John 1:14-18. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 25, 2016.
The Bible tells us in Romans 5:6 this, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (NKJV). The writer goes on to say, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The timing and the way in which God loves us is not always the time and way that we want. If it were up to us to pick the “when” of the incarnation we would choose our own time, and so would every other generation. Also, none of us would choose the cross as the demonstration of God’s love. In light of all of this we are told that Jesus came in “due time.” The word translated here has the sense of a seasonal time. So when the fruit is ripe, it is the season or right time to harvest it. So spend some time thinking about how the 21st century is not better than the 1st century as a season for God’s greatest act of love. If Jesus were to come in our day we would not be more inclined to accept him, and probably less. Yes, our technology could spread his message quicker, but it could also cause it to be lost in a sea of counter-claims and conspiracy theories. There would be just as much resistance to his message and to him. The truth is that it would not make any of us any more likely to believe. For every time that I have thought in my heart that I would believe if God would just prove it to me personally and right now, there are countless examples of those who did see and yet still didn’t believe. This doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t worth believing. Rather, it points us to the stark reality that the logic we often lean on (God didn’t do it this way…) is very flimsy. It cannot hold up to the truth that God has demonstrated His love toward us and in an incredible way. All people who hear the truth are accountable to search it out for themselves because it is by this that we show ourselves to be those who truly want the truth. However, the “search for truth” can itself become an intellectual cover for an aversion to it. So let’s look at Jesus today and remind ourselves of the truth about who He is.
You will want to read John 1:1-18, but I am going to focus mainly on verse 14. John introduces several titles or descriptive words for Jesus in this section. The name Jesus comes from a Hebrew word that means “God Saves, or God’s Salvation.” This would be an appropriate name for the one who would be God’s Messiah (the one Anointed by God to deliver Israel and the Gentile nations). But in verse 1 John reveals an even deeper truth about this one they knew as Jesus. He existed before all of creation as “The Word.”
Now, “The Word” could be translated as the reason, the logic, or the saying. However, John’s use of the phrase “in the beginning” coupled with a consequent creation is a direct allusion to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He is more than describing Jesus as a current representation of the logic or truth of God. John is revealing that another person was hidden within the creation story. So Genesis 1 tells us that God said, “’Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Thus God speaks and the effect of that word is a creative event. Jesus is revealed by John to be not just the first created being, but rather as co-existent and in union with God. In verse 3 he says that all things that were made were made through Jesus and without Jesus nothing was made that was made. Before he ever took on flesh and became the human called Jesus, he was the eternal and divine Word. He was a part of the eternal Godhead: Father, Word, and Holy Spirit. The truth about Jesus begins with his greatness and majesty. He is the very means of creation. He is that which brought all things into being.
It is in light of such an amazing statement that the incarnation (becoming flesh) of The Word is revealed. The incarnation is the opposite of the greatness of his past existence. It becomes the time of great humbling, humility, and even humiliation of the uncreated one. Throughout history, mankind has struggled with the sense that God is removed and separated from our existence. How can he care about us and seem so removed? Yet, in the incarnation, God responds that He knows what we are dealing with, how hard it is, and how easy it would be to give up. Though we may not “feel” like He cares, we can “know” that He does because of the day that The Word became flesh.
There is a scene in the new movie, “Greater.” There is a character that is struggling with understanding why God would let his brother die in the prime of his life. There is a scene where he stands beside a football field in which there are a bunch of potted flowers. His struggle with not wanting to blame God and yet feeling like God is to blame, eventually leads him to walk up near the press box of the stadium. From that high vantage point he looks back to the flowers on the field to recognize that the flowers spell out the words, “We Trust.” This is a powerful metaphor for life. We are often like the players down at field level, not understanding why the coach calls us to do something. But God has a view of this world and your life that is much higher than any press box in this world. In the incarnation God is saying to us us, “Trust me, instead of your pain.” In fact, if we are truthful with ourselves, the worst decisions are often made in the midst of pain and anger. The truth is that God does care and He has even humbled Himself to step down into our difficult circumstances, not as some Titan who cannot be touched. But, rather, He comes as a man who can be hated, rejected, and killed.
The Word did not just become a man and Lord his divinity over all mankind. Instead, John says that “he dwelt among us,” in verse 14. Just as God’s Spirit had dwelt in the tabernacle with Israel in the desert, here again is God in an even greater act of closeness dwelling among mankind. He did not come to the palaces of Rome, but to the conquered people of Israel. He did not come to the palaces of the Israeli people, but to the sticks of that nation in Galilee. The men that he lived with for 3 and a half years were mostly fishermen and lowly. The Word comes to become the lowly Jesus and reminds us that God Saves. Throughout the New Testament the family terms of Father and Son are used to demonstrate the closeness of God. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God, but he has come that we too might become sons of God. The truth is that God is never far away, but is as close as the mention of His name. Though I demand that he demonstrate His closeness at a specific time and in a specific way, it can never diminish the truth that He loves me, is close to me, and understands how difficult it is. He dwelt among us!
The disciples of Jesus gave witness to what they saw in him. In fact the word used in verse 14 for “beheld” means more than that they saw the glory of Jesus. It has the idea of inspection and looking into a matter. Jesus didn’t just appear on earth and look like something. He lived with people and his life purposefully brushed up against others so that men could inspect his character, life, and his very being. When we live 24/7 with someone it is most generally then that we see them in all their “glory,” (Yes, I am being facetious). Quite the opposite, it is then that our flaws are most obvious. Yet, John says that they inspected this man and what they found was glorious. They saw the public and private Jesus. They saw Jesus during the good times and the bad. They saw Jesus when the crowds wanted to make him king and when they were crying out, “Crucify him!” The disciples did not believe Jesus simply because of the claims he made. They believed because of what they experienced when they lived with him. So why does God often seem hidden? Why doesn’t he do something like this for every one of us in every generation? The short answer is because men most generally do not want to live with absolute truth. We tend to want only certain aspects of truth. The hiddenness of God is a challenge to our very character. Do I want to know the truth, or do I simply want to feel like I know the truth? To know the truth is to enter into a loving and trusting relationship with it.
John further describes this glory with two words and the first is Grace. In inspecting Jesus they saw that God is gracious, even further, “full of grace.” They watched as the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) was thrown before Jesus. Here we are given witness to the exquisite grace of God in that he is not looking for reason to punish and destroy us. Rather, he is looking for reasons to forgive us. In our day and age, grace becomes a trite method of declaring that nothing is really sin, or that sin no longer matters. However, Jesus both confirms that the woman is a sinner and yet encourages her to quit being a sinner. He knows that unless she changes she will be judged by God. Why remove any chance of her making amends? The grace of God is that humanity does not deserve to be saved, and yet he gives us a chance. More than that, He guarantees that whoever wants to do so can join that part of humanity that will be victorious over the devil and reign with God in his place. Satan will be cast down and we will be lifted up. This is the grace of God. But, do you trust him?
We are told of his interaction with the thief on the cross in Luke 23. This man had lived a life of sin and stealing from others. In the last moments of his life, in which he can really do nothing for God, he simply asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Such a simple statement of faith, and yet it was all that God was looking for. Put yourself in God’s shoes for a moment. Can you imagine pouring out your heart in love for another person, only to have it thrown back into your face? It’s not enough, it wasn’t the right time, it wasn’t the right way…. Yes, we can all learn how to love others. But, if our every attempt to love is criticized and never simply received as the love it is, then what? Does the other person really love you? The sad truth is that God has loved all mankind more than we deserve. More than this, instead of throwing us away, He has simply put the ball in our court. He is simply looking for us to trust Him. This is the grace of our God.
This was not a New Testament idea. The Old Testament clearly demonstrates that Israel and mankind did not deserve saving. It reveals the moral warts and ugliness of our sin, and yet God’s plan to save mankind kept marching on. No, it was not what you asked for or are even now asking for. But it is love nonetheless. So can you say no to such love?
The second word that John uses to describe the glory of Jesus is Truth. Jesus made very exclusive claims. In fact, truth by its very nature is exclusive. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” In John 8:39-40 we are told, “They answered [Jesus] and said to Him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.’” In John 3:16 we are familiar with the statement that “God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son that whosoever would believe on Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.” Yet, the sad thing is that 3 verses later (John 3:19) we are told that “this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.” Yes, all of us have an inner aversion to truth because it exposes not just our “failures” but also those things that we would call our “successes,” but He shows to be evil.
The world today struggles under the task of finding a way forward in which it can reject the exclusive claims of Jesus and still have a moral world. But by removing the Truth from the foundation of this endeavor, we ensure its future crumbling demise.
So the ball is in your court. God has heard you, and He has come near to you. God has loved you, and He has done so in a miraculous, amazing way. The real question is not has He done enough. The real question is can I accept the truth and let go of the lie? Let go of the lie today and embrace the truth.