King James and New King James is based.
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If you have any other translation, somewhere, somehow, there will be an expression of the term God connected with the term unique or only begotten.
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That is because the earliest manuscripts, all the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John that we possess, including the two earliest manuscripts of the
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Gospel of John, P66 and P75, both say God at this particular text, as do the major unsealed texts.
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And so it is by far the strongest reading. And so you have the assertion that no one has seen
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God at any time. Well, I don't know. There's a few places in the
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Old Testament where people thought they did. They certainly made the statement that they had.
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And Abraham walked with God by the Oaks of Mamre. And Jacob wrestled with God.
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And there was all sorts of stuff in the Old Testament. So, what does he mean?
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Well, this thing John is going to tell us in John 12, 41, that the one that Isaiah saw sitting on his throne lofty and lifted up was, in fact,
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Jesus. And one of the themes that John develops for us is that the reason we can have accurate, reliable, trustworthy knowledge of the character and nature of the
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Father is because the Son exegetes Him. He explains Him.
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He makes Him known. He is the one who has been seen. And so here in verse 18, then, we have the bookends to what we have in verse 1, where you have the assertion, okay, no one has seen
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God. And then he's going to say, who is in the bosom of the Father. So, he's talking about God the
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Father. No one has seen God the Father in any time. But, the monogamous Theos, the unique God, and the term is hard for us to describe.
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It's at the Father's side, but it's a position of intimacy. It's not just standing over here while He was over to my side or something like that.
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It is a position of intimacy, like you're holding someone close, nearby. And so, it has the same thought as 2.
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He is described as monogamous Theos, so it's the same thought as 1 and 3 combined.
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So, you can see how it's a bookend. And then, what about the term monogamous? Only begotten.
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What does that mean? Well, the problem that we have is you've got two terms.
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You have one term, which is genos, which means kind or tight.
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And you have another term, which is genao, which means to beget. And if you look at monogamous, it only has one, what we would call an
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N in it, not two. So, monogamous comes from genos, not genao.
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And so, what it means is one of a kind, unique. It can then, by extension, refer to only begotten in the sense of an only begotten child, but its fundamental assertion is uniqueness.
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And it's a term that's used in the Old Testament about David, Israel, Israel's my only begotten son, etc.,
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etc., etc. It's used a number of ways in that way. And the emphasis really isn't on this.
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It's on the uniqueness. And so, the unique theos, taking us back to here especially, the unique theos has exegeted him.
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And immediately he then goes into the story of how this has happened.
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How is it that the son has revealed to us the father? How has he explained him to us?
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Well, that's what the rest of the Gospel of John is going to be all about. It's how this monogamous theos, this unique God, has revealed the father to us.
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And so, once we have this in place, then once we start listening to what Jesus says, once we start hearing him in John 5 talking about how my father is working until now and I am working, and the
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Jews pick up stones, they want to kill him because he's calling God his own father, his unique father, in a way that they would not refer to God.
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And Jesus does not deny what he's saying. Instead, he's saying that he and the father have perfect unity in everything they've done.
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You honor the son even as you honor the father. The son has life in himself. He's going to raise the dead.
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He's going to do all these things that only God does. Once you get into chapter 8, he uses I am of himself.
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Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. I am.
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John 8 .58, the Jews pick up stones to stone him. John 10 .30, I am the father. We are one. The Jews pick up stones to stone him.
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John chapter 17, sent forth from God, glorified in God's presence before the world was.
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And it all comes to the height of revelation when Thomas sees
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Jesus, realizes that Jesus knew exactly what he had said and done even though Jesus wasn't physically present.
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And he says to Jesus, Hatheasmu kai hatheasmu? My Lord and my
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God. Hatheasmu kai hatheasmu? My Lord and my God. And Jesus' response is not to rebuke him, is not to say, how dare you say such a thing if you've been a mere prophet for what you should have said, but what
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Jesus says, because you've seen me, have you believed? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
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He blesses Thomas' confession of faith in him as his kurios, his
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Lord, and his theos, his God. And this then becomes the very message, the very heart and soul of what
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John is telling us is that we can know that we can have eternal life because the one who has revealed the
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Father to us is himself divine and therefore can give to us a perfect revelation of who the
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Father is. And so there you have in a real fast summary form not only the book -ending device in John 1 .1,
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the prologue, the contrast of Aen and Genetau that shows you that the
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Word has eternally existed but became flesh at a point in time, but then really the sort of thing that sort of ties together so many of the statements in the
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Gospel of John and gives us a consistent theme. You may notice, obviously, that so much of the dispute about those texts would be undone if we just simply looked at John as John rather than looking at one little verse here or one little verse there or one little verse over here.
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Okay? You have the Lucy Linus effect going on right now. You know, when
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Lucy yells at Linus and his hair goes straight back. You know, the fire hose thing. Yeah.
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A lot in one shot, but you can handle it. Any questions? Yes, sir.
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Are the kids of God the deity of the Holy Spirit? John 14 and 16.
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John 14 and 16 is really doing a section in John where you have the Holy Spirit presented. The Holy Spirit is presented as another comforter of the same kind.
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He takes Jesus' place and the Father and the Son make their abode with believers in John 14, 23 by the presence of the
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Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. That would be the primary portion of the
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Gospel of John that addresses the Spirit and associates the Spirit in a divine sense with the
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Father and the Son. Okay? All right.
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I hope that's helpful to you. So let's close with a word of prayer. And, dear
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word, for its clarity, for the fact that you have preserved it for us over the centuries.
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May we truly rejoice that the Word became flesh and that we have salvation as a result of that.
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Thank you very much for loving us. Thank you very much for giving us this freedom to gather together and to discuss your truth.