The Word Made Flesh

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Dale Kurti; John 1:1-18 The Word Made Flesh

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Well, good morning, everyone.
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Welcome to Recast Church. How is everyone doing this morning? Are we good? Jason's doing good.
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Everybody else doing all right? So yeah, I get some nods. Good, good. Excellent. Well, so just very quickly,
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Don is gone, our main head pastor. And so I'm just kind of filling in a little bit in terms of welcome everybody.
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He usually says a little snippet about our church and everything. Recast is actually an acronym, and you can look at what that stands for,
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I think, even in the handout. But I just wanted to say I see some visitors or maybe some people don't recognize the
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A in Recast stands for authenticity. And I hope that this morning, whether you've been here a bunch and for years, or whether this is your first time that you're coming to a place where you are ready or willing to just take any kind of masks off,
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I hope you feel comfortable not to feel like you need to put on a show or put yourself together or feel like you need to be something more than you are.
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We're all here. We're all pretty simple, straightforward people that need God, whether we realize that or not.
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And so I love that this church has a heart to strive, to have a place where through your ups and downs, through your good and bad times, and through all of our own struggles and victories in our regular life and in our spiritual life and everything, that this is a place where we can be real and we can connect.
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So I hope we all connect today, and I hope we're all seeking to connect with each other. So that's what
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Recast is about, and we're excited to have you here. So with Don being gone, we have
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Dale Kurdi here. He is actually one of our missionaries. He does campus ministries at Western Michigan, and works with students and some foreign students.
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And he has filled in before a few times. I always enjoy when he comes, and I hope you guys are excited about that.
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He's going to come and share a message now, and he's going to give a little intro to this morning's text and John.
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Dale? Oh, and I meant, I said I was going to remember this, so really quick, because Dale's new.
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I wanted to kind of handle this for him. If you don't have a Bible with you, we've got people in the back in a minute here as Dale covers this passage.
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So I think, yeah, a couple guys. Mike, Jay, you guys are back there with some Bibles. If you don't have a
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Bible with you, you can raise your hand. We'll bring a Bible to you. We've got it open to the right passage and everything, and you can have that here this morning to read along and just follow the text.
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But also, if you don't own a Bible, please feel free to take a Bible. That's our gift to you.
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You guys can have that and take it so you can study God's Word. We'd love to make sure you have one in your home. So if anybody doesn't have one, you guys can raise your hand.
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They'll come find you. We've got one here in the front. Anybody else throw up a hand, and then we'll proceed.
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Dale, you can take it from here. If you have your Bible this morning, we're going to be looking in John chapter 1, verses 1 through 18.
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And just as a word of kind of introduction into this passage, great missionary
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Hudson Taylor made this comment. He said, Jesus is
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Lord of all or Jesus is not
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Lord at all. You know, we live in an age and in a culture in which there are really different views, varying views about Jesus.
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Some people reject Jesus and even mock Him, but those people are not, as I can see it, in the majority.
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Some people worship Jesus and follow Him, but neither are they in the majority.
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I believe that there is a large majority of people in America that hold Jesus at a historical distance.
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They praise Him kind of as an inspirational figure, but they don't consider it a worthwhile use of time to really deeply investigate
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His person and His claims. People speak in kind of hazy terms about Jesus's outstanding character, in the same way they would speak about Gandhi or Nelson Mandela.
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I mean, they speak about His outstanding character, they employ respectful titles, but at the same time they dismiss
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His claims of authority and His demands that He places upon the nations.
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The passage that we're going to look at this morning does not permit any kind of dismissive posture towards Jesus.
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On the contrary, it is the clearest presentation in all of scripture of the divine nature, the human nature, and the preeminence of Jesus over all things.
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So let's take a look at the first couple of verses this morning, just to kind of set the tone and prepare our hearts and our minds as we enter into worship.
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Verses 1 through 3 of John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the
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Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
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All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
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The Greek word logos, here translated word, is widely used in different contexts in first -century
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Greek literature. If you were a Greek reader of the book of John, especially someone acquainted with Stoic philosophy, you would understand this term, the word, to refer to the rational principle that governs the universe.
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But the idea is bigger than that. There is a Hebrew context for this word, and so if you are a
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Hebrew -speaking reader of the book of John, you would understand the Word of God to be the creative power by which
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God called into being everything in the universe, and it's here personified in the person of Jesus.
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Jesus is God's own self -expression, and four things are noted in this text about Jesus.
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Four things. Jesus was with God, distinct from the
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Father, but Jesus was God, God's very own self, sharing one essence with the
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Father. Jesus existed at the origin of creation.
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He was not part of the created order. In fact, He was the agent through whom all things were created.
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Jesus was the one through whom God created all things. He is the creative mediator of all things, of all life.
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And these statements, these four statements that Jesus was with God, He was God, He existed at the beginning, and He is the agent of creation, these things, these four statements are so important today because there is confusion about the identity of Jesus.
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And there are many false teachings about the human nature and divine nature of Jesus. And this is nothing new.
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Really, in about the third century AD, a Christian pastor named
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Arius argued that, as the Jehovah's Witnesses argue today, that Jesus had a point of origin in history.
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In other words, there was a time when God the Father existed, and Jesus did not exist.
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And Jesus came into being at some point in creation. We cannot, friends, we cannot accept this teaching.
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These words in this passage, in the beginning, hearken back to the first words of Genesis, in the beginning, and it says, in the beginning was the word.
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Jesus existed in the beginning. He was not part of the beginning, but He existed in the beginning.
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He was not part of the created order. Jesus was the one through whom God created all things.
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This same biblical doctrine is explained also in John chapter 8, where Jesus says, before Abraham was born,
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I am. And in Revelation chapter 1, verses 17 and 18, Jesus says, fear not,
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I am the first and the last. I am the living one.
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Behold, I was dead, and now I am alive forevermore. Jesus is the first and the last.
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He is in the beginning with the Father. These passages teach us that Jesus has no beginning.
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He was in the beginning together with God. He is not part of the created order. Nothing came into existence except through Jesus.
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He is the very rational power of God, the very living word of God that holds all things together.
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Let's move on. We're going to look at just the next two verses, and then we're going to move into a time of worship. Verse 4, in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
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Jesus possesses the self -existing life of God. He has no need for anyone to give
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Him life. Jesus possesses life, and He is the source of life for every plant, every animal, every human being on this planet.
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But what does it mean, this sentence, and the life was the light of men? Honestly, when I studied this passage,
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I thought this was a hard sentence to unpack, and I wrestled with it. But this is what
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I believe this means, is that Jesus created Adam and Eve. He breathed into them life, not only biological life, but spiritual life.
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Jesus gave people a rational knowledge of God. He gave them conscience. He gave them a moral nature.
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He created them in His image with relationship to the Father. All of this spiritual life and biological life that we as human beings possess comes from Jesus.
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So, is this life that Jesus has given us, is the light of revelation to man?
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Now, is it still the light of light, or is it still the life of Jesus, still the light of humanity today?
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Well, the answer is yes, even though people do not choose to walk in it. Let me explain.
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People are in possession of a conscience today, even though the faculty of conscience is desensitized in many people's lives because of sin.
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People are in possession of a moral nature, even though they choose not to walk in what is right.
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People are capable of seeing the glory of God revealed in creation, even if they choose to close their eyes to it.
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People are created in the very image of God, even though that image is marred and stained in sinful man.
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People are endowed with life from God, even though many people do not choose to give thanks to God for it.
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God's revelation is given to all people, but it is most fully realized in the person of Jesus Christ.
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One commentator said this, The one before whom we will stand on judgment day will be no stranger.
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All people will have met him before. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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In the book of John, light and darkness are key themes. Light represents the revelation of God most fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.
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It's a revelation that leads us to salvation and to holiness. Darkness, on the other hand, represents evil, demonic evil, rebellion against God and his order.
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And in verse 5, we see that the revelation of God embodied in the person of Jesus shines into this dark, perverse, corrupted world, and praise be to God, it can never be overcome.
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It cannot be extinguished. Opposition to the gospel will be intense.
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Martyrs will spill their blood. False teaching will proliferate, but the darkness will not and cannot extinguish the light from God.
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Jesus shines into this dark, perverse world, and his kingdom will be built. It will not fail.
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We're going to move into a time now of worship as I invite the worship team to come back up. And as we lift our voices in worship to the one who has made us, to Jesus our
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Lord, let's just have these passages just close to our hearts, close to our minds.
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I'm going to go ahead and pray for us. Father in heaven, I thank you for giving to us
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Jesus, your Son, our Lord. I ask that our worship now would be pleasing to you, and I ask that our time this morning would be instructive.
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May it be encouraging. Most of all, may it be honoring to your
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Son, Jesus, through whom we are made and have our existence. In that name we pray, amen.
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So again, if you have your Bibles this morning, we're in John chapter 1.
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We're going to talk about Jesus. If in these first three verses that we looked at this morning, we saw that Jesus was with God, Jesus was
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God. He existed at the origin of all created things, and everything that exists has come into being through him.
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Jesus is the light of the world. If that's where we started, really starting with verse 5, which you already kind of touched on, we see what happens when this light, when the perfect revelation of God embodied in the person of Jesus, what happens when that light comes into the world?
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What happens? What does it look like? What response did it find? And the rest of this passage through verse 18 really touches on what happens when the light shines in the darkness.
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So let's pick it up in verse 6. And I'm going to read verses 6, 7, and 8.
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There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
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He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light.
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God prepared the way for Jesus by sending John the Baptist.
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Now, I want you to note John's role here in this passage. John was not the light, but he came to bear witness of the light.
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He came, as it says it twice, he came to bear witness so that all might believe through him.
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And I believe that this is a very powerful and instructive point for us.
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All of us, in one sense or another, are ministers of the gospel. And just as John's goal, he was not the light, his goal was to bear witness to the light.
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So our goal in our evangelistic witness, the goal of a speaker on Sunday morning, is to bear witness of Jesus and to make much of Jesus.
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Friend, when you share Jesus Christ with your neighbor, you don't have to have the answers to every question that they might ask.
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Simply talk about the man, Jesus Christ, as John did. You can say, friend,
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I don't know much about candles and crusades and cathedrals. I don't know much about the history of the church, but there's one thing that I can talk about.
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I know about the man, Jesus. Jesus is a man that I can follow.
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He did things no one else ever did. He displayed character that no one else ever displayed.
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He said things that no one else would dare claim. He displayed a love and a sacrifice that finds no equal among humankind.
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I don't have the answer to every mystery, but we can point people, you can point people to the person of Jesus and bear witness to how
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Jesus has changed your life. This is what
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John the Baptist did. He bore witness to Jesus and testified concerning Jesus.
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He was not the light, but he bore witness about the light. Verse 9. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
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He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
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He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. Jesus is the true light of this world.
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Everything that exists came into being through him. Jesus gives light to everyone in the sense that he is the source of revelation, of the general revelation that all people have through conscience and through creation.
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Jesus is the source of our light of revelation. And now we see the source of light and the source of life himself, the source of revelation, comes down into this world, into our experience, and dwells with us.
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Jesus is the true light. Listen to what J .C. Ryle says about this, this passage.
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I think this is very instructive. What does it mean when it says Jesus, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world?
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Christ is to the souls of men what the sun is to the world.
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He is the center and source of all spiritual light, warmth, life, health, growth, beauty, fertility.
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Like the sun, he shines for the common benefit of all mankind, for high and for low, for rich and for poor, for Jew and for Greek.
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Like the sun, he is free to all. All may look at him and drink health out of his light.
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If millions of mankind were mad enough to dwell in caves underground or to bandage their eyes, their darkness would be their own fault, not the fault of the sun.
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So likewise, if millions of men and women love spiritual darkness rather than light, the blame must be laid on their blind hearts, not on Christ.
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Jesus is the light of the world whether people recognize him as such or not.
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And the light of the world is accessible to all people whether people recognize him or not.
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You know, God has, I want you to consider in the book of John in general, all that God the
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Father has done to authenticate the ministry of his Son, Jesus. We see the witness of John the
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Baptist. We see the works and the very miracles of Jesus authenticating the life of Jesus.
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Jesus specifically points this out in John chapter 5. We see the Father himself authenticating
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Jesus in Matthew chapter 3 and in John chapter 5. Remember, at Jesus' baptism, the
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Father himself spoke about the Son and said, this is my beloved Son whom I love.
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In John chapter 5, Jesus says the Old Testament scriptures testify to him. The Holy Spirit in John chapter 15 testifies about Jesus.
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And also, Jesus says to his apostles, and you too will testify about me.
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The true light that is coming into the world, God has authenticated that true light.
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Now look at verse 10, in spite of the abundance of testimony of God the Father in authenticating the person and work of Jesus, the unbelieving world, although created through him, did not come to know him.
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And even his own people, in verse 11, the Jewish people, did not welcome him or receive him.
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They should have received him, they should have welcomed him. All throughout the Old Testament scriptures and throughout Jewish culture, there were types and figures and prophecies of Christ.
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Can we honestly say that God has not given us enough evidence for his existence and for the eternal nature of his
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Son? Sometimes I meet students and they say, well,
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I don't really believe in God. I don't think that there's enough evidence one way or another to make a decision about this.
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And I like to ask them, well, what evidence would you find persuasive?
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And usually that takes them back and they think for a moment. And they'll say something like, well, if God would perform some miraculous sign, then maybe
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I would believe that he is real or that I would believe that Jesus is for real. Jesus performed many miraculous signs and the world did not receive him.
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Or sometimes, this is my favorite one, they'll say, well, maybe if God just came down to us, then I would believe him.
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And the fact is this passage teaches that God did come down to us and we refused him welcome.
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In fact, even worse, evil people murdered him. But the response wasn't all bad, was it?
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Verse 12, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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Now, before we look at these verses any more closely, I want you to consider the universal invitation that is found in this prologue, in these chapters.
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In verse 7, John came so that all might believe in Jesus. Verse 9,
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Jesus gives light to everyone. Verse 12, to all who did receive Jesus. You know, some
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Christianity is sometimes criticized for being narrow, but I want you to see that in this passage, it is fantastically, the gospel invitation is fantastically inclusive in this way.
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I mean that it's open to people of every age, every gender, or every socioeconomic class, to each gender, to every educational level, to every religious background, to every linguistic group.
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The gospel is available, Jesus is available to everyone. There's only one condition for entrance into God's family, and one condition alone, and that is you must receive
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Jesus. You must believe in his name. Now, in contemporary
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Christian idiom, when we're just talking together, we sometimes say things like, oh, you must receive Jesus. And sometimes this idea maybe loses its meaning a little bit.
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It can mean, oh, you need to pray a prayer of some sort. What it means in this passage to receive
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Jesus is to receive him for all he is, to receive and believe upon his name, the name representing his full person and his character and his promises.
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To receive him means to welcome him. It means to yield to him.
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The meaning here is to welcome Jesus as he really is, the living word of God, who is the perfect revelation of God, the source of our lives, the one through whom all things were created, the one for whom all things are created.
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To receive Jesus is to welcome Jesus, not in a casual or flippant way, but in a yielded -ness.
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Now, to the person who welcomes Jesus and his claims of lordship and authority, two things are granted, the right to become a child of God and spiritual rebirth by the power of God.
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I love what we sang earlier. This rebirth is not given to people on the basis of blood.
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In verse 13, blood meaning ethnic identity. The Jews were not given spiritual rebirth just because they had the good fortune of being born
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Jewish. In the same way, neither are you, or neither am
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I, born again spiritually because we have the good fortune of being born into a Christian family. You are born of God, not of blood.
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This is not an ethnic heritage or just a lucky chance that you happen to be born into a
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Christian, at least post -Christian culture. You are born again by the power of God through the
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Spirit. And it says also, not those who are born of blood, in other words ethnic heritage, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but the will of God.
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Most commentators believe that when we talk about the will of the flesh or the will of the man or will of man, it refers to the initiative of people in human procreation.
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In other words, the second phrase being a more specific reference to the first in the role of a husband.
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In this sense, it runs parallel to John chapter 3. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus and he said, flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit.
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If you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must be born again of the Spirit. This is not something that is ethnic, it's not something that is natural, it is something that is supernatural.
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To those who believe upon the name of Jesus, they are born again into the family of God. And this spiritual rebirth is not a product of human effort, human planning, it's not physical processes, it's not ethnic heritage.
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Spiritual rebirth coincides with faith and it is produced entirely by the Spirit of God. I want you to listen to this, the words of this commentator.
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John understands that we do not live in a nice world that God wants to make nicer. We live rather in a world that repudiates the truth and replaces it with fashionable truths.
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There's only one hope and it is God in Christ. It is necessary for God to work, for God to self -disclose, to send his
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Son who alone has exposed the Father's heart. The pitfall of the pagan world, listen to this, the pitfall of the pagan world is to find hope in its own canons of thought and behavior.
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But history has proven the futility of this dream. John says that God takes the initiative, for God becomes flesh,
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God discloses himself, God enters our world bearing truth and grace in order to transform whoever will receive him.
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Transformation is not an inspired human work, it is a divine work. And this brings us to verse 14, which is maybe one of the most powerful and important verses in all of the
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Bible. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the only
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Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. When it says the
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Word became flesh, do you realize how shocking of a statement that would have been to the first century reader?
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You see, especially a first century reader well acquainted with Greek thought. You see, in the first century, it was commonly understood by philosophers that this world, this physical world was ugly and base, and the spiritual world was true and pure.
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And so how could the spiritual world, which is true and pure, mix with this ugly, dirty, physical world?
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The human body in Greek philosophy and in Greek culture was likewise seen, it was even labeled a tomb of the soul.
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It was considered burdensome, clumsy, dirty. And so this kind of teaching that the world, the physical things are bad, and spiritual things are pure and good, and physical things are just a poor reflection of the spiritual, this gave rise to a first, second, third century heresy called docetism.
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Now what is that? It's a heresy that denies that Jesus was ever truly human.
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They'll say Jesus was God, but he was not truly human. And I find it ironic that in our culture today, most people have trouble with the idea that Jesus was truly
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God. In the first century, it was a greater scandal and a greater difficulty to believe that Jesus was truly human.
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But John addresses this false teaching repeatedly in his writings, and he makes it a point to address this.
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He says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. In 1 John chapter 1, listen to this, that which was from the beginning, this is parallel to the passage we're studying this morning, 1
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John, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest, and we have seen it.
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Friends, God, the Son, has no misgivings about taking human nature unto himself.
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The word for flesh, when it says the word became flesh, is the word sarx in Greek.
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It implies vulnerability and weakness. It's the same word that is used in the
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Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus says to his disciples, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
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The point that should be made is that Jesus took upon himself a human nature with all of its frailties and all of its weaknesses, subject to all of the same temptations that we are subject to.
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Consider these words from the book of Hebrews, we do not have a high priest, i .e. Jesus, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
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And again, he can deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.
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God, the Son, the eternal Son, who was in the beginning with the Father and through whom all things were created, has taken upon himself a human nature, lived among us fully and completely, subjecting himself to the same weaknesses and temptations that we struggle with.
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The eternal Son was not ashamed to take humanity upon himself. Our mortal bodies, even though they are subject to weaknesses, have true dignity.
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What's also notable about this passage is it says, when the word became flesh and dwelt among us, the same word for dwelt is the word that a
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Jewish reader would have understood as the same as the word tent, i .e. the tent of meeting in the
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Old Testament. He dwelt among us, he tented among us. And this would immediately bring to mind imagery of the tabernacle in the
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Old Testament, and later the tabernacle was replaced by the Temple of Solomon. Listen to Exodus chapter 40, talking about the tent of meeting in the time of Moses.
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A cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
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And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the
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Lord filled the tabernacle. Friends, the point we need to see is just as the glory of God filled the tabernacle in the
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Old Testament and the Temple in the time of Solomon so that the priests could not do their duty, so also this same glory fills
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Jesus. We have seen his glory. The disciples saw
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Jesus's glory when he performed his miracles. They saw his glory on the
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Mount of Transfiguration when he revealed himself to them, and the Father spoke of him, and he revealed his glory in John chapter 12 through his sufferings.
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The glory of Jesus was seen and revealed through his person. Now, I want to stop here and just,
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I hope it doesn't become tedious, but this passage can pose an interpretive difficulty for some. And so I would like to just deal with it.
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When it says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, we have seen his glory, the glory of the, in the
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ESV it translated, as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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Now, if you have an NIV, it says, essentially follows the same translation. Does anybody read from the
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NASB or one of the older translations? It says, the only begotten from the
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Father. The only begotten from the Father. Now, what does that mean?
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Now, Jehovah's Witnesses will latch on, you think I'm picking on Jehovah's Witnesses this morning, but Jehovah's Witnesses will latch onto this term, the only begotten of the
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Father and say, ah, Jesus is begotten. That means he has a beginning, right? Well, the
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Greek word is monogenes. It's used nine times in the New Testament.
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Now, monogenes, only, genes, is where we get the word from generation or begotten, okay?
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So, just from the component parts of the word, if you're just looking at the word alone, you might be tempted to think, oh, well, maybe they have a point.
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Maybe Jesus was created. But friends, you can't take into account only the entomology of the word.
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The truth of the situation is not solely derived by the meaning of the component parts of a word. Let me give you an example.
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We speak in English of sunrises and sunsets. Now, if you were studying the
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English language from the perspective of a different culture and you knew nothing about us, you would be tempted to think, well, oh, they talk about sunrises and sunsets.
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So, obviously, they believe that the sun moves around the earth, right? And the sun actually rises and the sun actually sets.
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Does anybody believe that? We don't believe that, but we use the word in this way.
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And in the same way, the Greeks did the same thing. We talk about skyscrapers.
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We talk about jackpots, brainwashing, strawberry. What is a strawberry? Where do those words come from?
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Obviously, you cannot look at only the component parts of a word to determine the meaning of this verse.
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What was meant by the ancient authors, both biblical and non -biblical, when we look at this word is that it means that something was one of a kind, it was unique, it had a special relationship, it was precious.
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Consider Hebrews chapter 11, verses 17 and 18. I'd like to read a parallel passage where the same word is used, okay?
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I want to see how it's used in kind of a metaphorical way. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.
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And he who had received the promises was, in fact, offering up his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac, your offspring shall be named.
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Abraham offered up his only son or his only begotten son. Now, let me ask you a question.
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Was Isaac the only son of Abraham? The word is being used to communicate that Isaac was the special, precious, unique, covenant son of Abraham.
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And in the same way, this passage in John, when it says, Jesus is the only begotten of the Father, doesn't mean
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Jesus had a beginning. It means that Jesus is the unique, precious son who exists in a special relationship to the
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Father. We can therefore agree with the
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Council of Nicaea in the Nicene Creed written in 325 AD. Listen to what it says.
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We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the
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Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made of the same essence as the
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Father through whom all things were made. Let's continue.
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Verse 15. John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.
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For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
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John bore witness, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.
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Now, you remember John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. So in one sense was Jesus before John the
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Baptist. Well, we've already established that Jesus pre -existed John the
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Baptist. Jesus pre -existed Abraham. Before Abraham was born, I am. Jesus pre -existed the creation of the universe in this passage.
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Now, verse 16 states that we have all received grace upon grace.
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Now, most Christians will understand this, that we have received abundant blessings, one blessing after another.
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God has poured out just a bounty of abundance and blessing and gifts upon his church. And that truth is confirmed and explained in scripture elsewhere.
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I believe that this should be understood in a natural, more natural reading of the language would be grace replacing grace or grace instead of grace.
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Now, you're thinking, what does that mean? Grace instead of grace, grace replacing grace. Well, the original
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Greek language translates it grace instead of grace or grace replacing grace. And I believe this interpretation, this is the correct translation of this passage, because look at what verse 17 says.
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For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The old covenant, most fully embodied in the person of John the
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Baptist, you know, communicated a certain grace from God. And the new covenant grace revealed in the
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Son, Jesus Christ, replaces the old covenant grace. It's grace in place of grace.
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The old covenant saw the glory of God revealed in the tabernacle and later in the
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Jesus the Son. The old covenant prescribed the sacrifices of bulls and goats and rams.
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The new covenant stands sealed by the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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The old covenant ordains priests who must first offer sacrifices for their own sins, and then they are prevented from continuing in office because, you know, they're mortal and they die.
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The new covenant declares Jesus, our high priest, risen from the dead, seated at the right hand of God, his once and for all sacrifice sufficient for all people of all times, and his priesthood never comes to an end.
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The old covenant shows us our sin. Jesus forgives it. The old covenant gives us the word of God written on tablets of stone and written in the embodied in the law of Moses.
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The new covenant gives us the living word of God embodied in the person of Jesus. Grace instead of grace.
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Grace to replace grace. A greater grace to replace a lesser grace. And it's exactly this final point that we see embodied in verse 18, which
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I think is a beautiful summary of the entire passage. Verse 18, no one has ever seen
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God, the only God, who is at the Father's side. He has made him known.
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No one has ever seen God, but the only God, there's that word again, the only begotten, the only one, the unique and precious
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Son who is at the Father's side. He has made God known to us. Now, I understand that maybe there are a few
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NIV haters here, but I really like what the NIV does with this verse, okay? No one has ever seen
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God, but the one and only Son who is himself God and who is in closest relationship with the
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Father has made him known. Love that translation. I think that really captures the thought of this verse.
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Friends, we can't know God for our own faculties. He's beyond the reach of our senses.
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He's beyond the reach therefore of science. If you're looking for proof of God in a test tube,
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I can't give it to you. Thankfully, God has not left us to stumble around in darkness.
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He has come down to us and revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. That's why
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Jesus could say to Philip, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. You know,
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I have done my best this morning to exposit this text, to bring out the meaning of this text, but Jesus is himself the exposition of the
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Father. Jesus is the exposition, the living word that powerfully reveals the person and character of God to us.
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I do not know of any place in all the scripture where the divine and human natures of Jesus, his majesty and humility, his beauty and precious worth are more clearly explained than in this passage.
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And as we conclude our time this morning, there is no honor, no worship, no sacrifice so great that Jesus is undeserving of it.
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He is worthy of all our praise, all of our worship. He is the one and only, sent from God, the word made flesh, the living revelation of the
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Father, come down into our dark world to die for our sins, to rise again and to give us eternal life.
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Let me go ahead and pray for us. Father in heaven, what can
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I possibly pray this morning that won't come across as just trite and superficial?
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Father, words cannot express my thankfulness enough for you sending your son.
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Would you magnify the name of Jesus? Would you glorify that name?
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And I pray, Jesus, that you would be honored through your word, through our worship. And now as we come together for worship and for communion,