The Triple Confirmation
Notes
Transcript
John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Last week we looked at verse 14:
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Here John told us that the second person of the Trinity assumed a true and complete human nature, having come into the world to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. In doing so, he revealed the glory of God and opened for us the way to the Father.
But John did more than just give us these bare facts. He also confirmed these facts for us by the testimony of others. And that’s what we have in this evening’s text. John the Baptist testified to the wonder of the incarnation in verse 15. The apostles bore witness to the same in verses 16 and 17. And finally, Jesus gave the best testimony of all in verse 18.
So, let’s see what these three witnesses tell us about the Word being made flesh.
Greater than John
Greater than John
The first testimony to Jesus Christ in this evening’s text comes from John the Baptist. Verse 15 says,
John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.
John the Baptist is an interesting character in the gospels. The angel Gabriel foretold his birth to his parents, who, by this time, were well past the normal years of childbearing. However, we know nothing about John from shortly after his birth until we find him out in the wilderness calling men to repentance just a few months before he baptized Jesus. Kids remember him because of his unusual lifestyle: he ate locusts and wore camel’s hair clothing.
On the other hand, John’s gospel differs from the others in how in presents John the Baptist. Instead of giving us his personal information, it focuses on his mission. The Lord sent him to do just one thing: he sent him to bear witness to Jesus Christ. That’s how the fourth gospel introduced him in verses 6 through 8:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
In fact, the gospel of John says either that John the Baptist bore witness to Jesus or records his actual testimony no less than ten times, seven of which are just in the first chapter (John 1:6–8, 15, 19, 26, 29, 32, 35; 3:28; 5:33–35; 10:40–42). Verse 15 of our text is a good example of what I mean.
And what did John say about Jesus as he prepared the people for his coming? Three things:
He … cometh after me. In regard to time, John was born before Jesus and began his public ministry before Jesus. That’s why we call him the forerunner of the Messiah.
He … is preferred before me. John came before Jesus in time, but Jesus has preeminence over John in regard to rank. He ranked far above John in power and glory and dignity. John said, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose (Mark 17).
He was before me. Here John identified the reason why Jesus surpassed him in power and glory, viz., that he has always existed as the eternal Word, the second person of the Trinity.
Thus, John the Baptist confirmed not only that the Word came after John in time when he assumed flesh of the virgin Mary, but also that the Word was preferred before him because he was eternally self-existent.
The Fulness of Grace
The Fulness of Grace
The second witness to the Word becoming flesh takes us to verses 16 and 15. John wrote,
And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Note the pronoun here: we received of his fulness. John used the third person in reference to Jews in verses 10 and 11 and Christians in the next two verses. But when he wrote verse 14 he said, we beheld his glory. In verse 16 he added, And of his fulness have all we received. He meant the apostles, of whom he was one, who were among the first to grasp the glory of our Savior’s incarnation and work.
John wrote that the apostles received of Jesus’ fulness. But what was the fulness that they received? There are two ways to answer this:
The first takes us back again to verse 14, which says that the Word was full of grace and truth. Jesus was full of the gift of life and salvation. He also revealed the same by the preaching of the gospel. Verse 17 mentions grace and truth again: both came by Jesus Christ.
The other answer looks at the end of verse 16. The fulness that the apostles received was, as John wrote, and grace for grace. A better translation would be “even grace upon grace.” He meant that the Lord never stops multiplying grace to his people. He is an incessant supplier of limitless grace. The hymn, “Jesus is all the world to me,” puts it like this: “I go to Him for blessings, and / He gives them o’er and o’er.”
Yet, it wasn’t just the apostles who received the fulness of grace and truth from Jesus. They received it during his earthly ministry and afterward, but we receive it even now. The inexhaustible grace of God belongs to every believer. It’s why David’s cup ran over in Psalm 23. It’s why Peter could write,
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
(2 Pet. 1:2; cf. 1 Pet. 1:2). Paul also spoke of an abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, and said, Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Rom. 5:17, 20).
There’s no shortage of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we need to lay hold of it by faith. When we’re struggling with temptation, when we want to grow spiritually, when we face doubts and fears, we need to go to Jesus. Only in him will we find the grace we need for every situation.
Furthermore, there’s an interesting contrast in verse 17. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Why do we need this contrast? Was it meant to deprecate the law, as if law is completely negative? Was the law completely without grace, and vice versa?
That’s not the point at all. The mere fact that God gave his law to men is itself a manifestation of grace. It exposes our sin and leads us to Jesus Christ, who alone has kept it perfectly; it’s the foundation of our relationships with others in society; and it teaches us how to express our gratitude for salvation. No, the contrast in verse 17 was to make another point. It was to remind us that, although both were glorious, the law consisted of shadows and types, but the incarnation was the real deal. The apostle Paul wrote,
But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
Under the law, the light of the gospel was dim. But now it shines in its true glory. Paul wrote that our salvation has now been made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10).
Because our Savior walked among men as the Word made flesh, we now behold the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).
The Only Begotten Son
The Only Begotten Son
Now, let’s turn to the third confirmation the wonder and glory of the incarnation: Jesus himself. Verse 18 says,
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Think about it: who better to reveal the Father than the eternal Word who is God himself? He’s not an impersonal Word but, as our text says, one who’s been eternally in the embrace of his Father — the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father. His credentials are impeccable. This is he who declared his Father.
What John actually wrote in our text is that the Son ‘exegeted’ his Father. The word translated declared is ἐξηγήσατο, which means to lead out or to draw out. In the seminary classroom, students learn how to exegete Scripture by drawing out its meaning through word studies, grammar, context, history, and so forth. We say that Calvin perfected this method, at least as much as a man can perfect anything, but the truth is that the pattern for Biblical exegesis is Jesus himself, who explained the Father’s plan and will to redeem lost sinners.
And when Jesus exegeted the Father, he also bore testimony to himself. Because his witness to the Father was inextricably intertwined with his witness to himself, he could say, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father (John 14:9). This means that the whole Bible is his testimony to the Father and to himself. When Jesus rebuked the hard-headedness of the Emmaus travelers, he did so by opening to their eyes to the whole of the Scriptures. Luke 24:27 says,
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Later in the same chapter he did the same for his disciples (Luke 24:44–45).
So, the point of verse 18 is that Jesus Christ is our chief prophet and teacher, the one through whom alone God can be known and who reveals God to us. He’s the explanation for all the whole universe. He’s the explanation for our salvation, which we see most clearly in his incarnation, when the fullness of God’s glory and self-revelation broke forth into human history.
One last point needs to be made here. Verse 18 begins with a rather unexpected statement: No man hath seen God at any time. Why did John include this?
To begin with, it’s obviously true. Jesus told the woman of Samaria that God is a Spirit (John 4:24); and, since a spirit hath not flesh and bones (Luke 24:39), perhaps we can infer that God cannot be seen by the human eye. But 1 Timothy 1:17 says plainly that God is invisible. So, it’s not only true that God has not been seen; he cannot be seen.
But what about those times in the Old Testament when God chose to reveal himself in a viewable form. We call them theophanies or, more accurately, Christophanies, i.e., pre-incarnation appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ. Three angels visited Abraham in Genesis 18, but one was the Lord. Moses wanted to see the Lord but was only allowed to see his back, not his face (Exod. 33.23). God even told him that no one could see his face and live (Exod. 33:20). But let’s remember what the theophanies were. They did not comprehend the essence of God. What visible form has the power to declare that God is merciful and longsuffering and plenteous in goodness and truth? No, God used the theophanies to communicate with men but not to express the essence of his being.
When John wrote that no man hath seen God at any time, he was contrasting the testimony of John the Baptist and the apostles with that of Jesus himself. John and the apostles bore witness to what they had seen and heard — the Word in the flesh — and their witness was good as far as it went. But Jesus bore witness to what no man had ever seen or heard and could not see or hear. His testimony arose out of his intimate union and communion with the Father. He revealed that which only the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, knew. Jesus said,
All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
Jesus Christ is our prophet because he taught us about the Father and his plan of salvation as no one else could. He is the living Word, who also gave us his written Word. And he makes his Word effective in the conversion of specific sinners. In him, we have the fulness of divine revelation, just as the writer of Hebrews says,
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Jesus came to reveal the Father’s love for sinners through his precious death on the cross. As the crucifixion drew near Jesus prayed,
And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
Thus, we have a triple confirmation of the fact that
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
And the confirmation of this glorious truth is also for us a confirmation of our salvation and the wonderful gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.