Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • The gospel of John, what a wonderful place to be in the time of darkness to shine

  • the light, right? We have been introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ in this gospel. He

  • is the Word. He is the Life. He is the Light, as we learned in the first four verses; and

  • the fifth verse began to expand on that concept of light, and we came all the way down into

  • verse 13 last time. So pick it up at John 1:14; let me read it to you.

  • And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the

  • only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and cried

  • out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, “He who comes after me has a higher rank

  • than I, for He existed before me.”’ For of His fullness we have all received, and

  • grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through

  • Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom

  • of the Father, he has explained Him.”

  • John opens his gospel with 18 verses that we would call a prologue, a prologue. This

  • is John talking theologically. Starting in verse 19 he goes into the narrative part of

  • it in which he starts to tell the story of Jesuslife in the world. And he goes into

  • the statements that Jesus makes and the works that He does and the miracles He performs,

  • and gives us the wonderful story all the way to the cross and the resurrection. But in

  • the opening prologue he makes his thesis statement. And the statement in the opening prologue

  • is that Jesus is God in human flesh. That He is the Creator of the universe who has

  • become a part of His creation. He is pure, eternal being who has become a man. That is

  • John’s message, that Jesus is not a created man; He is God in human flesh. And that, dear

  • friends, that is the most essential doctrine in the Christian faith. That is it. And that

  • is why there have been and continue to be so many heresies concerning Jesus Christ,

  • concerning the essence, or the nature, or the person of Jesus Christ. This is the important

  • doctrine in the Christian faith. It must be known; it must be believed for someone to

  • escape hell and enter heaven, that Jesus is God.

  • Summed up in four words at the beginning of verse 14, “The Word became flesh.” “The

  • Word became flesh.” That is the central truth of Christianity. That is the theme of

  • John’s gospel. And that is the required conviction for anyone who will escape hell,

  • to understand thatthe Word became flesh.”

  • Now weve already learned in the opening thirteen verses that what that is saying is

  • that the one, true, eternal God became human. That the infinite One became finite; that

  • the eternal One entered time; that the omnipresent One became confined in the space of a human

  • body; that the invisible One became visible. The true church of Jesus Christ has always

  • believed that. It has always proclaimed that. It has always demanded that. Any other view

  • of Christ is unacceptable; it is a damning heresy. This is the only view of Christ by

  • which someone can escape hell and enter heaven. This is the reason John makes such a case

  • out of the deity of Jesus Christ.

  • He gives his purpose in chapter 20, verse 31 at the end of his gospel. “These have

  • been written”—everything in the gospel up to this point—“so that you may believe

  • that Jesus is the anointed One, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life

  • in His name.” The only way to have eternal life is by believing in Himbelieving who

  • He is, first of all, and what He has done.

  • So in His opening prologue, John talks about the nature of Jesus Christ. He introduces

  • Him as the Word. This is a metaphor which speaks of Christ as coming from God, as God

  • revealing Himself, disclosing Himself, speaking. And he says, “The Word was in the beginning.”

  • In other words, He already existed when everything that began, beganwhich means He’s eternal.

  • He was with God, which means though He was God, He was at the same time distinct from

  • God. He was with God and was God. That is Trinitarian. There is one God and yet three

  • persons. Jesus is God and yet He is with God. The theology here is profound. And in the

  • beginning when everything came into existence that came into existence, Hewas”—the

  • verbto be,” pure being; He eternally existed.

  • To prove that, everything that came into being came into being through Him, and without Him

  • did not anything come into being that came into beingand that because He is life.

  • He has life in Himself. He is the Creator. And the Creator whose eternal being, verse

  • 5 says, came into the darkness of this world like a light. And that’s how he introduces

  • this incredible bookthe arrival of the Light, the very life of God, the very Word

  • of God into the world.

  • Now I think it would be safe to say that John was legitimately obsessed with this great

  • foundational doctrine. And again I urge you, whenever anybody talks about religion and

  • gets to Jesus, you want to focus right down on what Jesus they are talking about. Are

  • they talking about the One who is the eternal God? The One who is the Creator, who existed

  • infinitely forever? Or are they talking about some other Jesus? John is obsessed with this.

  • In the last century, the last decade, rather, of the first centuryin the ninetieshe

  • wrote his gospel and he also wrote three epistles. And just to show you what was so much on his

  • heart, turn to 1 John for a moment, 1 John. And John launches his epistle, and he’s

  • writing this epistle to believers to identify for them the marks of true salvation. And

  • listen how he starts. He starts very much like he started his gospel. “What was from

  • the beginning,” that’s Christ, who when the beginning began already existed because

  • He’s eternal. “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with

  • our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, namely the Word of Lifeand

  • the life was manifested.” There is very parallel language. The eternal Word, life

  • itself, manifested itself in the world, John said, and we saw it with our own eyes. And

  • we looked at it, and we heard, and we touched Him with our hands. “Weve seen,” he

  • says in verse 2, we testify, we proclaim to you the eternal lifeyou could capitalize

  • that, The Eternal Life, meaning the Son of God—“which was with the Father and was

  • manifested to usand weve seen and we heard and we proclaim to you.” He can’t

  • get over this. John is absolutely blown away by the fact that he has heard, he has seen,

  • he has looked deeply into the face of, and he has touched the Creator of the universe

  • in a human form. I think this would be something to obsess about. That’s where John is. And

  • what we have seen and heard and touched, we declare to youso,” verse 3, “you may

  • have fellowship with us,” so that you may come into the kingdom, believing in Him, and

  • our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these are things

  • we write, so that your joy may be made complete,” because complete joy can only be found in

  • knowing Him.

  • You know, John never got over it. You wonder why John refers to himself in his gospel,

  • not by his name, but he calls himselfthe disciple whom Jesus loved,” orthe disciple

  • who leaned on Jesus”—because he never, ever could fathom the reality that this is

  • the eternal Creator God, the One true God in human form; and He loves me; and He walks

  • with me; and He talks with me; and I touch Him; and I fellowship with Him; and I can’t

  • get over it. This is the obsession of all of his writing.

  • In chapter 2 of 1 John, down in verse 22, he says, “Who is the liar...Who is the liar

  • but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies

  • the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father; the one who

  • confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you heard

  • from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning [from the apostles, from us]

  • abides in you, you will abide in the Son and in the Father.” Again he goes back that

  • if you tamper with who Christ is, you will alienate yourself from Godvery, very serious

  • to John.

  • Chapter 4, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit.” Don’t believe every claim, every

  • teacher, every spirit behind every teacher. Test the spirits, see whether theyre from

  • God because there’s so many false prophets in the world. How do you know when someone’s

  • a false prophet? “By this you know the Spirit of God [that is behind the true Spirit]: every

  • spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Those who

  • affirm the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, theyre from God. “Every spirit that doesn’t

  • confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of antichrist, of which you have heard

  • that it is coming, and now already in the world.”

  • John is absolutely crystal clear that one’s view of Jesus Christ is determinative, determinative.

  • Down in verse 12, same chapter: “No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another,

  • God abides in us, His love is perfected...and it’s by this we know that we abide in Him

  • and He in us, because He’s given us His Spirit. We have seen and testified that the

  • Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is

  • the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

  • If you tamper with the deity of Jesus Christ, you are not in the kingdom of God. Chapter

  • 5, he’s not finished. Verse 1, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born

  • of God.” That simple. “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”

  • Verse 4, “Whoever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has

  • overcome the worldour faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes

  • that Jesus is the Son of God?” And finally, down in verse 20, “We know that the Son

  • of God is come,” “we know that the Son of God is come.” Weve seen Him, heard

  • Him, touched Him, “and is given to us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. And we

  • are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

  • In the second letter, after the first epistle, verse 7, he says: “Many deceivers are gone

  • out into the world...who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This

  • is a deceiver and antichrist.” Verse 9, “Anyone who goes beyond doesn’t abide

  • in the teaching of Christ, doesn’t have God; the one who abides in this teaching...has

  • the Father and the Son.” Soif anybody comes to you and doesn’t have that teaching,

  • don’t let him in your house, don’t give him a greeting,” because you would be a

  • partaker in his evil deed. It’s all about Christ and who Christ is.

  • Now with that in mind, you can go back to the first chapter of the gospel of John. It

  • is therefore not surprising that of all of the Christian doctrines there has no single

  • doctrine been more assaulted and attacked than the truth concerning the incarnation

  • of Jesus Christ. There have been all kinds of Jesuses, all kinds of Christs offered to

  • the world. And in the future, we are warned that as we get closer to the coming of Christ,

  • false Christs will multiply, false Jesuses will multiply, and we have to be discerning

  • about whether people are speaking of the true Christ.

  • To put it another way, it is as damning to believe in the wrong Jesus as to believe in

  • no Jesus. To believe in the wrong Jesus is as damning as to believe youre saved by

  • a rock, some animistic religion. You can’t be saved by believing the wrong thing about

  • Christ. You must believe in His deity and humanity. And that’s why John is so compelled

  • at this point.

  • Now in verses 14 to 18 we come to the crescendo, “And the Word became flesh,” “the Word

  • became flesh.” The Word, meaning the preincarnate Son of God whose eternal being became flesh

  • (sarx). Sometimes the wordfleshis used in a moral sense, deeds of the fleshlike

  • Romans 8, Galatians 5. But sometimes it’s used in a physical sense, and that’s the

  • way it’s used here. Romans 1:3 says that Jesus was the Son of David, “according to

  • the flesh,” humanly speaking. So sometimes it has a moral component, and other times

  • it’s just talking about a physical componentand that’s what it is here. The eternal Word

  • became human, that’s what it means; the eternal Word became human. So you have the

  • God/Man. The eternal God who is pure eternal being, and not becoming at all as His creatures

  • are, becomes a part of His creation. God and man are joined in one person, never again

  • to be separated. Listen to that. They are joined in one person, never again to be separated,

  • yet never confounded and never mixed. His human nature, His human nature does not overpower

  • His divine nature; His divine nature does not overpower His human nature. They are both

  • perfect and distinct and indivisible and yet unmingled and unmixed.

  • The deity of Christ is not diminished by His humanity, nor is His humanity overpowered

  • by His deity. And maybe I can illustrate that by saying this: when you see Christ in heaven,

  • He will be exactly the same God/Man that He was when He walked on earthin the post-resurrection

  • form of the body that the disciples spent forty days with. He is the same Christ. He

  • doesn’t become a floating fog in heaven, as some of these silly people say who take

  • fake trips to heaven and then make up things. He is exactly who He is. He will be who He

  • was on earthfully man, fully God in the same way He walked on earth.

  • And let me take it a step further. His humanity is not the humanity of Adam before his fall.

  • He does not have a pre-Fall humanity. Some people think that, yes, He’s fully man;

  • but He’s fully man in the sense of Adam was before the Fall. That is not true. He

  • is fully man in the sense that Adam was after the Fall. How do you know that? Because He

  • lived and grew and died, and that is a factor of fallen condition. Furthermore, if He was

  • not in the form of man after the Fall, He would have no ability to understand our weaknesses

  • and our infirmities and be tempted in all points as we are tempted, and come out as

  • a merciful, sympathetic High Priest. So He is truly human in the sense that we are human

  • in the post-Fall realm. With one exception: no sin. He is without sinholy, harmless,

  • undefiled, separate from sinners, without sin forever. Second Corinthians 5, He knew

  • no sin.

  • So this One, John says, this God/Man, “the Word became flesh.” And then He says, “And

  • dwelt among us,” “dwelt among us” (skenoo means to pitch your tent). He brought His

  • tent to us and He settled down in our world. For thirty-three years He lived in our worldtook

  • on the form of a man; came and became one of us, Hebrews 2, Philippians 2; grew in wisdom,

  • stature, favor with God and man. You can’t deny that. That’s 1 John. I just read it

  • to you (4:2 and 3). If you deny that Jesus came in the flesh, that the Son of God was

  • an actual man, then that’s heresy and you don’t know God. God in human form dwelt

  • with us.

  • How did we know He was God? John gives us three very important statements and theyre

  • tied to three wordsclear evidence that this is God. First word, glory; second word,

  • grace; third word, God. And well just look at this briefly. I know youre familiar

  • with it.

  • Back to verse 14, first point: the incarnate Christ displays divine glory. The incarnate

  • Christ displays divine glory. John says in verse 14, “And we saw His glory.” “We

  • saw His glory.” And it was glory that belongs to the monogenes of the Father, and it was

  • full of grace and truth. We saw His glory.

  • What is glory? What does that mean? You have to go back to the Old Testament to pick up

  • on that, really. God’s glory is intrinsic to His nature; it is who He is. It is the

  • sum of His attributes. Take all the attributes of God and you can list them; all of the attributes

  • of God in perfect complex are His glory, His intrinsic innate gloryall of His attributes.

  • But then there is also His manifest glory. And He manifests His glory symbolically and

  • in reality. Let me tell you what I mean.

  • Moses in Exodus 33 says, “Show me Your glory. I want to see Your glory.” And the Lord

  • says, in effect, “Okay, I’ll show you My glory, but I have to warn you, I can’t

  • show it all to you because no man could see My face and live” (Exodus 33:20). “So

  • the Lord said, ‘There’s a place by Me, and you can stand there on the rock; and it

  • will come about, while My glory is passing by, I’ll put you in the cleft of the rock

  • and I’ll cover you with My hand until I pass by.” And what youre going to see

  • is the edges of My glory shining across the cover. You can see the fringes of My glory,

  • because if you saw My full glory, you’d be incinerated in a millisecond.

  • What is this kind of glory? What is this? This is God’s nature, God’s essence that

  • the eternal complex of all that He isthe all-glorious God manifest in blazing light,

  • manifest in blazing light. I think that’s something of what Adam and Eve saw when they

  • walked and talked with God in the garden, because God is invisible, called repeatedly

  • the invisible God. So what did they see? They walked with the Shekinah. They walked with

  • the presence of God manifest in light to some degree. And maybe they were able to absorb

  • more of His glory since they were unfallen, and once they fell they had to be kicked out

  • because they could no longer look at His glory or fellowship with Him. Moses says, “Show

  • me Your glory,” and God says, “I’ll let you see the afterglow; I’ll let you

  • see the back part; I’ll let you see the edges or you’d be incinerated in a millisecond.

  • That’s the powerful majesty and glory of God that would destroy us because were

  • sinners.

  • And then the glory is defined. Moses said, “Show me Your glory,” and He said, “Okay”—God

  • didverse 19, “I’ll make all My goodness pass before you. I’ll proclaim the name

  • of the Lord, and the name of the Lord is all that He is. Before you I’ll proclaim My

  • attributes; I’ll be gracious to you; I’ll show compassion on you. And then down in verse

  • 6 of the next chapter, “The Lord descends,” in verse 5, “and then the Lord passes in

  • front of him and His light passes in front of Him,” this glowing light, and the Lord

  • begins to describe His glory.

  • Verse 6, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness

  • and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, forgives iniquity, transgression, sin,”

  • etc. The glory of God is the complex of all of His attributes and sometimes it was manifested

  • in blazing light.

  • Later on when the children of Israel were walking in the wilderness, you remember God

  • led them by a fiery flame at night, and when the tabernacle was built in Exodus 40, the

  • glory of God came down to the tabernacle. When the temple was built, 1 Kings 8:11, the

  • glory of God came down to the temple. So God’s glory is His attributes, but manifestly seen

  • frequently in the Old Testament as light.

  • In the future, Matthew 24, Matthew 25, Jesus returns and it says in both those chapters,

  • chapter 24, verses 29 and 30, chapter 25, verse 31 that He will come in great glory

  • and the shekinah will be back. Revelation says people will call on the rocks and the

  • mountains to hide them from the face of the glory, the sky will go dark, the moon and

  • sun will not give its light, and into the blackness will come this blazing shekinah

  • presence of Jesus Christ.

  • Again, the manifestation of the attributes of God in light. So that had happened in the

  • past and in the future will happen again in the meantimethe glory comes to earth in

  • Jesus. Okay? And on one occasion MatthewLuke also records itthey went up to the mount,

  • Peter, James and John, remember? And the Lord pulled back His flesh and what did they see?

  • They saw His glory, and it was so blinding they fell like dead men under the sheer shock

  • and force of this blazing light, even though it was veiled to some degree so they didn’t

  • burn up.

  • And Peter writes, “When we were in the holy mountain, we saw His glory”...“we saw

  • His glory.” Let’s go back now. When John says, “We beheld His glory,” “we beheld

  • His glory,” he can mean that they beheld the light, the shekinah, the blazing light,

  • because John was up there on that mount. He certainly could mean that. And this is written

  • long after that happened, so he would remember that experience as well as Peter did.

  • But it’s more than that. When John says, “We beheld His glory,” he’s not only

  • talking about the representation of that glory in light, he’s talking about the reality

  • of those attributes which were manifest throughout the ministry in the life of Christ. John could

  • say it this way: “We saw His love; we saw His mercy; we saw His wisdom; we saw His knowledge;

  • we saw His power; we saw His justice; we saw His holiness; we saw His compassion; we saw

  • His omnipotence; we saw His omniscience; we saw His anger; we saw His wrath; we saw His

  • kindness; we saw His patience; we saw it all. We saw all those things that the Lord listed

  • back in Exodus 33 and 34, and we saw the light, and we saw the light. We saw His glory. We

  • don’t question that this is God, right? We saw the manifest light that symbolizes

  • His glory, and we saw the attributes that make up His glorywe saw it all, we saw

  • it all. We saw a visible representation of His glory, and we saw the invisible representation

  • of that glory in His life.

  • Were going to find out in John 2 when we go to a wedding together that Jesus did a

  • miracle there and verse 11 says of John 2, “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in

  • Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory.” “Manifested His glory.” He didn’t pull

  • His flesh back like He did in the Transfiguration, but He manifested the glory of His power by

  • creating wine out of nothing. So John says, “Look, we saw His glory; yes, on the holy

  • mount, visible glory. But yes, we saw that invisible glory, the operation of His attributes.”

  • So when you ask John if Jesus is God, the God/Man, God in human flesh, John will tell

  • you yesyes He is because we saw His glory. Secondly, John will tell you that the incarnation

  • of Christ dispenses His grace, dispenses His grace. At the end of verse 14, “Full of

  • grace and truth.” “Full of grace and truth.” Not half measures, not fractions, not incomplete—“full

  • of grace and truth.”

  • Grace and truth are together in this passage. They need to be together. They have to be

  • together because the only way that you can experience grace is by believing...What?...the

  • truth. They go together, they go together. And so John says, “We have experienced who

  • He is intrinsically. He is the monogenes from the Father. That’s His essential being.

  • Weve also experienced His glory through His grace and truthmanifest in His works

  • and words and life.”

  • And then John calls His friend, John the Baptist; we call him John A and John B. John the apostle

  • calls on John the Baptist and says, “John testified about Him and cried out saying,

  • This was He of whom I said, “He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He

  • existed before me.”’” How can somebody who comes after me exist before me? John says

  • He came after me. He was born after me. Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist before

  • Mary was pregnant with Jesus. John was born first. And John says, “The one who was born

  • after me was before Me. He existed before Me.” Again, that’s pure eternal being.

  • So John the apostle borrows some testimony from John the Baptist. Why do you think he

  • does that? Is that necessary? It’s necessary if youre Jewish and you believe in Deuteronomy

  • that everything has to be confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses. Why not?

  • It was John the Baptist. This language here, the verbs here indicate that this was constantly

  • John’s pattern. This was what he was always saying. “He who comes after me has a higher

  • rank than I, because He existed before Me.” How could anybody who comes after me have

  • existed before me unless He’s eternal?

  • So the testimony of John A, the apostle, John B, the Baptist, join together to declare that

  • Jesus is the divine glory, that Jesus is the divine glory, divine God on display. Number

  • two: the incarnate Christ dispenses gracefor of His fullness we have all received,

  • and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized

  • through Jesus Christ.” Were so glad to be delivered from the law, right? And brought

  • to grace, grace came through Christ. So He displays glory, He dispenses grace. This is

  • the evidence of His deity.

  • He isfull of grace and truth.” He is full, in verse 16, andof His fullness

  • we have all received,” and then he illustrates it by saying in the Greek, “Grace after

  • grace”; “grace in the place of grace.” That’s what that is. It’s just endless,

  • non-diminishing supply of grace upon grace upon grace. I love that the preposition after

  • grace, after grace, after graceafter this grace is moved, there’s more grace filling

  • the vacuum. There’s never any diminishing of grace. We have received the fullness of

  • the grace that He possesses, grace in the place of grace, in the place of grace, in

  • the place of grace. Romans 5, Paul says, “In this grace we stand”—we live; this is

  • where we exist. Grace comes constantly to us because we have believed the truth of the

  • gospel, and we don’t receive some small amount of grace. You remember to the apostle

  • Paul who was concerned about his thorn in the flesh. Our Lord said, “My grace is sufficient,”

  • right? “My grace is sufficient.” It’s a never, ever ending supply. We read in Hebrews,

  • Come to the throne of grace”; there’s a never diminishing supply for every need

  • that you will ever have. John says, How do we know He’s God? Because we are living

  • in this realm of grace that just keeps being poured out and poured out and poured out on

  • our lives.

  • And all we knew under the law was threats and warnings, and death and judgment, and

  • along comes Christ, and it’s grace in the place of grace, in the place of grace. At

  • the end of verse 17, “grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” Promised

  • in the Old Testament? Yes. Promised in the Old Testament. Activated in the Old Testament?

  • Sure; Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Grace all through the Old Testament.

  • Everybody ever saved in the history of the world has been saved by God’s grace.

  • But grace was not fully realized until Christ came and paid His penalty on the cross. The

  • wordrealizedhere is egeneto, egeneto. It’s from the verb ginomai, “to become,”

  • and it meanscame into being,” “came into existence.” We could read it that way.

  • Grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ.

  • Well, you say, “If they only came into being through Jesus Christ, then was there any grace

  • before Jesus Christ?” Yes, God knowing that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of

  • the world was applying the grace that had not yet been validated. And the grace that

  • Christ exhibited and purchased at the cross extended back as much as it extends forward.

  • John says, “This is not an ordinary man.” Gospel truth tells us that this is the Lord

  • Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the God/Man, fully God, fully man. We see it;

  • weve experienced it; weve touched Him; weve heard Him. He displayed grace, and

  • He dispensed glory.

  • One final point: the incarnate Christ defines God, He defines God. He displays glory, dispenses

  • grace, and defines God. I love verse 18. “No one has seen God at any time.” Why? He’s

  • invisible. There are times when God has appeared as smoke and fire and things like that, but

  • He has no form. No one has seen God at any time. However, the monogenes, the Son of God,

  • the incarnate One, the Onewho is in the bosom of the Father.” “Bosomis really

  • an antiquated word; let me tell you what that word is. It’s actually used in the book

  • of Acts forbay,” orinlet.” It’s a word for the fold in material. If you took

  • a bunch of material and piled it up, and it had little folds, that would be the word used;

  • or it’s for a very tight, small pocket.

  • And so, what he is saying is the monogenes, who is tucked in intimately to the very presence

  • of Godbeautiful picturewho is folded into God, he has explained Him. That last

  • statement: “He has explained Him,” really powerful. Wouldn’t you like to have God

  • explain to you? When somebody said to you, “How would you explain God?” where would

  • you go? Well, you’d go to that verse and say, “Look at Jesus Christ, He explains

  • God.” By the way, the wordexplainedis an interesting word. It’s the word exegeomai

  • from which we get exegete. We use that word a lot in seminary because we teach people

  • how to do exegesis, how to exegete Scripture.

  • What does it mean? It means to explain, interpret, give the meaning. Jesus exegetes God. So you

  • want to know about God? Jesus defines God. He displays glory; He dispenses grace; and

  • He defines God. So don’t come to me with any patronizing nonsense about Jesus being

  • a nice man, a good teacher, a noble, religious leader. That’s not an option. He’s God.

  • He is God. And if you believe that and you receive Him, “to those who received Him,”

  • right? Verse 12, “He gave the right to become children of God...to those who believe on

  • His name.”

  • In order to be a child of God, you have to believe on His name. To believe on His name,

  • you must believe that He is who He is.

  • Father, we are grateful again for how clear and yet profound Your Word is, and we thank

  • You for the treasure that every verse, every phrase is to us. We feel like weve gone

  • way too fast; we could spend a year on that passage alone. Were going to have to trust

  • Your Holy Spirit and gladly go to unfold its truths to us as we go back and meditate, and

  • meditate, and meditate on its truth. More importantly, Lord, I pray for those who have

  • not yet confessed Jesus as Savior and Lord, who have not yet come to know the God/Man

  • who died on the cross to pay the penalty for their sins and rose again to provide eternal

  • life. May those hearts be open today. May they believe, and not having heard this preached,

  • walk away in rebellious disobedience and forfeit eternal rest. May they enter into the rest

  • that is found only through faith in Christ. We pray in His name. Amen.

The gospel of John, what a wonderful place to be in the time of darkness to shine

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it