Sermon Tone Analysis

 EXPLAINING THE UNEXPLAINABLE GREATNESS OF CHRIST

(John 1:1-3)

Date: ____________________

Read John 1:1-3 -- John begins his gospel by trying to explain the ultimately unexplainable greatness of Jesus Christ.

These 18 vv are holy ground.

He is taking us where no man has gone before or since, describing in sublime language the greatness of Christ without ever being able to fully explain it.

Now, let's get our bearings.

You've been taught the Logos is Jesus.

Partially true.

But every person who ever lived had just one human nature, Jesus is unique.

He had both a human and a divine nature.

That doesn't mean He is half man and half God.

It means He is truly man and truly God.

It is the divine nature - His Godness that is described here.

Not til v. 14 do we get the whole Person: "And the Word became flesh."

That's Jesus' birth.

After that the total Person is in view.

But 1st, John introduces us to the physically hidden divine nature of Christ who not only existed prior to Jesus' birth, but who had no beginning at all! Stunning!

But we must grasp Jesus' deity.

In Prince Caspian, 2nd book of the Narnia Chronicles, Lucy meets up again with Aslan the Lion, Christ in the books.

He says, "Welcome, child.

"Aslan," says Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That is because you are older, little one," he answers.

"Not because you are?" "I am not.

But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

Every believer finds Jesus growing bigger with each new encounter.

John's account here greatly helps know Him better.

I. Christ is Eternally Existent

John's opening is staggering: "In the beginning was the Word."

"Was" is imperfect, continuous past action.

Literally: "In the beginning already was the Word."

Even bolder.

There is no "the" before beginning.

John is saying, "In beginning - before anything, the Word already was."

Before matter - before time - the Word already was.

One person stated it this way: "Christ always was wasing!" Jesus' divine nature had no beginning; He just always was! Think on that; it will boggle your mind.

Think on that and you'll realize - that can only be true if the Logos is God.

So John's first statement sets the stage for what he wants us all to know before he is done - to "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

That 1st phrase is a great start in that great endeavor.

But - there's more!

The word "beginning" (ἀρχή) has multiple meanings.

John uses words with multiple meanings too often not to be deliberate.

Aρχή is such a word.

One meaning: the commencement of something - here, the commencement of everything - except God.

But it also means beginning in the sense of first cause.

So, John's saying Christ is not only eternally existent, but also the cause of all that follows.

He is before the beginning and He is the cause of the beginning.

So, five Greek words into his book, John has presented the supremacy of Christ in unbelievable and unmistakable terms.

This means Christ is the answer to the most basic philosophical question of all: "Why is there not nothing?"

Nothing in human experience explains why there is anything.

We know something cannot come from nothing.

So why is there a universe at all?

Why is there not nothing?

John's answer: There is not nothing because there is Christ.

Or positively, there is something bc there is Christ.

He is the cause and sustainer of all things.

Col 1: 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him.

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

His greatness is revealed in that He made everything we see! John makes this explicit in v. 3: "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made."

This points to Gen 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

How did He create?

Nine times in Gen 1 we find, "And God said".

How did God create?

By His Word - His Logos, who already was prior to the beginning.

In that original creation we have light and darkness and flesh and life - all themes John will develop as he describes a new creation - the answer to the tragedy of a fallen creation.

The Logos will take on flesh, enter His own creation, and redeem a fallen race.

Aren't you glad that "In the beginning was the Word"?

And now He's become flesh to provide a way for flesh to get back to the Father.

God's plan is always amazing, isn't it?

This is why no genealogy in John's gospel.

Matthew and Luke established the humanity of Jesus.

John emphasizes His deity which has no genealogy.

His greatness is that He is truly God and truly man at one and the same time.

But John spotlights his deity, shown by His eternal existence, His creation of time and all that is.

He is greater than all bc He is before all and Creator of all.

In trying to explain the unexplainable, Tozer wrote: "The mind looks backward in time until the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till imagination collapses from exhaustion; and God is at both points, unaffected by either.

Time marks the beginning of created existence, and because God never began to exist it can have no application to Him. "Began" is a time-word, and can have no personal meaning for the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity."

John's point is what's true of the Father is also true of the Son.

Only the Son has climbed into time to bring timeless life.

Eternal life.

But it all begins with the eternal existence of Christ.

II.

Christ Is Eternally with God

"And the word was with God."

Not only was the word already existing in the beginning, but He was with God.

He was beginninglessly with God.

"With" is προς = toward, in a face-to-face relationship.

Tells us 3 more things:

First, He was distinct from God.

So, there are two Gods?

No - not two Gods, but two personalities of the same God.

This brings us to the Trinity.

In the NT, God sometimes means the entire Godhead - Father, Son and HS - and sometimes just the Father as distinct from the others.

In this case, God refers to the Father.

John begins the epistle of I Jn almost like the gospel.

I Jn 1:1-3: "That which was from the beginning (Christ) . . .

which was with the Father . . .

we proclaim to you."

So, by saying the Word was "with God" John shows us Father and Son as distinct.

Father and Son are in some way distinguished from each other.