John 1:14, 18

Introduction

There is no one like Jesus.

He is one of one, the only one, one of a kind.

When we say that Jesus is the ‘one and only begotten’, we are essentially saying the same thing three times.

Jesus is the one, which means that He is the only one.

Jesus is the only, which means that He is one of one.

Jesus is the one and only, which means that He is one of a kind.

That’s what the Greek word behind ‘begotten’ means in John 1:14 and John 1:18—Jesus is one of a kind.

There is no one like Him.

John has already made us aware of this in John 1.

He has described Jesus as…

…the Word in the beginning with God.

…the Word with God.

…the Word who was God.

…the Word through Whom everything came into being.

He has described Jesus as…

…life and the Light of men.

…the true Light, which coming into the world enlightens every man.

But then John says…

John 1:14 NASB95

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:18 NASB95

18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

This Jesus who is described in the loftiest of terms in John 1:1 is brought down to earth in John 1:14.

The Word became flesh, and He became flesh so that we would…

…see the glory of God,

…know the heart of the Father.

[CIT/PROP] Because Jesus is the one and only begotten, we can only see the glory of God in Him, and we can only know the heart of the Father through Him.

[INTER] But how can we come to see the glory of God in Jesus? And how do we come to know the heart of the Father in Him?

[TS] Those are the two questions that I want to try to ANSWER this morning…

MAJOR IDEAS

Answer #1: We come to see the glory of God in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ (John 1:14).

John 1:14 NASB95

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus, the incarnate Word, has lived among us, dwelt among us in the flesh. Another way to say it is that He ‘tabernacled’ among us.

When God brought His people out of Egypt, the people lived in tents. In the middle of their tents was God’s tent, His tabernacle.

At the end of the book of Exodus, the tabernacle was completed and the glory of God descended to fill it (Exodus 40).

When the temple replaced the tabernacle, the glory of God filled the temple (2 Chronicles 5).

But because of the great sinfulness of His people, God’s glory left the temple.

Ezekiel 10:18 says, “Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple...”

God’s glory wouldn’t return to the temple until Jesus was brought to the temple at 8-days-old to be presented to the Lord.

He is the Light of the glory of God, and He became flesh and dwelt among us.

John says that he and the other eyewitnesses of Jesus’s incarnation saw His glory.

We might assume that John is going to refer to the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus let the shining radiance of His divinity peek through.

Peter, James and John were there. They saw it.

But John isn’t talking about the Mount of Transfiguration only, for He says, “…we say His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth,” (Jn. 1:14).

The glory of Jesus the one and only begotten Son was a glory full of grace and truth.

We see the glory of God in the grace of truth of Jesus Christ.

What does John mean by ‘see’ in John 1:14?

Of course, he at least means to literally see with his eyes, but he means more than that.

Later in 1 John 1:1, John writes…

1 John 1:1 NASB95

1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—

Because the Word became flesh—i.e., because God the Son took on flesh in Jesus the man—Jesus was not only visible but touchable, and He was able to touch others.

Jesus was grace and truth that could be felt.

There was a rotting leper (Matt. 8). We don’t know his story beyond the social isolation and slow decomposition that was the plight of every leper.

He came to Jesus saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

Jesus, the one and only begotten Son, stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

And immediate the leprosy was gone.

This was a gracious touch.

This was a true touch.

This was a touch that cleansed.

This was a touch that displayed the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

On another occasion, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage of blood for twelve years, came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of His cloak (Mt. 9).

A social outcast not so different from the leper, she had to approach Jesus through a crowd, saying to herself, “If I only touch the His garment, I will be made well,” (Mt. 9:21).

When she touched His garment, His glory touched her back, and she was healed.

This was a gracious touch.

This was a true touch.

This was a touch that healed.

This was a touch that displayed the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

Jesus healed so many that Mark 3:10 says that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him.

He touched the blind, and they received their sight.

He touched the lame, and they were made to walk.

He touched the deaf, and they could hear.

He touched the mute, and they could speak.

He touched the dead, and they were raised.

And all of this was only possible because Word became flesh and dwelt among us, displaying the glory of God by bringing grace to the truth (or reality) of our afflictions.

But all of that was physical. Of course Jesus would give grace to the physically afflicted, but what about the spiritually afflicted? What about sinners? Would Jesus touch those who were rotting or hemorrhaging spiritually? Would He graciously touch those who were spiritually blind? What if they were spiritually dead, would He touch them too?

Of course, we aren’t just asking for a friend, are we?

If we understand ourselves in the light of God’s holiness, we know that we need the spiritual cleansing, the spiritual healing, the spiritual resurrecting.

We need the need touch of Jesus, but living as we do after His death, resurrection, and ascension, how can He touch us with His grace and truth? How can we experience the glory of God in Him?

Jesus lived a perfect life of obedience to God so that He could die on the cross to pay the price for our sins. When He was being crucified, the Romans also tacked up a thief to His right and to His left.

Initially both thieves mocked Him, but then one saw himself as a sinner suffering justly for his sins, and he saw Jesus as the innocent Son of God suffering for the sins of the world.

He said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come in Your kingdom,” (Lk. 23:42).

Jesus replied, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise,” (Lk. 23:43).

The physical hands of Jesus couldn’t touch this thief for those hands were nailed to a cross, but the Spirit of Christ touched him applying grace to the truth of this man’s sinfulness.

It was a spiritual touch that healed this thief’s spiritual affliction so that he could see the glory of God in Jesus Christ—a glory full of grace and truth.

[ILLUS] A man was once asked by friends to explain how Jesus changed him. Reaching down to the ground, he picked up a little worm and placed it on a pile of leaves. He then struck and match, setting the outer edge of the leaves ablaze.

Just as the flames were about to reach the worm on top of the mound, the man suddenly plunged his hand into the burning pile, rescuing the worm.

He turned to his friends and said, “I’m the worm.”

[APP] Here’s the truth: We are sinful worms in danger of being engulfed by the flames of God’s righteous judgment.

But here’s the grace: God sent forth His Son, Jesus, born of a woman, so that He might rescue us from the wrath of God—wrath that was due to us as payment for our sins.

If we believe that Jesus was the sinless Son of God who died and rose again to pay the price for our sins, then we have been touched by His truth and grace, and in Him we’ve seen the glory of God.

[TS]…

Answer #2: We come to know the heart of the Father through the love of Jesus Christ (John 1:18).

John 1:18 NASB95

18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

[EXP] When Moses was on Mt. Sinai with God, God said to him, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live,” (Ex. 33:20).

Paul told Timothy that God “dwells in unapproachable light, (which) no man has seen or can see,” (1 Tim. 6:16).

God is too holy for sinful sight.

His holiness would consume us like a fire if we were to behold His glorious holiness unveiled.

But here again, John doesn’t just refer to sight only when he uses the the word ‘see’ at the beginning of John 1:18.

As the end of the verse makes clear, what John has in mind is knowing God or experiencing God—i.e., knowing God personally as Jesus the one and only begotten Son reveals Him to us.

Why is Jesus the man for this job?

Because He is the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, the only begotten God who is near to the heart of the Father.

There is mutual love and intimacy between the Father and the Son...

…so much so that Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”

…so much so that Jesus said, “The things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”

…so much so that Jesus said, “What the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”

There is only one way to know the Father, and that is by knowing the Son.

[ILLUS] I guess I was in college the first time I heard the word exegesis. Instead of preaching the text, some big Bible nerds on campus would say that they were going to “exegete the meaning of the text.”

To exegete is to bring out the meaning.

The opposite is eisegesis, which means to insert the meaning.

Those big Bible nerds in college were simply saying that they were going to bring out the meaning of the text in their preaching rather than insert their own meaning into the text.

I didn’t know what the word exegete meant at the time, but it turns out that the big Bible nerds were on to something because John uses that word at the end of John 1:18 to say that Jesus had explained the Father or made Him known.

In other words, Jesus reveals the truth about Father; Jesus exegetes the Father as He is.

[APP] If you want to know God the Father as He is, then you must come to know Jesus, His one and only begotten Son.

He is the only one who can introduce to the Father; He is the only one who can make Him known to you.

So many times, people take the eisegesis approach to God.

They make God ought to be however they would like God to be. They inject Him with their own ideas, and the result is an idol of their own making.

Sure the call it ‘god,’ but it isn’t God the Father.

Rather than taking the eisegesis approach we must sit read the gospels and let Jesus exegete God; we must let Jesus explain the Father to us.

Only then will we know God as He really is; only then will we experience what God is really like.

And what is He really like?

He. Is. Love.

That word ‘love’ is used 57 times in John’s gospel.

Jesus speaks of the Father’s love for Him and His love for the Father.

Jesus speaks of love’s greatest demonstration…

John 15:13 NASB95

13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

And Jesus said that laying down His life what the Father sent Him to do…

John 10:17 NASB95

17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.

John 3:16 NASB95

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

This is the Father made known to us in the one and only begotten Son: He is love.

Conclusion

We come to know the heart of the Father through the love of Jesus Christ—love that He demonstrated as He laid down His life for us on the cross.

We come to see the glory of God in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ—grace and truth that cleanses us of sin and restores us to the Father.

Have you seen His glory?

Have you experienced His love?

[ILLUS] She was caught in the very act. Snatched from the bed of adultery and dragged before Jesus.

Was she set up just so the prideful religious leaders could test Jesus?

Was she still trying to cover her shame as she was place in the center of the court where Jesus teaching?

“Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act,” they said. “The Law says we are to stone such women; what do you say,” (Jn. 8:4-5)?

What will the response of the one and only begotten Son tell us about the heart of the Father?

He didn’t answer immediately. He stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger.

They persisted. They wanted an answer. “What then do you say, Jesus!?”

Jesus stood and spoke, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her,” (Jn. 8:7).

Then stooped down and wrote on the ground again.

One by one the men who were seemingly ready to execute this adulteress woman left until it was just her and Jesus in center of the court.

“Where are they?” Jesus asked. “Did no one condemn you?”

She responded, “No one, Lord.”

Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more,” (Jn. 8:8-11).

Do you see God’s glory in Jesus in this story?

Glory full of grace that pardons the condemned sinner?

Glory full of truth that calls the sinner to repentance?

Do you see the Father’s love in Jesus in this story?

“I do not condemn you, either,” Jesus said.

This is exactly what the Father has said to all of us who have come to Him through His one and only begotten Son.

[PRAYER]