Transcription
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Word of the Lord.
Interestingly enough, there's a season in the Christian year called Epiphany. It's not as well known as Lent or Advent. It ordinarily is understood to be between Advent and Lent because in Advent we're looking at the birth of Jesus, and in Lent we're looking at the death of Jesus. So, Epiphany is actually a period of time to look at the life of Jesus.
By the way, for those of you with a college education, you already knew that. That's what happens between the birth and the death of somebody: it's the life. During the dark time of the year, Epiphany means there's a light that has happened—that Jesus Christ has come into a dark world. During these months, we look at Jesus; we just look at his life, his words, his deeds.
We're going to do this for two months, focusing on one Gospel: John. What John shows us about the life of Jesus, the words and the deeds of Jesus, starts with this very famous first chapter, also called the prologue of John. It is so rich that it takes a little pressure off me because one of the things that ministers want to do is say, "If I'm going to preach on a text, I have to get all the good stuff out to give it to people." Well, there's too much good stuff to give you, so I can't do it all—not in the time allotted.
What I can do is give you a top-level look at the outline of it and the basic gist of it, which is powerful enough.
Let's outline it:
- Verses 1 to 4 give us a claim.
- Verses 5 to 11 show us the widespread rejection of that claim.
- Verses 12, 13, and 14 give us an answer to those objections and rejection of the claim.
So, there's the claim, the rejection of the claim, and the answers to the objections.
First of all, let's look at verses 1, 2, and 3. Here we have a claim. This is very famous because it's about the Word, and we learn five things about the Word:
1. The Word is a person.
2. The Word is a divine person.
3. The Word was God; he's divine.
4. The Word is an uncreated divine person.
5. The Word is the source of all life.
Verse 4 states, "In him was life." That's where life comes from. Lastly, verse 14 reveals that this is Jesus: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
It would take all night, five weeks, or even a year to unpack those five claims about Jesus. However, there's a central issue, a central claim being made here that can only be understood if we take a little time to think it out.
The main thing that John is saying about Jesus is not just that he's divine and personal, but that he is the Word. The Greek word that John uses here very deliberately is "logos" (l-o-g-o-s). In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. Jesus Christ is that logos, which became flesh and dwelt among us.
John was deliberately choosing a word that had a lot of philosophical, cultural, and linguistic freight to it. Unless you understand what that freight is, we can't grasp the startling and radical nature of this claim.
To understand it, consider this: the Greek philosophers looked at nature and saw balance, order, and harmony. They believed that behind that order and harmony was a cosmic spiritual principle that they called the logos.
One philosophy textbook states, "The logos for the Greeks was the impersonal harmonious divine structure of the cosmos as a whole." In other words, the Greeks said, "Look at all this order. Where does this order come from? There's some kind of principle, some kind of divine structure, some absolute cosmic order that the world is a kind of outworking from."
Now, this has been very intellectual so far, right? Very esoteric, very elevated. Don't some of you feel really good about yourself just for being here at a place where we talk like this?
Let's bring this down to earth. If you're going to understand the logos, this philosophical concept, I have to talk to you about my space heaters.
My building is undergoing the tribulation called Local Law 11. Local Law 11 means that every five years, you have to inspect the facade of the buildings to see whether the bricks or the mortar need to be repointed or anything needs to be done. When they decide, "Oh yes, you do need that work done," they put these guys up there on scaffolds. They put scaffolding up, and they're on these platforms; they go up and down and fix the outside of your building.
In our case, when they're doing that, we're not allowed to have our heaters on for various reasons, so they give us space heaters. The management of the building provides the space heaters.
Now, these space heaters come with direction manuals. You know what's in the direction manuals? The logos of the space heater. The direction manual tells you what the space heater was made to do, what it was designed to do.
See, the word logos doesn't just mean "word." It has a broader range than that; it actually means "purpose" or "reason." Think of "logo" and "logic." The reason for existence.
The directions for the space heaters say, "Here's what the space heaters were built to do. This is their reason for existence. Here's what they were made for." It says, "Don't plug it into this source; plug it into this source." It says, "Don't put it over there; put it over here," because it was made to do this, but not to do this.
What the directions are actually doing is urging me to align my use of the space heater with their design. If I don't use it in alignment with its design, at the very best, I just won't get the proper value out of it. At the very worst, I will burn down my apartment.
The Greeks said, "What if the universe has a logos? What if life has a logos? What if there is a reason for life that we all have to align our lives with?" Then it goes well, and we can be content. If we don't align ourselves with it, if we don't align ourselves with the ultimate reality behind the universe, we will not be content, or at worst, we'll burn our lives down.
So, the Greeks said, "There is an absolute truth behind the universe that we have to align ourselves with." Of course, there was a difference of opinion about how to do that or even what it was.
The Stoics, as you can guess from their name, were a particular school of Greek thought. They believed that the way to align yourself with the universe's ultimate reality was to accept everything that happened. No matter how bad it was, you didn't let it get to you. You just said, "That's it; that's life."
So, you're aligning yourself by summoning up all of your self-control to always accept everything that happens and never let it get to you.
Most people didn't take such an ambitious approach. There were people who said, "The logos, the reason for life, is actually to make the world a better place for the people who come afterward." So, you need to make the world a better place.
Other people would say, "No, the reason, the meaning of life, is to find what makes you happy and be happy." That's the Epicurean view.
They all had very different views on what it meant to align yourself with ultimate reality and what it meant to bring your life into alignment with ultimate reality.
Then the earthquake happened. John chapter 1 was an earthquake. In a book on the history of philosophy that I just read, written by a French philosophy professor who is an atheist, he states that up until this time, both Greek philosophy and Eastern religions believed that the heart of the universe was basically impersonal.
There was a kind of cosmic spirit behind things, but the universe was basically impersonal. What it meant to align yourself with ultimate reality was to find the natural order of things and align your life with it. It meant being a moral person, a strong person, or a brilliant person, or something like that.
But along comes John, with all that background, and he starts right out by saying, "Oh yes, there is a logos. In the beginning, there was the logos, and everything that happened, everything was designed through the logos, and everything that existed came through the logos. But this logos is not a cosmic principle; it's not an abstract set of standards. It's a person to be known and loved—not something to be deduced through contemplation, not something to be aligned with by summoning up the blood and becoming this incredibly brilliant, self-controlled person, but someone to know.
It's a person, a divine person that we are to know and love. Then we are connected to the heart of ultimate reality. This is revolutionary. Nobody ever said anything like this before.
This book that I mentioned, a kind of popular history of thought, is called "A Brief History of Thought." It's relatively brief and accessible, though the author is a scholar. Here's what he says:
"The logos for the Greeks was the impersonal harmonious divine structure of the cosmos as a whole. But to the horror of the Greeks, the Christians maintained that the logos, in other words, the cosmic principle, was not the harmonious order of the world but was a single unique personality—one outstanding individual, namely Christ."
You see, up until now, everybody always said the heart of ultimate reality is impersonal. Suddenly, along comes Christianity, saying the heart of ultimate reality is personal. It's the tri-personal God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—knowing and loving each other and creating the world.
What the author says was so revolutionary about that is that by resting its case on a definition of the human person and an unprecedented idea of love, Christianity had an incalculable effect upon the history of ideas.
To give just one example, it is quite clear that without this Christian re-evaluation of the human person, the philosophy of human rights to which we subscribe today would never have established itself.
Now, we can't go into that; that's a tangent. But you see what he's saying? He says the fact is today we talk about human rights, and we believe that every human being has dignity and every human person is important because that idea came from Christianity. It came on the basis of its reinterpretation of ultimate reality.
This is an atheist French philosopher who understood that. But what John was trying to do at that point was not actually change the history of human thought; he was trying to say, "Get rid of this elitist idea that if you're going to be aligned with the heart of the universe, you need to contemplate and be a philosopher. You need to be a Stoic. You need to have this incredible self-control."
You see, that's only for the elites. That's only for the most moral, the most self-disciplined, and the most brilliant people. But the gospel is for everybody. Because if the logos is not a principle but a person that you can know and love, anybody can do that. Then you are aligned with the heart of reality; you are living along the grain of the universe.
Wow! So that's the claim. Wasn't that a claim?
But very realistically, John says that that claim, though influential, is widely rejected. The next section, verses 5 to 11, talks about that and says, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, and his own did not receive him."
Now, again, there's so much to say here, but I can only give you the basic idea. What this is telling us is that there's been widespread rejection of the idea that Jesus Christ is the logos—the ultimate reality behind the universe—and that to get aligned with life and to find the reason for life is to know him as a person in a personal relationship. Many people have rejected that.
But what's interesting about these few verses is that it tells us there are really two ways to reject it. To understand that, you have to look at the first verse in this section, verse 5: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it."
Now, some of you know that translation; other translations translate it differently. If you've heard this read before, sometimes you've heard some translations say, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it."
In fact, the old King James Bible used to say, "The light shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not."
So, the darkness doesn't comprehend it, doesn't understand it, or it doesn't overcome it. Well, which is it?
What's interesting is, again, this is the second time I'm going to show you where John very carefully chooses a Greek word that is very ambiguous. In fact, Don Carson, a friend of mine who has written a commentary on John, says about this verse and this word, "This is a masterpiece of planned ambiguity."
Isn't that interesting?
You might say, "I don't get it." Here's a word that has a semantic range that can mean "to overcome" or "to understand." You say those two things don't seem to be related, but they are.
Think of an English word that has the same semantic range: the word "master." What does it mean to master somebody? Well, it could be that you just beat him in a game. You know, "I mastered him on the golf course; I beat him."
But it could also mean, "I figured him out. I've understood him. I've read all of his books, and I have mastered him."
You see, the word can mean "overcome" or "understand." So, when it says that there are two ways to reject Jesus Christ, in a sense, to just be hostile to him and reject him like that, or to think that you're following him but not get it—that's very interesting.
Let me show you how that could play out or how it does play out today.
On the one hand, we have plenty of people who are completely overtly hostile. They reject the idea not only that Jesus Christ is the logos and the cosmic reality behind the universe, but they reject the whole idea of an absolute truth—the very idea of absolute truth or moral absolutes or a logos that we have to conform ourselves to. That whole idea is rejected.
In New York City, that's probably the default mode for most people. The idea, therefore, is that nobody has to decide what is right or wrong. You don't just figure out there's some moral absolutes or absolute truth; everybody has to figure it out for themselves.
Christian Smith, a prominent sociologist, has written a number of really excellent books in which he studies the moral, spiritual, and religious views of younger adults in America. He's done a book on teenagers and a book on men and women in their 20s who live in America, and he studied their moral and spiritual beliefs.
You might find that interesting since some of you, just from looking at you, look like you might actually belong in that age category.
He says his researchers discovered that the moral beliefs of younger Americans, in general—not all, of course, but in general—have three characteristics. Would you like to know what they are?
Okay, I thought you would.
Three characteristics:
1. They have strong moral feelings. They're very upset if rights are violated. They feel very strongly about justice and treating people and people groups fairly. They're very concerned about the poor.
2. They're moral relativists. They say morality is relative. Even though they don't use these words, the average younger American believes that morality is all person-specific and culturally relative.
You know what those words mean? Person-specific means everybody has the right to decide what is right or wrong for them, and no one has the right to tell them what's right or wrong. It's person-specific and culturally relative. Some cultures have their mores and customs and ethics, and you cannot tell them that your cultural values are superior to theirs and that they need to change theirs.
So, one person shouldn't tell another person what's right or wrong for them. One culture shouldn't say, "Our values are superior to your values."
So, point one: they have strong moral feelings.
Point two: they are moral relativists.
Point three: they believe morality is self-evident. Because if you ask a younger American, "Well, why do you think that's wrong?" Christian Smith brings this out; it's very interesting. If you ask a younger American why they think something is wrong, they will always say, "Well, I just know it is, and everybody I know knows it is."
So, morality: they have strong moral feelings, they're relativists, and they believe morality is self-evident.
Now, the researchers concluded two things from their research.
Number one: this is incoherent. I mean, the third point is incoherent on its own. You know, just the idea that all morality is self-evident—my goodness, people are arguing all the time. Of course, it's not self-evident.
But the first two points are very incoherent if you hold them together. Here's the reason why.
When you ask a younger American something like this, this is what the researchers would ask: "Give them cases. Okay, you know that there's a country over here where women aren't allowed to drive. Women can't have driver's licenses. Husbands don't want their wives to drive; they want them to be dependent on them. And here's another country over here where husbands make women do this and that sort of thing. What do you think about that?"
Well, the younger American always says, "That's wrong."
So, you're saying that your cultural values are superior to theirs? Crickets.
Because you see, if you have strong moral feelings but you're a relativist, you don't believe there's a logos. You don't believe there's any absolute truth that actually gives you the right to say somebody is wrong.
If morality is relative, you might have a basis for strong moral feelings, but you have no way of saying to somebody else, "What you're doing is wrong."
You have strong moral feelings, and you can't do a thing about them. There is no basis for a program of justice. It's totally incoherent and, not only that, by the way, the researchers also said that to not believe in a logos and not believe in absolute truth is not only incoherent but inconsistent.
They pointed out that most younger Americans are very concerned about the poor, but they're unbelievably consumeristic in how they spend money on themselves.
So, if you completely reject the whole idea that there's absolute truth, it leads to incoherence and inconsistency.
Well, what's the solution?
Ah, you say, "Well, there is a logos. There is an absolute truth." So, you decide what that is: do the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, whatever it is. You decide what that is, and then you live up to it like the Greeks. You conform to it; you align with it; you live in accordance with it.
Then that gets you away from the incoherence and the inconsistency of people who completely reject the idea that there is a logos.
Okay, so what you do is you just adopt it.
But now, is that really the solution?
It's true that the opposite of relativism is moralism, in which you decide there are moral absolutes, and you decide, "I'm going to live according to them," and then you know you're a good person, and then the world will be a better place.
But I'd like to show you that moralism is a problem.
To just adopt the moral absolutes and say, "I'm going to live according to them," is oppressive.
Do you know why it's oppressive? It's oppressive in two ways.
If you adopt moral absolute values and say, "I'm going to live according to them," it will either oppress you or it will bring oppression by oppressing you in your heart. It will crush you. You won't be able to live up to it. You'll always be trying to live up, and it's just a crushing weight.
So, moralism can either bring oppression by crushing you, or if you live up to them, it can turn you into an oppressor.
You know why? Because you start to look around and say, "Hey, I'm living up to the moral standards. I'm not in prison; I'm not poor; I'm working hard. Why are you in prison? Why are you poor? What's going on here?"
And so you become a bigot; you become self-righteous; you become a Pharisee.
See, moral absolutes, if you just say, "I'm going to align my life with them by just trying hard like the Greeks and living up to them," become oppressors. They either will oppress you if you don't live up to them, or they'll oppress other people through you if you do.
I said I was going to tell you two things about moralism:
A. It's oppression.
B. It is not the way to embrace Jesus Christ.
See, when Jesus Christ came to his own, who were his own back then? Verse 11 says, "He came to his own, and his own received him not."
Who were his own? He didn't go out to the world; he was Jewish. He came to the Jews, and they didn't comprehend him. They didn't get him. They couldn't figure him out.
Why? Well, they looked at him hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners, and they heard him say to the Pharisees, "The prostitutes and the whoremongers get into the kingdom of God before you."
And they said, "That doesn't understand. I don't get it. Are you trying to say you don't have to be a good person?"
They didn't get him; they didn't comprehend him; they didn't understand him.
And that's the other way to reject him.
Because you see, if you're either a relativist or a moralist, if you're a relativist, you might be overtly rejecting and hostile to the idea of Christianity. But if you're a moralist, you may think you're following Jesus, but you're actually not. You don't understand him, and you're still rejecting him.
So, what's the solution?
Here's moralism; here's relativism. I said relativism is incoherent and inconsistent, but moralism is a vehicle for oppression.
Is there any hope? Is there any way through? Is there any way forward?
Yes, it's the gospel. It's been there for 2,000 years.
Let me just, before I show you what it says about the gospel in the last three verses, put this in cultural context to see where we are as a culture.
We're stuck. Why? Because on the one hand, we have rejected the idea, basically as a culture, that there's absolute truth because we see it as oppressive.
I grew up in America at a time when, as a kid, here's what we were all told: you know who the bad people are who are trying to blow us up? Come on, back in the 1950s and 60s, who were the bad people trying to blow us up? The communists. And guess what? They didn't believe in God.
See, so religious people were good people, and non-religious people were bad people. But now, who's trying to blow us up? Everybody.
Who are the people we say are going to try to blow us up? Religious fanatics—moralists—people who think they've got the absolute truth.
So, if you see, and a lot of you, I can tell just by looking at you, a lot of you have been raised where the bad people were the religious fanatics.
What that means is, as a culture, we are rejecting the idea of absolute truth, rejecting the idea of moralism. But we said relativism is incoherent and inconsistent.
So, what are we going to do?
Here's what we're going to do: it's the gospel.
And the gospel is so beautifully put right here. Look at this. Just take three minutes with me.
You know what? If you have to go to some place to explain the gospel to somebody, you couldn't do better than this. There are other places that are probably equally as good, but I don't think there's any that exceeds this.
These three verses: "To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent or of human decision or of a husband's will, but born of God. For the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
Look, first of all, this tells us that becoming a child of God is a gift.
See, it's true that, in one sense, all human beings are God's children. I mean, Paul says that in Acts 17. He's talking to the Greek philosophers, by the way. It's interesting; he's talking to the Greek philosophers, and he says, "We are his offspring."
You say, "Which means we're all God's offspring." But in the sense that God is our progenitor, in the sense that, for example, we could say Henry Ford is the father of the Model T.
But when the Bible usually talks about what it means to be God's children, the Bible reserves this for people who've received it as a gift.
And here's the reason why it's such a gift. Think of your relationship as an employer with your boss or supervisor, if you have one. If you are an employee and you have a boss, and you misbehave and keep misbehaving, eventually you'll be fired.
Why? The relationship between you and your boss is based on your performance. It's based on performance and cost-benefit. If you're not performing and you're costing them more than you're giving them, they're going to have to fire you.
But if you're a good father and you've got some children, and one of them starts to misbehave and keeps misbehaving, you know what happens? If you're a good father, you start to love that child more intensely. The misbehavior kind of evokes and intensifies your concern and your love for that child.
Why? Because a father-child relationship is not a consumer relationship. It's not based on cost-benefit; it's not based on performance. It's based on a covenant—it's based on unconditional commitment to that child.
If you try to go in to see the President of the United States without an appointment, you'll be stopped. If you try to run toward the President of the United States without an appointment, you'll be shot.
In fact, if you try to run toward the President of the United States even with an appointment, my guess is you'll be shot.
But if you're his little boy or his little girl, if you are his child, you can just run right in.
Daddy!
Does the Bible really have the audacity to say that it's possible to have that kind of relationship with God? If so, it's a gift. It has to be received.
And you know how it can be procured? Only this way: the Word became flesh and dwelt.
And here is where John, for the third time, uses a very unusual and carefully chosen Greek word. Because in the Greek, it says, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled."
A completely strange use of the word. The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory.
Now, you know in the Old Testament, you went to the tabernacle or the temple to see the glory of God. But you know what was going on in his temples and tabernacles?
See, all around the world, in some ways, everywhere in the world, there have been temples. Why? Because people instinctively know there's a gap between God and us. God is great; we're small. God is holy and perfect; we're flawed.
Everybody knows there's a gap. Every country has known there is a God. So, you have temples.
And what do you have in temples? Temples are places where the gap is bridged by people who are in there doing offerings and sacrifices and chanting and rituals and priests. You're bridging the gap.
Do you know what this means? Jesus is our tabernacle. Jesus is our temple. He's the ultimate priest because he laid down the ultimate sacrifice. He gave his life; he paid for our sins; he bridged the gap permanently.
Which means temples aren't necessary.
Dick Lucas, an old Anglican preacher, tells this story. This is just imaginary; you probably some of you have heard me say it. I just love it so much.
He says, "If you want to understand the gospel, particularly, just imagine an early Christian talking to his Roman neighbor."
And the Roman neighbor says, "Hey, I hear you're a Christian. That's interesting. Where's your temple?"
And the Christian would say, "We don't have temples; Jesus is our temple."
"What? No temples? Well, where do your priests operate?"
And the early Christians would say, "We don't really have priests; Jesus is our priest."
"What?" says the neighbor. "Well, where are the sacrifices offered to atone for sin?"
"Well, we don't need any more sacrifices; Jesus is our sacrifice."
And so the Roman neighbor would say, "No temples, no priests, no sacrifices? What kind of religion is this?"
And Dick Lucas says the answer is: the world had never seen any kind of religion like this before.
It's really not a kind of religion like any other religion has ever been because now we are given the right to become children of God by grace.
And you know what this means? Everybody that is a non-oppressive absolute—here's the answer to all the riddles.
We can't live without absolutes—there's incoherence and inconsistency. But absolutes are vehicles for oppression. They oppress us, or through them, we oppress other people.
But what if this is your absolute? What if this is the ultimate reality of the universe? A man dying for his sins—a man dying for his enemies—dying for our sins, sacrificing himself.
He's dying on the cross, and he's praying for the forgiveness of his enemies. If you take that into the center of your life, can that make you an oppressor?
Now, look, if salvation is by grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, on the one hand, what that does is it doesn't oppress you because it's grace. It can't crush you. You don't have to live up to it; you just receive it.
But it can't turn you into an oppressor because you've received it by grace. So, how can you feel superior to anybody else?
And then, a man dying for his enemies—how can you make that the center of your life and then become an oppressor?
Oh, you say, "But haven't Christians been oppressors? Haven't Christian churches been on the side of oppression?"
And the answer is yes, but only because they didn't comprehend it. They didn't comprehend him; they didn't get it; they didn't hear it; they didn't understand it.
They thought they were following it; they were rejecting it.
This is what the world needs. This is the light that the world needs. The world needs to know how to align your life with ultimate reality through a love relationship with Jesus Christ.
That's what people of the world need most of all. But even if they don't believe the gospel, they need people who live next to them. They need people all around them who believe the gospel because the gospel is a non-oppressive absolute.
It helps you avoid the inconsistency and avoid the incoherence, but it turns you not into an oppressor.
The early Christians, when they got it, when they comprehended it, they invented orphanages; they invented hospitals; they stopped infanticide of girls; they changed everything.
Comprehend it, become children of God, and be part of that change.
Let us pray.
Our Father, how grateful we are that your Son was sent into this dark world as our light. And though this darkness has resisted it and has not understood it, it has not overcome it. Your gospel is still growing in the world.
I pray, Lord, that everybody hearing this tonight would more deeply comprehend the meaning of the gospel and, therefore, more thoroughly become ambassadors for your Son.
And if there's anybody here who's never understood what it means to become a child of God, I pray that they would get that right as soon as possible as they believe in his name and are born again—not of natural descent; it can't be something you're born into, and not of human decision; it's not something we can earn, but born of grace and born of God.
We thank you and ask that you'd answer our prayers through Jesus. In his name, we pray. Amen.
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