John 1 (Part 2) :6-18

And we are continuing our study in the Gospel according to John, we started just this last Sunday and we're continuing on today. It's interesting, I've been asked before why there are four different Gospel accounts and it's very interesting, but there's a lot of difference between them in terms of just their emphasis and their focus. I don't know if you're aware, but Matthew was primarily written to a Jewish audience and that's why Matthew quotes so much of the Old Testament to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Mark, on the other hand, we believe that Mark's Gospel account is primarily the eyewitness testimony of Peter, and that is directed really to a broader, more gentile audience where Jesus is portrayed more in His role as servant, the Servant of the Lord, the servant of people. Then you get to Luke. Luke is a master historian and Luke is one of these guys that started going around and compiling eyewitness testimony from various people, including Mary, because Luke gives us way more information about the birth of Christ and the things surrounding that. Even the birth of John the Baptist, who we’ll be talking about today, than any other Gospel writer. So, Luke did this incredible job of bringing things together, and his focus was primarily to portray Jesus as the sinless Son of Man. And so you can see there's these different emphases. Now, as we talked last Sunday, John is really unique from the rest of them. He's primarily fixed on the idea of presenting Jesus as the eternal Word of God who is equal to the Father. And it's a beautiful, broader picture that we get about Jesus when we look at all of the Gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And so, there's some really great stuff here. Now, as you know, we covered the last or the first five verses of the chapter last week. And so, we're going to pick it up in verse six and read down through verse 18. So, follow along with me as I read.

Stop there please. Let's pray. Heavenly Father as we get into this passage of Scripture and begin to unpack these verses we pray, as we do every Sunday, that you would illuminate our hearts with grace and wisdom to be able to receive today what you have for us. This is your Word. These are your people. Lord God, move upon every heart through your Spirit to bring wisdom, insight, and truth to each of our hearts. We stand at the ready to learn, in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen. These first 11 verses here of John's Gospel are known by most people as kind of the prologue of John's Gospel account before he gets into what follows. But you'll remember in the first five verses last week, Jesus was revealed to us as the “Lagos.” That's the Greek word for the word, the “Word of God,” therefore, also the Creator of the universe since God created all things by sending forth his Word and saying, let there be, and it was, and so forth. But now John begins here beginning in verse six, by talking about another John. He's not talking about himself. He's talking about John the Baptist, and he says, concerning John the Baptist, 6 “There was a man sent (from John) or from God, (rather) whose name was John. (and) 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.”

This is a very brief overview of the ministry of John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way. He came as a forerunner for the Messiah, and we know that he had an effective ministry of preparing people's hearts to hear Jesus. We actually, I won't turn you there or show you, but in the Book of Luke we're told that John had a successful ministry because those who were baptized by John opened their hearts to the Word of the Lord to the Word through Jesus. And those who weren't baptized by John didn't open their hearts to the Word of God. And you read that in the Word and you're kind of thinking, okay, what's the deal then? What? There's some kind of a mystical sort of a, thing with water baptism? No, there's nothing mystical or magical about it at all because you remember, John baptized people unto repentance. And what that means is he had to first bring them to a place of recognizing their sin. They had to be able to say, I'm a sinner, and then, I have to be willing to turn from that sin, which is what repentance is all about, and that's when he baptized them. Right? So, what is it about now that made John's ministry successful? Well, it was bringing people to that place of recognizing their need of a Savior. They're understanding that they are sinners, and they need to be saved. So, the converse is also true. If someone refuses to open their heart concerning their sin, they're going to be shut off to the things of the Lord. Have you ever shared the Lord with somebody and they kind of come back and they go, “well I'm really not such a bad person.” You're talking to them about sin. They're going, I'll just talk about sin. I've never murdered anybody, I don't cheat on my taxes, I don't cheat on my wife. I'm a good person. Hey, that person is closed off, man. What they're communicating to you is, I don't want to hear this. That person is not going to hear the message of the Gospel. It's when we come to that, of recognizing our sin, that's when we're open, and that's why John's ministry was as successful as it was, but as large of a position that John the Baptist takes in this prologue of John's, he wants you to know something else about John, and that's in verse eight. Look with me in your Bible, he says,

He wants you to know, John the Baptist came as a witness to the light, but he himself was not the light. He just came to bear witness to the light, right?

And this idea of being a witness, and by the way, this is the first time John the Apostle mentions the idea of being a witness. This was a big deal in the Bible. I don't know if you've ever done a study or seen like particularly in the Old Testament, being a witness was hugely important. And the Jews understood it that way. They understood the idea of being a witness. In their justice system. You'll remember that God told them that in order for an accusation to even come to trial and to have a verdict rendered, it had to be corroborated by two or three witnesses. Okay? That was just a foundation of their justice system. There must be witnesses. In other words, it can't just be one man's word against another because who's to say what really took place. And then when they would buy and sell property, if I were to, if I were living back in that day and I wanted to sell some property, what would I do? I would go, along with the person to whom I was selling the property, to the elders of my town, and who met at the city gate, who would be witnesses of the transaction. If I was going to even when you're married, we still do that today. Many people get married. There are witnesses. Well, they did that in the Old Testament too. Witnesses to their marriage vows and so forth. So, you see the role of a witness is hugely important in the scope of understanding God's Word, and John is making the point that John the Baptist came for that primary reason. To witness to the people, to testify to the people the Messiah is coming and I'm not even worthy to untie his shoes. So don't look to me. Get ready for Him. And the author then goes on to say in verse nine, “9 The true light, (Notice those words you might even underline or circle them.) which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” There's two things I want to bring out of this verse. First of all, did you notice that John, the apostle refers to Jesus as the “True Light.” He doesn't just say He's the light, he says he's the “True Light.” And the reason he emphasizes that with that word is because there are many lights that people can follow, but there's only one True Light. As one of my favorite Bible teachers, Harry Ironside, wrote there, he said, there are so many false flickering lights that men follow to their own ruin and destruction, but Jesus is the True Light. But I want you to notice the second thing about this verse that's very important for us to understand. John said, He is the light that is, He gives light to everyone. Did you catch that? Jesus is the true Light who gives light to everyone. Now, everyone is a pretty inclusive sort of statement. So what exactly does John mean when he says that Jesus is the True Light that gives light to every one? Well, do you know, some people have actually interpreted this verse to mean that John was telling us that it didn't, doesn't really matter what somebody believes in. Jesus Is the light to everyone therefore everyone is going to be saved. And that's called Universalism. The belief that all men, mankind is universally saved through the sacrifice of Jesus. That's not what John is saying. That's not a correct or even a biblical doctrine. What John is saying is, something that he explained elsewhere. In fact, we even looked at this passage last week in our first study of John. So, what does it mean when he says, Jesus is the Light that lights is given to everyone? Well, it's over in chapter three. We'll put it on the screen. He says, you'll remember reading this last week.

This is what John means when he says Jesus is the light that comes to everyone. Everyone sees the Light. It's just that some people accept it, and some people reject it, and John even explains why. It's because their deeds are evil, and they don't want their deeds to be exposed. They're like, shut that off. I don't want to see what this is, and I don't want this exposed. And that's what the light does. It exposes, right? That's why if you haven't repented of your sin, you're not going to come to Jesus because His light exposes your sin. You have to allow that sin to be exposed first in your own heart, and then you'll come to Jesus and then you're going to be okay because when He exposes sin in your life, you're going to be like yeah, I know, I've already dealt with that. But you see, this is a really interesting theological statement that is being made for us here. Jesus shines His light on everybody. It's just that some people hate it. And they reject it. I truly believe with all my heart that everybody gets a chance to respond. One way or another, everybody's going to get a chance to respond to the light of Jesus one way or another. You say, well, Pastor Paul, how's that going to work? I don't know. I'm glad I don't have to figure it out, and I'm not God and He's got His ways. But He is going to shine His light one way or another for people to see. And then John continues in verse 10 to speak of Jesus saying, 10 “He was in the world and the world was made through Him. Yet the world did not know Him.” And this is, I know I'm just going one verse at a time here, but this is one of those verses that is worthy of us pondering it for just a moment, and here's why. It's shocking. It's really, think of it, it's a shocking statement. We were created by God; we're created in the image of God. And then when He showed up on the scene, we were like, who's that? Get Him out of here. We don't want to talk to Him. He's the Creator. He made us. What do you mean who's this? Well, that's the way we responded. That's pretty shocking. And even relating to the Jews. Now the Jews should have recognized Him. How many times did God speak through the Jewish prophets about the coming of Messiah, where he would be born, and all these other prophecies and they'd missed it. And that's what he goes on to say in verse 11. “He came to His own, and His own people didn't even receive Him.” You know what's interesting about that? I mean, what's crazy about that? Animals know who their master is, but somehow humans have missed it. Let me show you how. This is the lament of the Lord through Isaiah, and this is the very beginning of Isaiah. It says,

This is the lament of the Lord. He's saying this is crazy, these dumb animals. Some of you guys have dumb animals at home. I'm sorry if I offended you about your pet, but they're not human beings. You come home and your dog is all excited to see you. We used to have this dog when I was a kid. He'd get so excited when we'd come home, he'd wet all over the floor. He was just, the weirdest thing in the world. We had to be careful not to get him too excited or we’d have a mess to clean up. But when somebody came in that he didn't recognize, it was like grrrr, he was on his guard and barking and stuff like that, but he recognized his master. A dumb dog. What about humans? Do we recognize our master when we see Him? Huh? Who's this? What's he doing here? So what's the point of all these statements? What's the point of John telling us this? Well, the point is for us to understand just how far we have fallen as a people with the introduction of sin. Sin when it entered into the human equation, rendered us literally incapable of recognizing the God who created us. We were cut off from God spiritually to the point where we could no longer recognize our own Creator, and it gets worse than that. Now we have people saying, well, what do you mean Creator? There is no Creator. There's nothing was even created. It was evolved. Everybody knows that. You see, you see how far we've fallen. You see how much we've fallen into darkness. When somebody says, well I don't believe there is a God. What they're basically doing is just confirming what John wrote here in verse 10. “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and yet the world didn't know who He was.” The world didn't recognize him. When somebody says, I'm an atheist, they're just confirming John chapter one, verse 10, that's all they're doing. And you look at that person, you think that is deep darkness. That is a deep kind of darkness. It's pretty, it is kind of a bummer, isn't it? I mean, you read those verses, and if that, wouldn't that be terrible if this was the end of the message? Well, God came, we didn't recognize Him. Let's close in prayer. No, there's some good news here. I just wanted to kind of perk you up here a little bit. Look at verse 12,

In other words, born of God. Okay, there's some things that we need to see here. And the first two things I want you to take note of here are the words “receive” and “believed.” If you underline or circle things in your Bible, I would encourage you to highlight those. Those are two key words because everything about our salvation hinges on those two words. This verse is so key to understanding how we are saved. It says to those who receive Him, who believed in His name, and those are kind of given backwards, which is okay. John gave him backwards. We actually believe first and then we receive, right? Because you have to believe that you're a sinner. You have to believe you're in need of a Savior. You have to believe that Jesus is the Savior and then you receive, all right?

But here's what's interesting about these words, particularly as it relates to the word believe. This means so much more than what people usually ascribe to it. When we say believe today, we usually mean, in our common English vernacular, that I believe that something exists, right? I believe, you know, so you're talking to somebody, you're telling them about the Gospel and they get a little offended at you and they say, well now wait a minute here I believe in God. And they think that's what you're talking about. In other words, they believe He exists. Some people have even said to me, well, I've always believed in God, and they're very sincere about that. That's not what John is talking about when he says, for those who believed. When he talks about believing, he's talking about entrusting yourself to this person. He's talking about a kind of faith that has confidence in the Lord, and in Jesus and what He did on the cross. That's what he means by believe. Do you believe, to the point where you are willing to stake your eternity on that belief. Okay? In other words, I believe with all my heart that what Jesus did on the cross was for me, right? See, that's real belief, and that's what he's talking about here. It's not just this intellectual nod to, oh yeah, I believe in God, sure, I believe in God. Remember what James tells us? He says, hey listen, even the demons believe in God, so don't pat yourself on the back about that one. Yeah, they believe God exists and they're scared to death of Him. That's not what saves you. It's putting your confidence. And then the other word that's important to understand too is “receive,” and I find that some Christians try to make this more complex than what it really is. They'll say, well, what exactly does it mean to receive Jesus? And I'm, I always say, well, have you ever gotten a present for Christmas or your birthday? Yeah. Did you take it? Yeah. Well then you know everything you need to know about receiving. It's not rocket science you guys. Somebody comes up to you and says, hey, happy birthday, I got you something for your birthday. Who's going to go I don't want that. No, you're going to go, oh, thanks. You just received that, right? You just received that gift. What does it mean to receive Jesus? That's it right there. He died for you on the cross. Do you receive? Do you understand that's why Jesus, at the Last Supper, when He took the bread, he broke it and he said he passed it around He said, guys, I want you to take some of that bread and I want you to eat it. That's receiving.

He wanted them to literally go through the motions of picturing in their heart and mind what it means to receive what He was about to do on the cross. And then when He took the cup, he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And He says, take drink from it, all of you, right? He passed it around and they each took a drink from the cut back in the days when they didn't care about germs. But again, that was this picture of what it means to receive, and that's why we do it at communion too. We don't just sit and look at the communion elements. Oh, those are cute. Those are nice. No, we take the bread, and we partake, and then we take the cup and we drink. Ah, that's, I'm receiving. It's a reminder. I need to receive Jesus Christ, what He did, on the cross. Those are very important words and things to understand. So, what happens when we receive? What happens when we believe? Look, let's read it again. Verse 12, look with me again, verse 12. 12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, (here we go) He gave the right to become children of God.” Oh, this is interesting. Notice the word become. He gave the right to become children of God. Did you catch that guys? Now wait just a minute here Pastor Paul, I thought we were all children of God. We're all God's children. Nope, not according to the Bible. We are God's creation. But the whole position of child is bestowed upon us by right when we believe and receive. We become, is the word here in the text. We become children of God. Okay? That's a very important thing and notice this becoming a child of God has nothing to do with becoming a natural child. Every single one of us in this room was born at some particular point. We were born naturally, but that's not what John's talking about, and that's why he says in verse 13 13 “…born not of blood, not of any kind of a human birth, nor of the will of the flesh the desire, of the flesh or the will of man, but born (look at this) of God. (born of God)” And that is such an important thing to see here. It is a birth that is given to us through the Spirit. It's not a natural birth. It's a spiritual birth. Pastor what can I, what do I need to do to be born again? Believe and receive. You cannot give yourself new birth. It is something He does through His Spirit. We are born of the Spirit, born literally, through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

We're going to, we're going to talk a lot about this. We'll get in depth in chapter three when we talk about Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. But I want you to see an interesting word because, remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus? He said, you must be born again. Remember that He said, Nick, buddy, you must be born again. Now, let me show you an interesting word that Paul used when he wrote to Titus. This is really fascinating. Paul writes,

…he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, (In other words, not by being good people) but according to his own mercy, by the washing of (and here's the word I want you to take note of) regeneration and renewal (And he tells us here it is) of the Holy Spirit. Here's the interesting thing. This word, regeneration, or the word that's translated regeneration, I looked it up in my Greek dictionary. It comes from two Greek root words and they are “birth” and “again.” You must be born again. And that is this idea of regeneration. And it's a beautiful picture. And again, we'll talk more about this in when we get to chapter three, but now we come back to the person of Jesus who makes this new birth possible. In verse 14, look with me in your Bible, it says, 14 “And the Word became flesh (And this is the first time John has identified who the Word is. We've been saying it all along, but he says, 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.” The word became flesh and the idea that He dwelt among us, it literally means in the Greek, He tabernacled among us. We read this verse and we're kind of like, the Word became flesh, oh, that's really cool. People, this is the most amazing thing that has ever happened. God became a man. God invaded time in the person of His Son and became a man. He entered human history as a man, fully man, fully God, and this is the greatest most momentous event in all of human history. I remember watching the first time when we walked on the moon, we were like, we're on the moon. It was 1969. I was 12 years old, and it was the worst picture, for those of you that were alive back then, we watched it on TV and we were like, I think I can see a man. It was just a horrible picture, but we were glued to our TVs because it was just, it was just bizarre. I mean, it's like he's on the moon. This is bigger. God becoming, this is way bigger. This is way bigger than the building of the pyramids in Egypt by aliens. That's, I'm joking about that, but I, the pyramids were built. I don't think it was, this is bigger than the abolition of slavery. This is bigger. This is bigger than all of the advances in medical science that we've had over the years. This is bigger. God became a man. We're talking about the miracle of the incarnation. You, and you probably think, well, He's God. What's so hard about that? Boom, you become a man. Listen. Do you realize that for Jesus to become a man, for the Word to be made flesh, He had to empty Himself of Himself. That's what Paul says in the book of Philippians. Jesus literally emptied Himself to become a man, which is kind of a little bit of a slap in the face to us. Because we think we're all that. Well, God had to empty Himself to be just like you. Isn't that something? This was a big deal. And John says, we've seen His glory. He's talking about the disciples. We saw His glory, but then he says, “the glory of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth.” He goes back for a moment in verse 15 to talk about John the Baptist saying again, “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.” This is John the Baptists way of saying Jesus always existed as the living Word because actually John the Baptist, you'll remember, was six months older than Jesus, as far as their birth on earth was concerned. And yet what does John the Baptist say about Jesus? He was before me. He ranks before me because He is before me. He’s God, I’m just a servant. Verse 16 he goes on, he says, 16 “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” That's an interesting phrase. It simply is a way of communicating to you and me that grace is limitless. There's no bottom to God's grace. Do you understand that guys? Do you understand there’s no bottom to God’s grace? I say that because I talk to people all the time who are struggling to understand the basic idea of God's grace. Please remember, grace is God's favor, acceptance of you apart from anything you've ever done. That's what grace means okay? He loves you; He favors you; he accepts you, and it's based on nothing you've done. It is simply His grace. And guys, His grace is inexhaustible. I suppose you can probably have two different responses to God's grace learning that it's inexhaustible. I suppose you could probably try to take advantage of it and say, well, I guess it doesn't matter if I sin then because He's in the forgiving business. You guys understand how twisted thinking that is. The other sort of a, I guess, view on the other side of it, the other end of it is people who struggle with believing that they're one sin away from being cut off, because they really don't get the idea of God's grace. And that's really tragic. When I talk to Christians who will say, Pastor Paul, when I was X years old, I did such and such and I don't think God can ever forgive me. I hear that quite a bit. And this is a person who doesn't understand grace. That God's grace is unlimited. And we're not to take advantage of God's grace in order to say, I'm just going to live the way I want to live. We ought to live in such a way as to say, your grace is unlimited, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to step on that grace. I'm going to live for you as best I can by your grace, by your power. And I'm just going to rejoice in the fact that you love me no matter what, and you're never going to take that love away from me. You're never going to forsake me in any way. That's a proper biblical understanding of grace. God's grace is inexhaustible, and you need to know that. And that's why John writes what he does is he goes on, because whenever you're talking about grace, you have to kind of contrast it with the law. And so, he says in verse 17,

And he's not giving you much of a contrast. I mean, he's not explaining the contrast here between the law and grace. But the whole book of Hebrews does that. So you know, John doesn't really have to, you remember what the writer of Hebrews said? Let me put it up on the screen. He says,

This is just one excerpt from the book of Hebrews that reminds us that the new covenant that we have is so much better than the old. We are, ours is a covenant of grace through Jesus Christ. It's not a covenant of law. And it amazes me how many Christians are still trying to live by the law. You guys probably know,

Amber has sent out some notes to you as the body here about the group that we've been supporting in Kenya. We've been supporting an orphanage. We started supporting them for a very interesting reason. The leader of this orphanage was connected to a denomination that believed very much that after you get saved by the blood of Jesus, you have to keep the ten Commandments to stay saved. And that's what they were teaching their people. Saved by grace, kept by law. And this guy started, he found us online. He found our teachings on YouTube channel. And he started hearing about God's grace and it literally transformed his heart. And he wrote me this long, beautiful note about how he had come face-to-face with God's grace. And he said, I've finally been set free. I believed for all those years that Jesus saved me by his blood, but I had to keep myself saved by keeping the ten Commandments. Well, as soon as the denomination found out that he had discovered grace, they dropped him like a bad habit. Yeah. All their support. He literally had no support. So, I went to our elders, and I said, guys here's this guy who runs an orphanage in Kenya and he's literally lost his support because he came face-to-face with God's grace through the teachings that we put online. So, I think we need to do something about this. And so, we started kind of doing some support, and now we're supporting their orphanage 100%. There are 230 kids, like 230 kids and it's been an amazing journey. But look what happens when somebody gets a hold of grace. Look what happens. They're set free. It really is, it really is amazing, and it's heartbreaking when I see people who are still trying to live according to the law, because you can't. You can’t live according to the law. Then we end with this final verse from today's study, which is verse 18. Reading it here together, it says, 18“no one has ever seen God...” Oh, that's an interesting statement, especially in light of the fact that you've got guys like Isaiah who said, I've seen the face of God. I've seen God. So what does he mean? What does John mean when he says no one has ever seen God? Well, we’ve got to remember that what John is saying is absolutely true. What Isaiah saw, what others in the Old Testament saw what some in the New Testament saw was either a theophany, which is an appearance of God, but nobody has seen the full unbridled glory of God.

Moses asked to see the glory of God, remember? He was up on the mountain and God said to him, you have found favor in my sight, and so Moses said, if that's the case, let me see your face. And God said, sorry, Moe, no can do. He said, if I were to show you my face, yeah, you wouldn't be able to live. He said, no man can see me and live. Best I can do is, I'll pass by, and I'll put my hand over you and hide you in the cleft of the rock while I pass by. And then, After I have passed by and declared Myself, I will remove my hand and I will let you see the trailing edge of my glory. And that's enough. And that was enough to light up Moses's face like a light bulb. Remember? He came down from the hill and the people are like, what is that? He's glowing. So, he had to put a veil over his face so people wouldn't get freaked out. That was all Moses could take, was the trailing edge. First Timothy chapter one verse 17, and then chapter six, verse 16 says,

Now, somebody's probably thinking right now, well wait a minute, when we get our new resurrection bodies, we'll be able to see God. I don't know. We'll see. But then notice what John goes on to say, and this is very important. He says, 18“…the only God who is at the Father's side has made Him known.” And there's two things I want to bring out and we'll close with this all right? First is the statement he says, the only God who is at the Father's side has made him known. And what he's telling you in me is that apart from Jesus, God the Father cannot be known. You with me? Did you hear what I said? Apart from Jesus, God, the Father cannot be known. He, Jesus, is the revealer of the Father. Very important and I know that’s one of those interesting kind of statements that is kind of very conclusive and very limiting, but this is what he's saying here, and that's important that we see that. It's interesting, that statement made him known that phrase, “the only God who is at the Father's side has made him known.” That is an interesting single Greek word. It's where we get our word exegesis. And exegesis is usually what we use to describe what we're doing here this morning. Going through a Bible passage, looking at it, verse by verse, word by word. That's called exegeting a passage. Well, it's interesting that this word that Jesus “makes the Father known,” is from that word exegesis. So, literally, Jesus exegetes the Father. He makes Him known. He reveals the Father. It's pretty cool. And so, what that means is, you look to Jesus, you see the Father. Remember when the disciples kind of tripped over this particular issue? It was Philip who voiced it. I'm sure he wasn't the only one that thought it, but Philip said in John chapter 14, Lord, show us the Father and that will be all. You just show us the Father and we'll be good to go. And we won't ask for anything else beyond that. And Jesus said to them, John 14:8 – 9a (ESV)

You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus. That's what God the Father is like. That's what Jesus said. You want to see the Father? Look at me. That's all it takes. Now the second thing we want to see from this verse, and we'll end with this, is how John refers to Jesus. Notice he refers to Him as, 18 “… the only God who is at the Father's side.” Did you catch that? The only God who is at the Father's side, He has revealed the Father. Now this is an interesting phrase and different translations do a little different job of translating it. Let me show you some examples. NIV (1984) God, the one and only who is at the Father's side… NIV (2011) the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father… NASB (2020) God, the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father…. NKJV The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father…

The 1984 version of the NIV says, God, the one and only who is at the Father's side has revealed him. Now, when they revised their translation in 2011, they changed it to say, The one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father has revealed him. By the way, those are both good translations. They both express the meaning fairly well. The second one is a little more verbose, but it's not a bad translation. The New American standard Bible says, God, the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father has revealed him. And the new King James says, The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father has revealed him. What's interesting about this is all of these translations are translating two simple Greek words that simply mean, in English, the unique God. The unique God. Now, what makes Jesus unique in the sense of His humanity? Well, it all centers around a word that the new King James used there, and that's the word “begotten.” Do you guys understand that whenever the word begotten is used, it means “of.” Okay, I have four kids, and you could say of my four children, they are begotten of their father. That means they're of their father. And the reason we use that word is, it speaks of equality, okay? When someone is “begotten” or “of” someone, they are equal to whoever they came from. Well, the same is true for Jesus. He's the begotten of the Father, and so He is “of” the Father, right? Now, I'm a child of God. You're a child of God, but we're not begotten of the Father. We're created by the Father, and we are adopted into the family of God. He is the unique God in the sense that He is begotten of the Father, which means He is of the Father and therefore equal to the Father. You have to understand, if anybody uses the word begotten, they are saying “equal to” because he is “of” the Father, okay? So that word wouldn't even be used, it can't be used, unless Jesus is equal to God the Father. So, anyway, we finished the prologue. There you go. Lots of interesting theological insights and we'll get on with more of our study in the Gospel of John next time. So, we'll stop there. Let's stand together and we'll close in prayer as we do every Sunday. We'll have some people down front here to pray with you if you need prayer this morning, we invite you to do that.

--- So, Father, thank you so much for giving us this time today just to spend in the Word, to talk about the Scripture here, to talk about what it means and to think about how we're to apply this in our lives and we pray that you would help us to do that. We want to open our hearts more and more to the Scriptures, and I thank you, Father, for the truth that we've seen today. That those who received Him, to those who believe, on His name He gives the right to become children of God. And I just pray, Father, for anybody here or who's watching online, who is just not sure that they've received the gift of forgiveness and I pray Lord that even as I'm closing in prayer here, they would just speak to you and say Lord, I receive you. I receive what you did for me on the cross. And I thank you. Now make me a child of God. Fill me with your Spirit. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Father. We praise you. We worship you, and we thank you in the name of Jesus Christ, and all God's people said together, amen. God bless you. Have a good rest of your day. ---