John 1 (Part 1) :1-5 • In the Beginning was the Word

open your bible to the gospel according to john and we're going to get into it this morning if you're there we're going to take the first five verses of the chapter there's so much here it goes like this follow along with me as i read 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 anything 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 stop there let's pray father in heaven just five verses this morning but there's so much here that you have to say to us and i pray my father god that our hearts would be open to your voice today lord may your spirit speak fill us with grace and understanding that we might grow in the grace and knowledge of our savior jesus christ for it is in his name that we pray amen if i could give you one easy interpretive tool for understanding the gospel

according to john it's this it's all about jesus there it is right there if you keep that in mind that this book is all about him he is the central character jesus is the focus of everything that john is going to talk about here in this book he is everything and everything is about him what's interesting about the way john starts this gospel account is that it's very different from the other gospel writers did you ever notice as you read through matthew mark and luke you find that they start talking about jesus within the context

really of the the history of israel matthew begins with the legal genealogy of jesus and uh he he begins with abraham the the father of the jews mark begins by telling about the preaching of john the baptist as he began to speak of the coming or the time of messiah for the nation of israel and then luke he begins he goes back to the birth of john the baptist then he begins to cover the birth of jesus and then he shares the biological genealogy of jesus and goes all the way back to adam but all

of these things relate to the nation of israel relate to the the kingdom of man and so forth that that jesus was born into but john takes a different path altogether interesting here that john begins at eternity past which is an interesting sort of a phrase but he begins by saying in the beginning and we read those those words and we think in the beginning the beginning of what well the beginning of when things began you see our human minds we don't we can understand there is an eternity past but even then we're using an

oxymoron you know there is no past to eternity eternity is timelessness and so when we use those two words together they really don't fit but they help us to understand what we're talking about we're talking about the time before time we're talking about that time and time doesn't even work but we're still talking about that part of eternity before things began and so that's what john begins with but see this has caused some people to wonder and they begin to think about this and they think okay john begins by talking about jesus as it relates

to creation he says in the beginning which is another way of talking about creation when things began when god created things that's when the beginning was and he says in the beginning was the word and we know that it's talking about jesus because it's all about jesus but this has caused some people to wonder if john is saying to us that jesus began when things began well that's not at all what john is saying he's simply saying in verse 1 that when things began jesus was there let me put it the other way jesus was

there when things began okay well that's an interesting way of saying it but you know jesus himself actually goes back and speaks of himself before that he and again before is a time word but he speaks of himself in eternity past let me show you a couple examples on the screen john chapter 17 jesus is praying here he says i glorified you on earth speaking to the father having accomplished the work that you gave me to do and now father glorify me in your own presence with the glory i had with you before the world

existed and that's another way of saying before the beginning or before everything began in other words jesus is saying that his glory was with the father in eternity past all right here's another example actually just later in the chapter father i desire that they also whom you have given me may be with you where i am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me here it is again before the foundation of the world and in both of these passage the passages jesus is saying i was with you father in eternity

past in that in that in that period before time began i was there i shared your glory and and and those are wonderful statements but they all make a little more sense when we read verse 1 as a complete verse where it says again in the beginning was the word okay when everything began there was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and now we understand from the single verse more about jesus we know that he is the very word of god the word of god the greek word is

the lagos he is the logos of god but then in a in an even more climactic statement john says that the word is god fascinating but there's a lot to these statements and we need to kind of unpack them a little bit first of all what did john mean when he wrote here that jesus is the word of god right well again this is that word logos but this is not an un usual idea as it relates to the old testament because we know the word of god was very active in the old testament and

particularly in creation we know that when we come to creation we see the logos the word of god going forth here's some examples just just a few and god said let there be light and god said let there be an expanse and god said he is sending forth his word let the waters under the heavens be gathered together and god said let the earth sprout vegetation you get the picture it's the the work of creation was accomplished by the word of god the logos going forth and creating and so what we're saying here since john

tells us that jesus is the word of god we're saying jesus is the creator he is the one who went forth and created it is his word that went forth and created and that's exactly what the rest of the bible corroborates for us in several different places from the book of hebrews in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things and look at this through whom also he created the world and then colossians chapter 1 verse 16. paul says it even more clearly for by

him jesus all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and then even right here in john chapter 1 skip down to verse 3. john says it here again you read in your bible all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made so there's no question about the fact that god created the heavens and the earth by sending forth his word and jesus is that word that was sent forth

the creator who went forth and created now we need to back up a little bit and look at some this other statement that john made at the end of verse 1 that is even more bold and he says two very important things about jesus as the word look at the end of verse 1 and the word was with god and the word was god okay so what is he saying first of all when he says that when the word was with god he's saying that the word is distinguished from god the father and we know

that to be the case we know that the father is a person and we know that the son of god or in this case the word of god is also a person separate from the father in their personhood one with god in their divinity so we have one god with distinct person so that's why john tells us that the word was with god and this messes with people's minds the nature of god always will mess with our minds i have people ask me quite often if jesus is god then why did he pray to god

when he was honored there's they're separate persons they've been they were talking from all eternity good grief you can hear the the persons of the trinity speaking in in the creation account let us make men in our image right who's he talking to who's god talking to oh he's talking to the angels bible never says that man was created in the image of angels it says so man created him in the image of god he made him male and female he made them in the image of god let us make man in our image the

father and the son been talking you know from eternity and the spirit having a conversation and and there's this beautiful fellowship that's going on let's see but that that it's it's hard for us to understand it's hard it's impossible for us to understand the nature of god and so people question it and they say i don't understand how that could be well good for you because you never will we're talking about god here we're not talking about mankind we're talking about god and we're talking about the nature of god and if you don't get it

so there you go that means god's bigger than you that ought to make you happy right so the next thing he goes on to say is the word was god and that's a very definitive statement isn't it if i simply say to you the word was god the word is god it's very definitive very very kind of cut and dry very clear it's not hard to understand when he simply says the word was god in fact it's so clear and it's so definitive it has been viciously attacked i don't know if you've had a jehovah's

witness come to your door lately try their level best to convince you that uh your bible's got it all wrong and that jesus is not in fact god he is a god small g in fact let me show you how and they have their own bible you know the jehovah's witnesses they call it the new world translation on the top is what we just read from the esv which is what all the other english translations say in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god very very clear

very concise but the jehovah's witness bible says the word was in the beginning with god and was a god and again the new world translation is the only one and if you ask them why their bible differs from your bible they'll give you all kinds of grammatical reasons why it's so but it's very dishonest and it's very unscholarly because there's no other english bible translation or frankly in any other language that agrees with the new world translation in fact i remember when i went to bible college they gave us in this particular class that i

had a list of all of the english translations of the bible from the very first english translation to the current time and that was back in the 80s so there's been more since then and i had a jehovah's witness come to my door and we started talking about this whole issue of who jesus is and i said hang on just a sec so i went in the other room and i got this piece of paper and it came back and i grabbed a highlighter and i highlighted their bible because the jehovah's witnesses bible was listed

there because it is an english translation of the bible so i highlighted their bible and i showed them this long page of english translations and i said these translations represent hundreds of bible scholars who were able to read and write greek for the new testament and you're telling me from all of these bible translators and all the schooling and the learning that they you're that your guys are the only ones that got it right and this guy looked me right now i said that's what i'm telling you i said well we don't have much else

to say because that's crazy there is no other bible that agrees with the new world translation and the reason the new world translation says that the word was a god is because it agrees with their theology and that's the only reason and the grammatical excuses they give you for why they made it that way don't apply to where they they translated the verses in other areas in fact i'll just quick grammatical sort of a thing the word a right you guys remember your grammar that's the indefinite article the indefinite article doesn't exist in the greek

they don't have an indefinite article they have a definite article which is the but a doesn't exist so in english we do have to put the indefinite article in but the context has to demand it you with me the context has to demand it the only reason they put the word a before god and then gave it a small g is because for them the context demanded it because russell told them that jesus is only a god not one with the god and that's the only reason the rest of the book of john and this

is something you're going to see as we go through this whole gospel account the rest of the book of john is going to scream out and say jesus is god over and over and over again in fact i trust that by the time we're finished with john and i don't know how long it's going to take don't bug me about it by the time we're done with the gospel according to john you are going to be convinced of one thing john declared jesus to be god in human flesh it will happen over and over and

over again but here's what's really interesting too not only did john as an eyewitness record for us statements that were made by jesus that could only be made by god but the jews who heard jesus believed he was claiming to be god as well they were there the jews were there they heard him preaching teaching and talking so what did they hear what did they hear jesus saying let me show you john chapter 10 up on the screen the jews picked up stones again to stone him obviously this wasn't the first time jesus answered them

i have shown you many good works from the father for which of them are you going to stone me the jews answered him it is not for a good work that we're going to stone you but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself god do you think the jews heard him saying he was god you bet he they did and that's why they picked up rocks they thought he was committing blasphemy when he was in fact telling the truth but so it's clear you know from what we see in in in the bible

and speaking of statements that declare his deity let's look at verse 4. this is a beautiful verse but it's too easy just to quickly run past it look at verse 4 in your bible in him was life and the life was the light of men now it seems like a fairly simple statement doesn't it in him was life and we kind of think okay well that's interesting but did you know that there are several greek words that we translate just simply life in the new testament but they have very different meanings let me put these

up on the screen for you life in the new testament could be bios which is where we get the idea of physical life it's obviously where we get our english word biology when jesus talked about the cares and pleasures of this life he used that word that is the word it's that is that biological life but then there's another word that is translated life in the bible and that's pasuke and that speaks of the soul right or there's even one particular bible translation i forget which one it is that actually translates pasuke soul life and

and that's actually accurate because it's not talking about the physical life it's talking about the emotional intellectual life that we have and that's by the way where we get our word psychology right dealing with the emotions the will and the intellect and that's just translated life in the bible but then there's this last word and this is the one john uses here in chapter one there's zoe i don't know if we have any zoe's here in the room i kind of like that name because it means life but it doesn't just mean life it's talking

about the uncreated eternal life that comes from god and is imparted to mankind it doesn't come from us we we have physical life and we have pursue emotional intellectual life we don't have eternal life apart from god imparting it to us right but that is the life that john is talking about when he says in him in jesus was the life the eternal uncreated life of god it is in him isn't that great now if that isn't a statement of his deity i don't know what is in jesus is eternal uncreated life okay that's what

john is telling you that's what he's saying to me we have to hear and understand uh these statements and then he goes on to say that this life was the light of man in other words the life of jesus is the light of mankind the eternal uncreated life of jesus is the very light that we walk by and the fact that he is the light in us and the only light in us reminds us that mankind is living in total darkness mankind is in spiritual darkness and we witness it every day you know i brought

up my my phone app between services and i thought i'm gonna i'm just gonna pull up my news app just for a second just read the first headline put it on there it was something about somebody killing somebody else the world is full of darkness we see it we read about it right but john says in verse 5 the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it isn't that interesting the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it there's two statements here the first is the light shines

in the darkness the idea is oh and by the way i just want you to get used to this as we go through john his gospel and then get into his his letters for a second third john get used to talking about light and dark because he talks about him a lot these are his favorite word pictures to describe so many things uh but this is this is really uh what he loves to talk about and he'll refer to that deep darkness that has fallen over all of mankind and the people living in this world

living in darkness living in depravity but he says here in verse 5 that the the light shines in the darkness guess who the light is it's you look at matthew chapter five you are the light of the world he says a city set on a hill you can't hide that it's gonna it's gonna glow it's gonna light up the sky can't be hidden and he said you know people people don't light a lamp and then frankly and then right away put a bowl over the top of it that'd be dumb rather they put it on

a stand and it gives light to everybody in the house in the same way here's what he says let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and pat you on the back and say you are cool that's not what it says does it it's so so that they might give glory to your father see this is all about giving glory to god why because the light comes from him it doesn't come from you it's not of you it's of him jesus is the light he gives us the light of

life and it's the light that we are told to let shine before others just about the time we start worrying you know and we think to ourself you know i think the church has gotten so weak i don't know if we have any light left and you know there have been times in history when the church has it seemed like the church's light was being snuffed out but i love how john ends this statement concerning the light and the darkness and he says to us the darkness has not overcome it isn't that good news the

darkness has not overcome it interesting this greek word that is translated overcome carries the idea of taking hold of something so that you can have it so that you can possess it so that you can control it and he says the darkness is trying to take hold of the light so that it can possess it but it hasn't been able to do that and it says here in the esv it says it hasn't been able uh to overcome it but have you ever you might have a different bible translation and some of them translate it

slightly different than others in fact the niv between the 1984 revision of the niv and then the 2011 version when they updated it they actually changed their mind on how this verse goes let me show you up in 1984 that revision said the light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it and then in 2011 they revised it to say the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it and you might say well what why why the difference well here's the reason for the difference this this is not

a bad translation by the way the niv is a good translation of the bible what you're seeing here is a real challenge of bible translators because john doesn't say why the darkness wants to overcome the light he doesn't tell us why he doesn't tell us whether it's an intellectual trying to overcome it or whether it is a violent trying to overcome it so as to extinguish it he doesn't explain so it's up to the bible translators to try to kind of figure that out according to the context and sometimes they come up with the idea

that it's like well the light shines in the darkness but the darkness hasn't grasped hold of it as to understand it and then they go well you know i think it's more of a violent sort of a grasping so the darkness wants to lay hold of the light but it hasn't overcome it and so forth actually you know what i think they may both be correct because if you take john at his at his root meaning what he's saying is the light shines in the darkness and the darkness hasn't been able to able to take

hold of it that's all he's saying whether for intellectual or violent reasons who cares the darkness has not been able to grab hold of it lay hold of it and control it and it never will and that's good news for you and me today and we are being encouraged here to let our light shine because guys the world's getting darker but you know darkness technically can't get darker the world gets darker only because the light becomes more dim do you guys understand that darkness isn't really a thing it's really just an absence of light right

when you turn on the light the darkness goes away because the light takes over and we've been called to shine our light in a very dark world and it's hard you know chuck lind joined us for our men's breakfast yesterday morning you know he he had such a good time to sharing with us but he challenged the men who came to breakfast yesterday not to get angry at the darkness of the world because it's very easy to do you read the news you read the headlines you see what's going on you see what your politicians

are doing or not doing and it's really easy you know just to go what are those dopes up to now oh they're just you know they're common sense is gone and they're making all these dumb decisions and you know and you get frustrated but frustration can lead to anger do you know that bible verse that says man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that god desires that's true isn't it man's anger you're never going to be able to shine your light when you're angry about the world in fact it will extinguish your light

it'll cover it up it will be like lighting a lamp and putting a bowl over it so we have to be very careful don't get angry don't get frustrated shine your light let your light shine let people see the life that jesus has deposited in you through his spirit let them see it share about jesus talk about him tell people about what he did on the cross shine your light amen let's stand together we're going to have some people up front here to pray with you as you're heading out if you need prayer this morning

we encourage you to come up and get that so let's pray together shall we father we've we've looked at you know just a few verses here as we've begun the study of the gospel according to john and so many things lord that we all already see and you've you've given us this amazing glimpse of your nature and and lord it's beyond us we have absolutely no explanation for how you can be separate persons and one god and yet lord you've revealed it in the word and and even though there have been many attacks on this

help us lord to stand strong on what your word says and father we've seen also here today that you have given a great light to shine within each of us who have come to know jesus as our savior and i pray my father god that we would not allow that light to become dimmed through fear or intimidation or sin or any number of other things even frustration leading to anger father keep us in christ keep us focused on your will and your word keep our hearts light help us lord to keep coming to the throne

of grace to offload the burdens and challenges that we pick up on a daily basis so that we can walk in the freedom that jesus gives us to shine that glorious light to the people around us lord the people of this world are walking in deep darkness and violence and corruption is the order of the day but you have called us lord you've called us to be different to be other and to shine that light to the glory of god and we ask you to strengthen us every single day to do just that we ask

it in jesus precious name and all god's people said together amen god bless you have a good rest of your sunday you