Sermon Tone Analysis

John 1:1, 14-18

The Only Begotten Son of God

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…

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.

(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.’

”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.[1]

| J |

*esus Christ is God*!

This doctrine distinguishes the Christian Faith from all other religions.

In the Christian Faith, God became man in order to present Himself as the sole sacrifice for sin.

Our message is that God made Himself sin on our behalf, offering Himself up in our place that we might be forever freed from the penalty of sin.

Therefore, neither deed nor action of our own can make us acceptable to God.

All that is necessary, if we will be Christians, is to accept the sacrifice that God has provided in our place.

Every other religion in the world seeks to compel God to accept man on his own conditions.

In the Christian Faith, because God has demonstrated His love for us, we come to Him submitting to His condition, which is, that we must come as we are.

At the heart of the Christian Faith is the assertion that Jesus is God.

At once, this vital teaching reveals the grace of God and dignifies man as the object of God’s affection.

The implications of this teaching are astonishing in scope and impact on the way in which we should live.

Never again can a Christian treat a fellow human in a cavalier manner, dismissing the needs or the concerns of another person.

Never again can a Christian treat a fellow being as an object, but instead the conscientious believer must believe that each individual is endowed with unalienable rights.

As believers in the glorious Son of God, we are compelled to acknowledge that God is gracious toward all mankind.

We marvel at His love and we are thus compelled by the knowledge that God has shared our condition to tell all that we meet of His love and grace.

Therefore, not only is our Faith dependent upon this vital doctrine, but also we believe that we are transformed into the likeness of Christ by the knowledge of this truth.

Surely, such a transforming truth demands that we examine the biblical teaching, seeking to understand as fully as possible what it is that God has done for us.

I invite your careful consideration of the divine text chosen for study this day.

Join me in examination of *John 1:1, 14-18* so that we may learn together about when God became man.

God as God — Each morning, I listened to the cadence of the ancient Shema Prayer—dj;a, [iiynidoa}]] Wnyhela,] [iiynidoa}] laer;c]yi [m’v].

I was enrolled as a first year graduate student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

I was the first “goy” from west of the Mississippi to be accepted into the Sue Goldring Division of Biomedical Sciences.

As a child of Kansas, transplanted into what can only be described as a foreign culture, I wondered at that foreign tongue recited in unison as the men voiced the prayer.

I was not a Christian.

Though raised in a godly home, I had never made the Faith of Christ the Lord my own faith.

God has no stepchildren, nor has He any grandchildren.

We are born from above and into the Family of God individually through personal faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Consequently, it was only much later, after God had graciously granted me life in Christ the Lord, that I learned that those Jewish men reciting the Shema prayer were unconsciously confessing a great truth—God is a divine Trinity.

God is the what and the members of the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit are the who.

John’s Gospel begins with an assertion paralleling that of Moses.

John writes at the beginning of his Gospel, In the beginning was the Word.

Likewise, Moses writes at the beginning of Genesis, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth [*Genesis 1:1*].

Both push our attention back to a point where there was nothing other than the Creator.

There was neither mass nor time, and all that existed was the Living God.

There was a time when all that existed was God.

At that point, John identifies God as the Word.

The New English Bible captures the power of John’s prologue with its translation: what God was, the Word was.[2]

This quite legitimately raises the question, “What is God like?”

In order to answer this question, John uses the strongest possible language, both here and throughout his Gospel account.

As he draws to a conclusion his account of the life and times of Jesus, John writes that the account was 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 [*John 20:31*].

The term Son of God conveys a sense that may be misunderstood, except for the opening statement.

Here, in our text, Jesus is said to be “fully deity but not the Father.”[3]

D. A. Carson has explained in a powerful fashion that the Greek construction demands the translation with which we are familiar, mainly that the Word was God.

Some cults have noted the absence of a definite article in John’s prologue [θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος].

In ignorance, they argue that John is saying the Jesus is divine, that He possesses the quality of “god-ness,” or that He is “a god.”

Had John used a definite article in this construction, “he would have been saying something quite untrue.

He would have been so identifying the Word with God that no divine being could exist apart from the Word.”[4]

But by writing as he does, John emphasises the doctrine of the Triune God, stating in clearest terms that Jesus—the Word—is God.

John intends that this Gospel be read in light of this opening statement.

The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God.

John is but one among many of the New Testament writers to affirm that Jesus is God.

Among those writers who speak of Jesus as God are included Paul, Peter and John.

Here are a few examples.

[To the Jews] belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.

Amen [*Romans 9:5*].

To Titus, Paul writes that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works [*Titus 2:11-14*].

As Peter begins to write his second letter, he unequivocally identifies Jesus as God.

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ [*2 Peter 1:1*].

Paul asserts that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

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.

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

And he is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross [*Colossians 1:15-20*].

In order to assure readers that Jesus is God, John writes in the *eighteenth verse*, No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.

Moses witnessed God’s glory [see *Exodus 33 through 34*], but he did not see God.  God had warned that Moses could not see His face, for man shall not see me and live [*Exodus 33:20*].

Isaiah saw only the hem of the Lord’s garment as it filled the Temple [see *Isaiah 6:1*].

Nevertheless, that vision of the Lord’s robe was traumatic, vivid and terrifying for that righteous man of God.

The assumption throughout the Old Testament is that sinful man cannot see God without invoking death.

However, John says that the unique and beloved One, Himself God, has made God known.

As Carson explains, “What it means is that the beloved Son, the incarnate Word (*1:14*), Himself God while being at the Father’s side—just as in *verse 1* the Word was simultaneously God and with God—has broken the barrier that made it impossible for human beings to see God, and has made Him known.”[5]

John states quite clearly that the revelation of Jesus—the Word—is the ultimate disclosure of God.

This is affirmed by Jesus’ words at other points in this Gospel.

Jesus says, Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father [*John 6:45**a, 46*].

Only the One who is from God—that is the Word who is in the Father’s bosom—has seen God.

This Word has fully revealed the Father to all mankind.

Again, in response to Philip’s request, Jesus answered, Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves [*John 14:9-11*].

Jesus, the Son of God, the Word who is in the Father’s bosom, has fully revealed the Father to all mankind.

The word translated made … known in *verse eighteen* of our text, is the Greek word ἐξηγήσατο.

From this word, we derive our English term */exegesis/*.

In the New Testament, the word means “to tell a narrative,” or “to narrate.”

Therefore, we might say that Jesus is the narration of God.

Just as Jesus gives life and is the Life, just as He gives bread and is the Bread of Heaven, and just as He speaks truth and is the Truth, so Jesus also speaks the word and He is the Word.

Will you know what God is like?

You need but know Jesus, for He is fully God.

Ridderbos sums up John’s prologue quite nicely.