Jesus Who?

John 1:1-18

Transcript

God who speaks to us. And it is God who is choosing how to reveal himself to all mankind. Sometimes it's on us to understand what it is that God is speaking to us. Now God gives us the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit comes and illuminates our minds to help understand what it is that God is speaking to us about Himself.
And that's where we find ourselves here in John, chapter one. This is an introduction or a prologue, so to speak. And the whole introduction is about who Jesus is. And that's the topic of our lesson today. Jesus who.
And what you're going to see in this introduction is two things. That Jesus is fully God and fully man. Now, before I dive into these examples of how John unpacks what it means for Jesus to be fully God and fully man, I need to give you a word. And it might be a big word to you or a new word to you, but the word is typology. And I give you this word because it is a way to read and interpret the Scriptures.
Typology simply means the study of types. And those types we're talking about are types of Jesus. This is how I interpret Scripture. Typology is given to us by Jesus himself at the end of the Gospel of Luke, Luke, chapter 24, when Jesus reveals to himself after the resurrection, he reveals himself to two disciples in Emmaus, and then he goes back to Jerusalem and reveals himself to his other disciples. And this is what he spends his time in Jerusalem with his disciples, teaching that everything in the Old Testament to us, everything that the prophets have written and that everything that is in the Psalms is about Him.
We just read our New Testament reading coming from the first chapter of Ephesians, which says that the summing of all things up in Jesus Christ. So what is this whole entire book about? It's about God, who is revealed in Jesus Christ. And in the Old Testament, we are giving glimpses or we are giving types of Jesus, who is to come, the Messiah, the Christ. The best way I like to identify what typology is is when you're reading through Scripture, you're giving these certain types to help build your understanding of when Jesus comes on to the scene.
You'll be able to grasp why he has to be our representative, why he is our substitute of sacrifice, why he has to die on the cross. Because you've been reading the Old Testament and all these types and concepts that God has been feeding you so that when Jesus arrives, you understand it, you're not learning it for the first time. And this is what John uses. He uses typology for you to understand who Jesus is. And I'm going to break this down for you.
But an analogy for typology is this. And I've referenced this before, but it bears repeating again. Throughout my dating career, I have always had a list of qualities that I was looking for in a godly woman. And so I would write them down in the back of my journal. And these attributes, these characteristics of what I was looking for in a godly woman to date or to consider to marry, are types of the one that I would marry.
And so as I began to date, that list got either scratched off or got remade or got longer as I began to discover what it is that God wanted me to marry. And ultimately, as I move through all those dating opportunities, let's call them, then I come and I encounter Melissa. And Melissa is the fullness and embodies the fullness of all these previous types that I've encountered. All this list that I comprise of. What a godly woman looks like and who it is I ought to marry as a godly man has manifested itself or revealed itself.
When I married Melissa, she comes into view clearly as a godly woman who I desire to marry. But leading up to that are all these little moments in my experiences that build up to the moment I got to meet her. So I use that as what typology is the Old Testament revealing to you? Little glimpses of the one to come in David, in Moses, in Adam, in Abraham, all of them are types of the one to come. And then when Jesus comes on, we see the full, clear portrait of the Messiah of Jesus, the Christ.
John is going to use this. John is going to, in this first chapter, pull from the Old Testament images and concepts so that he can relate to his audience, which is us by way of the Holy Spirit, who Jesus is. And what we're going to discover is Jesus is fully God and fully man. And so, without further ado, let's dive in to these little sections. I'm not going to go verse by verse.
I am going to highlight some verses for you so that we can just get a good understanding of what John wants us to understand, that Jesus is God and that Jesus is also fully man. So let's look at the first five verses. And this deals with Jesus being fully God. 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 came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. Those first five verses right there should draw your attention back to Genesis chapter one. Again, this is typology.
This is John reaching back with to the Old Testament to the beginning of Genesis, which means new beginnings. And he's presenting to his audience and saying, look, do you remember at the beginning when we said that God created the heavens and the earth? Do you remember when God spoke light into the darkness? Do you remember that everything was dark and that light pierced it? Do you remember the creation story?
Well, here where I'm introducing you to Jesus who was back in that creation, we have instances of word and light that John is trying to pull from. Back in Genesis chapter one he's talking about creation. And so we have who is Jesus? Jesus is God, who was there at the very beginning of our creation when he created us. We were created by him and from him and for him.
That he is the light that was shining when God the Father spoke and said, let there be light. He is the light that broke into the darkness. He is the Word, the very word that the Father speaks. Jesus is the word of God. This is in a sense Jesus, because it is God cannot be separated from His Word.
And so John is trying to show you that there's this new beginning with Jesus. And though we didn't understand and have that full picture of Jesus then, we do now. So John is also telling his audience and telling us that when you read Genesis 1, though Jesus isn't on the page, he is in the scene. Jesus is present there because he is fully God and he is there and he's been there the whole entire time. Jesus has always existed.
He is not something that has been created, but he is co eternal with God the Father. He has coexisted with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is ever present in creation and yet Jesus breaks into our scene. He comes down to our world, lives among us and gives us the opportunity to live recreated. A new Genesis is happening in Jesus Christ.
So that's the first thing that we understand about Jesus, is that he created all things. He was there at the beginning when all things were created and that he is fully God. That he is with God the Father and he is God the Son and he is with God the Holy Spirit. The second thing is that he is the special revelation, like I've already mentioned, he's not given to us. Jesus isn't fully in view in Genesis chapter one.
If you just read it. But now what John is saying is, since Jesus has come and he's died and he's rose again and he sits at the right hand of God the Father, we now know a little bit more about Genesis 1 than we had previously known. We have special revelation, we have a special revealing in Jesus Christ all things come to a better understanding. We are able to comprehend and understand the ways of the world because of Jesus Christ. This is very special, very significant.
And this is found in verses 3 and 10 when it tells us in verse 3 that all things came into being through him. Apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. What that means is John is connecting the dots to Jesus and creation and that they're inseparable. And that now Jesus is the special revelation, is the special one. We can now say who has created all things, and all things are created for him and by Him.
Another aspect that we see is that Jesus is the better Adam. We see that in verses 10 through 12 that Jesus is rejected just the way, the same way that Adam rejected God says that he was in the world, verse 10, and the world was made through him. The world did not know him. He came to his own, but those who were his own did not receive him, but as many as received him. To them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.
See, what John is drawing our attention back to is now the garden scene, not the creation scene, but the garden scene where Adam rejected everything that God the Father had told him. You can eat of anything else in the garden, but you cannot eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil cannot do that. What does Adam do? He rejects the very one who created him, the very one he communed with in the garden. And so it is that as God the Father was rejected by Adam, so all mankind has rejected Jesus and his authority.
He came to his own and his own rejected him. But here's the nuance. Jesus is a better representative for for us than Adam was. Adam represented all of us. This is why we're all sinners.
When he disobeyed God, when he rejected what God had told him as truth and wanted to do things on his own, sin came into being. Sin happened. And now all mankind, from generations unborn, will have now a sinful nature. Well, Jesus fully God comes taking on flesh, and he is the new representative. He is the second Adam, the better Adam, who does perfectly everything God the Father wills and desires.
And now because of that, all those who believe in Jesus and receive Him. He, Jesus makes them children of the living God. Only Jesus who is fully God can do that.
Then we have Jesus as the true Son. Look at verse 14, this one. This verse is the most jam packed with all the imagery of the Old Testament. And let me just break this down for you as I walk through it. Verse 14.
The Word became flesh. Adam. Adam became flesh, right? The Word became flesh. He took on humanity and dwelt among us.
And actually the Word there is tabernacled among us. And so John's audience would have thought back in those ancient of times when God would dwell in a tent in the tabernacle and all of Israel be gathered around to worship them. And so Jesus dwelt or tabernacled among us and we saw his glory. You remember another person who asked to see the glory of God? Moses in Exodus, chapter 30.
But what did God say to Moses? You can't see my glory and live. But what's interesting is Jesus, because he's God, has seen the glory and now he takes on flesh and he comes to reveal glory. He is those sunglasses that enable us to look at God and continue to live, to look at God's glory and for us to continue to live. And so we saw his glory.
Glory as the only begotten from the Father. This phrase draws reference from Abraham and Isaac. Sure, Abraham had Ishmael not by way of the Lord, but through his own means, by his own strength with Hagar. But the promised child, the begotten child that God had promised was Isaac. And it was Isaac who was the begotten of Abraham, the true son of Abraham.
And this is the reference to Jesus, that Jesus is the Son of the Father. And the Son of the Father is like that what we understand Isaac and Abraham to be. He is the special one. He is the one that is favored. And this is what we see God doing all God the Father doing.
For throughout Jesus ministry, you remember, when Jesus is baptized, we're going to be looking at this in Epiphany. When Jesus is baptized, the heavens break open and God the Father speaks his favor upon his own Son. At the transfiguration where the disciples first see a glimpse of the full deity of who Jesus is. On the mountain of Transfiguration, God the Father breaks open the heavens and says, this is my Son with whom I'm well pleased. God the Father is very well pleased in God the Son.
He favors him. There is nothing that Christ himself as a son is going to be detriment to. He is going to always be the beloved of the Father. And we see that by looking back at Isaac and Abraham. And then he's full of grace and truth.
This speaks again to how Jesus is the Word. What is grace and truth, but the substance of what the Word is made of? Jesus comes and radiates the glory. We see his glory because he enacts grace and truth. What he speaks is right, what he speaks is good.
What he speaks is most wise. And the fact that he's speaking to us is a gracious act towards us who don't deserve anything but death because of our sin. So Jesus, we learn here, is a better Adam, is a better Isaac, is a better tabernacle, is a better Israel. Jesus. All these little types leading up kind of pale in comparison to Jesus.
Not kind of, they do. They're good in helping us understand an aspect of Jesus. But as you read through the Old Testament, as we draw these images from the Old Testament that John is pulling back in writing here in this first chapter, what you're left with is these mighty heroes of the faith. And we're still left wanting because they still are wrapped with sin. You think back to Moses and you're like, what a great leader.
He was obedient to God. He did execute God's desires and wills, and yet he was a murderer. And yet he did some things that were displeasing to God. We're still left with needing a better leader to come. We have a type, but not the fullness of one.
And then David comes onto the scene, and here we're given a king, a king after God's own heart, and yet he's an adulterer, and yet he still displeases God. And we're left wanting, and we're left needing something better. We're given this whole family of Israel. Israel is supposed to embody all of what God wants to happen over the face of the earth. God has chosen Israel to be his collective son, to spread grace and truth to all the other nations.
And they don't. They keep it within themselves. They never go outside of themselves. They say, no, we are the elect, we are the special ones. And they create a boundary around themselves.
And we're still left wanting a better family, one that's perfectly obedient. Because they're obedient, then they're disobedient. They're obedient, then they're disobedient, and God gets frustrated with them. Well, good news. Jesus Christ is a better Israel.
Jesus Christ is a better representative. So he's A better Adam, he's a better king than David. He's a better prophet and a better leader than Moses because he's going to do everything perfectly. And we're going to finally be filled to the fullness with Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ also is true God and bears God's image. This is in verse 18. This wasn't in our gospel reading, so I'll read it for us. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.
This is a great verse because it culminates everything that Jesus is. Jesus being fully God and fully man here is merged in the perfection of. Of what God looks like and what also mankind is meant to be. Jesus bridges that gap. He brings both of those things together.
When it says that no, no one has seen God at any time, well, Jesus has. Jesus knows exactly what God looks like and who God is. And he's the only begotten. He's that special son of God who's in the bosom of the Father. What does that mean, the bosom of the Father?
Well, there's two instances that we are given in the New Testament that we can relate to. This one is when this leper, Lazarus, right, goes to the rich man. The rich man rejects him and then they both die. The rich man, Lazarus, gets taken to the bosom of Abraham to live in the heavens. He's ushered into the bosom of Abraham by angels.
And the rich man doesn't. The rich man is swallowed up with flames. And he speaks to Abraham and he says, can you tell Lazarus to go dip his finger in some water and just touch the tip of my tongue? See, that's how the pride still works in hell. They still think the rich man still thinks he's rich and that Lazarus should serve him.
And Abraham says he's not going to concern himself with you. But the idea of the whole process and the whole concept of Lazarus being in the bosom of Abraham is because of a promise that God made to Abraham. God promised Abraham that I'm going to bless you and you're going to have more descendants than you can count. So right now, in heaven, alongside with Jesus, we are going to meet Abraham. Because every person who dies in Jesus Christ is received by Abraham into his bosom because that's Abraham's getting his promise fulfilled with every person in Jesus Christ.
They are a child of God. And God says, I share my children with you, Abraham. You were the first. You were the first that I've Called out in faith and you were obedient. I told you, if you're obedient and you follow and serve me, I will bless you with more descendants than you can ever count.
Jesus Christ came through your line and he's blessed you with more children than you can count. So receive the children that who believe in Jesus come ushered in by the angels. And it's this relationship to be held close to Abraham that may not be significant to you, but it's going to be significant to him because it's a promise fulfilled by God the Father. And you're going to be hugged by this man, and he is going to love you like a father and he's going to hold you close to the bosom. And this is also replicated when John, the beloved disciple at the Last Supper, leans on Jesus bosom, right?
And we all can understand that imagery of John leaning back on the bosom of Christ and how that is a special relationship, how that is loving and kind and connected and intimate. And this is what we're told about Jesus, that Jesus is in the bosom of the Father. That tells us the relationship that God the Father and God the Son have. They're inseparable. Jesus is in the bosom of the Father.
And if you will receive Jesus, then you're in Jesus's bosom. And guess where you also rest? In the bosom of the Father. It's relationship, it's intimacy. That's exactly what Jesus embodies.
That's exactly what he is explaining to us when we read about Jesus in the Gospels, that he is the special son of God who is in the bosom of the Father. And he is explaining to us what God is, who God is, and we can finally understand because of Jesus. So now what are the applications? And I just want to spend just a few moments here, not very long, just to maybe draw this home. So what's the big deal?
Okay, I can confess that Jesus is fully God and fully man. I don't really understand the connection, but what's the big to do about it? Why do I just not only need to confess it, but why do I need to believe it in the heart? And what does it mean for my life? What does it mean that Jesus is fully God?
Does he really ultimately have to be fully God for me to believe in him? Yes. But do I have to believe that he's fully man? Yes. We use these titles, and when you're reading through your scriptures, you're going to see two titles about Jesus, Son of God.
That's his relationship, and that's about his deity. That's about him being fully God and Son of Man. And that is a relationship with how he relates to us and how he represents us and how he leads us to better places, to greener pastures. And that speaks to his humanity. And he is equally fully, 100% God and man.
So what does it mean for us that he is fully God? Being God, Jesus doesn't fail. That means, as we read Jesus walking from place to place, healing people and resurrecting people, and that when he goes to the cross, dies himself and is resurrected and ascends into the right hand of the God, this is Jesus, the God who is perfectly doing everything. And so we can trust in the work of Jesus for your salvation. His salvation that he's offering, that he accomplished on the cross, all the redemption that he affords us is very true.
It's very real. Just like God the Father spoke, let there be light. Light didn't have an option not to show up. When God speaks, truth pours out. And it has to happen.
It's just not a word. It's a word in action. When God says, storms calm, the storms have to obey. And so Jesus being fully God means that he is Lord over our lives. He is God over our lives and our lives serve him and glorify him.
And what he does and what he has accomplished is sure, regardless of what you think or not see. Some people might ignore the fact that Jesus is God, but that doesn't make it any less true. Jesus is God. And being fully God, it means that he's always been there. So he has a better frame of reference for your problems and challenges than you do.
Because he's been there through every generation and every period of time throughout all our history, because he's been eternal. This is very significant because when it comes to us saying you need to trust and believe in Jesus, you can trust and believe in Jesus because he is fully God, because what he says is true. And what he says will come to pass. It cannot not happen. And that's a very, very encouraging thing, that Jesus is God because we hang our hat on him.
And we hang our hat on a good, true, wonderful thing. Because Jesus is God.
Jesus being God means that Jesus isn't surprised. He isn't surprised by anything that you might do. He's all knowing and we can trust in that. So if God, if Jesus isn't surprised, then when we go to him with our prayers and petitions and we lay open our lives before him and we say this is what I'm struggling with. This is what I'm going through.
This is what I've done and I've offended against you. When we confess our sins, he's not taken back. He's not blown away and surprised. He's caring. He's merciful because he's all knowing.
He's always existed. There's nothing that surprises him. And Jesus being God means that the recreation you need to happen in your life. All of us probably should say, if you don't believe this, maybe you ought to get to that point. All of us are longing for a better life.
All of us are always praying, when is this getting better? When can this happen? I want a better life. I need a better life. I need a better nature.
I need to get better. I need everything to be getting better. The good news is when you believe in Jesus, Jesus is God. And guess who creates by the very power of His Word? He can speak into your life and recreate what you have messed up.
He can restore the years the locusts have taken, what you have created in shambles. He can recreate. That's very good news. That Jesus is fully God. And Jesus, being God, has full authority.
Matthew 28:18 says, Jesus came up and spoke to his disciples, saying, all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. The problem is that Jesus, though being fully God and is in authority over all things. He. He created all things. Nothing.
The way your heart palpitates, the way you breathe, the way you see, the way children are born, all of that Jesus holds by the word of his power. He upholds it. He is the one that creates it and makes it happen. We think that we're the ones that make a lot of things happen. We open our eyes and we see.
And it just works that way. No, you open your eyes and see because Jesus upholds that for every person in the world, for every creature that he has created, he upholds all that and he has authority over all of it. He can give, he could take away. Now, sometimes you may not trust in his authority. You may say, I don't really trust that you know what's best for my life.
So I'm going to cut to, to trust in myself and control it myself. You might do that, but that nonetheless doesn't. Jesus still has authority over your life because all authority's been given to Him. You may ignore it, but that doesn't negate the fact that he has authority over heaven and earth and nothing escapes Him. There's.
There's a sweetness, there's a confidence in that. And therefore we, his church, must submit ourselves to his authority in all things. You don't live for yourself. You don't get to design your life because Jesus is God and Jesus has recreated your life. Jesus has given you salvation and he is God over your life.
And he's created and he upholds it. We seek him and his authority over us. You might say, well, man, that sounds like a major dictatorship that I have to submit to. But here's the reality, folks. Here's where it all comes down to Matthew 6:25.
No one can serve two masters for you. Either he will hate one and love the other, or he will devote to one and despise the other. Here's the reality. If you want to be your own authority of your life and make claim to your own, you're the authority, which means you'll love yourself and despise God. But if you submit to the rule and reign of Jesus, who is in ultimate authority, then you'll love him and despise yourself.
And I would just ask you to consider who's more trustworthy to lead and to rule over your life. A God who is all good, all knowing, all wise, all love, all kindness, all mercy, all justice, all grace. Is that the person that you want in authority, or do you want yourself in authority that might have some of those things? You might be a really kind person, might be really gracious and merciful at times not so well on justice. Let people get away with what they need to get away with.
Who is it that ought to lead and direct your life? You can't have it both ways. And since we see that Jesus is divine, we also see that he's fully human. And this is where we'll close out for the day. We see that because Jesus is fully human, he takes on our flesh.
He experiences our life. He can sympathize with us. He knows what it's like to lose somebody in death. This is why we get the shortest verse in the New Testament. Jesus wept.
What is he weeping over? The loss of Lazarus. And it's through his loving compassion he resurrects him from the dead. But Jesus weeps because he experienced loss. Jesus is tempted in every way that we have been tempted.
And yet without sin, he can identify with you. He can relate to our lives. He is not a God that is removed, but he is a God who came down and lived among us and lived the life that we could not live. So he can represent us and give us salvation. Jesus sympathized with us and this is evident in First Corinthians 10:13.
No temptation has overtaken you, but such as common to man. And God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation will provide the way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it. This is good news because Jesus can relate to you and sympathize with you. He's not going to tempt you more than you can bear.
He understands your plight, he understands your life, and he gives you that promise because he's fully man being human. Jesus is our example, right? We can actually have a standard that we can gauge our own lives with. We can read about Jesus life as being human, walking among us, and we can see him making decisions. We can see him walking and navigating his life in true wisdom so that he is our example, a great example that we can orient our life to.
This is why he says in John 13:15, for I give you an example that you also should do as I do to you. We learn how to treat others by the way Jesus treats us. We learn how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength by the way Jesus loves the Father and accomplishes his will. Hebrews 1:3 says, and Jesus is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. When he had made purifications and sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
Jesus is our great example. He is the one that at the beginning let us create man in our own image, and then that image failed. Jesus is the image of humanity that has not failed. That is perfect Jesus being human. He is our perfect representative.
Now, you may not understand why you need a representative, but God tells us throughout the Old Testament, that's why we have sacrifices. There's sin, and now death is the penalty of sin. Death is the wages of sin. So how are we going to work this out? Is every human going to die for themselves and then they won't exist anymore?
How is it. How is there a representative that can effectively represent humanity so that humans don't have to die, but yet a sacrifice for sin can be made? Well, we're given animal sacrifices because animals have the breath of life in them just like we do. They are a good representative for mankind that's established by God and we're given that concept. And now when Jesus comes, though an animal isn't a perfect representative for mankind, we are in need of a perfect man to represent all Mankind and Jesus is it.
So the simple fact that Jesus is human, fully man, means that his representation of us when he dies on the cross, his sacrifice for sin, can forgive all sin of all mankind for all time, past, present and future. It's effective and it's good. Now as we close, the questions that need to be popping up in your head is, is Jesus ruling over your life as God? Are you following Jesus example as you live your life? Are you following Jesus, who is fully man, as an example to live your life?
We are always growing and maturing in our faith and the response is to have the Holy Spirit reveal where you need to grow in the areas of your life so that Jesus is fully God and fully man in your life. How are you thinking about these things? I know this has been really deep. It's been almost all over the place because we pulled a lot of images from the Old Testament. But as we enter in 2025, there's this moment that we get to have to really read this and really study it and really come to understand who God is because he's revealed himself.
I would be frustrated if I wrote a five book journal about who I was and my wife was not interested in reading it or she read it, but she didn't want to understand it. She didn't take the time to really get to know me through those things that I've written. It's exactly what God has done. He has written about himself and the person of Jesus Christ to you. And I would lead you as your pastor, to shepherd your heart towards really understanding this.
To not just be okay with not understanding things, but to seek understanding through the Holy spirit. So may 2025 be a resolution to really know who God is. And we begin this year by looking at how John in his gospel opens up his gospel and says, this is who Jesus is. He's fully God and fully man, and we need him to be both. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you so much that you have not left us to wonder about who you are, but you have revealed and told us who you are through your Word. And as your beloved disciple John has penned these words for us to read and to understand and to take in and absorb in our minds and our hearts. I pray that you'll fill each and every one of us with the Holy Spirit to understand who you are so that we can fall deeper in love with you. And by understanding who you are, it can teach us to love each other better. I pray for everyone here that they would dive into your word so they can get to know you more this year.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Now we're going to enter our time.