The Gospel of John
1Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.
2 Οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν.
Some who deny that Jesus is God make the claim that Jesus never said that He is God…and that is correct…the Bible never records Jesus as saying the precise words, “I am God.” … however, it does not mean that Jesus never claimed to be God.
There are over 100 verses that support Jesus’ claim to be God…Jesus’ claim to divinity was often done in what we might call ‘a Jewish way’…a way that links Him to the Old Testament…something those who are unfamiliar with…or not knowledgeable of Old Testament prophecies would miss.
Christians had a dilemma as soon as they declared that Christ was God…same problem we have in explaining who Jesus is today…if Jesus is God…and God the Father is God…doesn’t that make two gods?
And when you throw the Holy Spirit into the mix doesn’t that make three gods? …so aren’t Christians really polytheists? …if they insist, they’re monotheists…how can all three…Father…Son…and Holy Spirit all be God?
There are various ways of trying to explain this and one of the most popular ways is called modalism…it’s called modalism because it insisted that God existed in three modes — just as I am…all at the same time…I am a son to my mother and father… a brother to my two sisters…and a father to my two children…BUT…there’s still only one of me.
That’s what God is like…He manifests Himself in three persons…but there’s only one of him.
The Fourth Gospel…the Gospel According to John…describes the mystery of the identity of Jesus… it develops a Christology—an explanation of Christ’s nature and origin—while leaving out much of the familiar material that runs through the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Matthew, Mark and Luke are so alike in their telling that they are called the Synoptic Gospels…meaning “seen together” the parallels are clear when they are looked at side by side.
Mark begins his gospel of Jesus starting with the ministry of John the Baptist.
Luke begins his gospel of Jesus with the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth.
Matthew begins his gospel of Jesus with a genealogy going all the way back to David and Abraham.
The central theme in the Synoptic Gospels is the coming of the kingdom of God. John’s gospel is different than the other three…John does not include the same incidents or chronology found in the other three Gospels.
The central theme in the Gospel of John, is the divine “Logos” became flesh and dwelt among men in the person of Jesus.
John’s Gospel is filled with long discourses describing Jesus’s divinity. John takes us behind Jesus’s ministry, where we get a glimpse of what it means to believe in Jesus as God’s Son who came to earth in a human body.
As is the case with anything that has to do with Scripture the question is…who wrote John’s Gospel?
As easy a question as that may seem…it’s not…there are various persons credited with writing this gospel…some believe it was Lazarus… some believe it was Mary Magdalene…some argue that John Mark could have been the author of John.
Many others believe the author was in fact a committee of unknown authors… however…the traditional view of the Church has been that this is the “Gospel according to John,” …John the apostle…John the son of Zebedee.
Want to give you a little history of what has been happening in the church since around the 16th century…and it’s continuing today…some of the common beliefs we now accept as ‘true’ or Scriptural…are actually more the result of translations of the Bible that is the product of our Western heritage.
Talked about one last Tuesday at the Christmas Eve service…that Mary and Joseph were turned away because there was no room for them in the inn…didn’t happen.
Up until around 1790 it was universally held that the Apostle John wrote the Gospel that bears his name…that was never disputed.
Then the tide turned against John as the author…this occurred…not because the evidence supported a different outcome…but because of the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment emerged out of a European intellectual and scholarly movement known as Renaissance humanism…where scholars reacted against traditionally held beliefs…one of those beliefs was the authorship of John’s gospel.
I believe Scripture gives clear evidence that the apostle John wrote the fourth book in the New Testament…John is described explicitly in this Gospel as one whom Jesus loved [John 11:3, 5 / 21:2 / 13:23].
John had a closer relationship with Jesus than any of the other disciples…Jesus and John were essentially “best friends”.
…Jesus entrusted John with the care of His mother
…Jesus gave John the vision of the transfiguration
…Jesus allowed John to witness His most amazing miracles
…Jesus gave him preferential seating at the table during the Last Supper
…John was given the Book of Revelation
All reflect not only honor but also the closeness of his position with Jesus…so it only makes sense that John’s gospel gives us more detail into who Jesus is.
Why does John refer to Jesus as the “Word” …why didn’t he use Jesus, the Messiah or Lord? …why does John start this way?
You’re reading something that was written 2000 years ago….to an audience you’re completely unfamiliar with…in a language that you’re not a native speaker of…and trying to understand what John is saying…does anyone see a problem here.
John is the only gospel writer who refers to Jesus as the Word…because the statement “and the Word was God” (καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος) is the clearest statement of the deity of Jesus in the Bible
In only five words in both the English and in Greek is the clearest and most direct declaration of the deity of Christ found anywhere in Scripture.
In just 5 words John destroys every other religion and cult in existence…no other religion or cult can make the claim that their founder is on an equal with God…no other religion or cult can show evidence that their founder had all the attributes and qualities of God…that in essence He is God.
So, John’s point in this opening statement of describing Jesus as God…is to tell us that He is the eternal Word…the Creator of everything…John is making claims about Who Jesus is…about what He does and what He brings.
Essentially, what John is doing by introducing Jesus as the Logos is drawing upon a familiar word and concept that both Jews and Gentiles of his day would have been familiar with… and using that as the starting point from which he introduces them to Jesus.
The concept of the word “Word” …in the Greek it is λογος…which would have had meaning for both Jews and Greeks:
–To the Greeks…λογος was the reason and order in the universe… …to the Greek thinking the universe is an orderly place…what causes the universe to be orderly is reason (logos).
…To the Jews…the word of the Lord was the expression of divine power and wisdom…creation took place through God’s speech (Gen 1; Ps 33:6) …by God’s word He gave Israel the Ten Commands…John presented Jesus to his Jewish readers as the incarnation of divine power.
To speak of the Word (logos) in relation to the beginning of creation would make sense to both Jews and Greeks
In his opening statement John wants to tell us four things about Jesus:
(1) the time of His existence,
(2) the essence of His identity,
(3) His relationship to God, and
(4) His relationship to the world.
1. The Time of His Existence
John begins his gospel of Jesus at the same point the Bible begins in Genesis: “In the beginning” [Jn 1:1; Gen 1:1] …so right away John is telling us that Jesus was before time…history…and before creation.
Verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word.” The words “in the beginning” are identical in Greek to the first two words in the Greek Old Testament.
Using the phrase “In the beginning” was not an accident…the first thing John’s going to tell us about what Jesus did is that He created the universe… “In the beginning,” takes us back to Genesis 1:1, when God created heavens and earth.
The verb “was” indicates that at the beginning of the universe the Word already was in existence…it’s important that we know that Jesus was not created…He has always been with the Father throughout the trillions of years in eternity past.
That’s what he affirms in [v.3] …Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. …Jesus was in existence before creation…before there was any created matter, there was the Word, the Son of God.
John begins his Gospel by locating Jesus…the Son of God in relation to time, namely, before time.
Two Interesting questions…when did time start…AND how long has man been on the earth?
FIRST…cosmologists believe with the Big Bang time was created…that time didn’t exist before the Big Bang because well, the Big Bang created time…that is the starting point of time.
Jude exults in this truth in his letter… “To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. [Jude 1:25].
SECONDLY…both liberal and conservative scholars generally agree that Abraham was born about 2,000 years before Christ…and Adam was born 2000 years before Abraham…we are now in the year 2020, so this is another 2,000 years or so after the birth of Christ.
When we add the 2,000 from Adam to Abraham, the 2,000 from Abraham to Christ, and the 2,000 from Christ to the present day, we end up with about 6,000 years since man was created by God.
I’m not saying that the earth is only 6000 years old…I’m saying that God created man…Adam and Eve…6000 years ago…again…here’s where Christianity gets sideways with Science and it doesn’t need to…the age of the earth verses the age of humanity.
Ever heard the expression… “the Bible says it…I believe it…that settles it” …here’s how the belief in this saying leads to problems.
When you do that the problem is how do you know if the Bible really says what you think it says? …what if it means something different than what you think it means…or what you’ve been taught it means?
Then what happens is…without even realizing it…you’ve based your entire understanding of the rest of the Bible to accommodate your false understanding… without realizing it you have suddenly contributed to the meaning and authority of the Bible..
Here’s the example…how old is the earth…Bible implies it’s 6000 years old based on our ability to trace human genealogy back to Adam…but scientists claim the earth has been in existence for millions of years…how do you explain the disparity.
Here comes the importance in knowing Biblical languages…I’m certainly not an expert…actually…more like a novice when it comes to Biblical languages…but just a little personal research will reveal the problem with the wording of ‘day’ in Hebrew…as in “the evening and the morning were the first day” [Gen 1:5].
For one thing…it does not mean…although it can mean…a twenty-four-hour period of time…so based on that premise the Hebrew word for ‘day’ …‘yom’ does not specifically mean a time period of twenty-four hours [Gen 29:14; Lev. 25:8: Josh. 24:7; 2 Chron. 15:3].[1]
To take the position that creation occurred in six twenty-four-hour days and therefore the earth is only 6000 years old is to embarrassingly deny the scientific proof regarding the Cambrian rock that evolutionists believe is between 600 and 500 million years old.[2]
This all comes down to the questionable translation of the Hebrew word “day” several examples in Scripture show ‘yom’ meaning an extended period of time [Gen 2:4 / Joel 1:15 / Zech. 12:3].
SO…the probability may have been that each day was NOT twenty-four hours long therefore concluding that “morning” and “evening” could signify longer periods of time [Ps. 90:5-6 / Jer. 6:4]
A belief I have had for years is what is known as the “framework hypothesis” …that says what we think of as “days” are not time periods but literary devices to teach theological truth.
That creation may not have been accomplished in six days…it is a way for interpreting the length of time needed to justify the age of the Cambrian rock and our galaxy’s expansion.
Let me just say one more thing before you organize a committee to get rid of the Pastor…something I’ve said before…something profound I learned during my years in Seminar…sometimes it’s OK to say… “I don’t know because the Bible doesn’t say.”
Genesis One could refer to a series of creative acts…or it could refer to periods of time…So how old do I think the earth is…all that is said is creation was a six-day event with no certainty on whether those were 24-hour days or a progressive creation separated by longer periods of time: so I DON’T KNOW.
Paul says in [2 Tim. 1:9] that God gave us grace in Christ Jesus “before the times of the ages.” …so before there was any time or any matter, there was the Word, Jesus the Son of God…that is who we will meet in this Gospel.
You see the complexity of Scripture…we have talked this morning about just the first verse of John’s Gospel…we read the Bible not realizing that God has packed it full of proofs regarding His existence.
Do you see what this means for our series on the Gospel of John? It means that we are going to spend some time in getting to know God…as we get to know Jesus… …let me ask you this morning…do you want to know God?
Let me invite you to come with
us…and invite others to come and meet God as we meet Jesus.
[1] Bruce A. Demarest and Gordon R Lewis, Integrative Theology Vol. 2: (Grand Rapids, MI., Zondervan, 1990) 41, 44.
[2] Alex McFarland, The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity, (Ventura CA., Regal Books 2007) 59.