IN THE BEGINNING, JESUS

IN THE BEGINNING, JESUS
John 1:1-5

Dr. Chuck DeVane, Pastor
Lake Hamilton Baptist Church
Hot Springs, Arkansas

December 1, 2019

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 was not any thing made that was made.  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.
— John 1:1-5, ESV

The prologue to the Gospel of John (1:1-18) is the finest poetry and purest theology ever written.  Reliable insight into the identity of the author comes from the imminent early church historian Eusebius, who learned it from his predecessor Irenaeus, who was told by the highly esteemed pastor Polycarp, who was personally discipled and ordained to the ministry by the author, the Apostle John, brother of James, son of Zebedee, the fisherman.

That a simple fisherman could pen such words, even under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has often seemed surprising to some.  We often fail to notice that when Jesus called John and his older brother to follow Him as fishers of men, they left their father, boat, nets, and servants behind.  In that era, the upper class had servants, the middle class had none, and the lower class were the servants.  Furthermore, at the end of Christ’s work on earth when John needed to get close to the proceedings that ultimately crucified the Lord, he was let in because he was known to the High Priest.  Such entrepreneurial success and political connections belie an intelligent young man from an erudite family.

By the time he wrote his Gospel, his Epistles, and the Revelation, John was an old man.  He could reflect upon a life in which he had been closer to Christ than perhaps any other person on the planet, lived longer than all the other Apostles, and had accumulated the combination of experience, wisdom, and inspiration to produce this masterpiece of Holy Scripture.  His telling of the good news begins with a word about the one who is the beginning of every good and perfect work, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of John is Jesus-centered, for John knew Jesus best.  It is gospel-centered, for John’s purpose in writing is given with the greatest spiritual clarity.  And, it is salvation-centered, for those who read, believe, and obey it can be assured of a right relationship with God, forever.  

Four sermons will spring from the prologue.  The first will cover 1:1-5.  We will begin at the beginning, and the beginning of all things is the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Jesus was, is, and always will be the Word

“The Word,” logos is Greek, meant more to ancient cultures than our own.  Postmodernism has polluted the power of the written, spoken, and symbolic word in our age.  But back in the day, to call someone or something the Word was the ultimate compliment.  In Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic, and John was fluent in all three languages, the word referenced something central, profound, superior.  It could speak of something absolutely true or somebody absolutely truthful.  It could speak of God.

Fifth century BC historian Herodotus may have been the first Greek to use the Word as a reference to God.  By the first century AD, Jewish translators of the Targum referred to the Supreme Being of Scripture as the Word of God.  John, fluent in both cultures, summoned the term to tell the absolute truth that there is absolutely one, true and living God, and the Nazarene carpenter he followed around for three years, who was born in Bethlehem and died in Jerusalem, is Him.

Jesus was, is, and always will be God.  He did not begin in Bethlehem, although it is fair to say it was His first advent.  Jesus was already there “in the beginning,” meaning He has existed from eternity past to creation and will exist from recreation into eternity future.  He is eternal, He is the creator, He is God.  The deity of Jesus Christ is central, it is “the Word” to Christianity, and John’s words begin with this absolute truth.

Jesus was, is, and always will be with God.  How can God be with God?  It is called the doctrine of the Trinity, another central “Word” to Christianity.  In the Old Covenant, the Jews saw God only as the invisible Father, though there are references to God the Son and God the Spirit.  In the New Covenant, biblical Christianity, God the Father can be seen in the person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and experienced through the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.  John puts forth in the prologue and consistently through his Gospel that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are One.

The deity of Christ and the tri-unity of God has been unbelieved and attacked by religious Jews, pagan Gentiles, and false cults of Christianity like the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and liberal Protestantism.  But John keeps these doctrines front and center.  They sum up “the Word.”  

Jesus was, is, and always will be the true and living God.  Jesus can do what only God can do.  Jesus is the God who gives life, and He gives it though the light of the gospel, a gospel made plain in the Gospel of John.

Jesus was, is, and always will be the Life

In the beginning, God, or more specially Jesus, created all things, visible and invisible, organic and inorganic, the living and lifeless.  Matter matters to God, if not the Gnostics, who thought all matter and flesh evil, therefore, God could not have come to us in bodily form.  This is one of many heresies refuted by the Gospel of John, and the Apostle’s other works.

The matter that matters most to God in Christ is the species He crafted in His own image, homo sapiens, human beings, people.  People bother me sometimes but they matter to Jesus all the time, so much so that He gives life to all, at least on one level, and gives a gift to some in order to enable them to live life on a much higher plain.

People have physical lives, and barring tragic exceptions we all have brains that function, hearts that beat, limbs that walk and work.  This we owe to our Creator, Jesus Christ, who purposely endowed mankind with His physical and moral image in order to give Him glory and do good for one another.  It does not always work out this way, and subsequently our life spans are limited.  But God’s part of the plan was, is, and always will be perfect.

People had spiritual life in the beginning, but with our own free will we chose to sin and let the Spirit depart, rendering all mankind spiritually dead before the true and living God.  But God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is life, and to many He gives new spiritual life, an experience He calls the new birth, which we will discuss more fully when we reach the Gospel’s third chapter.

Those who experience spiritual life during the span of their physical life will enjoy eternal life, and all of this is a gift from our God and Savior Jesus Christ, who is the life.  This part of the prologue hints at the major thesis of the whole Gospel, which becomes crystal clear at 3:16, 10:10, 14:6, and 20:31.  

Jesus was, is, and always will be the true and living God.  Jesus can do what only God can do.  Jesus is the God who gives life, and He gives it though the light of the gospel, a gospel made plain in the Gospel of John.

Jesus was, is and always will be the Light

While “Word” is clearly a reference to God in Christ, and “Life” is the ultimate eternal gift He gives, “Light” is a reference to how it comes from Heaven to mankind.  He gives it by way of revelation, truth, good news.  The “Light” in John’s Gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The antithesis to the light Jesus gives is the darkness in which most people choose to live.  “Darkness” is sin, separation from God, enmity, lostness, and ultimate condemnation and death.  The only reason anyone would choose to live and die in darkness is that they have not seen the light and do not know the way to eternal life.  The literal rendering of the last part of this part of the prologue is tragically illustrated by the wonderful Don McLean song about Vincent van Gogh, “They would not listen, their not listening still, perhaps they never will.”

Please listen to the gospel in the Gospel of John, so beautifully and plainly told.  It is a light, a revelation from God, through His servant John, to tell the world the good news about the God who has come to us to save us from our sins and give us eternal life.  This life is found in the Life, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who lived, loved, died, and rose again so that the one who believes, and John will have so much to say about believing, will live forever.

Jesus was, is, and always will be the true and living God.  Jesus can do what only God can do.  Jesus is the God who gives life, and He gives it though the light of the gospel, a gospel made plain in the Gospel of John.  Come along for the complete journey, a journey we have just begun at the beginning, with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hear the wise fisherman tell the tale,
For no one else can tell it as well.
The greatest news to ever be heard,
Of the light, the life, and the living Word.

He was, He is, He always will be,
God incarnate, true Deity.
Same as the Father, embodied in the Son,
With the Holy Spirit, three in one.

Who is this Word and where does He trod,
The One who is the true and living God?
Revealed in the gospel, whenever it is heard,
He is Lord, He is Savior, Jesus Christ, the Word.

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