JOHN’S PROLOGUE
John was the last surviving disciple. His brother, James, was dead. Peter, the leading apostle to the Jews, was dead. Paul, the leading apostle to the Gentiles, was dead. Thomas, Andrew, Phillip, and Nathanael were dead. All of the apostles were dead except John, the first and last apostle to the church. He lived through a marvelous time. I would say that John was witness to more amazing events than anyone in the Bible and anyone since. Have you ever thought about what John witnessed?
He saw the Son of God become the Son of Man. Jesus had been incarnated at Bethlehem, baptized in the Jordan, tempted, and proved sinless in the wilderness. He had healed the sick, cleansed lepers, and raised the dead. He had made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk. He had turned water into wine, walked on the water, and calmed the stormy sea. He fed multitudes with a few fish and a handful of bread.
He was love incarnate. He was God in flesh. He had been betrayed, falsely accused, beaten, mocked, spat upon, and crucified. He had been buried, but He rose in victory. He had ascended into heaven and personally, in glorified form, assured John He was coming back, and John witnessed all of this. These memories lingered in John’s heart. For 3 ½ years, John was His best friend. John knew the truth about the Lord Jesus as did no other person on earth. The Christian church had risen. The Church had been born on Pentecost in a crowded upper room in Jerusalem just 10 days after the Ascension of Christ.
The Holy Spirit came like a mighty rushing wind, like cloven tongues of fire, and John was there. The disciples had been baptized into one body: the body of Christ known as the Church. John witnessed the church grow from 120 to 3,000 in a single day. He had seen the church take root and spread until at the end of the first century its branches were reaching into all the world. No living man knew the story better than John.
All the books of the New Testament had been written except John’s gospel, John’s three epistles, and John’s complete revelation of Jesus Christ. The rest of the New Testament was in circulation. John most assuredly spent hours combing through those writings reflecting upon the many experiences he had with Christ and the early church. So why another gospel? Why was the Holy Spirit urging John to write?
Simply stated, there was much left to be said. Matthew had written primarily for the Jews, Mark for the Romans, and Luke for the Greeks, but someone needed to write a gospel for the church, and John was chosen. It was now the third generation. The warnings by Paul, Peter, James, and Jude about apostasy in the church were coming true. By the third generation, all kinds of heresies were being spread. All kinds of false teachings were flourishing, and some of them are still with us today. For example:
· The Word became flesh but not a body
· Jesus had a divine personality and a human personality. He cannot be both God and man
· Christ became the Son of God at His baptism as symbolized by the Holy Spirit descending upon Him
So, there was a need for a 4th gospel, 3 more letters, and a Revelation. Only John remained with the knowledge and experience to write them. He wrote his gospel out of personal experience, out of a memory quickened with inerrancy by the Holy Spirit. So, we have the gospel according to John.
John 20: 31
31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
I. THE DIVINE LIFE IN ESSENCE
A. THE LORD’S INDESCRIBABLE PERSON
John 1: 1 – 2
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.
John does not waste time arguing. He begins by stating facts that he knows beyond all shadow of a doubt to be true. The first fact John establishes is that Jesus of Nazareth was God. John simply states what he knows to be true. No 1st Century liberal or cultist was in a position to deny the statements John makes in his opening sentences. John was bearing witness to the truth. He knew what the truth was, and that truth was that Jesus was the Son of God. It is important to understand what John was saying in these opening verses. He was swearing as under oath to the absolute fact that Jesus was the Son of God.
Let’s look how he does it.
1. Jesus is eternally God.
John 1 : 1a
1 In the beginning was the Word,
TO equate Jesus with God was a proposition not lightly made. John knew the consequences of such a statement. He was a Jew and to propose the Sonship of Christ was blasphemy, but he left no doubt as to his claim as he opens his gospel with the assertion that Jesus was the Son of God.
In the beginning was the Word. When John calls Jesus the Word, the logos, he is referring to Him as the thinker, the genius behind the created universe, but the statement means so much more. In the Greek, the verb, was, expresses a continuous state, not a completed past. It suggests the idea of absolute existence. In other words, the Lord Jesus was pre-existent before the creation of the universe.
Christ is ongoing. He transcends time. Time is a device we use to relate to our existence, but Jesus is timeless. Jesus belongs to a world where time does not matter. The Word had no beginning, and it has no ending. The Word belongs to eternity. Some just cannot conceive this reality. As a matter of fact, it is quite disturbing to them to conceive of Christ having no beginning. We have come to think of things in terms of time, but Christ goes back to no beginning at all, and that bothers some. That’s why they say Jesus was born a man and became God at His baptism, but they are dead wrong and headed for hell, and we all are if Jesus was not God and Man in that manger in Bethlehem. In the beginning was the Word. Jesus is eternally God.
2. Jesus is equally God.
John 1 : 1b
and the Word was with God
Holy Trinity doubters beware! There is more than one within the Godhead, and Jesus is One. The very first verse in the Bible expressed the Godhead.
Genesis 1 : 1
1 In the beginning God (ELOHIM) created the heavens and the earth.
The name for God in Genesis 1: 1 is Elohim; it is a plural noun with a singular verb. The Trinity is embedded throughout the Old Testament; one God in three persons acting singularly. The Trinity is not three Gods.
How would you express the Trinity mathematically? Which is correct? I know I am challenging Bruce mathematically again.
1 + 1 + 1 = God or 1 x 1 x 1 = God
1 x 1 x 1 would equal God because 1 x 1 x 1 is 1. The Trinity is one God in three persons. Now, this is hard to grasp, and I do not begin to claim I know the complete workings of the Trinity, and if somebody says they do completely understand, I will not buy a used car from them. God illustrates the Trinity in time and sense. Let me give you some examples.
The universe is triune: Space, Matter, Time
Space is triune: Length, Width, Height
Matter is triune: Energy, Motion, Phenomena
Time is triune: Past, Present, Future.
When John says of Jesus that the Word was with God, he is stating a truth. Jesus is equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God the Son. He is the second person of the Godhead.
3. Jesus is essentially God.
John 1 : 1c – 2
and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
And the Word was God. Jesus is all that God is. Jesus and the Father share the same characteristics. Both exist independent of all creation. Both have the wisdom and power to create a 100 million galaxies and hold them on inconceivable paths according to fixed laws. I am here to tell you in no uncertain terms. Jesus is the Son of God. He was just as much God in Bethlehem as He is in Heaven today, but He was also just as much man in Bethlehem as He is glorified man in Heaven today. You cannot separate the divinity and humanity of Christ because if you can Christ was not the Savior man needed, but I am telling you He was, is, and will be the Savior man needs, and that is the indescribable person of the Lord.
B. THE LORD’S INFINITE POWER
1. He was the power of creation.
John 1: 3
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
This is referring to the infinite details of creation. Have you ever pondered the details of creation? The Creation is amazing. Let’s look at a few examples of the infinity of creation.
An astronomer takes his telescope and focuses on the far reaches of space. Space is so vast that it is measured in light years, the distance light travels in one year at 186, 273 miles per second. 186, 273 miles is the equivalent of circling the earth at the equator 7 ½ times in one second. Using that as a yardstick, our sun is 8 light minutes away, but out there in that vastness are suns and stars believed to be billions of light years away, and there are billions of star, and the Word named them all and set them on their path. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 miles in diameter. It is revolving at a speed of 200 million miles an hour. It takes 2 million years to complete one revolution on its axis.
WOW!!! I am going to make a point I promise. The size of space and the number of stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies the Creator has thrown into His vast universe is overwhelming. Have you ever thought about the precision of these bodies following their assigned path? The precision is because of the Word, Jesus.
Hebrews 1 : 2 - 3
2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 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 at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Jesus Christ holds everything in place, and I personally believe that during the Great Tribulation He will loosen His hand on Creation causing immense catastrophes, and beyond what we can see with eye and telescope, He is preparing for us a city. AMEN!!!!
Take earth for example. Did you know planet earth does not travel in a true circle? This is incredible, and you talk about infinite detail. Earth travels in 3 directions at once. It revolves on its axis, it travels around the sun, and its path is deflected by other planets. Yet it does not lose more than 1/100 of a second in a thousand years, and people think the universe just happened.
Let’s turn from the infinitely large to the world of the infinitely small. The atom is the building block of the universe. The atom is so small that each one is less than 1/150,000,000 of an inch in diameter. If the molecules of a single drop of water could be converted into grains of sand, there would be enough sand to build a concrete highway a half-mile wide, one foot thick from New York to San Francisco.
When we turn to living things, the complexities that confront us are incredible. We know that no two humans have ever had the same fingerprints. All the zebras in the world have different striping patterns. All the giraffes in the world have different spotting patterns. All the tigers in the world have different striping patterns. No two snowflakes are the same. Water is completely recycled because of the water cycle. Oxygen is recycled because of photosynthesis, and I could go on and on and on.
When the Word was creating, He had Himself a time, and He let His artistic brilliance and scientific genius run amok creating the infinite details of creation. Jesus made it all. Nothing was made without Jesus including all the infinite details.
2. He is the power of communication.
John 1: 4 – 5
4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
****Even before Jesus came into the world to be the light of the world, He made God known through creation, of which life is the most marvelous mystery and the loudest voice. Listen to how Paul said it.
Romans 1: 17 – 20
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
This planet, its many life forms, its processes, its solar system, its seasons all point to Jesus as the Creator.
John 1: 3
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
What is the purpose of evolution? The purpose of evolution is to create doubt. That doubt has caused darkness to engulf the children of Adam’s fallen race, but I want you to know a small light can dispel darkness. When the light shines in all its strength, darkness flees. As Paul wrote, in the heart of every person is the realization of God and the ability to recognize right and wrong. That light has never been extinguished. When we sin, we willfully ignore the light to choose darkness, but it does not change the fact that the light cannot be extinguished.
Atheism cannot blot it out. Liberalism cannot blot it out. Humanism cannot blot it out. At Calvary, the power of darkness had its moment of victory when the light went out, but on Resurrection morning, the light blazed brighter than ever, triumphant forever, and coming soon will dawn the perfect day.
Proverbs 4 : 18
18 But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
AMEN!!!! This was a sermon that I typed as I was studying the 25 most important chapters in the Bible, and by the way, Anthony made fun of me for my ranking system. Lol!!!!! I typed it and studied, but I never felt led to preach it, but as I was driving to church today. I felt led to share it as my blog for the week. I hope you take the time to read it and give God the glory he deserves.