John 01(14+15)

Introduction

As you’ve probably noticed, I like to begin my sermons by recapping what we’ve studied before. And I like to do this, not only to remind you of what we’ve already studied, but because I don’t want us to miss the forest for the trees. A person who misses the forest for the trees is a person who is preoccupied with details and overlooks the bigger picture. And when we’re studying a book of the Bible, we need to look in detail at each verse. But we also need to see how each verse fits with the verses around it which form a paragraph. And we need to see how each paragraph fits with the paragraphs around it which form the book. And, of course, we need to see how each individual book of the Bible fits with the other books around it which form the whole Bible. Just as someone should look at the trees individually and the forest as a whole, so we should look at the verses individually and the book as a whole.

And we need to do this, because each book of the Bible progresses. Each book begins and then it progresses. It develops. The Lord unfolds his message to us as we make our way through each book of the Bible.

And so, John began his gospel by telling us about the Word, which is his title for God the Son, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. And he began by telling us that in the beginning, before anything had been created, there was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. So, before there was anything else, before anything was created, there was God and there was this divine Word.

And then John told us a little more about this divine Word who was with God and who is God. He went on to say that all things were made through the Word; and without him nothing was made that has been made. So, God made all things through this divine Word. John is teaching us that the Word is God’s co-creator.

And then John tells us a little more about this divine Word. He went on to say that in him was life. So, he has all life in himself. And the life we see all around us in creation comes from this divine Word. He gives us our life.

And John went on to say a little more. He said that this life, which was in the divine Word, is the light of men. And so, whoever has life has the light. The life and the light go together and they both come to us from the divine Word.

And we thought about how the light is the knowledge of God. The light is the knowledge of God, because all of God’s works of creation and providence — the things he made and the things he does in the world through his divine Word — are like a flashing light which tell every single human being that there’s a God and he’s powerful and he’s good. Everyone knows God.

And John went on to say that the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome the light. The light is always shining. God is always revealing himself to us through his works of creation and providence so that everyone knows God. But we don’t see the light, because of the darkness of our sin and unbelief. We’re sinfully inclined to repress the knowledge of God. But the darkness of our sin and unbelief has not overcome the light, because the light is still shining and because God sent his Old Testament prophets to reveal himself even more clearly to his people.

And the last of those prophets was John the Baptist. And the Apostle John refers to John the Baptist in verse 6. He came from God to testify to the light and to give people the knowledge of God by preaching to them.

And then John tells us that the light, which has always been shining in the world, was coming into the world in a new way. The light, which has always been shining, was coming into the world and would be revealed in the world in a person.

And that person came to his own people. He came to God’s people, the people of Israel. But they did not recognise him, even though everything he said and did made clear that he has come from God. However, to all who received him by believing in him, he gave the right to become children of God. So, he enabled them to know God in a new way. God would no longer by a stranger to them. He would no longer be their judge. He enabled them to know God as their heavenly Father.

So, John began at the very beginning, before anything had been created, when there was only God and the divine Word. And he’s taken us to the creation of all things through the divine Word, who gives life and light to all things. And he’s taken us to the coming of John the Baptist, sent by God to bear witness to God’s light. And he’s taken us finally to the coming of God’s light as a person who gives the right to become children of God to all who believe in him.

That’s the progression of John’s thought in the first thirteen verses of his gospel. And in verse 14 he answers the question: How did the Word come?

How the Word came?

How did the Word come? He came in flesh. Do you see that in verse 14? ‘The Word became flesh’. John is referring to the time of the incarnation, when the Eternal Son of God was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary and was born in Bethlehem and received the name Jesus.

In the Bible, the word ‘flesh’ is used to refer to what we’re made of. You and I are made of flesh and bone or flesh and blood. That’s what we are. And that’s what the Word became. When he was born in Bethlehem, he was made of flesh and blood like us.

And in the Bible, the word ‘flesh’ is sometimes used to make the point that we are weak. In other words, we’re only flesh and blood. And we’re mortal so that we can die. And so, when John says that the divine Word became flesh, he means that he became flesh and blood and he became weak and mortal just like us. He’s the divine Word who was with God in the beginning and he is himself God. All things were made through him. He gives life and light to all people. That’s who he is. And yet, the Word became flesh like us. He became flesh and blood and he became weak and mortal. So, when he was on the earth, he became tired and hungry and thirsty. And he was able to die. In other words, he became just like us. The Word became one of us.

However, when John says he became flesh, we mustn’t think that he only possessed a body. The point John is making is that he became one of us; and we are not only a body, because we are body and soul. We are body and soul together. That’s what we are and that’s what he became. And so, later in the gospel, in the story of Lazarus’s death, John will tell us that the Lord Jesus was deeply moved in spirit. That is to say, he was deeply moved in his soul. We are body and soul and so was he.

And I think the reason John doesn’t refer to his soul in verse 14 is because he wants us to feel the wonder of the incarnation and how the divine Word — who was with God in the beginning and who is God and through whom all things were made — became weak and mortal just like us. Wonder of wonders: the Creator of life entered our life as one of us.

And by saying he became flesh, John is also distinguishing what happened at the incarnation from what happens when someone is filled with the Holy Spirit. When someone is filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes on a person who already existed before the Spirit came on him or her. God, in a sense, uses this person as his instrument to do his will here on earth. So, the Holy Spirit uses a human being or the Holy Spirit fills a human being. But the Holy Spirit does not become a human being. However, the incarnation of the divine Word was different, because the divine Word truly became one of us. It’s not that he entered another person and filled him with his presence. No, the divine Word became a human being. He became one of us in body and soul.

The Word dwelt among us

And John goes on to tell us that he dwelt among us. So, the Word became flesh — he became one of us — and made his dwelling among us.

And the word translated ‘made his dwelling’ is significant because it could be translated ‘pitched his tent’ or ‘lived in his tent’. He lived in his tent among us. And this recalls the way that God used to dwell among his people in Old Testament times. In Old Testament times God dwelt among his people in the tabernacle, which was a tent. And so, as God’s people made their way through the wilderness in the days of Moses, they lived in tents. And at the centre of their camp, was God’s tent, the tabernacle. The people saw the tabernacle and knew that God was with them.

So, in the days of Moses, God dwelt among his people by means of the tabernacle. Later, God dwelt among his people by means of the temple in Jerusalem. The people would go up to Jerusalem to meet the Lord in his temple. And you might remember that the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle and temple was regarded as God’s throne room.

But do you remember the reading from 2 Chronicles last week? When Solomon was dedicating the temple which he had built for the Lord, he acknowledged that no earthly building was able to contain the Lord. Indeed the heavens and the earth cannot contain the Lord. That’s because God is immense. That is, he is present everywhere all at once.

And yet wonder of wonders: God was now going to dwell among his people as a man. Almighty God, the Creator of the heavens and earth, who is present everywhere all at once, was going to appear on earth in human form. The divine Word of God — who was with God in the beginning and who is himself God and through whom all things were made — was coming to dwell among his people in a completely new way.

Only Begotten

And John goes on to say that they have seen his glory. Whose glory did they see? They saw the glory of the Only Begotten from the Father.

There’s going to be some overlap on what I say here tonight and what I said at the midweek on Wednesday, when we’re going through the Nicene Creed which was written 1700 years ago to make clear what the church believes about our Triune God. And on Wednesday night we were thinking about the line in the Creed where we confess our faith in the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages.

And let me say something first about how to translate the word which the NIV translates as ‘the One and Only’ and the ESV translates as ‘the only Son’ but which the King James Version of the Bible translates as ‘only begotten’. As I said on Wednesday, in modern times there’s been some disagreement over how to translate the word which John uses to refer to the Lord Jesus in this verse and in four other places in John’s gospel and his first letter. Older English translations have ‘only begotten’, whereas modern English versions ‘only Son’ or ‘one and only Son’ or similar. The dispute arose because the Greek word which John uses can mean both ‘only begotten’ or ‘unique’. And modern translators have preferred the translation ‘unique’ instead of the older translation.

However, various scholars claim that the translation ‘unique’ is only appropriate when the word is used to describe objects. For instance, someone might design a unique building. On the other hand, the translation ‘only begotten’ is appropriate when it’s used to describe a child. And in those cases when it refers to a child, it refers to an only child. Some parents have many children and some only have one child. When there’s only one child, that one child is the only begotten child of its parents. And so, John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is telling us that the divine Word — who was with God in the beginning and who is himself God — is the only begotten Son of God the Father.

And since he is begotten of or from the Father, then that means he’s the same as the Father. As I explained on Wednesday, this is because to beget is not the same as to create or to make. When God created the heavens and the earth, he created something that was different from himself. Similarly, when we make something, we make something that is different from us. So, we might make a cake. When we do so, we are one thing and the cake is something else entirely. But when a man begets a child, the child has the same human nature as the father. And it’s the same with other living creatures. A dog begets another dog. A cat begets another cat. A horse begets another horse. And so, when we say that God the Father begets God the Son, or when we say that the Son is begotten from the Father, we’re saying that they are the same as one another. A human father begets a son in his likeness or in his image. And God the Son is the image of God the Father. Or to put it another way, the Father communicates his divine being to the Son so that the Son perfectly possesses one and the same being with the Father. The Father shares with the Son all that it means to be God.

How the Father does this is beyond our understanding. As one theologian (Gregory Nazianzus) puts it: ‘The begetting of God is to be honoured by silence; the great thing is for you to learn that he was begotten.’ So, we can’t understand how the Son was begotten from the Father, because it’s part of God’s mystery. It’s ineffable. But what we can say about it is that the begetting of the Son from the Father is timeless and eternal. This is something that happened before time was created. So, it’s not as if the Father begot the Son at some moment of time in the past. The Father begets his Son timelessly and eternally.

There was a time when I was not a father. But then I became a father when my first child was born. And I became a father again when my second child was born. And I became a father again when my third child was born. And I can talk about my life before I was a father and I can talk about my life after I became a father. But God the Father begets his Son eternally and not in time. And so, the Father is the Father eternally and the Son is the Son eternally.

And so, John was able to write in verse 1 that in the beginning, before there was anything else, there was the Word who is God’s Only Begotten Son. He was there in the beginning, because he was begotten from the Father before time and in eternity.

And another thing we can say about the Father begetting the Son is that it is different from the way we are begotten. We are begotten when a man and woman come together in a physical way. But the Son is begotten from the Father alone and in a supernatural or transcendent way and not in a physical way.

And since fathers beget sons of the same nature, then God’s Only Begotten Son is of the same nature or the same being as the Father. They are the same because they possess one and the same divine being. But if the Father and the Son are the same, then how are they distinct from one another? How do they differ from one another? How can you tell them apart? The answer is that the Son is the one, and the only one, who is begotten from the Father. The Father is unbegotten and has no origin, whereas the Son is begotten and originates from the Father. That’s how they are different: one is the Father and the other is the Son.

We have seen his glory

And it was the Only Begotten Son who became flesh and dwelt among us. And it was his glory which John and everyone else saw at that time. So, when they looked at the man Jesus, they were looking at God’s Only Begotten Son.

And it’s important that we note this, because when John says that the Word became flesh, he doesn’t mean the Word was turned into flesh. He doesn’t mean the Word was transformed into flesh and became someone or something else. A caterpillar turns into a butterfly, but the Word did not turn into something else when he came to earth as one of us. The Word remained who he always was. He was still the Word. He was still the Son. And so, without ceasing to be God, the Son took to himself a body and soul like ours so that he is and will forever be one person with two natures. He is one person: the Only Begotten Son of God. And he possesses two natures: the divine nature and a human nature like ours. If you ask what he is, you have to say he’s God and man. But if you ask who he is, you have to say he’s God the Son.

And so, it was God himself –in the person of his Son — who came down to earth as one of us and who dwelt among us for a time. And the people saw his glory.

Do you remember that time in the book of Exodus when Moses asked to see God’s glory? And God said to him that no one can see his face and live. But John and everyone with him at that time were able to look on the face of the Lord Jesus. And wonder of wonders: in seeing his face, they were beholding the glory of God, because that’s who he is.

And he revealed to them God’s grace and truth. God’s grace is his kindness to sinners. Instead of treating us as our sins deserve, he treats us with kindness and he does good to us. And it’s because of his grace towards us that he saves us.

And his truth or his truthfulness is his faithfulness. God is true to his promises and he promised his people in the past that he would save them from our sin and misery and give us eternal life in his presence. And God was true to his word so that, when the time was right, he came down from heaven to earth in the person of his Son to save us.

And he saved us by becoming one of us and by dying on the cross to pay for our sins and shortcomings with his life. As God he has all life in himself. As God he is immortal. He cannot die. But as one of us, he was able to give up his human life on the cross and die for us, bearing the punishment we deserve so that all who believe in his name receive forgiveness and peace with God and the hope of everlasting life in the presence of God.

Wonder of wonders: when John and everyone else saw the man Jesus, they were looking at God’s Only Begotten Son who became flesh and who revealed to them God’s grace and faithfulness: his kindness to sinners and his willingness to save us from our sin and misery and to give us eternal life.

John’s testimony

And in verse 15 the Apostle John tells us that John the Baptist testified concerning him that the Lord Jesus is the one who came after John, but who surpasses John. He came after John in the sense that John was born before him and John appeared to the people in public before the Lord Jesus did. In fact, John was sent by God to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord Jesus.

So, John appeared first. But the Lord Jesus far surpasses John. John may have appeared first, but the Lord Jesus is greater than John. And the Lord Jesus is greater than John because the Lord Jesus was before John. How was the Lord Jesus before John when John was born first and when John appeared in public first? The Lord Jesus was before John because the Lord Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God who was with God in the beginning and who is God. He was before John, because he is before every created thing. He was before John because he’s the Eternal Son of God who is without beginning and without end and through whom all things were made.

He was before John and he far surpasses John. He far surpasses all of us, because he is God and he deserves all worship and glory and honour both now and for evermore. He is God, before whom the angels hide their faces. And yet, for us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. And he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and died and was buried and rose again. He did all of this for us so that we can have forgiveness and peace with God and can become children of God. He did all this for us so that we can look forward to the resurrection and everlasting life in the presence of God, where we will see his glory and we’ll worship him for ever.

And while we wait for that, we should love and worship him today and every day with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. We should love and worship him with all of our being and we should serve him in our daily lives by walking in his ways and doing his will. We ought to serve him because he is our God who made us. And we ought to love and worship him because of what he has done for us. Out of his overflowing grace and truth and goodness and love, he came to earth to save us and to give us eternal life. And in gratitude to him, we should live our lives for him.