John 1:14-18
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-1st eighteen verses area prologue, an introduction
-John saw the importance of declaring that Jesus is God, not that Jesus was a man who became God, but that He is God who became man
-It is crucial that we understand this, too many false teachings have arisen from not getting the incarnation of Jesus right
Tradition says Saint Nicholas was one of the bishops present at this first ecumenical gathering of bishops known as the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325).
According to author Robert Payne in his The Holy Fire: The Story of the Early Centuries of the Christian Churches in the Near East (1957), as Arius presented his case, he broke into a chant. Thinking the emperor would listen more attentively to a chant than a lengthy rant on a complex issue of the faith, Arius purportedly began to sing:
The uncreated God has made the Son
A beginning of things created,
And by adoption has God made the Son
Into an advancement of himself.
Yet the Son’s substance is
Removed from the substance of the Father:
The Son is not equal to the Father,
Nor does he share the same substance.
God is the all-wise Father,
And the Son is the teacher of his mysteries.
The members of the Holy Trinity
Share unequal glories.
As Arius argued for his position, Nicholas purportedly became more and more infuriated at what he perceived to be a complete heresy regarding the nature of Jesus. Finally, he had enough. Saint Nicholas rose, approached Arius, and as the story goes, Nicholas proceeded to slap Arius in the face.
-John present the fact that Jesus is not a created being, but is God who became flesh
-v. 14 sums it up well - The Word became flesh
-the word who in the beginning was with God and was God, who created all things, this is a reference to the Trinity, Jesus is a part of the Godhead, God in three persons
-reminder: John 20:31
31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
-You must believe that Jesus is the Son of God
-Word - revealing, computation
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—
2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
-notice John wrote it that they may have fellowship with the people of God, the only way to have fellowship with the Father is to know and trust the Eternal Son of God who became flesh to be the ultimate sacrifice on the cross for our sins
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
v. 18 - no one has ever seen God, the one who is in the bosom of the Father
-fold, tight that the Son of God is tucked away into the Godhead
-He has made God known
-We must believe in the true Jesus, many like the idea of Jesus, they may have so-called pictures of Jesus which arent really accurate, we must know the true Jesus, not a good moral man, but God who became man
-The Word became flesh, the word flesh can at times refer to the moral flesh, our inclination to sin, then at other times its in reference to the physical flesh and that is the purpose here
-The Eternal Son of God became human, God and man in one person, fully God, fully man, both are distinct, perfect natures of the Son of God
John MacArthur - The deity of Christ is not diminished by His humanity nor is His humanity overpowered by His deity.
-Took on human form after the fall of Adam, Jesus felt the affects of the fall, yet in His flesh He was without sin
-Dwelt among us = pitched his tent, take up residence
-The Word became flesh, revealed God, John has written that He has seen, He and Peter declared in Acts 4:19
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,
-What did Jesus reveal?
Revealed the Glory of God
Revealed the Glory of God
-What is the glory of God?
-We speak of God’s glory, we say that we are going to give the glory to God, we want to live for the glory of God. What is His glory?
-Glory is unique to the very character of God, John MacArthur says that it is the sum of all His attributes
The glory of God refers to who God is, not what he does.
R. C. Sproul
Exodus 33 - Moses asked for God to reveal His glory, God revealed a limited a view of His glory as no man could see the face of God and live, Moses just got a glimpse, why is that Moses could not see all of God’s glory - it is all that He encompasses, the blazing light
23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
-The glory of God is revealed in Jesus Christ
-What does this mean? How did Jesus reveal the glory of God?
-He is the light, but it is more than just beholding the light, even more than what was seen at the transfiguration, its the attributes of God that were manifested through the Son throughout His ministry on earth
-In other words we saw it first hand, we saw the compassion of God, we saw the love, the grace, the righteous anger, the wisdom - we saw the glory of God - the attributes of God - the very character of God
-They saw the physical representation of God’s glory in the Eternal Son who became man
-They saw the signs and wonders that revealed that Jesus was God
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
Revealed the Grace of God
Revealed the Grace of God
-full of grace and truth, complete, total
-grace and truth are together, cannot separate it, the way you experience the grace is to come to the truth
-again He is eternal, He came after John the Baptist but was before Him
-received fullness, grace upon grace, grace in place of grace, grace never ending
The Lord may not give gold, but he will give grace; he may not give gain, but he will give grace.
Charles Spurgeon
It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace, wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
-Revealed the grace of God because:
-at the right time Christ died for the ungodly
-While we were dead in our trespasses and sins we were made alive together with Christ, by grace we are saved through faith and it is not of our own doing but is a gift
-By the way this was His purpose in taking on flesh to reveal the glory of God, to bring grace to wretched sinners
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace, wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
-We rejoice because the Word became flesh, the very revelation of God, the revelation of the glory of God, the revelation of the grace of God
