2016.04.10
John 1: 1-3
In The Beginning was the Word
Good Morning! I am glad you are here… I have Good News
for you!... His name is Jesus… This
morning we begin our study of the Gospel
of John… John called himself the disciple
that Jesus loved… During the time of Jesus earthly ministry he and his
brother James were called the sons of
thunder… They were Wild and radical
hot heads… hard working fishermen… Ninety percent of the Gospel of John is
not found in the Synoptic Gospels… Matthew,
Mark and Luke… We need all four Gospels to get a fuller picture of Jesus…
Now John had the privilege of knowing what the other gospel writers wrote… I
think that is why He focused on Christ’s deity… John also gives us quite a bit of
details about Jesus´ final weeks… Some scholars believe that He was related to
Jesus…. He also is the one who took care of Jesus´ mother after the
resurrection… Those things provided him with an excellent perspective into
Jesus ministry… He knew things which the others did not…
John knew Christ better than any of the others… He leaned
on His breast at the Last Supper… John
was also known as the theologian of the early church...
John
is the one who tells about the seven I am statements of Jesus… They provide us
with Deep looks into the Lord Jesus… We see Him proclaim His divinity and reveal
His divine purposes…
This
gospel is deeply theological... We will learn a lot about the Lord our God
from this book… That is really all that theology is…. Learning more about the Lord…
In some ways… John’s gospel is simple enough for a child… John was very
young when he met Jesus… As we study this gospel…We see Jesus through the eyes
of the disciple closest to the Lord…
John clearly explains why he wrote his Gospel… John wants his readers to come
to genuine faith in Jesus the Messiah and only Savior… He wants them to find
Life in Him… Let´s read it…. John 20:
31…
John
20: 30,31
NKJV slt 2000
30
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which
are not written in this book; 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.
30 Noch viele andere Zeichen tat Jesus nun vor seinen
Jüngern, die in diesem Buch nicht geschrieben sind. 31 Diese aber sind
geschrieben, damit ihr glaubt, daß Jesus der Christus, der Sohn Gottes ist, und
damit ihr durch den Glauben Leben habt in seinem Namen.
v31…
that believing you might have salvation in His name…
John proclaims
that Jesus is the Christ… John wants us to believe in Jesus so that we can find
forgiveness and mercy… He wants everyone who discovers Jesus to have their sins forgiven… You can read the
entire gospel in 2 hours… It is a great place to have someone start when they
want to know about Jesus… In the coming weeks we will see Jesus through the
eyes of John….
He described Jesus as being full of grace and truth… True truth… To have eternal life, you must believe in the
true Christ… Not a misrepresentation
of Christ… not the Christ of human philosophy and false religion… but the true Christ… He has revealed Himself…
And we are commanded to repent and
believe the Gospel… It is not our wishful thinking about Jesus that will
save us… We must respond to the truth as
God has revealed it…
Jesus is God in the flesh…. Savior… redeemer and Messiah…
And that’s exactly what we see in the Gospel of John…
The message of the New Testament… In deed the message of
the Old Testament… Is that Jesus is God in the flesh… He is the suffering
Servant the Messiah… Isaiah 52,53… He is
nothing other than God… nothing less than God… Jesus is God in the Flesh… Did you know that every cult and false
religion denies That Jesus is God… They all refuse to accept this truth… And in
so doing plunge themselves into Unbelief and heretical error…
The Bible shows us that Jesus is God…
It’s everywhere in the New Testament look with me at
Hebrews 1… beginnings at v1……
Hebrews
1: 1-3 NKJV slt 2000
1 God,
who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by
the prophets, 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,
1 Nachdem Gott in vergangenen Zeiten vielfältig und auf
vielerlei Weise zu den Vätern geredet hat durch die Propheten,
2 hat er in diesen letzten Tagen zu uns geredet durch den
Sohn.1 Ihn hat er eingesetzt zum Erben von allem, durch ihn hat er auch die
Welten2 geschaffen; 3 dieser ist die Ausstrahlung seiner Herrlichkeit und der
Ausdruck3 seines Wesens und trägt alle Dinge durch das Wort seiner Kraft; er
hat sich, nachdem er die Reinigung von unseren Sünden durch sich selbst
vollbracht hat, zur Rechten der Majestät in der Höhe gesetzt.
This text alone is worth many sermons… It summarizes
great truths about Jesus… In these verses we learn that Jesus was active in
creation… and that He is God´s
revelation in living flesh and spoken word… Jesus holds everything together….
Is your world falling apart today?… Turn to Jesus… He because he is God… Will
restore and repair your broken life… The Scripture is filled with proof that Jesus
is God…
As we will see… John´s Gospel is unique… He is writing to
make sure that we understand that Jesus is in fact God… come in the flesh… He
begins at the Beginning….. look with me at John 1 v1-3…
John
1: 1-3
NKJV slt 2000
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. 3 All things were made through Him, and
without Him nothing was made that was made.
1 Im Anfang war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, und
das Wort war Gott. 2 Dieses war im Anfang bei Gott. 3 Alles ist durch dasselbe
entstanden; und ohne dasselbe ist auch nicht eines entstanden, was entstanden
ist.
Three
times in these 2 verses John says the Word… v1a… In the beginning was the Word…
v1b…
and the Word was with God…
v1c…
and the Word was God…
Why
does John use this word…
WORD…? Oh I am glad that you asked…. That is a very important question…
The
Word
is none other than The Lord Jesus Christ…
John says… The Word, who is Jesus Christ…
is God… He as God… took on humanity… The
infinite becomes finite... The eternal one enters time... The invisible one
becomes visible… The Word—He is called “the Word” in verse 14 and three times
in verse 1…
I am sure you already know that in the Greek he is using
the word Logos... Now the question is: Why did John choose the word Logos? And
what did it mean to him?
By using Logos… John is saying Jesus is the very idea and revelation of God…
By using the greek idea of the Divine Logos… He is
fitting both Greek and Hebrew thought into one expression of Who Jesus is… John was using concepts of God that were being
taught by the rabbis of his day… and building on these concepts based on God’s
divine revelation…
Jesus
Christ the Lord
The Living
WORD
Greek
Logos…
Hebrew
Davar…
Aramaic
Memra…
In Hebrew the word for “word” is “Davar”... In Aramaic it is “Memra”… We talk often about
seeing the Big picture as we study the
Bible verse by verse... There is a really big picture in this one verse… 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God… The scribes and priests were very
careful about the Name of God…. They did not want to say the name of God in any
ungodly way…
So in the course of time… instead of saying Yahweh… They
would substitute YAHWEH…. With the Adonai…
Lord… And when they encountered any appearance
of God to men… They would substitute the word… “WORD”... In Hebrew it is Davar…. In Aramaic it is Memra… Aramaic became the Bible study language of the
Children of Israel beginning with the time of Ezra and Nehemiah… These
translations are called the Targums:.. In the Targums… it is the Memra of JahWeh which lives, speaks, and
acts… When
John wrote his Gospel… he was fully aware of the use of the word Memra as an appearance of God to men…
When he wrote in
the beginning was the Word… he was
using the exact theme as the writers of the Targums did when they translated
the text into Aramaic... In fact, if
he had written in Aramaic, he would have actually used the word, memra… So he
was portraying Christ as sharing the nature of God… It fits very well with the
greek idea of the Divine Logos… This was also a concept fully accepted by the Hellenized Jews
at the time of Christ…
Jewish theologians have ascribed six Divine attributes to
the Memra… John assigned everyone of
these attributes to Jesus in the first chapter of his gospel... The attributes
are:
Divine
Attributes of MEMRA
1
The Memra is separate from… and yet the same as God
(John 1:1-“and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”).
2 The Memra was the instrument of creation
(John 1:3-“All things were made by Him” and John 1:10-“the world was made by
him”).
3 The Memra was the instrument of salvation
(John 1:12-“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name”).
4 The Memra was the visible presence of God
or Theophany (John 1:14-“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”).
5 The Memra was the covenant maker
(John 1:17-“For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ”).
6 The Memra was the revealer of God
(John 1:18-“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is
in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”).
Philo of Alexandra (AKA Philo Judaeus) was a
Jewish philosopher of the early first century… He is known as the Greatest
Jewish Philosopher... He was also a Greek philosopher... Philo explained the
Theophanies Appearances of God… as the Logos of God to the Greeks… When he did
so, he used the Aramaic word Memra…
The writers of the Targums were fully aware of
this concept....
As time went on with fewer people knowing Hebrew… The
Children of Israel used Translations…. the
Targums… the Aramaic translations to study the Word of God… Instead of saying
God´s name…. They substituted the word “”WORD… Memra” for the appearance in God
in the text… Especially in the
Pre-incarnate appearances of Christ in the OT… “Theophany” is the Theological
term for a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ…
They had a biblical basis for doing this to…. Turn with
me to Psalm 33…
Psalm
33: 6 NKJV slt
2000
6 By
the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And
all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
6 Die Himmel sind durch das Wort des Herrn gemacht, und ihr
ganzes Heer durch den Hauch seines Mundes.
John says In the
beginning was the Word… Because that was
such a perfect term to use to identify Christ for both Jews and Greeks…
There
was a general philosophical understanding of the Greek term logos…
The
philosophers talked about logos as the reality that was active and visible in
creation…
The Jewish people didn’t need an explanation because the
phrase “the Word of the Lord” appeared so many times in the Old Testament… The
Word of the Lord was simply the revelation of God…
We wouldn’t know anything about God if He didn’t speak….
If He did not reveal Himself we would remain ignorant… That’s why Hebrews 1 begins this way… look again at Hebrews
1… v1-3…
Hebrews
1: 1-3 NKJV slt 2000
1
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers
by the prophets, 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,
1 Nachdem Gott in vergangenen Zeiten vielfältig und auf
vielerlei Weise zu den Vätern geredet hat durch die Propheten,2 hat er in
diesen letzten Tagen zu uns geredet durch den Sohn. Ihn hat er eingesetzt zum
Erben von allem, durch ihn hat er auch die Welten geschaffen; 3 dieser ist die
Ausstrahlung seiner Herrlichkeit und der Ausdruck seines Wesens und trägt alle
Dinge durch das Wort seiner Kraft; er hat sich, nachdem er die Reinigung von
unseren Sünden durch sich selbst vollbracht hat, zur Rechten der Majestät in
der Höhe gesetzt.
Just as the Old Testament is the written revelation of
God… the New Testament is the account of
the incarnate Word in the person Jesus Christ… He is the Living Word… Now God
speaks through His Son… and that concept was well established among the Jews… The
Word of the Lord came to So-and-so… You
read that all through the Old Testament… The
Word of the Lord came often through the prophets… It was the will of God demonstrated
and communicated through verbal Revelation…
So the Word of the
Lord… is God speaking to people… There’s no greater manifestation of that than Jesus Christ... He is God speaking to us… If you want to hear from God… you can read
the Old Testament… You will hear what God said… But if you want the fullest
revelation of God… The express image of God speaking to us today… We go to the New Testament… because God has most
fully spoken to us in Christ…
God
speaks in Christ most clearly, most fully and savingly…
Sometimes Muslims
will say…. Did Jesus really say that he was God?… The Answer from the Gospel of John alone is ….YES…. Over and over
again….
Back
to John 1… v1…
John
1: 1 NKJV slt 2000
1 In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1 Im Anfang war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, und
das Wort war Gott.
v1… The
Word became flesh…“became,” ginomai… Though he was always God…. He became a man… Jesus
enters into His creation and takes on humanity…
He starts out in a womb and He becomes a child… His
humanity is genuine…. He is the God Man… He
didn’t take on the appearance of humanity or some illusion of humanity… He actually took on
flesh and dwelt among us... Philippians
2… He was made in the likeness of men... He partook of flesh and blood… Hebrews 2:14…
Jesus is the GOD MAN… Paul says this clearly… He said
listen… Philosophy is great…. But don´t let anyone trick you with Philosophy… look
with me at Colossians 2: 8,9…
Colossians
2: 8,9 NKJV slt 2000
8
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to
the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not
according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily;
8 Habt acht, daß euch niemand beraubt2 durch die
Philosophie und leeren Betrug, gemäß der Überlieferung der Menschen, gemäß den
Grundsätzen der Welt und nicht Christus gemäß. 9 Denn in ihm wohnt die ganze
Fülle der Gottheit leibhaftig;
Don´t
be deceived… Here is the big picture… Jesus
is fully God and fully man…
that’s
John’s message through this book…
Any assault on His deity is a heresy…
Any
assault on His humanity is a heresy…
John takes us through three very important truths in
order to demonstrate that Jesus is fully God in human flesh…
There
are three things that demonstrate the deity of Christ…
The
Deity of Christ
1 His
preexistence with God
2 His
coexistence with God
3 His
self-existence with God
He is pre-existent, co-existent, and self-existent.
John
1…v1… “In the beginning was the Word,”
simple statement… “In the beginning… the beginning of what?
Creation… The beginning of Genesis 1:1… that’s the
beginning…
Genesis
1: 1-3
NKJV slt 2000
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face
of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
1 Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde. 2 Und
die Erde war wüst und leer, und es war finster auf der Tiefe; und der Geist
Gottes schwebte auf dem Wasser.3 Und Gott sprach: Es werde Licht! Und es ward Licht.
These verses contain the first proof of the Messiah…. The
ancient Rabbis taught that the Messiah
was present with the Father at creation….
They said that the Spirit of God moving over the face of
the waters was the Spirit of the King
Messiah… This is exactly what we read in
Psalm 33…v6…
Psalm
33: 6 NKJV slt 2000
6 By
the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And
all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
6 Die Himmel sind durch das Wort des Herrn gemacht, und
ihr ganzes Heer durch den Hauch2 seines Mundes.
The Memra…. The Word was already existing… That is to say
the Word who is none other than the Son of God… Jesus Christ.. was already in
existence when God created everything that exists… Jesus was the one who said let there be light…
No wonder he would later say…. I am the
light of the world… John 8:12…
Back to John 1…v1…
John
1: 1 NKJV slt 2000
1 In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1 Im Anfang war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, und
das Wort war Gott.
This is a very important statement… John affirms His
preexistence... He existed before the beginning of everything that exists… He
was already existing… It’s the imperfect tense of the “to be” verb, the verb
eimi… The imperfect tense means continuously… He was continuously existing
already when the beginning began…
He didn’t begin with the beginning… He’s not a part of the
creation… He’s not a created being… He’s an already existing being… You have
heard of the Big Bang Theory right? What do you think…. Good for
Christians or not so good for
Christians…? Well according to men much
much smarter than me…. The overwhelming evidence for the big Bang… Proves that
these very scriptures accurately reflect the creation of the universe… The
theory says that there was a time in the distant past when there was nothing… No matter no space no time….
nothing… That´s exactly what the Bible says… Then a singularity… Out of nothing
the universe came into being… God said… Let there be light…. and there was
light… And the theory goes on to say that Time
also began with creation… Time began on the first day when God created… The
Word existed before creation and time… God is therefore is outside of time… and
therefore is eternal…
At the point that everything began… He already
was… describing continuous existence before creation… the eternal pre-existence
of the One called the Word… So very important and unmistakably clear…
When Moses wanted to know the name of God… God
said, “My name is I AM that I AM… My name is the verb ‘to be…
Over and over in the gospel of John, Jesus will say, “I AM… the verb “to be”… He will even say to the Jews, “Before Abraham
was, I AM” (John 8:58), I AM… Everytime Jesus says I am…. He is saying I am
God…
This is reinforced in John 1 verse 1… “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.”
When the beginning began… He already existed…
He existed as God…
This is very, very important because what it
tells us is that not only is He the eternal God, but He is distinct from the
eternal God…. This is exactly what the Rabbis said about the Memra… point…
The whole Trinity is involved in creation… God the Father is the Creator… Yes, the Holy
Spirit participates in creation… Genesis 1.. v2… The Holy Spirit is the One who
moves over the waters…
But listen again to the explanation of how they work
together, from Hebrews 1 that I read
you. It simply says this, verse 2, God
“has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through
whom also He made the world.”
God is the Creator, but the agent of creation that He
uses is the Son… the Word…
John
starts
with the fact that when you’re talking
about Jesus… you are talking about a pre-existent, eternal God… Jesus was not a
part of creation… He is the creator…. The instrument of creation…. All things
were made by and for Him… Col 1: 16…
Look at the phrase… “The Word was God”… theos an ho logos…
literally translated… “God was the Word,” This is a Powerful Greek expression...
Jesus
in John 17 talks in
His prayer to the Father in verse 5…
about the glory that He had before the world began… when He was pros ton theon…
on equal level with God…
God
was the Word… Four words in Greek… These words the clearest… most direct
declaration of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ in all four gospels… God was
the Word. ..
Everything that exists came into being through Him…
This is proof of His self-existence... Everything that exists, He made… It all came
from Him… He didn’t come from anyone, or anything… Everything came from Him…The Lord God is the creator…. But the Son of God is the agent by which the creating
is done… 1 Corinthians 8:6…
When you’re looking at the Lord Jesus Christ… you’re
looking at the one who is Himself life… Late we will hear Him say…. I am
the way, the truth, and the life… John 14: 6…
John knows this from personal experience… He can’t look
at Christ in any other way… Jesus is
life…
Closing
We are living in dark and difficult times… The darkness can’t extinguish the Good News
of the Gospel…
But
you must repent and believe it…
Look with me at one more text… John 8: 24,25…
John
8: 24,25 NKJV slt 2000
24 Therefore I said to you that you will die
in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your
sins.”25 Then they said to Him, “Who are You?”And Jesus said to them, “Just
what I have been saying to you from the beginning.
24 Darum habe ich euch gesagt, daß ihr in euren Sünden
sterben werdet; denn wenn ihr nicht glaubt, daß ich es bin, so werdet ihr in
euren Sünden sterben. 25 Da sagten sie zu ihm: Wer bist du? Und Jesus sprach zu
ihnen: Zuerst das, was ich euch eben sage!
Jesus
is
on his way to the cross… He continues
to call for repentance and genuine faith…
He offers Life and forgiveness… to anyone who will cry out to him… He says you must
believe that I AM…
If
they… if we… refuse to repent and believe… We will die in our sins…
Jesus
is the great I Am… The Living Word… He is the one described in these opening
verses… Do you believe that Jesus is God in human
flesh? That’s the foundation of saving faith... If you don’t believe that, you
will die in your sins… Put your trust in
Him…. Receive Him today…. Now… Let´s pray…
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