The Need for a New Beginning

John 1:1-18

“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 any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, the gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

Matthew’s gospel begins with the genealogy (through Joseph’s line) of Jesus, supporting the legal fulfillment of His role as the Christ. Mark boldly declares from the start of his account that this is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ who is the Son of God, sparing no room for any other purpose in the telling. Luke tells us his desire and calling to “write an orderly account” and shows a similar historical motivation to what’s displayed in Acts. Beginning the gospel narrative with the foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist, the man who would fulfill prophecy and herald the coming Christ, the Spirit does allow Luke to construct a very well sequenced, detailed and orderly account of events. It is amazing the four gospel accounts can tell the same story and provide the same good news that leads to salvation, yet in the guidance of the Spirit, be such profoundly unique books. John’s gospel, beautiful and unique to itself makes a bold and powerful declaration from the start: Jesus is God. He is the manifestation of the Word, the Spirit made flesh, He is the Creator, one and co-equal with the Lord of Hosts, the Ancient of Days. Though we see Jesus as the Son, fulfill a subservient role to the Father, as is right and provides an example for us as children of God, His authority is equal because they are the same – Jesus is not a new creation, He has been there from the start.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The parallel in speech to Genesis 1:1 is no accident,

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Simply through His speech, God brought the world into existence. Looking at the end of the creation process, in Genesis 1:31,

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

We see that the creation was very good before God. But we also know that things did not stay good. Yeilding to temptation, man disobeyed God, choosing a course in defiance of Him and as a result we fell. The only thing we deserved was death and separation from our Father, but looking mere moments after the fall, in the midst of God explaining the conditions of our sin stained nature, we see the beginnings of the provision He has already made for us as He addresses the serpent. Genesis 3:15,

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

We look back at the darkest moment in human history, and yet there’s a promise here that though stained and fallen we will be allowed triumph over sin. After all, a wound to the heel is painful, but a wound to the head is fatal. God’s beginning for the world was perfect, but our marring of things necessitated a need for a new beginning if we were to be redeemed, and God in loving us, already had a plan in place to do this. John starting his gospel by mirroring the words that start the creation story points us to the gravity of what is taking place. Jesus coming into the world was just as colossal, just as miraculous as God creating the world to begin with. These two events can only be equal in impact and power because it is God who is entering the world, the ultimate expression of love as He provides the new beginning that was forever beyond our reach.

“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Further fleshing out the co-equality of God and His manifested Word, we see that through Him was the creation of all things, and that in Him is life itself. This is not life simply as existence or consciousness, this is divine and pure – it is the light, the hope of mankind. Something so powerful that in all the years since the fall, up to this moment and in all the years beyond, the darkness of the world and has not and cannot overcome it.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.”

Pulling back from the testament to Christ’s deity, from the enormity of His role in creation and the hope that He presents to all the world, John (the apostle and writer of this gospel) points to the more recent prophetic fulfillment of John the Baptist, and his proclamation of Jesus’s coming ministry. Declared in Isaiah 40:1-5,

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”

John the Baptist, the voice crying out in the wilderness, the man who was a Nazarite from birth, blessed and sent by God to proclaim the coming of the Messiah and with a baptism of repentance, to prepare the way. In tying the example of God, of Christ as the Light to the witness of John the Baptist we get a deeper understanding into Isaiah’s prophecy, later affirmed by Jesus Himself. “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken” doesn’t speak to a victory against men or the establishment of an earthly kingdom. It promises the level ground of Truth, the destruction of lies, wickedness and twisted laws and a dispersion of the darkness that blankets mankind. John the Baptist cried out the truth of the power of He who was about to come into the world with the authority to restore the relationship between man and God – a power that rests with God alone.

“He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, the gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

To clarify, John the Baptist holds a position of great responsibility, and his role is important both for the coming ministry of Jesus and for the fulfillment of prophecy, but he is only a witness to the light that is coming. John the Apostle now weaves back and forth, intertwining the Truth and majesty of God with the implications of the True Light entering the world. This gives full validity to the profound mystery of the Holy Trinity and further testifies to the fact that Jesus is God, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him…” We also see here the promise of what would not be fully realized until after Christ’s ascension and the Apostolic church was underway, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Jesus did not come for the Jews, for God’s chosen people alone, but for the world, for any and all who accept Him. This is shown in the book of Acts when Peter witnesses the Holy Spirit descend upon gentile believers just as it did he and his brothers in Christ on Pentecost. It’s also attested to in Acts by the letter written by the church in Jerusalem to their gentile brothers at Antioch, absolving them of the burden of circumcision and so many of the traditional purity laws. It’s summed up by Paul in Romans 1:14-17,

“I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”

Jesus, God made flesh, the Christ, is the light and hope of all mankind. Those gentiles who are under the influence of the Greek culture and those “barbarians” who are outside the Hellenistic influence, the Jew first, but also the gentile. It is not by works or lineage that we have any hope of becoming children of God, but by faith in Christ and Christ alone.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.”’) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

Returning to the enormity of Christ as the Word, as co-equal with God we are brought face to face with the unimaginable miracle, that God, perfect, Holy, powerful beyond human conception, the literal embodiment of love, mercy, grace, wrath, all wisdom, all authority, the Creator of our entire reality has taken on all the vulnerability, temptation and pain of the flesh and has entered into the world. John the Apostle, one of the twelve and witness to the ministry of Jesus attests to His glory, grace and Truth. He again references John the Baptist and reaffirms with the Baptist’s own words the standing of his ministry and work as it relates to Jesus’s: “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.” Both Johns, renown for the work God did through them are of the same mind as it comes to the significance and deity of Jesus, who in His fullness produces grace sufficient for all mankind.

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

Tying Jesus to Moses, His grace and truth to the God given law that is the entire foundation of Judaism gives profound reference for the gravity of His ministry. John’s closing sentence, that no one has ever truly seen God, provides again some scope for the enormity of Christ. All the forms we’ve seen of God throughout scripture up to this point that compare with the forces of nature like the cloud, the whirlwind and the pillar of fire; the various physical manifestations like that that wrestled with Jacob, the three men who visited Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the multiple times we’ve seen angelic messengers deliver the Word of God – none of these have shown God in the completeness that is revealed in Christ. While God the Father is still beyond human comprehension and mysterious in many of His Holy ways, we are given a measure of understanding and approachability in Jesus that had never existed up to that point.

There are three points delivered by this section of text, however they’re delivered circularly as instead of in a linear form, revisiting them as the Spirit guided the Apostle John:

1. The deity of Christ and how it was only by His power as God that He was able to enter the world and create a new beginning between God and man.
2. The Spirit filled testimony of man in John the Baptist that pointed to the coming Christ and the need for a new beginning.
3. What the new beginning means for man – the right to become children of God and to receive His grace upon grace.

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnFbRrMU6yw