Introducing the Son of God Pt. 2
So That All May Believe • Sermon • Submitted
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One of the times that we feel the most helpless is when our lights go out. When a storm comes and it blows a line down and you are in a power outage. We’ve all had this happen to us at night. It completely messes up our routine and our plans for the night. As soon as the lights go out, we scrounge around and find the candles and the matches. We light the candles and place them around the house so we can at least see well enough not to bump in to everything when we walk.
And that is when we realize that we don’t know how to function without lights. Let me prove it to you. How many of you have done this. You’ve just lit the candles, so you know good and well that the lights are out. You walk into your bedroom and the first thing you do is flip the light switch. We don’t function well without lights. Not one minute later, you think to yourself, “Well I can’t do much with the lights off.” So you pick up the remote control and try to turn the TV on. We don’t function well without lights.
As we begin to dive back into John 1, the world doesn’t function well without light.
As we saw last week, God presents Jesus as the Preexistent Word.
I. Jesus is the Preexistent Word (vv. 1-5)
I. Jesus is the Preexistent Word (vv. 1-5)
Last week we talked about Jesus being the Word, the Logos, God’s expression of communication to us. God is revealing himself to us in ways that we can understand, through sending us the person of Jesus Christ, the God man. God made flesh.
As he presents Jesus he says that in Jesus there is life and light. That’s where we first pick up the theme of light.
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.
II. Jesus is the Ever Existent Light of the World (vv. 6-13)
II. Jesus is the Ever Existent Light of the World (vv. 6-13)
What are we to make of this? Jesus is the light and in the light of Christ there is life. These two things are connnected.
By way of review, let’s talk about what I think John means by calling Jesus the light that brings life.
We also noted how so much of John’s language here is rooted in Gen. 1.
Genesis 1 starts
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
John begins his gospel, by saying:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In Genesis, God’s first act of creation was to create light.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
But what was this light? God didn’t make the Sun, Moon, and stars until Day 4 in Genesis 1:14-19.
So what light did God create on Day 1?
Jesus helps us understand when he says in John 8:12.
12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Many theologians and myself believe he is saying that God creating light is God choosing to step into his creation and not simply be separate from his creation, but to be part of it, to engage with us, to allow us to know him and be known by him. Which is why in Genesis 2, we see God’s interactions and relationship with Adam and Eve. God is there with them in the garden.
But by the time we get to Genesis 3, Satan has entered the picture. Adam and Eve have fallen into temptation and sin. And darkness again began to overshadow the world. Darkness being rejection of the light of God. The world doesn’t function well outside the will of God.
Now John is saying that Jesus has come to destroy the darkness and once again bring the light of God. To put in other words, Jesus has comes to destroy sin, forgive sinners, and bring life to a fallen world. That’s why the light brings life.
Now in order for John the Apostle to properly introduce the Son of God, he has to introduce John the Baptist.
A. The Function of the Light Bearer (vv. 6-8)
A. The Function of the Light Bearer (vv. 6-8)
John the Apostle really focuses on John the Baptist’s function. Other gospels speak more to John the Baptist’s identity. But John the Apostle immediately uses a verb that describes his function.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
John the Apostle says that John the Baptist was “sent” from God. I love the fact that John the Apostle uses the word “sent” for John the Baptist because the root word for “sent” is the same root word for “Apostle” which means “sent one.” So it is as if John is writing saying, “I’m not the first John the Apostle.” I’m not the first John with the life giving message of Jesus. John the Baptist was John the Apostle long before John the Apostle was.
He had a crucial function as the forerunner of Jesus. We are going to learn more about that once we get to v.19ff, but for now John the Apostle calls John the Baptist, a witness.
7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.
What is a witness? It’s sometimes translated as “one who testifies.” No good witness points attention to themselves. They point to, they testify of something or someone else. And John the Baptist came to testify about the light. For a clear purpose, so that all might believe upon Christ through his testimony.
God sent John the Baptist for the benefit of the people to whom he was sending the light.
You might think about it like this. John the Baptist just didn’t point to Jesus as the light. No, God knew that people in sin are in such darkness that they need someone to tell them what light is!
To prepare the people for the light, God sent John to show the them their darkness. That’s why John the Baptist’s first message was:
2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
John the Apostle reemphasizes the difference between the light and the light bearer.
8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
John was just a man, Jesus is God. John was witness. Jesus is the Word. John was servant, Jesus is the Son.
+Would’t it be incredible that we were so consumed with Christ. People were so attracted to the light that our lives put forward in the world that we had to constantly clarify, “The Love, the peace, the joy, the contentment in me is not me. It’s Jesus in me. My life is a testimony of him and his forgiveness.”
B. The Experience of the Light (vv. 9-11)
B. The Experience of the Light (vv. 9-11)
John the Apostle goes on to describe Jesus as
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
The “true” light. What that implies that world is full of artificial light. We try to produce artificial light.
*Think about your car for a moment. We put artificial lights on it. Some people used those aweful white light headlights now. Those things ought to be illegal. I’ve noticed there is a time that we never turn them on. When the sun’s out. There is a true light that makes the artificial lights not necessary. John is saying that the Son is here. The true light of the world. That makes all of the world’s “lights” it’s philosophies. It’s attempts to make sense of the meaning of life and ultimate truth unnecessary.
It’s easy to know the difference. The light the world gives and the light that Christ brings is as different as the light from a 1970’s black and white TV set is from sunset over the ocean.
Take one look at Christ and you know the difference between Christ’s light and what the world offers.
John is referencing then incarnation of Christ. The true light is coming to us.
The true light “gives light to everyone.” That doesn’t mean that everyone gets saved. Light shines in two ways. To bring the light of salvation on some. Or to reveal the corruption that will be the basis for divine judgment.
Verse 10 is a verse that I maybe one of the saddest verses in the Bible.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
Christ came into the very world that he had created, yet his creation didn’t even recognize him.
Even the nation that the Father had chosen as his own possession didn’t recognize God the Son.
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
*When I come home, I have two dogs that run up and greet me every time that I enter the house. The jump up on me and say hello. They know me. They know this is my home. They know own them and care for them. So they love me. That didn’t happen for Jesus.
Isaiah would describe it like this.
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”
*So when Jesus came into the world. It was more like coming home to cats.
+Seriously, never underestimate the power of sin to blind a person from the light of Christ.
The blessing from the light is that by God’s grace, not all reject Christ.
What we needed was not better light. What we needed was new eyes. By God’s grace, through the power of regeneration, being born again, God gave us new eyes to see his son as our Savior and Lord.
I think that what John meant when he said,
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.
Now this is where the issue of how salvation comes gets a bit controversial. Everyone would believe that it takes regeneration to be saved. You have to have a new birth.
You can make the argument from this text that repentance and faith in Christ has to come before regeneration.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
You could say that people had to receive him and believe before they become children of God through the new spiritual birth. I understand that line of thinking. If you believe that way, that is perfectly fine. Many do and I use to.
But I couldn’t square how a person repents and believes with the same old eyes that they had spent their life rejecting him with.
So I came to adopt an Old Baptist belief of Charles Spurgeon and Lottie Moon and William Carey and Adonirum Judson that believed that God had to birth us anew and give us new spiritual eyes. And with those new eyes we could see his son and he really is, our Savior and Lord.
What brought me to this understand was v.13. Notice how those who became children of God were born. In particularly whose will caused us to be born again.
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Not “of blood”- your new birth didn’t come from natural descent. You are not saved because you were born into the right family.
Not “of the will of the flesh nor the will of man”- no one produced out of your effort the desire to be born of God.
Everyone born of God is reborn because God willed it. I see that as God’s soveriegnty in our salvation. And repentance and faith comes as a result of God birthing us anew.
This church is big enough for people to hold both views and fight Satan with all we have.
And regardless of what view you hold. We can all rejoice this morning because it is by God’s Grace that we can see Christ. By God’s grace that we receive him and become children of God.
Now let’s us go like John the Baptist and carry the light into the dark world, praying that God will give new eyes to sinners that they might see Christ and be saved.