John 1
Notes
Transcript
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
If a quarter is on heads, is it worth 25 cents?
If a quarter is on tails, is it still worth 25 cents?
So, while the coin may have a different look, a different picture, it is still valid for the denomination and holds value. The same can be said about the validity and value of Jesus the Son, and Jesus the man. He still retains His deity, even though the appearance may have changed.
The first verse of John 1 gives us some incredible thoughts to mull over.
Beginning - What is the “beginning”, what does it mean? The beginning of God’s created universe. Greek (archē) - a point at the beginning of a duration. Similar to Hebrew (reshith) - first of time, i.e., a point of time which is the beginning (non prior) in a duration.
Word - (logos) - We then find “narrative,” “word,” “speech.” In this sense, lógos acquires the most varied nuances, e.g., legend, proverb, command, promise, tradition, written account, conversation, sentence, prose, even thing. The essence of “Word” here in the life of Jesus Christ, God was speaking to the world, speaking and demonstrating just what He wanted to say to man.
God has given us much more than mere words in the Holy Scriptures. God has given us Jesus Christ, The Word. As The Word, Jesus Christ was the picture, the expression, the pattern, the very image of what God wished to say to man. The very image within God’s mind of the Ideal Man was demonstrated in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the perfect expression of all that God wishes man to be. Jesus Christ was God’s utterance, God’s speech, God’s Word to man. Jesus Christ was the Word of God who came down to earth in human flesh to bring man into a face-to-face relationship with God (see vv.1–2). Jesus was the Word of God who came to earth to live out the written Word of God.
Jesus Christ is the Mind, the Reason, the Power that both made and keeps things in their proper order. He is the creative and sustaining Mind, the Supreme Reason, the unlimited Power (see v.3).
Life - sums up all things were made through Him. He is the SOURCE of life, and was present with the Father during creation.
Genesis 1:26 (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man (humankind) in our image, after our likeness. And let them (humankind) have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Christ is eternal. Christ was preexistent. This means He was there before creation. He has always existed. It does NOT mean Christ was created at the creation of the universe, but was already there. He did not become, He had no beginning, He was with God when all was created.
The testimony of John was that Jesus Christ was the Word, the One who has always coexisted with God. Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. Christ was coexistent. He was and is face-to-face with God forever. The word “with” (pros) has the idea of both being with and acting toward. Jesus Christ (the Word) was both with God and acting with God.
3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
As CREATOR, He was there co-existing with God and had part in every detail of creation. Nothing was existing—no substance, no matter whatsoever. Matter is not eternal. God did not take something outside of Himself, something less than perfect (evil) and create the world. Christ, the Word, took nothing but His will and power; and He spoke the Word and created every single thing out of nothing (ex nihilo).
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Jesus Christ is the Light, the Illumination, the Power that penetrates the darkness of the world. He, the Life and Light of the world, is what makes sense of the world and enables men to understand the world (see vv.4–5).
Christ is the source of light. Note the statement: “The life [Christ] was the light of men.” From the very beginning man was to know that life, to know God personally and intimately. The knowledge of the life of Christ was to be the light of men.
The life (Christ) was to be the light of man’s purpose, meaning and significance upon earth. So, with that statement it also means Christ is the answer to darkness.Very simply, since man had brought darkness into the world (by sin), the life of Christ was the light of man, the beam that showed man the way, the truth and the life.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.
8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
There was one person who was a very special witness to Christ, John the Baptist. John’s sole purpose on earth was to witness and to bear testimony to the Light of the world. His purpose stands as a dynamic example for every believer. The purpose of the believer is to bear the same witness as John: Jesus Christ is the Light of the world.
3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
John even makes reference to this in verse 23:
23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
The phrase “from God” (para Theou) means from beside God. John was not only sent by God, He was sent from the very side and heart of God. He was only a man, but a man of high calling and mission, of enormous responsibility and accountability. He was a man sent by God, not by man.
The man came to bear witness of the Light. He was sent with a very specific message, and that message was to proclaim the Light, Christ Himself.
The purpose of the man’s witness is clearly stated: that all men, through Christ, might believe. John was sent to prepare the hearts of mankind so that they would see and know Jesus as the Messiah and BELIEVE in Him as the one who had been prophesied about.
Scripture is clear in pointing out John was a man who was great, but he was not the Light.
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John was sent to proclaim the “true Light” - Jesus. He was a man who was great, but he was not the Light.
The mission of Christ is to give light to men. He is the Savior who now stands before the world as “the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world” (Jn. 11:27). Every man can now see the truth. They may reject it, but they can see it.
There is the light of the gospel: Christ has now “come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me [Christ] should not abide in darkness” (Jn. 12:46). The truth is that every man can now be delivered from the darkness of sin, despair, death, and hell.
The world did not know Him shows how He was rejected by the world. He had made the world, and He loved and cared deeply for the world; therefore, He was actively working to help the world and its people from the very beginning of creation. Christ (the Word and the Light) came to His own people, but they too rejected Him. The words “unto His own” (eis ta idia) mean literally to His own home, to His own people.
The world is His home, and all the people are His by creation. He came to all the people of the world, but they did not receive Him. They rejected Him. The nation of Israel was His peculiar home, the people whom He had chosen to be the messengers of God to the world. They, of all people, should have known better because of the special privileges, but they too rejected Him.
But all who did receive Him point to some who DID receive Him. The believed on His name, and were adopted into the family of God.
Galatians 4:4–5 (ESV)
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
By receiving Him, we have a new birth (references the must be born again Jesus referenced to Nicodemus). The new birth is not of man, but new birth is of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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.’ ”)
16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
“The Word was made flesh”—God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made flesh and blood; He became a man. The word flesh (sarx) is the same word that Paul used to describe man’s nature with all of its weakness and tendency to sin. This is a staggering thought. Jesus Christ is God—fully God, yet Jesus Christ is man—fully man. There is no room whatever for saying that God’s becoming a man was merely a vision of some man’s mind or imagination. John was saying that he and others actually saw the Word made flesh.
What does the Bible mean by “flesh”? And why did Jesus Christ have to become flesh? The flesh is not what God created it to be. It does not exist in the image of God that God intended. It does not hold the glory, the honor, nor the prestige it once did when God created it. It is disgraced and shamed, and it is reproached by sin and lust. It is held in the grip of sin and fear and subject to being held in bondage—even the bondage of death. Christ (the Word) became flesh to correct and to counteract the corruption of flesh.
The first proof of the Incarnation is that Jesus Christ dwelt visibly among us. Christ was the Shekinah glory of God. The word Shekinah means that which dwells or dwelling. It refers to the bright cloud that God used to guide Israel out of Egypt and that rested upon the tabernacle and above the mercy seat in the Most Holy Place (Ex. 40:34–38). The cloud symbolized God’s presence, and that is just what John was saying. “We beheld,” actually saw the Shekinah glory, God’s very presence “dwelling among us.” Christ was the very embodiment of God, all that God is and does. John said “we beheld,” looked at Him, and could tell He was God. The glory of all that God was stood right before them, right in their very presence.
The second proof of the Incarnation is John the Baptist. He states: He came “after me”, “ranks before me”, because “He was before me”. The words “for He was before me” (hoti protos mou en) literally mean first to me or first of me. It refers both to time and importance. Jesus Christ was first in time, existing before John. He existed “in the beginning”—throughout all eternity. John proclaimed, “He was before me”: He always existed; He was the First; He was the very cause for John’s existence. John also declared that Jesus was first in importance. He was first in superiority, Being, Person. His very name is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
The third proof of the Incarnation is the fullness and grace of Christ which was given to us. The term “grace upon grace” means that He gives grace upon grace, grace enough to meet all our needs, no matter the circumstances. It does not come by law, for no man can keep the law to any degree of perfection. The law only points out a man’s failure and condemns him for breaking the law. If a man is to be acceptable to God, it is because he comes and keeps on coming to God, begging God to forgive him, and because God loves him so much that he forgives the man.
The fourth proof of the Incarnation is Christ—God’s Son. He alone has seen God. No man has seen God at any time; however, Jesus Christ claimed He was “the only begotten Son of God” (Jn. 3:16), that He had come from the very “bosom of the Father” (John 3:18), and He had come to reveal and to proclaim the Father (John 14:6).
The fact that Jesus Christ is “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father” is proof of the Incarnation (that God became flesh). Jesus Christ declared unequivocally that He had come from God. A man either believes or does not believe the grace and truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
Leadership Ministries Worldwide. 2004. The Gospel according to John. The Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
