Deity Before Discourse | Sermon 08/28/2022

Apologia Utah

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Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 1. We just started our expository series in the

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Gospel according to John last week. And we will continue on with that today.

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Last week was more of an overview of the prologue, but today we will be looking at verses 1 -5 in chapter 1 of John.

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The title of this sermon today, church, is Deity Before Discourse.

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Deity Before Discourse. Starting in verse 1 of John chapter 1, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. In the beginning was the Word, and the

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Word was with God, and the Word was

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God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

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In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

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That's ending the reading of God's holy and inspired Word. Let's pray quickly, church. Heavenly Father, will you please speak through me today,

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Lord. Would you increase and I decrease, Lord. Would you do a work here among your people.

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Lord, would you by your Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit who delivered us the Scriptures, would you by that Spirit help illumine the

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Scriptures to us. Lord, please help me today to speak in a way that is clear, and let it be helpful, and let it always be true.

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In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Last week we touched on authorship, if you were here.

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We touched on the life of the Apostle John, who of course is the author of this

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Gospel account. And most importantly to him, we talked about the purpose of his writing.

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Why he created the fourth Gospel account. We saw that John wrote by inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit that these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God. And that you may have life in His name. That was in John chapter 20.

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But we're going to see today that John wants us to understand something so integral to the

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Gospel before we looked at everything else that was written after this. He wants us to get this, and we must get this before we can understand the rest.

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Church, I was reflecting on how the culture thinks of Jesus Christ, and it is truly heartbreaking and angering to see how our culture has regarded

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Him. His very name and title are used as curse words, taking it in vain.

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We're talking when people are disgusted by something or irritated with someone or fed up, they offer up the name of the

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Lord Jesus to express those sort of reactions. John said that we may have life in His name, but by His name, when they do that, they reap death.

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What would have probably been considered inconceivable only 50 to 70 years ago is now being celebrated.

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There are adult cartoons with images and portrayals of the King of Kings mocking

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Him for a cheap laugh. There are skit shows that make

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Jesus look and act like a hippie from the 60's. There are countless memes now of Jesus ridiculing

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His commandments and depicting a false approval of things that He would know and consider to be reprehensible.

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And honestly, there are things online with images of Jesus and things He is doing that I couldn't even mention here.

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They are disgusting. It's sick what people have done with our

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Lord. And worst of all, the Christian church in many ways has let these things infect it.

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We have allowed Jesus to become small. We have allowed the Savior of the world to become an insignificant caricature.

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And it's not just that the world sees Him this way and we don't. It's that we have let them see

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Him this way and then in turn, often Christians will see Him that way too.

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They'll laugh at it as well. They'll participate in it as well. And so we need to be reminded of who

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He is. We need to remember that we ought to be in awe of His holy and powerful stature.

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It's like a person who is many, many miles away, tens and hundreds of miles away from maybe a large, grand peak of a mountain and they're far away and they go, well, they kind of put their hand up.

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That's a pretty small mountain. That's a pretty small mountain. But little by little, as they get one mile closer, one step closer, and they come to the base of this great mountain, they realize how big it truly is.

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They have to look straight up and gaping with their mouth open, they look at this mountain and go, how did

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I think this thing was small? This is huge. This is incredible. This is magnificent.

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Right? And the thing is, the mountain did not grow in size. It was always that awesome and large.

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It was that person. It was their understanding, their perception, their distance from such majesty and their ignorance that made them see something so enormous as something so little.

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So may we see Jesus properly. May we come to Jesus and see how enormous our

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Lord is. That will be John's aim here. That's his desire.

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So, as I said, to ignore what John declares in these first 18 verses, is to not only risk getting all other 20 chapters wrong, but to diminish our

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Lord. To deny His nature. To take His name in vain as the culture does.

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To make Him smaller. To make Him impotent. To do all that He's promised.

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And we don't want to do that. And most importantly, if we do that, it would change the very

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Gospel that John has set out to be a witness to us. So with fresh eyes, with eyes that can see bigger than we ever have before, let's consider our passage today.

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Starting in verses 1 and 2. In the beginning was the

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Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

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In the beginning was the Word. In the Greek, logos is Word.

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Now that is lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, sigma. I have to just say that because a lot of people these days are saying logos or logos.

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Those are two omicrons. And you guys probably don't know what I'm talking about, but that's just a pet peeve of mine.

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This is logos. This isn't logos or logos. This is logos because they're omicrons, not omegas.

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There are no omegas in logos. That's just something that I've wanted to say for ten years.

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The logos. The entire prologue of John is focused on the Word. The Word.

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Who is the Word? Why does John use that title, the

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Word? Logos is used 330 times in the New Testament. 330 times.

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And it is honestly used mostly in very common ways. It is used just simply as word or word statement or a reason.

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That's how it can be translated into English. But the Greeks used logos in their own philosophy.

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The logos to them is what was the common link between all things in the universe. The Greek philosophers used to say this.

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However, they saw the logos as an impersonal acting force or ordering force that acts independent of divine execution or direction in this existence.

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It's just an impersonal force to the Greeks. And that's not what we will see here in the text.

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Searching our Bibles in the Old Testament specifically, we have these moments of the

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Word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord. The Word of the

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Lord was a substantial theme, a supernatural one at that in the Old Testament.

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Psalm 33 .6. We had Jerry read today Psalm 33. Verse 6 says,

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By the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth, all their hosts.

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Psalm 107 .20 He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions.

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So the Word is never divorced from the Lord. It is not this ordering force that exists outside of God.

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The Jews would have thought the Word to not be impersonal, but very personal. Very much personal.

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And the Word of the Lord creates it. The Word of the

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Lord is revelation. The Word of the Lord is most definitely salvation.

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In His Word is salvation. And if we jump ahead and we want to identify who is the

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Word, if we just simply jump to verses 14 -17, we'll find that it says,

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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And so we understand already that that is depicting the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

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It then says John the Baptist testified about Him, and then He is specifically identified as Jesus Christ.

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So the Word, my friends, is Jesus Christ. In Matthew 1, at the birth of Christ, the angel says, call

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Him Immanuel. God with us. Because that very baby is most definitely going to be

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God with us. In Luke 1 .32

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-35, He is to be called the Son of the Most High, the Son of God, because He is deity who is taken on flesh.

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John calls Him the Word here. And he repeats something similarly when it shows by the sword coming out of Jesus' mouth,

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He will vanquish His foes. John, as I said last week, wrote the Revelation, and so John says in Revelation 19, he depicts what

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Jesus says, and I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called

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Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems, or many crowns, and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.

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He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the

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Word of God. So there as well in Revelation 19, Jesus is referred to as the

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Word. The Word of the Lord is the greatest expression of God to His people.

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The greatest expression of God to His people. But there is no greater manifestation, no greater representative or fulfillment of this

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Word than Jesus Christ. People say, give me the red letters.

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Just give me what Jesus said. And it's like He is the Logos. He is the Word. All of the

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Word is Jesus'. He is not divorced from His Word. The red letters, the black letters, whatever kind of Bible you have, they're all the

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Word of Jesus. He is the fullest revelation of special revelation.

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Jesus. So if we continue on, and we consider the first clause.

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If you look at the first verse, there's three clauses. Kind of mark these in your mind.

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In the beginning was the Word. First clause. And the Word was with God. Second clause. And the

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Word was God. That's the third clause of verse 1. So if we consider the first one, it says, in arche ein halagas.

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In the beginning was the Word. And this should rightfully bring your mind back to Genesis 1 .1.

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It should. In the beginning. John wants you to think about Genesis when it says, in the beginning,

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God made the heavens and the earth. John intends to bring our minds back to the creation account.

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Not because in the beginning came the lagos, but in the beginning was the lagos.

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The word was in English, I'm telling you, cannot adequately convey what the

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Greek is saying. Let me talk about that. The word ein.

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It comes from the word amy. And the form it takes here, ein, is expressing continuous action in the past and moving forward.

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Continuous action in the past. Moving forward. That is to say, to use this word is to speak of something with no point of origin.

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To use that verb is to use it as a verb with no point of origin. Okay? This is a statement of being.

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A statement of being. That the Word is timeless. The Word is self -existent.

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What John is saying is the Word is eternal. Eternal. The mention of the beginning, which is in Arche, will make more sense in verse 3, but he's setting the stage.

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So this first clause could be said like this, the Word was already there from forever before the beginning.

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The Word was already there from forever before the beginning.

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So when we ask ourselves questions like, what is the nature of the

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Word? How long has He existed? Does He, Jesus, have a point of origin?

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Is Jesus created? This very first clause already shouts that Jesus is eternal and answers for us the last three of those questions fully.

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Okay? He has no beginning. He has no point of origin. He is timeless.

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The Word is without beginning and without end. He didn't begin at the beginning.

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He was already there. That means before the virgin birth, before the prophets and Moses wrote about Him, before the creation of man, the

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Son of God was and has always been. Okay?

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So that if you look a million years before Genesis 1, Jesus was there.

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So that if you look a trillion years before Genesis 1,

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Jesus was there. And if you even consider, I just learned about this, one of the biggest numbers we have right now is a

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Googol. G -O -O -G -O -L. He's like, yeah, I know. Googol.

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And that is 10 to the 100th degree.

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And so that is a 1 with 100 zeros behind it. And that's not even enough, because Jesus was there a

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Googol ago. That sounds so funny. A Googol ago. Say that quickly.

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Jesus was there. From infinity into infinity. And that's the nature of Jesus.

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Now what does the second clause tell us? It says, and the Word was with God, if we start it again, in archaean halagos, now here the second clause, kai halagos in prostantheon.

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And the Word was with God. The Word was in eternity past, but He was not there alone.

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The Word was not there alone in eternity past. That same verb ein is used here to show how long the

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Word has been with God. How long has He been with God? He has always been with God. The Word.

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Prostantheon shows more than interrelationship or association. Before there was even time and matter, the

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Word, the Son of God, was before the Father. He was in front of the

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Father. The word here can literally mean He was face -to -face with God the

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Father. And in the high priestly prayer in John 17, we see a glimpse of that.

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Jesus says in His prayer, He says, Now Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which

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I had with You before the world was. Before the world was.

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Before all creation. Glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which

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I had with You before the world was.

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All throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus' great love and affection towards His Father.

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The Father, if you remember, announces, Behold, the Son of My love in whom

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I am well pleased. Their love is perfect. Their love is unfathomable.

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As much love as you think you could have for your spouse or your children, it is not even close to the love that the

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Father has for the Son and the Son has for the Father. It is a love unstained by sin.

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Prostantheon shows relationship. It shows intimacy. Face -to -face. Paul uses this word in 1

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Corinthians 13 -12 when saying right now, we look in a mirror dimly, but Paul says one day we will with intimate knowledge in eternity see things face -to -face.

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Right now, we look in a mirror dimly, but one day we will look at things face -to -face. He uses that word prost.

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And almost every time prost is used in the New Testament, it is someone with another person.

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It is never someone alone. It is someone with another person or with multiple people.

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It's used in verses when Jesus said every day I was with you. Prost.

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Every day I was with you. That means He was actually there among them. It's used in the

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Scripture absent from the body at home with the Lord. Prost. The Lord.

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And this word has to do with one being with another. One with another.

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Okay? So that is saying with that word ein, which has no beginning, no point of origin, it's saying, and the

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Word was always with God from all eternity. He was always with God the

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Father. That's what that would be saying. Now go to the third clause.

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In Archaean Halagos, Kai Halagos, and Prostanteon, in the last clause,

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Kai Theos ein Halagos. The Word was God.

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Hands down, one of the most important words ever given in Holy Scripture.

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Definitely the most damning to any copycat sort of cult out there today.

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You can't get more exact than that. Jesus was

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God. Jesus was God. Each clause was so carefully inspired by the

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Holy Spirit. So perfect. Comparing to the clause before it, we must understand that while one person can be by himself,

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I can be by myself. I can go be alone somewhere, right? But someone is never alone with themselves.

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He is never alone with himself. Prost is never used to say,

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I am with myself. Okay? You'll see why that's important.

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Because together, when you consider these clauses, this is one of the most Trinitarian texts that we can see.

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The Word is God, but He is not God the Father. That's the key here.

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The Word was God, and yet at the same time, the Word was

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God, but then the Word was with God from all eternity. He has been God from all eternity, the

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Word, and the Word has been with God from all eternity. And these two truths are suspended in mid -air, in a sense.

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How do we reconcile that? Jesus has always been God, and He's always been with God from all eternity.

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And of course, the Trinity is the solution for that. We see those truths, and we have to uphold them.

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Forever and ever ago and into forever future, He has been with God the Father. One God, but there is distinction.

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One God, but distinction. One God, but Father and Son in Trinitarian relationship with each other.

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This completely flies in the face of what's called modalism or Sabellianism.

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That is to say that God takes different modes or He wears different hats, and sometimes

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He becomes like the Son and sometimes He's like the Holy Spirit. That is actually not biblical.

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They are distinct, but that there is one God. God doesn't take different forms.

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He could never then be face -to -face with another form of Himself. That's not logical.

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One cannot be in the bosom of themselves as v. 18 speaks of the Son of God being in the bosom of the

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Father. How is Jesus in the bosom of the Father if that means there are different modes of God?

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That's not possible. What the clause in the Word was

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God is not saying is that the Word is the Father. The Word is not the Father.

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The Word is not the Father. My fellow pastor from Arizona, James White, has a great study on what's called the predicate nominative cases for the construction here in the

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Greek of this last phrase. Our deacon Andrew went over this a couple months ago.

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It's called the predicate nominative case. This is to say that there's a small article.

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Articles are something what we consider almost always so insignificant. An article in a letter?

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No. An article in something that is written? What's the big deal? But this article for this last clause is very important.

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The small article belongs to logos in this last phrase.

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Let me say it again. Chi, theos, and halogos.

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Ha. That word ha is the article. And that article goes with logos.

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Whereas some people try to argue that article goes with theos. Okay? And I'll show you why that's a problem.

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I know this is kind of a technical sermon, but this is critical that we understand this. Okay? I don't want to dumb this down for you.

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F .F. Bruce explains this well as he says, the structure of the third clause in v. 1, theos and halogos demands the translation the word was

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God. Since logos has the article preceding it, it is marked out as the subject.

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The fact that theos is the first word after the conjunction chi or and shows that the main emphasis of the clause lies on it.

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Has theos as well as logos been preceded by the article, the meaning would have been that the word was completely identical with God.

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And that's not possible. If the article belonged to theos and not logos, it would be saying

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God and the word are completely identical. Removing distinction.

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As if they take different modes. And again, that's impossible because it says the word was with God.

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The second clause helps bear witness to that. What is meant is that the word shared the nature and being of God.

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The word shares the nature and being of God. The NEB paraphrases it this way, what

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God was, the word was. What God was, the word was.

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Jesus was. Jesus was God. And it brings out the meaning

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I think more successfully. In other words, the word was God. Jesus was

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God speaks to the Son's essence and being. But it's not saying that He is

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God the Father. We would be in great error if we read this simply as the word was like God.

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It doesn't say that. It doesn't say the word was like God. We would be in trouble if we said something like the word was simply divine.

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But kai theos ein halagos, there's that eternal verb ein again.

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From eternity past unto now and into eternity, the word is God. Jesus has always been

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God. And Paul adds to this truth when he wrote to the church at Colossae, he says regarding Jesus, for in Him the fullness of deity dwells in Jesus in bodily form.

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In Him the fullness of deity, all that it means to be God, all of the essence of God, Paul is saying, is in Jesus.

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He is God. He even tells that to the church at Philippi. Philippi says about Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied

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Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. That is speaking to the fact that Jesus has always been

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God, and in His incarnation and coming here in the virgin birth, and coming here to this world,

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Jesus became totally God and totally man. That's what that speaks to there.

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And that is right in line with the prologue of John, what we're going over. He is God, and then we'll look at later in a couple weeks, v.

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14, this Word took on flesh. And He dwelt among us.

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He became man. He became totally God and totally man. Martin Luther says regarding this passage, this text is a strong and valid attestation of the divinity of Christ.

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Everything, everything depends on this doctrine. It serves to maintain and support all other doctrines of the

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Christian faith. Therefore, the devil assailed it very early in the history of Christendom, and he continues to do so to this day.

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And that is true. From the very earliest time of even Jesus' ministry,

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He would be saying that He is the I Am and they would be looking to kill

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Him, to destroy Him. He claimed deity from the beginning and it was being attacked.

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Every single cult out there, every single false religion, think about it, every single one, almost all of them, attacks this core truth saying that Jesus is not

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God. And that's why the prologue is so important to John. It's important to us.

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If you get this wrong, everything else will be too. Everything else will be too.

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Now, verse 2 is just a quick re -emphasis, a quick restatement, if you will, a combination of the first and second clause in verse 2.

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He was in the beginning with God. It demonstrates to us

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God the Word was eternally with God the Father and they were there at the beginning as well. Creation is brought back up again and will be discussed more fully.

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So if you go to verse 3, verse 3 says, all things came into being through Him and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.

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Now we have a new verb to consider in this verse, okay? We've been talking about that eternal verb, ein, that is in reference to Jesus, but now we have a new verb.

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Came into being is egeneto. Egeneto.

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And in these five verses that we're going over today, there's something very significant about these two verbs, ein and egeneto.

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Every time ein is used, it is a word, of course, as I said, a word where there's no point of origin of the subject of it.

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Every time that is used, it's used only in reference to the word. Ein is only used in reference to Jesus, where there's no beginning.

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But then every time egeneto is used in these five verses, it's used for things that are created.

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Completely different. It is not used in reference ever to the

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Son of God in these five verses. To say the Word is created is to go against what verse 1 has already established.

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He is eternal. And I love this because this is gloriously exhaustive.

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Look at the way he says that. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.

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All things and nothing. All things and nothing. John covers everything here.

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And all things in the Greek is panta or pas, and it really means the every, the all, the whole, the totality of a mass, the whole thing.

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All things, egeneto, through Him. All things come into being through Him.

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The totality of all things created. Every single thing that would have creature or creation ascribed to it.

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Everything that required God to produce or make it came into being through the

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Son of God, the Word. Everything. Everything that you see, everything that's in the universe, everything has been made through Jesus Christ.

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That means when you consider again those two categories, ein and egeneto, uncreated and created, eternal, not eternal,

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Jesus is of the uncreated category. He is outside of the things that are created.

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And He must be in order to create everything. In order to create everything, Jesus must not be of the created.

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Creating abilities according to the Bible are only possible by one who possesses deity, only one who is

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God. Colossians 1 will bolster this point. It says in Colossians 1, for by Him, by Jesus, all things were created both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him.

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And Jesus is before all things and in Him all things hold together.

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Jesus created everything. Jesus created angels.

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Jesus created the fallen angels. Jesus created man. Jesus created woman. Jesus created the animals, the insects, the universe.

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Every single molecule and atom, every single piece of matter comes from and through Jesus.

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Hebrews 1 speaks to the deity of Christ and His creative powers as well. It says, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us through His Son, whom

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He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. It says regarding Jesus, He is the radiance of God's glory and He is the exact representation of His nature.

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He is God and He upholds all things by the word of His power. In Revelation 3 .14,

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Jesus calls Himself the Amen, He calls Himself the faithful and true witness, and He calls Himself the origin of creation.

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That's the name Jesus calls Himself. He says, I am the origin of creation. Those are just a few.

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Those are just a few of the verses that say He is Creator. You have even Revelation 4 .11, 1

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Corinthians 8 .6. You have many more that speak to this as well. Now, some false religions will say they agree with these

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Scriptures. Yeah, Jesus is the Creator. Yep, He is the Creator of all things. And they'll say, but He was an agent of creation.

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He was like some sort of filter or channel through which God created everything.

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So the Father created through Jesus and Jesus was the thing that disseminated creation.

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And they'll say that in a way to say that Jesus doesn't have deity. That He was just kind of used as some sort of agent of creation.

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But that's not what we see here. That's simply not what is in the Scriptures.

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Okay? For that to be true, you must reject these words in the prologue of John and say that all things,

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Panta, all things, have an exception to it Himself. Jesus is the only thing that's not included in all things.

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That doesn't make sense. That's not in the Greek. That's not in the Scriptures. It doesn't say that.

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And in case the reader gets confused, John makes a clarifying statement. Don't you just love it?

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He reemphasizes the point. He makes sure no one can twist this. Apart from Him, koros atau.

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Without. Apart from. Independent of Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.

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He covers it all. In case someone wants to attack all things, it says, from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.

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All things have come into being through the Son of God. Everything that is eganeto. And nothing that has come into being by way of creation has come that way apart from Him.

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This again excludes Himself. This excludes Jesus. The Father doesn't make

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Him first. Or Jesus doesn't make Himself first. Right? And then is some sort of agent of creation because nothing that has come into being has come into being apart from Him.

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Nothing. Not a single thing. Not Himself. That word ein.

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He's always been there. What this also shows us is when Genesis 1 says, then

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God said, let us make man in our own image according to our likeness. The Son of God was there creating.

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The Son of God was there. Read Genesis 1 differently. See the fact that Jesus was there.

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Because the creation of the world in all matter was a Trinitarian act. This is power to a degree that we've never beheld.

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This is incredible power. The power to create. This is something only

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God could do. And I simply can only imagine and it must fall so desperately short of what it would have looked like.

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Maybe when the Father said, let there be light, Jesus next to Him, then exuded unimaginable power.

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Just this unimaginable power emanated from Jesus. I don't even know. Incredible.

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What did that look like for Jesus to create all things? It's amazing. Amazing. There are an estimated 10 octillion stars in the whole universe and the

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Bible says He knows them all by name. Jesus spoke each one and they apparated from nothing into something.

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They all shine differently. Some with different blues and some with hues of orange and red and even white and yellow.

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Pastor James loves to show us through the telescope the different stars out there.

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You remember that, Jerry? He knows. We went to man camp.

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We went like 8 ,300 feet up. Everyone's trying to just have fun, go to the lake and stuff, and Pastor James all day is setting up this telescope that's like this wide.

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I guess we're going to see another galaxy or something like that. But it was tremendous. It was amazing.

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He knows much more about that stuff. But God sets them in the night sky like a jeweler sets diamonds and sapphires in a ring.

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Right? They stay in place where He wants them. And they go where He tells them.

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That means no shooting star flies across the sky apart from Jesus Christ telling it to do so.

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The mind of God possesses all the creativity and variety we see with our very eyes and much more, much more.

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And it baffles scientists how our bodies even work. Every atom, every molecule, everything so perfectly does what it was designed to do because of Jesus.

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Only the Eternal One can do this. Even in this verse about creation, it speaks more to the

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Creator than actually the creation itself. He is God, and yet while He is

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God, He is with God. Distinct from God. Together, the

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Trinity in the beginning made the heavens and the earth. That is clear. So go to our final verses, verses 4 and 5.

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In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

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Enauto zoe ain. Zoe, as I told you last week, zoe is life in the

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Greek. Zoe. Spelled Z -O -E. In Him was life.

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Forever and ever from eternity into eternity, in Him is life.

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Both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit share that self -existing life. In Him was life and light.

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Light and life. They are in Him, and they did not need to be given to Him.

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Life and light weren't handed to Jesus. They were in Him from all eternity.

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They weren't applied to Him. So that speaks to His self -existent nature.

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And that's how He is able to create all things when you think about it. Where does life begin? Where does life originate?

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From God. Because in Him was life. When God breathed the breath of life into Adam from the dust, it happened because Jesus has life.

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And the life was the light of men. The lights in the eyes of humans are from the life which is from the

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Word, Jesus. But I think this doesn't only speak to His ability to create, but to also recreate.

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What do I mean by that? I think this isn't just talking about creation, but recreation.

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Redemption. Jesus creates you and me.

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He creates us. He makes us then born again. And then after we die,

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He will resurrect us into glorified bodies that He has created, that He has prepared for us.

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The earthly tent, Paul says, will fade away, and we will receive a heavenly tent that will never fade away.

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But that's all because He gives new life. Death came into the world, but in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

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That's why Jesus called Himself the resurrection and the life in John 11. In John 14,

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He calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life. He calls Himself the life often because the life is in Him.

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John 10 .10, the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus says,

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I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. So don't you see?

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He brought you life in Arche, in the beginning, and then He came to His creation to bring you life since death and sin came into the world.

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And it's going to be eternal life. That's what He came to give. And now no one can take away from you what

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He's given you if you are in Christ. The light of the world gives light and doesn't take it away.

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And that's a comforting thought to the believer. He controls life here on earth, and He controls our lives when they are cut off from this earth.

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When we go into eternal life. Things aren't left up to chance. Hope I get lucky.

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I had this one brother, he was like, you got your ticket ready? You going to be ready?

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You going to be lucky? No, this is a sure thing. This is a sure thing in Jesus Christ.

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He controls it all. It's not left up to chance. He controls life eternal. So whether you are in this life or the next life, in Him was life.

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The Master of life. Light here is often seen as the opposite of darkness.

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In this world, get this, in this world it may seem like the canvas that we see is darkness, and then light speckles that black canvas.

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It may seem like that. But in the next life, we're going to be in a place where in eternity, light is the canvas.

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Light is the canvas and not darkness being the canvas. It's going to be glorious. There won't be any darkness.

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In John 8 .12 it says, Then Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

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Darkness, it says in Genesis 1, was over the surface of the deep. But now in this situation, darkness was over the surface of your heart, but Jesus says, as He said at the beginning, let there be light.

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Jesus says let there be light. Let there be light in you. There was darkness over the surface of the deep in the heart.

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And He proclaims it. He promises in John 12 .46, I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness.

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What does the prophet Isaiah say? He says about the coming Messiah, the Word, he says the people who have been walking in darkness have seen a great light.

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It's like that dark, wet, black dungeon I talked about a couple Sundays ago.

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Before Christ, we walked in darkness. In fact, not only did we walk in darkness, we groped at black walls in darkness trying to be able to see, trying to make our way to light, and we could not do that.

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We could barely get by. How did we ever get by before Jesus? And like a bright light cutting through absolute blackness, the

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Lord Jesus shows us the way. That's probably why we're often called blind in the

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Bible. It's not necessarily that our eyes don't work. It's that we're walking in complete darkness.

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That's the image we get. He rescued us.

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Verse 5 says, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Again, this is likely pointing to Genesis 1 -3 and how

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He brought light to the darkness that was over the surface of the deep. But John is and will continue to show us redemption is from the light of men.

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It's from the light of men, I'm sorry. Heaven invaded earth in the incarnation of Christ.

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Light invaded darkness. And there's a sense in which although the light and life was given to man at the very beginning, to Adam, sin brought darkness over all of the land.

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Over everyone. Shadow engulfed the land.

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Darkness became our new nature. The Bible shows. Jesus said in John 3 .19,

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this is the judgment that the light has come into the world and men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.

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And Jesus changes that though. Jesus changes that reality. The Son of God is the light that rescues us from the darkness.

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But the darkness did not comprehend it. Do you see how

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Christ has to save us? The darkness can't comprehend the light. The darkness did not make the light its own, it can say.

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The people did not receive Jesus as the Messiah. His people rejected Him. This word though, comprehend, in the

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Greek, katalambano, can also mean to seize something, to overtake or overpower something.

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That means the light cannot be pounced upon. The light cannot be overpowered. Darkness can never overwhelm

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Jesus Christ. Darkness will never overwhelm Him or vanquish

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Him in His light. There's no stopping Christ. Like a candle that goes into a dark room, it pierces through the blackness of a room.

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Like on the darkest of nights, a cloud moves past by the wind and a full moon is shown, and it pierces through the black canvas of the sky, so is

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Jesus Christ as our light. And there's no stopping Him. Darkness already tried.

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Satan already tried. The Prince of Darkness tried. He tried to offer Him the kingdoms of the world.

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He tried to offer Jesus a bootleg kingdom, and Jesus won that. He conquered through that temptation, and He went to the cross, the very thing

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Satan did not want Him to do. The Prince of Darkness failed, and the kingdom of light then is spreading.

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The kingdom of light is spreading because there's light in you. And wherever you go, you light it up.

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We're lights all over this world. And we have life in us. You might even see that.

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Sometimes you go to work, and you're just different, right? People go, there's something about you.

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It's the light in the life. It's the light in the life. By orders of the

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King, the light will spread. And it will never fail. The light will continue to spread.

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It will not stop. You know, I think about you may or may not be convicted about different movies, but I think about the

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Lord of the Rings. J .R .R. Tolkien. I read all those books as a young man. To make the pathway for the orcs and those who are evil more tolerable,

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Sauron puts these black clouds in the sky and it kind of blocks the sun as these evil, nasty -looking creatures make their way to go to battle.

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And then at the battle at Helm's Deep, it's just black over them.

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And all of a sudden, the main characters come on the other side of a mountain and the sun rises and it breaks through the light.

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And the way I think about it now is that there's no dark clouds covering those who are black, but light is just started and it just won't stop.

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When Christ came, the light came, and it will not stop. It will keep spreading. It will not stop.

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It's covering the whole earth. The light has begun and there's no stopping it. One day, light will cover this whole land and it will be as daytime all day.

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Christ is our light in all eternity. So church, these are the vital truths that John wants us to know before we press on through the

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Gospel. He wants us to know these things before we move through the other 20 chapters.

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The other Gospels have Jesus' earthly genealogies, but John starts his

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Gospel account with a spiritual genealogy. This is the Word.

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This is where He's from. This is who He is. He is God. He's always been with the Father. That's how

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John starts his. He doesn't want anyone to mistake it. The Word is from God.

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He is of God. He is with God. And He is God. And this has always been and it will always be.

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That is the truth. To change this truth is to make the rest of this Gospel blasphemy.

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Think about it. To change that truth that Jesus is

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God would be to make the rest of the Gospel blasphemy. When He calls Himself the I Am multiple times, they even charge

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Him. They say, you make yourself out to be as God. And if this were false, the

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Pharisees would be right. The Jews would be right. And we would then have to join them and stone our

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Lord. That's what they did. They picked up stones. But because this is true, everything else that follows is not blasphemy.

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It is absolutely true. Before Abraham was, he said,

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I Am. Moses and the prophets wrote about Him. He says, if we deny the truths given here, then we might as well do what they did and say crucify

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Him. Crucify Him. The cross hangs on the deity of Christ.

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The cross hangs on the deity of Christ because only the Son of God would be a worthy sacrifice and substitute for myriads of people.

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Only the Son of God, only the one with deity could actually absorb and take on the wrath of the

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Father that millions of people should incur. A demigod could never atone for sin.

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An elevated man would stay dead in the grave, but Jesus rose again. He is alive. That is true.

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Only the one with zoe, with life, and phos, light, can rise again from the dead.

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Only God can rise again from the dead. And has the power to do it for others. Only the one with the power to give life and create life can not be affected by death.

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So, why is John 1 important or relevant to you all, church?

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Why is the doctrine of the Trinity so important to Christians? Because if the

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Word was not in the beginning, if the Word was not with God, and the Word was not

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God, then we'd be dead where we stand. There would be no hope in the next life.

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There would be no hope in this life. We'd be without hope, without a prospect of leaving the darkness.

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We would stay in the darkness. We would never see the light. Because Jesus is

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God, you were created. Because Jesus is God, your sins can be forgiven.

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Because Jesus is God, you will have eternal life. And because Jesus is

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God, there is meaning and purpose to your life, even the trials and triumphs.

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Because Jesus is God, that matters. Everything that you go through matters because Jesus is

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God. And the most important thing you do, of course, is to follow Him, to love

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Him, obey Him. I hope you see with just this little bit how glorious the

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Gospel according to John is going to be. It's going to be amazing. Luther especially loved it.

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He said this. Martin Luther said, this is the unique, tender, genuine chief

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Gospel. Should a tyrant succeed in destroying the Holy Scriptures and only a single copy of the

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Epistle of Romans and the Gospel according to John escape that tyrant, Christianity would be saved.

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I found that to be an amazing quote. Romans and the Gospel according to John. That shows how much he loved this

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Gospel. And I hope you do too. I named this sermon, if you remember,

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Deity Before Discourse. Deity Before Discourse. And I pray you now see why we must accept the

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Word is God, why Jesus is God, before we see the rest of God's Word in John.

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But even more than that, I pray that Jesus is now that much bigger for you.

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He's been made small by our culture. He's been made small in front of our eyes. But I hope today that you would see

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Jesus in a bigger way. I pray your perspective of the Messiah will grow and will continue to grow throughout the series.

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So, praise God. Let's pray church. Lord, please bless the message that went out today,

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Lord. I pray it was glorifying to your name. God, we have no parlor tricks here.

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We seek only to teach your Word and to teach it accurately. Lord, to see the truth of Scripture heralded from this pulpit without any error.

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I pray that's what was done today, Lord, that no error has come from here.

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God, I think we've honored you in your Word. I pray, God, that this glorious truth would be something that changes our perspective of you.

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I hope, Lord, that today this would even give us an apologetic, a defense for the faith as we declare to people that Jesus is

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God. That He is the Messiah. That He is the one who has created all things and nothing that has come into being has come into being apart from Him.

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Jesus, we worship you. Jesus, you deserve all praise and honor and glory.

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We thank you, Lord, for this time. Please be with your people and help them to understand it,