Untitled Sermon (11)

Also the last verse ties back to the first verse…you almost have two pictures….you have the Word of God being with God and God…….and also you have this picture of a Son on the lap of the Father. Both images you have an image of something being very close yet distinct from the thing.

V18: KJV: “He has declared Him…” In the original Greek: ‘That one has made known’ - that one explained. The sense of our English translations is correct.

There is a sense that each one of us wants to see God - we just want to see Him with our eyes. John is saying: ‘if you want to know what God is like - take a good look at Jesus of Nazareth. He is God!

Exogamia - greek word used in Luke/Acts - to know God/see Him

What really stands out to me and the point that I think John is making is Jesus is full of Gods famous characteristic list in Ex. 34…which is the most repeated referenced text in the Hebrew Scriptures….Jesus is fully those things (compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…) and out of that fullness we get gift upon gift….we had the law which was great and now we get the one and only son!

Or the last verse….Jesus, who is fully human and fully divine, makes known the invisible God.

Verse 17 is the first time we read the name of Jesus and the title…because now the Word has become flesh, we are given a name. So that is kinda cool, and I hadn’t really noticed that before.

There is a lot of focus on Jesus being God - (rightly so) but the first verse of this section starts with a revolutionary idea: GOD BECAME FLESH!

What does it look like to focus on God being a man, He is among us/with us.

We tend to view Jesus as superman - He is like an alien that we don’t know/can’t touch/etc… He’s 100% dependent on His mother. (Nicene Creed: truly God and truly man because there wasn’t a percentage of Him not being God and man)

An image of a father with a baby son on his lap.

I know that kids tend to struggle with the idea of God because they can’t see him….adults are resigned to that fact…And John is going straight to that. John is echoing a core claim of the biblical authors: humans can’t see God. (Think of Exodus 33, when Moses asks God to show himself. God only allows Moses to see his back, and he reveals his glory to him.) This is John’s way of saying that while no one can ultimately see God, there is one who is God, who we can see, (and we touched - 1 John 1) and HE will also reveal the Father to us.

This phrase (in the bosom) is used in John 13:23 - to describe Jesus’ closeness to John…

John 13:23 CSB

One of his disciples, the one Jesus loved, was reclining close beside Jesus.

John 21:20 CSB

So Peter turned around and saw the disciple Jesus loved following them, the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and asked, “Lord, who is the one that’s going to betray you?”

Heavy emphasis in these last verses on the relational nature of God - we have seen the glory “as of the only Son from the Father” - and it follows up with Jesus at the Father’s side. It emphasizes the relational nature of God.

2 Cor 4:4-6 ‘Blinding the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing’ ‘God shining light to show the light of the glory of God’

2 Corinthians 4:4–6 CSB

In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Luke 16:19–31 CSB

“There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was lying at his gate. He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, with Lazarus at his side. ‘Father Abraham!’ he called out, ‘Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this flame!’ “ ‘Son,’ Abraham said, ‘remember that during your life you received your good things, just as Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to pass over from here to you cannot; neither can those from there cross over to us.’ “ ‘Father,’ he said, ‘then I beg you to send him to my father’s house—because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they won’t also come to this place of torment.’ “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ “ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said. ‘But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ “But he told him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

2 Corinthians 5:10 CSB

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Revelation 20:11 CSB

Then I saw a great white throne and one seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them.