Heralding the Word – Part 2

Would God’s people please take
their Bibles and turn to the Gospel of John. Gospel of John. Picking up essentially where
we left off last week. We are in a very solemn moment. As we have a herald come forth
not to introduce some dignitary, not to introduce some world leader,
not to introduce just anybody, but to give the greatest and
grandest introduction that is owed to anyone, namely the savior
of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. As I mentioned last week,
the Lord Jesus had been introduced on numerous occasions. He was
introduced prior to his conception to Zacharias and Elizabeth, to
Joseph and Mary. He was introduced at his birth
to shepherds and wise men. He was introduced at his baptism
to not only his own disciples, but onlookers. He was introduced
at his transfiguration and heralded there by the angels before Peter,
James, and John. He was heralded before the triumphal
entry by those who so eagerly received him. Not just the city
of Jerusalem, but essentially the Jewish nation. He was heralded
at the cross to his disciples, to those who hated him, to the
Jews, to the Romans, and also to those who were indifferent.
Behold your king. He was heralded at the resurrection.
He was heralded by the synoptic gospels. But there is no introduction
so striking, so gripping as this introduction, this heralding
that John the apostle provides in the opening verses of John
chapter one. The saints read along with me. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things came into being through
Him. And apart from Him, nothing came
into being that has come into being. In Him was life. And the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness. and the darkness did
not comprehend it. As I have suggested in this heralding,
we will see seven astounding representations of the Lord Jesus
Christ, seven details that we don’t often ponder, meditate
upon. We have opportunity to do that
even as we draw near to the Lord’s table. We began last Lord’s Day
by observing the first of these astounding representations of
Jesus Christ, first of which was his eternal nature. We saw it at the beginning of
verse one. When John begins his gospel and begins this heralding,
begins the prologue, with those familiar words in the beginning.
And we saw that he points specifically back to that same moment that
Moses used in Genesis 1-1. They start at the same point
in time, right exactly where Moses begins. The beginning of
time, at the beginning of creation, at the beginning of all human
history. And the beginning was the word.
And John simply points to a being we discovered him to be none
other than the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was already in existence
when the beginning started. And at that very moment, where
Moses begins to chronicle in Genesis, the creation of the
world and time, according to human standards, there was something
already existing. And John essentially points to
eternity past. Not in some detailed picture,
but he just glances back and he makes this one observation. In the beginning was the word. Moses moved forward. John took
a snapshot essentially of eternity. In the beginning was the word
and we looked at the word. we saw that it can only refer
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that masterful selection,
which only could have been given by the Holy Spirit, that word
logos, which though very common had a variety of meanings. And
instead of John just weighing in and giving his mere opinion
or his own philosophy of what logos meant, John, by the Holy
Spirit’s direction, literally gathers all of humanity before
him, Jew and Gentile. And he basically says, let me
tell you about the Logos. Let me tell you about the Word. Let me tell you about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he begins to unfold, beginning
in this passage, the nature of this word. The bottom line that
we saw last week is that God is a God of revelation. God desires
to commune. He desires to be known. He desires
to open up and reveal who he is, what he’s like. And without
that, if God never reveals himself, we would be forever deaf and
dumb and blind to his nature. This is God. revealing Himself. The Word as we saw based on John
1 14 is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word became
flesh and dwelt among us and we saw His glory. Glory as of the only begotten
from the Father. There’s only one person that
can refer to, it’s the Lord Jesus Christ. came and took on human
flesh. He lived here among us, and not
only while he was on the earth, but even having taken his seat
at the right hand of God, Jesus Christ is in full glory. But
there was a point to John making all of those statements. In the
beginning was the Word. And when you put it all together,
in the beginning was the Word, we are presented with the first
of seven astounding representations of the Lord Jesus. His eternal
nature. The Word, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is absolutely eternal. I came across an interesting
feature a couple of weeks ago preparation for this passage.
In a book, which I will leave unnamed, a good and a helpful
tool, a trusted source. The reason I looked to this tool
in the first place was to consider the author’s section on Christology,
the study of the nature of Christ, the doctrine of Christ. The interesting
thing was, Under his discussion regarding the various states
in which Christ existed, he listed only two. A state of humiliation,
which essentially is what is chronicled there for us in Philippians
2, Christ taking on human flesh, coming down to earth, living
among us, that is a state of humiliation. There were two, the state of
humiliation and a state of exaltation. When having completed his work,
having been raised from the dead, he was ascended on high and seated
at the right hand of God, as detailed in Ephesians 1. The interesting thing is only
two. the state of coming down and
taking on human flesh, and the state of glorification, exalted
to the right hand of God. I absolutely see why we would
include those. But what isn’t covered? What
isn’t even mentioned? At least in this one book, is
what John covers here. Jesus Christ’s pre-incarnate
state. Now there isn’t any detail. John
doesn’t even suggest that there’s any detail that can be gleaned
from a view to eternity past. He isn’t pointing to any specifics,
but he is pointing to Christ’s pre-incarnate state. That long
before he took on human flesh, long before he came to earth,
long before he paid for sinners’ sin on the cross, Long before
he went to the grave on our behalf, long before he was raised and
ascended, Jesus Christ was in existence.
He is absolutely eternal. In the very beginning of time,
the word was found as already in existence. And the only conclusion
we can reasonably draw from that opening statement is that the
Word is eternal, completely outside of time. Jesus Christ would point
to this later in John’s Gospel. John 8, 58, truly, truly, I say
to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Not I was born, not I am
a Not that I preceded merely Abraham
on this earth that Abraham is ultimately a descendant of mine
But before Abraham even was I was already in existence from eternity
to eternity John 17 5 Glorify me together with yourself Jesus
speaking to the Heavenly Father with the glory with which I had
with you before the world was You get a glimpse there of Jesus
and the Father living in eternity past in perpetuity, unchecked
by time. Here’s a fascinating one. Ephesians
1, Paul opens that incredible longest sentence of the Bible,
if you’re familiar with it, 200 words I think. He begins by extolling all of
the blessings that we have in Christ. Listen to this. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He lays this out and
says, look, God’s given us everything. And then he goes back, he doubles
back, and he begins to detail everything that God has done
for us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation
of the world. God set his love, if you are
in Christ today, God set his love upon you, not because of
you, because you were seen to be in Christ. even before the
foundation of the world. Just absolutely astounding. Jesus Christ is eternal. Secondly,
the word, the Lord Jesus Christ is heralded not only in his eternal
nature, he is heralded in his relational position. Look back
at the verse if you would. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God. Okay, let’s step back for a moment. I want you to look at the verse
in its entirety. And I want you to note that there
are three statements in this opening verse. In the beginning
was the Word, first statement. And the Word was with God, second
statement. And the Word was God, third statement. Three statements in the opening
verse and these statements are all parallel. None subordinate
to the preceding statement. Each statement stands on his
own and the subject in each statement is the word. We talked about
the word last week. We introduced it, that masterful
ideal term given by the Holy Spirit to John that would draw
in both Jews and Greeks to ponder the significance of that great
subject. What he says in these opening
verses over and over again is the word, the word, the word.
And he also says the word was, the word was, the word was. As one characterized these three
statements, Christ was eternally preexistent. He was eternally
in relationship and he was eternally God. There would never a time
when Christ did not exist. The word was constantly with
God and the word was ever God himself. As one characterized verse one,
verse one. The simple sentence of verse
one is the most compact and pulsating theological statement in all
of scripture. the most compact and pulsating
theological statement in all of scripture. What a grand definition. Jesus was always existing from
all eternity as God in perfect fellowship with God the Father
and though not mentioned the Holy Spirit. This is where we
begin to build the doctrine of the Trinity and what can be said
here of the Father and the Son. can also, through the construct
of looking through the entirety of scripture, be said of the
Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The word,
John’s Logos, did not come into being, but he has existed from
all eternity, and from all eternity, he held profound, unbreakable,
spiritual communion with God the Father. and he was in every
way possible, equal in essence and nature to God. Glance at the second statement
again. The word was with God. This statement expresses essentially
the distinctness of the personality of the Logos, the word, the Lord
Jesus Christ, But I’m not going to focus on that aspect of it
yet this morning. Literally it says the word was
to God. The preposition pros indicates
movement towards or inclination towards an object or a person. Here’s how one described it,
the direction, the tendency, the moral movement of being called
the word. His aspiration tends toward God. The motion was his permanent
state. His essence, the word, incessantly
tends toward God. Now, I don’t know about you,
maybe you can do something with that that I can’t. That doesn’t
really do it for me, that inclination towards God. This eternal being,
we only really know so far as the word, the Logos, was perpetually
in communion. It’s not just that he was face
to face with God, as we’ll see in a moment, but he was perpetually
in a deep spiritual relationship with the Father. It was the deepest kind of relationship. As I mentioned, one of the ancient
paraphrases on this statement is that the word was face to
face with God. And that isn’t bad, I mean, start. But it leaves plenty of room
for explanation. As if the word and the father
and some kind of perpetual stare down, that’s the image that comes
to my mind, face to face with God. What isn’t communicated
by that statement, face-to-face, is interaction, communion, fellowship,
and that’s exactly what’s being communicated by that phrase.
It’s not just that they were face-to-face, but they were in
intimate fellowship, the father and the son. Another translator
proposed this as a descriptive. The word was, at home with God. Now, that’s a little too down
home at all for me to be effective. It’s not stating the idea that
they were in the same dwelling, if God can be so contained, or
that they were merely socially comfortable with one another. Another described this phrase
as having regard to God. And so often is the case, some
of these are so obtuse I have no idea what it even means. Still
another sought to communicate the point by putting it in the
negative. And this is actually helpful. He said, John thinks of no opposition
between the word and the father. But that really doesn’t do it
for me either, does it for you? No opposition? To simply acknowledge
that throughout eternity the Godhead wasn’t quibbling? No
fights, no disagreements, not a point of contention between
them. Now, we begin to gain some clarity
though, if we understand what John didn’t say. As one laid out, The idea conveyed
is not that of simple coexistence, as of two persons contemplated
separately and in company. I would characterize it this
way. What he’s talking about is, as if I were to say, Mary
and Beth were together at lunch. They were with each other at
lunch. John isn’t merely saying that
Jesus was with the Father in eternity past. Or he offers another idea that is not conveyed. That
they are united under a common conception. We would say it this
way. Mary and Beth are with each other
politically. They’re both Democrats or they’re
both Republicans. They’re with each other. It’s
not just that Jesus and God agreed with one another on some theological
concepts. There’s a third that he proposes. It’s not the fact that they were
merely in local relation to one another. We might refer to Mary
and Beth are with each other in New York, and we couldn’t
possibly conceive that wherever Mary went at any hour of the
day, Beth was with her side by side, unless they are conjoined. That’s not what John is saying
at all, that they were merely in the same locality, What he’s pointing to is that
the personal being, independent and apart from God the Father,
was in perfect communion with God. One said it this way, John’s
statement is that the divine word not only abode with the
Father from all eternity, but was in the living active relation
of communion with Him. The Father and the Son from all
eternity enjoyed a deep and abiding communion with one another. Not
only with one another, but among all three members of the Godhead.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You see this word doesn’t just
talk about being face to face, it talks about a reciprocal communion. The word is so used throughout
the scriptures. Jesus used it himself many times
to refer to those who were with him. They were interacting with
him and he with them. This last, pardon me, this concept
of communion among the deity isn’t isolated to this particular
verse. Later in John’s gospel, Jesus
addresses this deep fellowship. We quoted this verse a moment
ago, pointing to the eternality of Christ. Here we point to the
element of communion, John 17, five. Now, Father, glorify me
together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you
before the world was. There was communion. There was
depth of relationship. There was interaction. We’re
merely standing nose to nose. The glory of which Jesus speaks
here is with the Father. But it isn’t that they were merely
existing eternally. They were functioning as one. Go in your mind’s eye to an absolutely
fascinating statement. Genesis 126, just listen. You
know where we are. And that same passage Moses introduced
last week in the beginning, God. Then in verse 26, Moses records,
then God said, then God said, let us make man in our image. As the Hebrew can only be represented
there accurately. Let us make man in our image. It’s not just that Jesus was
with God, locally speaking in eternity. It’s not just that
he was together with him theologically. It’s not just that he was there
with the Father in eternity in some general sense. They were
functioning together in communion. And so it speaks, this second,
attribute of coexistence and communion. It’s fascinating that
we, I didn’t plan it this way, fascinating that we celebrate
communion this week. People have an interesting idea
of communion and sometimes just simply referring it to the Lord’s
table kind of pushes some of that aside. Do you know that
when you partake of the Lord’s table, you not only commune with
God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, you
commune with each other. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial
that you have your relationships with one another squared away
at peace. Having dealt with sin, God the Father had a deep and
abiding communion one with another. As one pastor said, there has
always been the closest and most intimate connection between the
Word and God, between Jesus and God. There is no one who can
tell us what God is like, what God’s will is for us, what God’s
love and heart and mind are like, as much as Jesus can. The Word,
the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ is heralded in his relational
position. Thirdly, I told you there were seven outstanding
representations of the Lord Jesus Christ. We won’t make it through
seven this morning. We’ll look at the third. The
word, the Lord Jesus Christ is heralded not only in his eternal
nature, but in his relational position and also in his divine
identity. in his divine identity. Look
at the passage. In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God, and the word was God. In all three statements, in verse
one, the word, the logos, is the subject, and that’s absolutely
crucial to understand as we move forward. With this last statement,
we are drawn into a very difficult grammatical construction. Not
impossible. In the Greek language, a noun
is quite often almost invariably accompanied by the definite article. We would refer to it as the,
the, plainly translated. And what we would expect to find
here in this verse is the word was the God. Because there are
two nouns here, the word and God. At least that’s the way
it’s translated in English. But according to the Greek word
order, it would be translated this way. The God was the word. Except that the word God doesn’t
have the definite article. Literally then, it says God was
the word. But that can be tremendously
misleading. Okay. Go with me back to seventh
grade English. Remember predicates? Anybody? Okay. The predicate
of the sentence is the portion that tells us something about
the subject. For instance, John went home. John is the subject. Went home
is the predicate. John as the subject went home
as the predicate. You can’t mix the two up or it
begins to not make any sense depending on the complexity of
the sentence. It wouldn’t be grammatically
correct to switch things around and make God the subject and
to make the word into the predicate. God was the word. It doesn’t
make any sense. Remember, the subject is, as
it has been throughout the entirety of verse one, it was in the first
statement, it is in the second statement, and it is absolutely
in the third statement, the subject. The subject is the word. John
isn’t concerned here to tell us what God is like. He’ll do
some of that throughout the course of his gospel. But he isn’t concerned
here to tell us what God is or is like. His concern is what is the word? And what is the word like? Now,
in this third statement, here in John 1.1, we have a textbook
example of this very thing. The subject is the word. I’ve
already said that. It has been that way from the
beginning, as we’ve seen. In all three statements, the word
is the subject. Now, when a Greek noun does not
have the definite article, the, as is the case in this particular
statement. It locks that word in as the
predicate, the description, but it intensifies the meaning. It
describes the quality of the thing or the person, the character,
the nature. As one pastor said, the word
is not an emanation of God, but God himself made manifest. It’s
not only the revealer of God, but God himself revealed. A more
emphatic and unequivocal affirmation of the absolute deity of the
Lord Jesus Christ is impossible to conceive. Do you hear the
value that he places on John 1.1? If you ever wanted a place
to go, to prove the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ to John
1.1. And you don’t need to go anywhere
else. We’ve already seen that John did not say the Word was
the God. John’s whole point here is that
the Word and God the Father are distinct. They’re two different
elements. He said the Word was God with
an intensified significance. As one pastor said, nothing higher
could be said. All that may be said about God
may fitly be said about the word. John is not merely saying that
there is something divine about Jesus. He is affirming that he
is God. The word was God. It’s a basic statement, simple
statement. Whether you translate it in English
or whether you look at it in the original, there’s four words.
As one said, it’s the clearest and most direct declaration of
the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ to be found anywhere in scripture.
What a profound thing. There have been some throughout
history But no sooner was this written, they began to attack
it. Knowing just enough Greek to be dangerous, they tainted
this. And they said, among other things,
translating it, the word was a god. He was a deity as if he
was one among many. But if you were going to do that,
you would have to go through the rest of John and do the same
thing. You’d have to go to John 1.6, glance down if you would. And you would have to say, there
came a man sent from a God, whose name was John. And then you would
have to go to John 1.12, and you would have to say, but as
many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children
of a God, even to those who believe in his name. who were born not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of a God. But not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses
do that. Like they taint and destroy John
1,1 with that little addition of the letter A. They completely
obscure the entire significance of this passage. in their man-made
translation, their translation which says the Word was a God. There’s nothing new under the
sun. Whether it was second century Christianity or now, what John
was saying was that the nature of the Word is the same identical
nature as God’s. Whatever quality was inherent
to God is inherent to the Word. One commentator said, although
the word was not the same as God the Father personally, they
were the same in quality or essence. They are both deity. Grammatically,
this was the best way John could have expressed this thought.
And in so doing, John is not merely melding the two beings
into one as if to say the word was God and God was the word.
They simply are one and the same. That’s not at all what John was
saying. He’s saying that Jesus is perfectly
God. He is absolute deity in his being,
in his essence, in his mind. That when we see Jesus, we see
what God is like, as Jesus will even declare. One of my favorite, one of my
heroes of the faith, B.F. Westcott, who laid that foundation
in the study of the Greek text said this of this passage, God,
the word God, stands emphatically first in the sentence. It is
necessarily without the article in as much as it describes the
nature of the word and does not identify his person. No idea
of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression. which
simply affirms the true deity of the word. The divine nature
is essentially in the sun at the same time the sun can be
regarded in relation to God as God. The apostle here seizes hold
of this concept to drive home these three points. these three
points that we’ve seen, that in the beginning was the word
pointing to his eternal nature. And the word was with God, pointing
to his relational position. And the word was God, pointing
to his divine identity. Jesus said the same exact thing
on multiple occasions. John 10 30, I and the Father
are one. John 20, 28, speaking to Thomas,
Thomas replied, my Lord and my God. As J.C. Ryle said it so carefully, the
truth contained in this sentence is one of the deepest and most
mysterious in the whole range of Christian theology. the nature
of this union between the father and the son, we have no mental
capacity to explain. And I’ll tell you this morning,
we could run all through the scriptures, and better men have
done, better men than I have done that, and produced a far
better overview from cover to cover of the deity of Christ
born out from the scriptures, better than something I could
ever produce. But what I want you to see this
morning is the deity of Christ is absolutely
and so clearly proclaimed right here in John 1.1. These things here are said of
the logos, the word, The Lord Jesus Christ in each one of these
things complements the other. As we come to the Lord’s table
today, we come knowing that Christ instituted this celebration,
this table. We come knowing that Jesus Christ
paid the price with his life to give the elements of this
table significance. They’d be meaningless without
it. and that this savior was not created and dispatched for
this particular occasion to come and die on the cross. But he
absolutely existed from all eternity in spiritual communion with the
father because he was by very definition God. Let’s pray. Our merciful king, We humble
ourselves before you, and we rejoice with the truth that John
has penned, that by your Holy Spirit has secured down to us
through the ages, the very Word of God, detailing the nature
of Christ. Lord, we rejoice in your goodness, in savoring
this truth. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray,
amen.