The Eternal Word

[00:00:00] Amen. [00:00:05] Let us pray. [00:00:08] O Lord God, as we now come to the reading of our sermon text and the preaching of your word, I pray for your holy spirit to work wonderfully, opening our eyes to the wonderful truths of your word, to who you are, to the truth of the gospel, even what the gospel is, who you are, what you are, do a wonderful work in our hearts. Through your word. I seek your spirit's unction in Jesus name. Amen. Well, our sermon text this evening actually begins John's gospel. John, chapter one. I'll be reading verses one through four. [00:00:58] Hear now the inspired word of God. John one. One. 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 were made through him, and without him was not anything made. That was made in him was life, and the life was the light of men. [00:01:24] This is the word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. [00:01:42] Now, this evening we're going to go no further than the first verse of the first chapter of John's Gospel, and it is packed, and in many ways we're just going to be touching upon it because, well, it's God's word, and there really is just so much, so much here, so many wonderful truths. In the beginning was a word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. [00:02:09] Now, what the apostle John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is seeking to do here is to answer some vital, great questions. [00:02:22] Who is Jesus? [00:02:26] And secondly, what is Jesus? [00:02:31] Who is he anyway? [00:02:33] What is he? And furthermore, he's seeking to answer questions that we really should all ask. [00:02:48] We should really seek the Holy Spirit to help us begin to comprehend the incredible greatness of his person, his mission, and again, even what he is, who is Jesus? What is Jesus? Whether you realize it or not, this is one of the most important questions that there is. And actually eternity hinges on the answer to these questions. Was Jesus just a great man, you know, a nice teacher, a good moral person? [00:03:27] If Jesus was no more than a mere man, maybe a greatly talented, inspiring man, if he was no more than a mere man, then it would be just fine if you paid little or no attention to him, if that's all that he was. [00:03:44] But if Jesus is who? And if he is what John's gospel, the word of God, claims he is, if Jesus is in fact the word, the God who has always existed and will always continue to exist, if he is the very source of life and meaning and purpose, and if he judges and loves and saves and came to earth and all of those things. Then correctly answering who he is and what he is makes all the difference in the universe to every single one of us. [00:04:17] If Jesus is the eternal God who exists, then we must fall down before him and worship him and believe him and trust in him and obey him and love him. [00:04:32] It's profound, the implications of who Jesus is and what he is and what John here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, claims. So let's take a closer look at what we have here in verse one. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God. [00:04:51] Now I'm going to throw in a little comment. It's not here in my manuscript. But I used to wonder for a long time, why does John say in the beginning was the word rather than in the beginning? Well, I guess that one works, but, and the word was with God. Why didn't he say the word was? [00:05:07] The word was worth. I can't do it right. I guess I used to question why the word was past tense. In other words, is he no longer those things? And that used to bother me until, okay, I'm slow, you know, slow at times, until I realized John is talking about the beginning of time. And that's why he's talking past tense. And it took me a long time for that to sink into my head. So if any of you have ever wondered why John one, verse one, uses past tense, it's because he's talking about a point in the past. So anyway, with that said, when we look here at verse one, first of all, when John refers to the word, okay, we know that he's talking about Jesus because in verse 14, if you look ahead, he says, and the word, the subject of verse one, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we've seen his glory, the glory of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. And when you put more verses together, you realize the word being spoken of who is with God and all of that in verse one, it's Jesus. [00:06:18] Okay? [00:06:20] And this should remind us of the beautiful statement found in Matthew, chapter one, verse 23. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. [00:06:34] God with us. So this is all about Jesus Christ. And it's all about the gospel. All of the gospels, in fact, the entire Bible, is about Jesus and the good news of the gospel. So here's the good news that in our crazy, confused, hurting, hate filled world, we need Jesus is Emmanuel, the eternal creator God, who came down from heaven to earth to save us and be with us and reconcile us, us back to him and back to the father. This really is incredibly good gospel. Good news. [00:07:14] Moving on a bit further in all of this, I'd like to pause since I like to use the word gospel. [00:07:22] You've probably noticed that before when I've been here preaching, and tonight I'm going to use the word gospel. A number of times we need to pause and define what we mean by the gospel because we can get that term wrong. [00:07:34] The gospel, what it really means, gospel means good news, okay? Usually people get that part right, in fact. [00:07:44] And what the gospel, what the good news is, more specifically, is an announcement of what God in Christ has done. [00:07:55] That's what the gospel is. [00:07:58] I had a friend, a minister, who used to say, the gospel is my testimony. [00:08:04] The gospel is that I believe. [00:08:09] And so me and some reformed friends would say, no, no, no, the gospel is what Jesus did. And yes, he saved you, but it's not your testimony, it's not your faith. It's the work of Christ. [00:08:23] Do you see that distinction there? And we can get it wrong, though, and think it's things like my testimony and so forth, as wonderful as testimonies are. Now, a few years ago, I had some. Over the length of almost a year, I had a series of discussions with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses. [00:08:43] Believe it or not, they came to the church one day, knocking on the door, and they wanted to see if the pastor was open to talking. [00:08:54] In the past, whenever I encountered Jehovah's Witnesses, I immediately confronted them and they would be gone. And so I talked to a friend who knew how to deal with the cults, and he said, you can't do that because they are immediately going to leave because they're taught you're going to deceive them. What you have to do, if you want to keep the discussion going, is ask them questions about what they believe, and as long as they think you're interested, they will continue. So they kept coming back, could never schedule them. They would come back at random times because they want to keep you kind of off balance. But for almost a year, I managed to read their materials and just ask questions because I really wanted to know from their own mouths what they believe. [00:09:42] And part of what I wanted to know was, well, what's the Jehovah's Witness gospel? [00:09:48] And so what they told me, the gospel was the good news of the enthronement of Jesus Christ over the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is one day going to be firmly established on earth as a restored paradise. [00:10:05] So there's truth there. [00:10:08] The book of acts, Jesus is enthroned, he ascended into heaven, and one day the earth is going to be a restored paradise. And they said, that's the gospel. [00:10:17] And that's sort of one of the hooks that they use to get you in. But how do they believe that one then can enter into that restored paradise, the coming kingdom of God? How can you enter into. It was obviously a question to ask. [00:10:34] You see, their gospel, what they proclaim is not actually good news because they didn't point to the saving work of Christ on the one hand, but on the other hand they said, well, you've got to live a good enough life. They didn't quite word it that way, but that's what they were saying. [00:10:52] And you need to faithfully attend all of our meetings. And down the road from me is a kingdom hall. And they are always there throughout the week. The parking lot is packed and I'm like, man, don't they do other things other than meet there? You got to live a good enough life and those sorts of things. And thus the good news, their good news, ultimately becomes a terrible, horrible burden of self effort. And how do you know when you've been good enough? How do you know when you've done enough? [00:11:27] That's the problem. It's an endless burden of self effort. And really, that's a trademark of Satan. All the world's religions, apart from biblical Christianity are what you do. They're self effort. You're earning your way to heaven, Nirvana, whatever it happens to be. But the good news here of the Bible is that God came in the person of Jesus Christ to earth and he lived. Maybe I should start that sentence over. God came to earth and he lived the perfect God pleasing life that we can't live. And he went to the cross, he paid for our sins, he rose from the grave. Do you see how I'm saying the gospel is what he did, not what I do, not my testimony? [00:12:14] You see those difference? The gospel good news is not only that Jesus is the one who does all the work, all the saving, but that eternal life, heaven, paradise, those things can be yours simply by believing. [00:12:32] And the reason it's simply by believing, it's because he did the work. And you don't have to do all those works, go through the seven sacraments and ten mass every day and so on and so forth. You don't do works. So with that kind of clarification of what the gospel is. Let's return here to verse one. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. [00:12:55] The whole point of what John is seeking to communicate to us here is that Jesus Christ is God. [00:13:03] That's what he's wanting to tell us. Jesus Christ is God. And remember, we're seeking to answer that huge question, who is God? What is, who is Jesus? What is Jesus? In fact, Jesus Christ is the son of God. He's the second person of the Holy Trinity who lives and dwells in a personal relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. That's who and what he is. So let's look at the very first part of verse one here. In the beginning was the word. [00:13:36] This is meant to take us back to Genesis. One. One, isn't it? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so what John is referring back to, what he's telling us here is at the very beginning of everything. [00:13:49] At the very beginning, at the instant of creation of the universe, at that very moment, the word was already there. [00:13:58] He didn't come into existence at that point. That's a whole heresy that's gone throughout the history of the church. No, he's saying God, Jesus was already there. At creation, the word was already there. The word already existed. In other words. And this is mind blowing, when we think about Jesus Christ, we can be tempted to think of his life as beginning with the conception in Mary's womb. [00:14:23] No, at the beginning of everything, he already existed. In the beginning was the word. [00:14:32] In fact, Jesus life and his existence goes back even before creation, then even before time and all of those things, his existence goes back into eternity. [00:14:44] In other words, Jesus has always existed and he has never not existed. [00:14:52] And of course, this means that Jesus is God, right? That's what he's seeking to establish right at the get go, the opening words of his gospel. Isn't it amazing? [00:15:04] This is astounding truth that the Holy Spirit inspired John to pen for us, the one who the gospel tells us came down from heaven and took on human flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, died on the cross in full payment of our sins, rose from the grave, defeating death. This is none other than the eternal God. [00:15:28] This is glorious. [00:15:30] There's splendor here. There's caring, compassionate love. There's grace here. [00:15:38] Now, the second statement we find here in verse one is the word was with God. [00:15:45] That's beautiful. The word was with God. This is a declaration of the personhood of the word. [00:15:56] Christ was already a companion with God at the moment of creation, Christ was already in an active relationship with God the Father at the very moment the universe came into existence. This is wonderfully, wonderfully, incredibly good news for us. In fact, the fact that Jesus, as well as the Father and Holy Spirit, are persons means everything to us. [00:16:28] We're persons. We were created in the very image of God, to commune with God and even to commune with one another. [00:16:37] Driving here this evening, I was listening to a book, irreparable damage, I believe, is the name, and it's a study of all the young women that are transitioning to becoming male and focusing especially on the teenage years. And the portion driving here that she was emphasizing is that for teenage girls, this is sort of like the latest thing that teenage girls do. It's because they're lonely. [00:17:09] There's a lack of relationship nowadays. It's all online stuff where those online predators are telling them, this is whatever's wrong with you, whatever the things you feel as a teenager, this will fix it. [00:17:26] And this author, she's saying this is part of why so many of them right now, at this point in time, are transitioning, because they're lonely, they're hurting, they need personal relationship, and somehow this is being presented as meeting those needs. [00:17:44] So when we read the word was with God, we come to understand the word is a person, and he came to restore us to relationship with God, as well as restore us to relationship with one another, because that's what we're made for. And when we don't have relationships. And that's part of what this author is saying about the teenage girls. There's never been a generation in modern times so isolated, and so they're hurting. Well, we need relationship. And that's why Jesus came, to fix that problem of isolation and loneliness and not being able to help one another and talk with one. Do you see what I'm saying? [00:18:23] This is unbelievably good news that we have here. [00:18:29] The word was with God. [00:18:32] And so we see here in verse one, the eternal existence of Christ, right, the very first words, and we've seen now the personhood of Christ, which is so critical even for what's going on today. And now the third and last part of verse one. Here we see that even before the universe came into being, Christ was God, and the word was God, and the word was God. [00:18:59] We can't save ourselves. [00:19:01] We make a mess of everything, don't we? Just look at Washington. [00:19:08] Just look at my home state, California. [00:19:12] I don't know. I should admit that we need God to take care of things. The new English Bible captures what this is saying when it paraphrases it like this. What God was, the word was. [00:19:31] What God was, the word was. In other words, everything that's true of God has always been true of Jesus. It's a way of saying he's deity, he's God, right? God the Father is love, so is the Son. God the Father is all knowing, so is the Son. God the Father is all powerful, so is the Son. God the Father is full of glory and splendor and majesty and might and so forth. So is the Son, every bit as much. God the Father is the eternal God, so is the Son. And so what this all amounts to is a grand declaration right there in the first verse of the full, complete, 100% deity of Jesus Christ. [00:20:21] Boom. Right in the beginning, John is saying, this is God we're talking about. And so we keep learning more and more here regarding who Jesus is and what Jesus is. [00:20:34] And this is all relevant to the Gospel, isn't it? [00:20:39] But of course, there's more wonder to be found here in verse one. And it is Jesus brilliant use of the word word here in the beginning was the word with God, and the word was God. Now, you probably all know our english word. The greek word translated as word in English is the greek word logos, right? I think you guys all know that. And what is translated, I've got allergies. What is translated here then, as the word is a greek word, logos. And logos was a very significant, very important greek philosophical term. [00:21:26] It was a term that was much discussed, much speculated in greek philosophy, it was debated a lot. [00:21:37] And because this was such a significant word to the Greeks, by using it to refer to Jesus, John was building an amazing bridge to the Greeks, something they could understand, and present Jesus here as what's needed. [00:21:54] Now, the best way to understand this word, logos, as the Greeks would have understood it in their philosophical discussions. And I don't think this is going to be too complex at all, but what we need to do is hop in a time machine. Okay, maybe Doctor who's Tardis. [00:22:12] I used to like Doctor who. [00:22:15] Let's hop in a time machine. Travel back to about 600 BC, and there was a greek philosopher, Heraclitus. [00:22:24] Now, Heraclitus was fascinated by the fact that if you really look at the world, everything is always changing, right? We're changing. Our cars are changing, the whole world, everything around us, the weather's always changing, the world is a world of change. And he was fascinated by this. And Heraclitus developed a famous saying, which is that you can never step into the same river twice. [00:22:57] I heard that. I read that first, and I went, you can never. Well, maybe he's right. You can never step into the same river twice. The water that was there the moment you touched your foot into the river has already flowed on. [00:23:12] And that was his way of illustrating what he was observing. You can never step into the same river twice. It's already flowed on. [00:23:21] Some different water has already taken its place. Thus you can never step into the same river twice. There's always change. [00:23:30] And here's the problem in the world that he was seeking through philosophy and thinking and so forth, that he was seeking to provide an answer for if everything is constantly changing, then how can there be anything constant? How can there be any order? How can there be anything stable in the world? [00:23:53] You see how that relates to us today. [00:23:57] How can there be any order if everything is always changing and everything is always changing? [00:24:03] This is a real problem, right? If everything is always in a state of change, if nothing is stable, then let's take it a step further. If everything's always changing, then how can we know what is right and what is wrong? [00:24:19] We live in an age right now. [00:24:22] What used to be thought of as right in society is now scandalous. And what used to be scandalous is what now it's right. [00:24:33] It's considered good. [00:24:36] How can you know what's right and wrong if everything's always changing? How can you even have a solid reason to live if nothing's stable? [00:24:48] How can there be any real solid meaning to life if everything again is constantly changing? It's a massive problem that not only they faced back then, but we're dealing with today. [00:25:05] Here's our version of it. If life originated purely by chance, if we are nothing more than an accident, then how can there ultimately be any reason to life, any purpose behind it? Who's to say what is right and what is wrong? What's good? What's beautiful? What's ugly? What's bad? Who's to say? [00:25:32] That's exactly where we are at today. That's the problem that the Greeks faced. And again, we struggle over this today. If there is no ordering principle, as Heraclitus would say, if there's no logos, if there's no ordering principle, if there's no creator God, if there's nothing solid, if there's no rootedness, then what is life about anyway? And how can we really live for anything of value and worth? [00:25:59] And we can even take this a step further. [00:26:02] I don't like to get political, but maybe this gets political if for our day, if we're always progressive, think about this for a moment. If we're always progressive, then even what we have ended up believing today, tomorrow, is not going to be what we believe in. Because being progressive, I've thought about this a lot. If we're progressive, as it works out today in our society, we're always changing. [00:26:30] We're always. [00:26:31] Do you see how that works? [00:26:34] Or maybe it really doesn't work. What we believe today to be good won't be viewed as good tomorrow. And then what we view as good tomorrow is because we keep progressing, it doesn't work out. It's a never ending cycle of instability, ultimately because we rejected God's word. So Heraclitus came up with an answer to this whole dilemma. Everything's always changing. There's no meaning, there's no stability. What can we do about it? Heraclitus, his answer to this dilemma. And that's what connects right here with what John is saying in verse one. He taught the that there is in fact an ordering principle in this world. [00:27:15] There is something that gives order even to change. [00:27:19] And he called it the logos. [00:27:23] That's what John is using that philosophical term for, the ordering principle. Even in the midst of life change. [00:27:33] He taught that. Heraclitus taught that it is this divine word or logos, which brings meaning and order to everything, including life. [00:27:46] Richard Phillips writes this in a stroke of genius. John seizes on this word and says, listen, you Greeks, the very thing that has most occupied your philosophical thought and about which you've been writing for centuries, the logos of God, has come to earth as a man and we've seen him. [00:28:07] This means that Jesus is the one who gives meaning to life in this world. That's what John is saying here. [00:28:13] In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. [00:28:21] Brilliant. [00:28:23] Who is Jesus? What is Jesus? [00:28:29] When you answer that, it changes everything, everything for your life. And at the same time, the revelation of John here, chapter one, verse one, takes us even further in terms of the hope that it gives us, you see, a mere philosophical term like the logos. For the Greeks, well, for them it's just a philosophical term. [00:28:54] That's all it was. It was still lifeless. The greek Heraclitus logos was cold, it was impersonal, it wasn't a person. [00:29:03] And if his logos was not personal, then the logos doesn't care about you, about your life or what's wrong with your life. And really, if you begin to think about that, and this is part of why the debate over logos in greek philosophical circles, if the logos doesn't care, what good does it do? Do you anyway do even have this concept? [00:29:27] See man's reasoning apart from God's revelation. So here's the genius of John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here in this verse, John reveals that the Logos is real. [00:29:45] He reveals that the Logos, in fact, is a person. [00:29:50] Furthermore, the logos is God, who is powerful to do something about the mess of our lives and the mess of this world. So here's the gospel. [00:30:02] The Logos is not an uncaring, impersonal philosophical idea. [00:30:10] Rather, the Logos is alive. [00:30:14] The logos is living, the logos cares. In fact, the logos looked down from heaven, saw our plight, he saw our sin, he saw our pain, he saw our wars, he saw our hatred, he saw our struggle to find meaning and purpose in life. He saw how hard it is to live. [00:30:40] Even like I've been listening to the book about teenage young ladies, it can be hard for us to just get up the next morning. [00:30:50] The logos looked down from heaven. The father even looked down from heaven, saw this. And so in love and compassion and grace and mercy, he stepped out of eternity into time. [00:31:03] He clothed himself with our humanity so he could save us. Through his gospel atoning work on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, this is what the world needs, this logos, Jesus Christ. [00:31:22] So who and what you believe Jesus to be makes all the difference, even for eternity. [00:31:35] Please realize that Jesus Christ, God come to earth. The logos is warmth and love and life and salvation. [00:31:50] He is true life, he really is he's purpose, he's meaning, he's grace, he's mercy, he's eternal life. [00:32:04] But apart from Christ, apart from the true logos, there is no true life, there's no true meaning, there's no true purpose. There's only confusion, gender transition or what. Again, these authors are saying, before that was cutting and before that was anorexia. These were all fads. There's again, better words than that. [00:32:27] Apart from Christ, there's really no meaning. There's only death. And after that comes a judgment. [00:32:34] And so John says later in his gospel, we'll close with this, he says, but these were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. [00:32:50] Amen. [00:32:51] Let's pray. [00:33:00] Holy Spirit, we praise you for inspiring the apostle John to even begin his gospel with this. Incredible. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. [00:33:17] We praise you, heavenly Father, for sending the logos, your son, into our world to save us. [00:33:24] And we praise you, Jesus, for doing the saving work that we could never do, for loving us by going to the cross and taking the punishment that we deserve on yourself. [00:33:41] We praise you for rising from the grave, giving us the hope of real life, eternal life, the kind of life we were created to have, to enter into a loving relationship with our God, with our creator, and with one another, or help us to find hope even in the midst of whatever may be happening in our lives. [00:34:05] And as discouraging as whatever may be happening may be. [00:34:10] Thank you for the resurrection. Thank you for the promise of eternal life. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.