Searchlights from the Scriptures

Sent to Be a Witness (John 1:6-8, 15)

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. J. Russell Reaves) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:41:08 PST

In February of 1997, I embarked on my first international mission trip. I had taken the place of a dear friend on that team, who had to back out because of health reasons. As a young Bible college student, I could not afford to pay for a trip such as this, but my friend said, “I’m going to pay your way on one condition. There’s this pastor named Jonathan. He always wears a brown UPS shirt that someone gave him. I promised him that when I returned I would witness to his father. Since I can’t go back, you have to promise me that you will find Jonathan and witness to his father for me.” For several days I enquired amongst the Kenyans that we met to see if anyone knew Jonathan, and no one did. My taxi driver told me, “I don’t know this man, but I will find him for you.” After a week of witnessing in the villages, my scheduled day of much needed rest began with an early knock on my door. I opened it to find a tall, slender Kenyan in a brown UPS shirt, who said in surprisingly clear English, “Hello sir. My name is Jonathan. I heard you were looking for me.” Over his shoulder I could see my driver waving at me with a huge smile on his face. I explained to him how my friend had been unable to come, and had sent me in his place, and that we needed to go out and visit his father. Jonathan’s eyes lit up and we set out to the remote village where I found the aged man. After a long ritual of African greetings, I sat down with the man and said, “Sir, I have been sent here with a message for you,” and for the next several hours, I shared the good news of Jesus with him. It was my very reason for being on the continent of Africa. I had been sent as a witness. And that experience in Kenya opened my eyes to a reality of my life as a follower of Jesus. Not only in Kenya, but everywhere I happen to be in the world, at all times, I have been sent to be Christ’s witness. And the same is true for every Christian.

The final words of Jesus to His followers before He ascended into heaven after His resurrection are known as the Great Commission. Luke records it this way in Acts 1:8: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” This statement is both a command and a promise. It was given to the entire church of Jesus Christ, meaning that every believer in Christ is both an evangelist and a missionary, sent under the authority of Christ to testify of Him beginning where we are, and extending to the ends of the earth. It is a daunting task. When we consider that evangelical Christians comprise only 25% of the population of America, and a third of the global population, this means that there are at least 4.5 billion people in the world who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, 230 million of whom live within our own country. God could have chosen to use any means imaginable to reach them with the good news of Jesus, but He chose one way: to use the likes of us to spread the message.

In our text today, we meet a man who was sent by God to be a witness. His name was John. The other Gospels refer to him as John the Baptist in order to distinguish him from John the Apostle. However within this book, the Apostle John never refers to himself by name, so there is no need to distinguish himself from this John. While the other gospels describe John’s family and birth, his appearance, and his ministry of baptism, the Fourth Gospel mainly concentrates on John’s role as a witness to Christ. As we see him testifying to Jesus, he becomes a mentor to us in our task of being Christ’s witness.

I. Christ’s witnesses understand their commission (v6)

After the days of Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi, prophecy as we know it in the Old Testament came to an abrupt end. The Jewish Talmud states that they were the last of the prophets, and one Jewish writing from c.200 B.C. refers back to “the time prophets ceased to appear among the people.”[1] Thus for some 500 years, there had been no prophet sent from God to announce His Word to Israel. But all of that changed as “there came a man sent from God, whose name was John” (v6). He did not come on his own accord. He came with a heavenly commission; he was “sent from God.” The Greek word for “sent” here emphasizes the authority of the sender, who in this case is God. John came with the authority of God to deliver a message from God. He was not to exercise license or creativity with the message, but to deliver it precisely as he had received it from God. Being sent from God, he was accountable to God for delivering the message with which he had been entrusted.

We might compare this idea of being commissioned to the role of an ambassador. An ambassador is sent to a foreign land under the authority of his home country’s leader (the King, the President, etc.), and is there on official business to represent the interests of those who sent him. John’s role as a witness was much like this. He was God’s ambassador to the world. And so are we. Like John, we have been sent from God into the world. Jesus said, in Matthew 28:18-19, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” The command to “go” in the Great Commission is rooted in the authority of Christ. He says in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” We are sent under His divine authority as a commissioned people, accountable to Him for the faithful exercise of our task. If we are intimidated by the task of witnessing for Christ, we must remember that we are not witnesses on our own authority. We are sent from God, and we have His authority to make Christ known. If we are afraid of what the world might think of us or do to us, we must remember that we are accountable to God, and rather be more fearful of failing to fulfill our commission.

John was a man, an ordinary man, the same as you and me. But what set him apart from the rest of the mass of humanity was that he was divinely commissioned; he was “sent from God.” And you are as well. One commentator has noted, “No one can be sent from God who has not first been with God.”[2] When the Lord Jesus called his apostles to Himself, it was so that “they would be with Him, and that He could send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14). But He could not send them out, or rather He would not, until first they had been with Him. And the Lord Jesus said in His Commission to the Church, “Lo I am with you always!” (Matthew 28:20). We abide in His presence through prayer and the study of His Word, and our work as His witnesses begins to overflow from our time spent with Him. E. M. Bounds said that those who “gain mighty results for God” are those “who have prevailed in their pleadings with God before venturing to plead with men.”[3] So it is that we must spend time with Him, in prayer and in the Word, in order that we may be effective for Him as He sends us out. This is our commission.

II. Christ’s witnesses understand their identity (v7-8)

In the opening verses of this Gospel, the Apostle speaks of the Word, the Logos, who was with God in the beginning and who was God. He created all that exists, and in Him was life, and the life was “the Light of men” (v5). He shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend (or “overcome”) it (v6). In verse 9, the Apostle will say that “there was the True Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” So, in the verse before this passage about John, and in the verse after, the Apostle speaks of the magnificent Light. But here he is clear to point out concerning John, “He was not the Light.” It is clear as we get to know this man named John that he understood this about himself as well.

John understood that his mission was not to convince the world of the greatness of John. He spoke of another Person, saying in 1:27, “the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” He speaks of Him here in verse 15, saying “He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.” The Person of whom John is speaking is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Jesus came after John. John was born six months before Jesus, and he began his ministry before Jesus did, though we don’t know how long before. To many people, age and experience means preeminence. But John knows that this is not always so. Even though Jesus had been born six months after John, John says, “He existed before me.” Here he is referring to the fact that Jesus, being God, had existed from eternity past. And even though Jesus came onto the scene of public ministry later than John, John says of Him, “He has a higher rank than I.” Later in chapter 3, when John’s disciples report that Jesus is gaining more popularity among the people than John, John said, “You yourselves are my witnesses that I have said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ …. He must increase, but I must decrease” (3:28, 30). You see, John understood that he was not the Light. He knew that at the end of the day, it really wasn’t about him. Have we come to understand this about our own identity? It isn’t about us! We are not the Light!

Back in November, Brian Davis and I attended a pastors’ conference together and one of the first guys to preach got up and spent over twenty minutes of his allotted time talking about himself, his ministry, and his successes, before finally turning to a text of Scripture, which he proceeded to mutilate as he attempted to preach it. We have not been sent by God to make a name for ourselves. The debacle of the Tower of Babel ought to instruct us that attempting to make a name for ourselves will only end in disaster (Genesis 11:4)! Your mission in life, should you choose to accept it, is to decrease in order that Christ might increase.

He was not the Light, but he “came as a witness, to testify about the Light.” A witness is someone who gives a true testimony. Witnesses are not to engage in interpretation or share their opinions or perspectives. They are to state the facts, truthfully and faithfully. That is what John came to do. He didn’t come to be the Light, but to testify about the Light. Jesus said concerning John the Baptist that “he was the lamp that was burning and was shining” (John 5:35). He was not the Light, but he was the lamp. The oil lamps of ancient times were lit by a fire from another source, and they could burn and shine for a long time as long as there was oil within them. So, John was a lamp that carried and bore the Light. And in that sense, we are also lamps. We do not shine forth with a light of our making, but we carry the Light of Christ into the dark world that they may see Him. The purpose is not to show the world how impressive the lamp is, but how bright the Light is.

Jesus says twice in this Gospel, “I am the Light of the World” (8:12; 9:5). But He says in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world.” You and I are only the light of the world in the sense that we reflect His light. We are like the moon, which produces no light of its own. It shines as it reflects the light of the sun. Our mission is not to show the world how great we are, but how great He is. We testify not of ourselves, but of Christ, who is the true Light “which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (v9). So, at the end of the day, we need not fear if the world rejects us because our witness is not about us. It is about Jesus. We testify to Him, not to ourselves. And this brings me to the final point …

III. Christ’s witnesses understand their purpose (v7b)

There is an old saying that goes, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” If you have no goal, no purpose in your work and in your life, then you mustn’t be surprised that you aren’t seeing any results. That is not to say that you will always see results when you have a goal; you may never reach your goal or attain your purpose. But you will never have results without a goal or purpose. So, John’s ministry was one that had a clear aim, a well-defined goal, and an explicitly stated purpose. He came to testify to Jesus with an explicit purpose. He testified “so that all might believe through him.”

Because he understood his identity, that he was not the Light, he did not testify so that all would believe in him, but that all would believe in Christ through his testimony. Because he understood his commission, that he was sent from God with divine authority, he boldly proclaimed the good news of Jesus to everyone he could: to common fishermen (John 1:40); to the religious leaders of Israel (Matthew 3:7); and even to the ruler of the region, Herod Antipas. And when he testified to these people, it was not merely with the intent of providing them with information. He testified toward the goal of their conversion, that they might believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. John didn’t just give a nice speech and then say, “I hope that makes you feel better today!” He would present the facts of Jesus, who had come into the world as the Messiah to inaugurate the Kingdom of God, and then say, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). John’s testimony included an urgent appeal for sinners to turn to God in repentance and to recognize Jesus as the Savior who had come as the sacrifice for sin, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

We need to learn this from John. Our task as Christ’s witnesses is incomplete until we have made it clear to our hearers that a decision must be made. The good news of the Lord Jesus is not just something for a person to mull over and chew on. It demands a response: accept Him and be saved, or reject Him and perish, but indifference is not an option.

What is your aim in life? Do you want to be successful, and prosperous, and well0-thought of by others, and retire young and rich to enjoy unlimited leisure? That sounds nice, but that is not the aim of Christ’s witness. For Christ’s witness the aim and objective in life is nothing other than the salvation of the world! All other aims are subservient to that one. If you aim for success, let it be so that your success becomes a platform for the Gospel! If you aim for prosperity, let it be so that you can finance the spread of the Gospel through the whole world! If you aim for an early retirement, let it be so that the golden years of your life can be spent proclaiming the good news of Jesus to every person you can! Live in such a way, that should anyone even need to ask you what your goal in life is, you can say like John the Baptist, “to be a witness, to testify for Christ, so that all might believe.”

Now, we need to have a healthy dose of realism here. After all, the text does not say that all would believe, but that all might believe. Multitudes believed in Christ through the testimony of John, including probably the author of the present Gospel, the Apostle John. Many, however, did not. Herod didn’t. The Pharisees and Sadducees by and large didn’t. But the fault did not lie with John. His testimony was sufficient for all to believe. And so it will be with us. As we proclaim the good news of Jesus, some will likely believe, while others will likely not. But if we have been clear and thorough with the message, our testimony will be sufficient for all who hear it to believe, even if they do not.

After hours of witnessing to Jonathan’s father in that Kenyan village, I asked him, “Sir, do you understand what I have said to you about Jesus?” He said, “Yes, I do.” I said, “Do you believe that these things are true?” He said, “I certainly do!” I said, “Then sir, is there any reason why you would not want to give your life to Jesus today?” He said, “Yes, I am just not ready.” I went back over all the significant points of the Gospel with him and said, “Do you believe this?” He said yes. I said, “Sir, what will happen to you when you die?” He said, “I will go to hell.” I asked, “Do you want to go to hell?” He said, “No.” I said, “What do you need to do to go to heaven?” He said, “I need to believe in Jesus.” I said, “Are you ready to believe in Him?” He said, “No,” and rose to bid me farewell. I came back to my friend who had sent me to Kenya and shared this with him, and he said to me, “Russ, you did all you could do. You did what I sent you to do. Now, we have to keep praying for him.” That was fifteen years ago, and I do not know if the man ever came to faith in Jesus.

Contrast that with another encounter. It was a hot summer day in 1995, and I was riding along to make visits with Pastor Paul Riggs one day, and as we passed by the home of John Ogburn, he said, “Russ, I’m concerned for John’s soul. Let’s stop in and witness to him.” We went in and had a pleasant visit, and the older pastor said, “John, I came to talk to you about the Lord today.” And he proceeded to tell John how Jesus loved him and died for him, and John said, “I believe that!” And then and there, John prayed that the Lord would save him. For the last 16 years, John never missed a Sunday of being in church! A week ago today, he died at age 88, and last Wednesday I attended his funeral. The pastor said that he often spoke of that day when he met Jesus

The great English missionary C. T. Studd once wrote to his brothers from the field and said, “Oh! If you have never tasted the joy of leading one soul to Jesus, go and ask our Father to enable you to do so, and then you will know what true joy is.”[4] There is joy to be found in being Christ’s witnesses. It is who we are, and it is what we have been commissioned to do. As we seek to be effective and faithful witnesses, we won’t find a better example in all of Scripture than John the Baptist. He understood his commission; he understood his identity; and he understood his purpose, therefore he was an effective witness for Christ. With the same understandings, we will be also.

[1] Ben Witherington III, “John the Baptist,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (ed. Green, McKnight, and Marshall; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1992), 386. The Jewish writing mentioned is the apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees, and the statement is found at 9:27.

[2] John Phillips, Exploring the Gospels: John (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux, 1989), 21.

[3] E. M. Bounds, Power through Prayer. http://www.revival-library.org/catalogues/miscellanies/prayer/ boundspower.html

[4] Norman Grubb, C. T. Studd: Cricketer and Pioneer (Fort Washington, Penn.: Christian Literature Crusade, 1972), 57.

The Enlightenment (John 1:9-13, 16-18)

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. J. Russell Reaves) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:22:02 PST

Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Western World entered an era known commonly as the Middle Ages. Because of a number of factors, including prolonged periods of warfare, financial crises, corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, and little advance of educational and intellectual developments, this period is often called by some “the Dark Ages.” During the 1400s, there were sparks of renewed interest in science, philosophy, art, and literature. This period, known as the Renaissance, led to the beginnings of an intellectual awakening that would transform Europe and the World. As these radical changes in the spiritual and intellectual climate began to sweep across Europe, a new era dawned. It was called “The Enlightenment.” By the late 1600s, “virtually every European country, and every sphere of life and thought, was affected by it.”[1] During this time period, humanity was supposedly being lifted out of “the darkness of irrationality and superstition that … characterized the Middle Ages.”[2] One of the premier philosophers of the era, Immanuel Kant, said that the enlightenment was “the emergence of man from his self-imposed infancy.”[3] The Enlightenment emphasized human reason, therefore the authority of the Bible, and the Christian faith that is built upon the Bible, was deemphasized, if not altogether rejected. The religion of the Enlightenment was atheism, or agnosticism, or agnosticism’s more sophisticated cousin, Deism. Yet, ironically, nearly every major Enlightenment thinker was operating from a worldview that had been strongly influenced by the Bible and Christianity. Enlightenment ideals held sway over the Western World for the better part of 500 years, but it survived on the borrowed capital of Christianity. It was as if the world had awoken to a new way of thinking, but it still had a hangover from being under the influence of Christianity for centuries. By the middle of the twentieth century, the hangover had worn off, the borrowed capital was depleted, and a new day of so-called “Postmodernism” had dawned. The rejection of absolutes, the spurning of authority, and radical moral tolerance came as a shock to the culture as it began to unfold. In reality, however, it was merely the chickens hatched from the Enlightenment’s eggs finally coming home to roost. Thus, from our vantage point, we may look back on these cultural revolutions and see that perhaps their claims were a bit too ambitious. This is not to say that there were not magnificent triumphs in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, for there were. It is to say, however, that the darkness that envelops humanity was not so thoroughly brightened as we may have thought.

The darkness of human existence has a singular cause: sin. Because of sin’s hold on humanity, that which was spoken by God concerning the days of Noah could be said of every era of history. In Genesis 6:5, we read that “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” A few verses later (6:11-12), the effects of man’s sinful condition are spelled out: “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.” Into this vast darkness of spiritual, intellectual, and moral corruption, many lights have shown. Reform, renewal, and renaissance has been ignited by many matches throughout time, but they have all been relatively short lived in the grand scheme of things. The darkness would subside for a season, but it was never completely vanquished. In time, the light would be extinguished, and the darkness would set in again. But into humanity’s darkness, over and above all other sources of light, a greater Light has shown. The Apostle John says that there was “the true Light, which coming into the world, enlightens every man” (1:9). The word translated “true” can speak of a genuine or authentic Light, as opposed to false or synthetic forms of light. It can also refer to an ultimate Light, which is greater than all others. Like so many words in John’s Gospel, it is difficult to determine which meaning he has in mind here, and he may well mean both.

What is this true Light that comes into the world? Well, the Light is not a “what”; this Light is a “Who.” He is the One who is described in verses 1-5 as the Word, who was with God in the beginning, and who was God; the Creator of all things; the One in whom there was life, and that life was the Light of men; a Light that shines into the darkness. Though the darkness did not comprehend the Light, neither did the darkness overcome the Light. This Light has come into the world as the Word made flesh (1:14), full of glory, grace, and truth. He is Jesus Christ. He is the true Light that enlightens every man (1:9). Writing some 1500 years before that period of time that we call “the Enlightenment,” the Apostle John declares that there is an ultimate Enlightenment to be experienced in the person of Jesus Christ. Apart from Him, all is varying shades of darkness. And in the verses of our text today, John informs us of how Christ, the true Light, has come into the world to enlighten every man.

I. In Christ, we are enlightened with true love (vv11-13).

If you listen to the so-called “New Atheists,” like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, you will hear about how religion in general, and in some cases Christianity in particular, has ruined the world. Christopher Hitchens was one of the leading spokesmen of the “New Atheism” movement until his death a month ago today. Hitchens once stated that he believed that “the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.”[4] According to the majority of those in the “New Atheism” camp, the world would be better if there had never been such a thing as the Christian Church. Yet, these atheists do not spend much time discussing the contributions that the Christian Church has made to the common good of the world over the last 2,000 years. Around the world, it has been the Church of Jesus Christ that has led the way in the establishment of schools, hospitals, and other community agencies and institutions that exist to make the world a better place. And the motive of it all was to demonstrate in a tangible way to the world that God loves human beings. One of the areas in which Christians have worked most tirelessly is in the care of orphans. In the late 1800s, Charles Loring Brace wrote about the practice of infanticide, the trafficking of orphans into slavery and prostitution, the use of orphans in ritual sacrifices, and other unthinkable horrors that had existed almost universally in the world prior to the establishment of the Christian Church. But he also notes how the followers of Jesus began almost immediately to make a difference in how the world viewed and treated orphans.[5] I was recently talking to a man who had been involved in missionary work in India, and he was telling me about practices that still were rampant there: the killing of babies because a family could not afford to raise them or because they had a daughter instead of a son, and atrocities such as this. But he was telling me that Christians were establishing “drop-off sites” in the major cities of India where families could simply hand their children over to be cared for by Christian people. Now, why have Christians been so active in the work of orphan care in the world throughout history? Because we believe that our Gospel is about a Father’s love for spiritual orphans. Adoption is essential to our theology.

The Apostle John writes here that Christ came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. Obviously, he is referring to the Jewish people here. Now, it would be a mistake to say that Jesus was rejected altogether by the Jews. Most of His earliest followers were Jews. In fact, the book of Acts describes the stir that was created in the church when Jewish Christians were unsure about what to do with Gentiles who wanted to follow this Jewish Messiah. But, John’s point here is that, by and large, the nation of Israel rejected Jesus. Of course, if we read the Old Testament prophets carefully, we will observe that they were not thoroughgoing orthodox believers in the God of the Hebrew Scriptures before Christ came. Time and time again, the prophets rebuke the nation for the rejection of the Lord. A stream of biblical teaching flows through the Old Testament and into the New concerning the idea of a believing remnant. Both before and after the coming of Christ, the number of Jewish people who were truly committed to the covenant-making God of Scripture was a small percentage of the whole nation. Therefore, it was not astounding really that His own received Him not; the astounding thing is what God did for those who did receive Jesus Christ.

Verse 12 begins with one of my favorite words in the Bible: “But.” Jesus was rejected by the vast majority of the Jewish nation, BUT, “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God.” There is a sentimental way of looking at the human race and thinking that everyone is a child of God. That is true in a very limited sense—in the sense that God created the human race. But if humanity began as God’s children, like the prodigal son, we have run away from our Father in rebellion and joined ourselves to another father. Jesus referred to those who opposed Him in John 8:44 as children of the devil. Paul referred to lost humanity in Ephesians 2:2 as “sons of disobedience.” In this sense, as it pertains to our relationship with the Heavenly Father, we are born as spiritual orphans. But in Jesus Christ, God has made away for us to be adopted as His children.

You have to understand how revolutionary it was for Jesus to come into the world speaking about God as His Father, and about the potential for people like you and me to address God as Our Father. This kind of language was extraordinarily rare, even in the writings of the Jews. But Jesus had come to bring enlightenment to humanity regarding true love. Here was a God who loves the human race so much that He has made a way for sinful rebels to be united to Himself in a relationship that surpasses that of any parent and child. He becomes a Father to those who receive the Lord Jesus, to those who believe in His name. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, but God has an innumerable multitude of adopted sons and daughters. We have not merely been adopted into His family through some judicial paperwork process; He has chosen to grant to those who believe a totally new birth. John says that those who receive Jesus and experience this adoption have been born, “not of blood.” Jewish traditionalists believed that they could experience the favor of God because they were the biological descendants of Abraham. But John says here that God’s children are not born of blood; and they are not born “of the will of the flesh.” It was not some sensual desire that brought this new birth to pass. And it was not the “will of man,” as if you chose yourself, or someone else chose for you to experience this birth. You experienced this new birth because it was the will of God. He chose you for Himself and adopted you to be His child through your reception of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life. This is what Jesus was referring to when He told Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:6-7).

As I look around the room today, I confess, I have never known most of your earthly fathers. You might have had a good one, and praise God if you did. But you might have had a terrible earthly father. In fact, you may suffer from things from day to day that could be directly attributed to the absence of a father in your life, or to the presence of a horrible father. But I want to tell you, on the authority of God’s Word, that there is a greater Father that you can know. Where your earthly father was weak, this Father is strong! If your earthly father was great, this one is greater still. In fact, the greatest thing a father can do for his child is to teach them that there is a greater Father whom they need to know. God desires to be your Father, and He has promised to be your Father and to make you His child if you receive Jesus, believing in His name. This is true love. John will go on to write in his first epistle, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are” (1 John 3:1). Jesus is the true Light that has come into the world to enlighten us. And He has enlightened us by true love.

II. In Christ we are enlightened by true grace (vv16-17)

When I was a kid, I can remember getting a new toy for Christmas, and opening the box to find those dreaded words that every child of my generation feared reading: “Batteries Not Included.” Back in those days, that was a tragedy, because the stores were all closed on Christmas Day. I would have to wait a whole day or two before I could get the batteries for my new toy so I could play with it. Here I’d been given this great gift, but I didn’t have what I needed to power it up and enjoy it! The best gifts were those that my parents had already opened and put the batteries in before I opened it up, so it was good to go!

John says in verse 16 that we have received, from the overflowing fullness of Jesus, grace upon grace. There’s a lot of ink spilled among the commentators as to what this expression means. The most popular view is that it means something like, “never-ending grace,” and theologically that is true. We receive one gift of God’s grace on top of another in Jesus. That is absolutely true. But I don’t think it is what this phrase means. To understand this phrase, we have to see the words that follow it. The very next word is “For.” That is a conjunction that connects these two verses, and it functions to supply a reason. We have received grace upon grace “for” or “because,” the gift of grace that humanity had received before Jesus was a great gift, but it was like a toy without the batteries. That gift was given through Moses, and it was God’s law. God’s law was a glorious and gracious gift! God’s law declared the true picture of holiness and righteousness. The law said, “This is what God requires of us.” God did not have to declare this to humanity. He could have said, “Do you want to know what kind of God I am and how you can go about pleasing Me? Figure it out for yourself, because I’m not telling you.” But He didn’t say that. In His grace, He gave the Law to the people through Moses. But although the Law declared what righteousness looked like, it did not have the power to make a person righteous. The Law was given to a people who had already violated it at virtually every point. The Law, thus, functions like a mirror. When you wake up in the morning, you go and look in the mirror and you say, “Oh my goodness! Look at my hair! Did someone attack my head with an egg-beater while I was asleep, or what?” The mirror tells you that you need some help. But you don’t fix your hair by rubbing your head on the mirror. The mirror tells you that you need something else to fix the problem, so you reach for the comb and the brush, and the gel and the hairspray, and so on. Thank God for the mirror, because you need it. But you need something more than the mirror.

So, we have this gift of grace in the Law that came through Moses. But in Jesus Christ, we have received grace upon grace. We have the Law, but now, through Jesus Christ, God has revealed grace and truth. The Law tells us what righteousness looks like, and it tells us that we don’t have it. It serves to condemn us because it tells us in every line that we are sinners. But it can’t fix us. What can fix us? The grace and truth of Jesus Christ! In Him, we discover true grace: grace that can remove our sin and impart to us the righteousness that we desperately need and which we desperately lack!

The Law tells us that sin requires death and the shedding of sacrificial blood. The Good News of Jesus tells us that Jesus died and shed His own blood as our sacrifice. The Law tells us that we must be absolutely, completely, perfectly, sinless and righteous to be accepted by God. The Good News of Jesus tells us that the righteousness of His sinless life can be credited to us by faith. The Law tells us that sinners must be cut off to perish apart from the presence of a holy God. The Good News of Jesus tells us that sinners can be forgiven in Him, and accepted before God because of His righteousness, and granted eternal life with Him in heaven! The Law says, “Try as you may, you can never earn this.” The Good News of Jesus says, “You don’t have to. God has given you a gift you do not deserve.” All you have to do is receive Him and believe in His name. Moreover, when we receive Christ, we also receive the Holy Spirit, who indwells us to empower us to live out the righteousness that God has given us through faith in Jesus. This is grace, and it is grace upon grace. It is true grace, and we have been enlightened by it.

III. In Christ, we are enlightened by true truth.

The quest of the Enlightenment Era was to discover the truth of that could be known with absolute certainty. Those things that could be investigated with human reason were considered to be real truth. Those things that pertained to religious belief were consigned to the realm of faith, and were considered beyond the categories of truth and falsehood. But are all matters of faith really beyond knowing with absolute certainty? Must we reject all ideas of religion in one fell swoop, or are there some religious claims that can be tested and validated? Of course, Postmodernism came along and said, essentially, “Who cares? There aren’t any truths that can be known with absolute certainty anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.” If the Enlightenment was characterized by unfounded optimism, Postmodernism is perhaps characterized by unfounded pessimism. God’s Word stands against them both and declares that there is a true truth that can be known, and foundational to it all is the truth about who God is.

In verse 10, John says concerning Jesus Christ, the true Light, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him.” The two major belief systems of the Enlightenment Era are hereby challenged. One is naturalism, which says that there was no creation, just a random process of evolution by which the eternally existent particles of mass in the universe have rearranged themselves from one form into another. John says, rather, “No, the world was made through Him,” through Christ, the true Light. The other prominent belief of the Enlightenment Era was Deism, which said essentially, “There might be a God out there, but if there is, He is not concerned or at work with the goings on of the world.” Again John objects. “No,” he says, “He was in the world.” The problem was not that God was absent or that He was not at work. The problem is that the world “did not know Him.”

Twenty years ago this year, I came to faith in Christ after being a committed atheist for several years of my life. Christians would attempt to witness to me, and my response was always the same. “If God is there, why doesn’t He make Himself more evident? I can’t see Him, I can’t see any reason to believe in Him. If He wants me to believe in Him, He needs to do a better job making Himself known to me.” Little did I know that I was actually using a very sophisticated philosophical argument known as Deus Abscondus, “the hiddenness of God.” I chuckle when I read that argument in philosophical writings, because I think, “This guy is a well educated scholar, and he believes what I believed when I was an ignorant teenager!” Apart from the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in my heart, I cannot really explain how all that came crashing down on Friday, July 31, 1992, as I read these words in 1 Samuel 3:7: “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him.” I suddenly and inexplicably realized that it wasn’t that God wasn’t there, it was that I did not know Him. That very day, I gave my life to Jesus Christ.

Look around at the world today. Last year, I had the opportunity to see two amazing products of God’s creative handiwork: the soaring peaks of the Himalayas and the unfathomable expanse of the Grand Canyon. I gazed in awe at those things, and wondered how anyone could doubt that “He made the world.” But as we look at the world, we also see all kinds of atrocities. Human trafficking, rampant violence and terrorism, the holocaust of abortion, and on and on we could go. What’s the problem? Is it that God is not here? No. The problem is that the world doesn’t know Him. And how can anyone know Him anyway? After all, John says here in verse 18 that no one has seen God at any time. In the Old Testament, when people encountered God in a personal way, they did not see the fullness of His person. Moses saw God in a way that no one else ever did, yet He only saw the backside of His glory. No one ever saw Him at any time. But then came Jesus, the true Light, into the world, and He came to enlighten us with true truth about who God is.

Look at verse 18: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” There is so much to comprehend in this singular verse that we can barely scratch the surface of it! The only person prior to the coming of Christ into the world who had ever seen God was God Himself. And John is explaining to us in the best human words available that within the singular God of the universe, there is the person of the Father, and the person of the only begotten Son, who is Himself God. For eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have existed in perfect divine fellowship as the three Persons of the Triune Godhead. And when the Son came into the world, He explained God to humanity. I love the Greek word that is translated explained here. It is the word from which we get one of my favorite English words: exegesis. Every week, I spend many hours in my study in the task of exegesis. When we exegete something, we bring forth the truth of it to put it on display. That is what we do when we study the Bible properly; we bring forth the fullness of its truth. And John says that the Lord Jesus has exegeted God for us. He has demonstrated to us the true truth about the God who is there, the God who created the world, and the God whom we could never know apart from Jesus. No, no one ever saw God. No one, that is, until Jesus came. After three years of being with Jesus every day, at the Last Supper, Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” In other words, he was saying, “Jesus, you have been with us for three years, and now you are telling us that you are going to die. Before you die, please do this one thing for us, it is all we ask. Show us God!” And Jesus said to Him, “Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?” Jesus was saying to Philip, “Do you want to see God? Take a good long look at Me.”

Jesus is the true Light. He has come into the world to enlighten every man. He has enlightened us by true love and shown us that there is a God who adopts all who believe in Jesus to become His sons and daughters as He becomes a Father to us. He has enlightened us by true grace, showing us that there is a way for sinners to be reconciled to a holy God through His life, death and resurrection. And He has enlightened us by true truth. How can you know God? How can you find Him or see Him? I tell you that unless you find Him, see Him, and know Him through the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not find, see, or know Him in any other way! Christ is the true Light and He has enlightened every man. Why then are so many still in darkness? Well, many have not heard, and those of us who have must take the message to them. But others have heard; the Light has shone upon them. But they have not received the Light. Jesus says in John 3:19, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light.” Does that describe you? Have you shunned the Light of Christ because you love darkness so much? God’s Word beckons you today to open your eyes to the Light of Christ! Come out of the darkness and into His Light! Those who have received the Light of Christ have experienced the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the truth of God. In this true Enlightenment, you become, as the Apostle Peter says, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

[1] M. J. Inwood, “Enlightenment” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (ed. Ted Honderich; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 236.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Quoted in Ibid.

[4] Quoted in Albert Mohler, “Learning From Christopher Hitchens: Lessons Evangelicals Must Not Miss.” http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/01/11/learning-from-christopher-hitchens-lessons-evangelicals-must-not-miss/. Accessed January 12, 2012.

[5] Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years’ Work Among Them (New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, 1872), Kindle edition.

The Amazing Word of God (John 1:1-5, 14)

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. J. Russell Reaves) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:52:25 PST

Audio (Sound quality is poor because we had to make the .mp3 from the tape)

New Years Day is celebrated as a day of new beginnings. The old year is gone. A new one has come, and with it come new opportunities. Resolutions are made, goals are set, plans begin to take shape. It is fitting on this day of new beginnings to set our eyes on a new study of Scripture. We begin today a study of the Gospel According to John. And the beginning of our study takes us to the beginning of the book; and the beginning of the book takes us to the beginning of it all. With the words, “In the beginning,” the Apostle John seeks to spark a recollection in the minds of his readers. These words were deliberately chosen by the Apostle to echo the very first words one reads in the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Both Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 inform us that before the universe came into being, God existed from eternity past.

John was an old man when he set about writing this Gospel some fifty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. He had walked with Christ, witnessing His deeds and hearing His words every day for three years. In the half-century since His death, John had continued to serve his Lord faithfully, for thirty years or so in Jerusalem, and by this point for twenty to thirty years in Ephesus. The Gospel had spread throughout the known world through the missionary journeys of Paul and his companions, as well as the rest of the apostles. Paul and Peter had been dead for twenty to thirty years, and the other apostles had also met death, most if not all in martyrdom. Now, as the first century comes to an end, only John remains. Every other book of the New Testament, with the exception of this Gospel, the Revelation, and John’s letters, have been written and circulated to the churches across the Roman Empire. Persecution of the church was intensifying, sparked in some places by the Jews who did not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, and in other places by the Romans who sought to forcibly eliminate all threats to the unity and power of the Empire. And now, in his advancing years, John sets out to write one more account of the person, the life, the ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. His purpose for writing is made clear in the end of his Gospel. In 20:30-31, John tells us that he did not write down everything that Jesus said and did, but that he carefully selected the information that he recorded, “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

In and around Ephesus, there were many Jews and many Gentiles who had converted to Judaism, some of whom did not know who Jesus was, and some of whom did not believe that He was the Messiah, the Savior and Lord. Their thinking had been influenced by the Hebrew Scriptures that we refer to as the Old Testament, as well as by Greek philosophers and other sources. In his opening words, John speaks to them all as he says, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Greek word he uses here is Logos. There was probably no singular word that John could have employed here that would have carried so much relevance to so wide and diverse an audience.

Some 700 years or so before John began to write this Gospel, a philosopher in Ephesus named Heraclitus taught that all of life is in a constant state of change. The only reason that all of life and all the world was not in utter chaos at all times was an overarching power that controlled the universe. This power, considered to be the ultimate Reason beneath all that existed, was known as the Logos. The Jews of John’s day may have known something of Heraclitus and the other Greek philosophers whom he influenced, but the wellspring of their thinking was found elsewhere, in the Hebrew Scriptures. God was the only being who had existed for all eternity, and all that He had done in creation, in revelation, and in salvation had been accomplished by His powerful Word, the Logos. When Jews referred to the Logos, they meant something different from the Greeks, but there were overlaps and similarities. And when John said, “In the beginning was the Word”, the Logos, nearly every person alive at the end of the first century A.D. could say, “Amen.” As Kostenberger says, “It is a mark of John’s considerable theological genius that he is able to find a term … that is at the same time thoroughly biblical—that is, rooted in Old Testament teaching—and highly relevant for his present audience.”[1] But it is not John’s intent merely to point out the commonality between Christianity, Judaism, and Greek philosophy. Though Jews and Greeks alike considered the Logos to be “the ruling fact of the universe,”[2] for John, the Logos “was not a principle, but a living Being and the source of life.”[3] The Word is not spoken of here as an “it,” but as a “He.” The Logos is a Person, and the Apostle John wants the world to know Him and to experience Him in a profoundly personal way. In the span of a few brief verses, we come to understand that the Logos is God’s Amazing Word.

I. God’s Amazing Word is Eternal (v1a)

A story is told about two ancient Greeks, Dimitri and Tasso, trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. Dimitri asks, “If Atlas holds up the world, what holds up Altas?” Tasso says, “Atlas stands on the back of a turtle.” Dimitri replies, “But what does the turtle stand on?” And Tasso says, “Another turtle.” Not satisfied, Dimitri asks again, “And what does that turtle stand on?” To which Tasso unflinchingly responds, “My dear Dimitri, it’s turtles all the way down!”[4] As silly as that sounds to us, it is not too far off from what atheistic naturalism would have us to believe. Acknowledging that everything that exists must have some cause, it is believed by many that there has always been one thing causing another for eternity. We are told that the universe came into being by way of a Big Bang, in which all the matter that presently exists came into being from an explosion of some singular particle or mass in the cosmos. But, you see, the theory cannot explain where that singularity came from. It does not answer the question of origins, it merely moves it backward in time. What we are left with is something called infinite regress, not altogether different from Dimitri’s ridiculous theory of turtles all the way down. That is the only explanation that atheists and naturalists can offer because they are unwilling to acknowledge the existence of an uncaused cause, or uncreated Creator. But John reminds us that there is another theory of origins, one that is found in the very first words of the Bible. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Before there was time, before ever there was any matter in the universe, or any universe to contain the matter, there was God. He has existed for eternity. And with Him in the beginning was His Word, His Logos. “In the beginning was the Word (the Logos), and the Word (the Logos) was with God.” There never was a time when God was not, nor was there a time in which His Word was not. The Word was in the beginning with God (1:2).

There is a distinction here between God and the Logos, His Word. They exist together, eternally, in a perfectly harmonious relationship. The phrase here portrays “the picture of two personal beings facing one another and engaging in intelligent discourse.”[5] Hendriksen renders the phrase, “the Word was face to face with God,” meaning “that the Word existed in the closest possible fellowship” with God.[6] As Clowney says, the Word was “God’s eternal Fellow.”[7] But the question might be raised, “If God and His Logos, His Word, are two separate and completely distinct beings, how then could both be eternally existent without one being inferior to the other?” In other words, if only God is eternally existent, how then can this Word, this Logos, also be said to be eternally coexistent with Him? And that brings us to the second truth concerning God’s Amazing Word.

II. God’s Amazing Word is God Himself (v1b)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” This much we understand thus far. But now John says further, “And the Word was God.” The reason that the Word could coexist eternally with God is that the Word was God. They are distinct from one another, in that their relationship can be described as being with one another; but they are also inseparable from one another. They are one and the same Being. This presents us with a profound mystery, and as Calvin said, “profound mysteries demand sober thinking.”[8] Profound though the mystery may be, it is not beyond searching out, for the Holy Spirit had been preparing the footings for this understanding of God since the first recorded revelation was ever inscribed.

Among the Jews, there was one chief and fundamental conviction concerning the nature of God. They were staunch monotheists, believing foundationally in the existence of only God. In the great passage of Scripture found in Deuteronomy 6, known as the Shema and memorized by nearly every Jewish person since the days of Moses, the Lord had said, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” Throughout their history, the harshest judgments and divine chastenings they had endured came whenever they began to consort with idols. The lesson was learned well through their Scriptures and through their own personal experiences that God was one. In fact one of the driving forces behind the earliest Greek developments in philosophy was that the prevailing notions of many gods who competed and cooperated with one another to control the universe was folly. Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the likes of them, had set out to answer questions that pagan polytheism could not answer, and surprisingly many of them came closer to monotheism than they did to atheism in their quest. By John’s time, though the Roman Empire was filled with lingering notions of many deities in the Greek, Roman, and other ancient pantheons, these ideas were considered by many to be nothing more than superstition and folklore. There was a growing receptivity in the world to the idea that if there was a god at all, there must only be one supreme Deity.

But even in that great passage, the Shema, there were hints of something yet unfathomable. “Hear O Israel, the Lord (YHWH) is our God (Elohim).” That name Elohim was a plural word, yet even this God, whose name was plural, was clearly stated to be “One.” Even in the creation account in Genesis 1, the Hebrews had read, “In the beginning God (Elohim, plural) created (a singular verb) the heavens and the earth.” And as He began His creative work, His Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters (Genesis 1:2). This God had spoken of Himself, and possibly even to Himself, saying, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26). Psalm 45 referred to God seated upon His eternal throne, saying of Him that “God, Your God, has anointed You.” David said in Psalm 110, the most frequently quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” Jesus took up this very passage in a debate with the Pharisees, in which He asked them whose son the Christ would be. When they said “The son of David,” Jesus said, “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ … If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?” And the Bible says that “No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question” (Matthew 22:41-46).

You see, throughout the Old Testament, there were these divinely inspired statements, clearly declaring that God is One Being, yet also hinting at the fact that there was some plurality in God. He is One, and at the same time He is more than One. When Christ came into the world, these truths began to take fuller shape in the minds of His followers, and all the more as He began to teach about the Holy Spirit. John is acknowledging that here as He says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the early days of the Christian church, it was this very verse that the Fathers turned to most often for defense as they began to attempt to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity – the One God who exists in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I suppose there are a million or more errors one can commit in trying to explain the Trinity, and only one way to be sure to stay right on the matter. We insist that God is One, and that He eternally exists in the three Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This Word, who existed in the beginning with God, distinct from God, was also God. And God is One.

III. God’s Amazing Word Created All that Exists (v3-5)

How did the universe, and all that is in it, come into being? Genesis tells us, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word,” and “All things came into being through Him.” You will recall from Genesis that when God created the heavens and the earth, He spoke the created things into being. For example, while the earth was formless and void and covered in darkness, God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. Over and over again, the creation account tells us that “God said,” and what He said came into being. The Psalmist reflected on this poetically in Psalm 33:6, saying, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host.” Thus, John is saying nothing new here when He says that the eternal Word of God, the divine Logos, is the creator of all that is. He says it positively, then restates it negatively: “Apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being.” So, if you are taking notes, here’s a list of everything besides God and His Word that was not created by God and His Word: NOTHING! There is no list. There are no exceptions. The Word, the Logos, is eternal and He is God, and He created everything that has ever come into existence.

As we read the account of creation in Genesis, we find that the multitude of things that God created can be classified into two categories: things that are light and things that are life. Now, what were the raw materials that God used to create these things? Quite simply, there were no raw materials. God created ex nihilo, from nothing. Hebrews 11:3 says that “the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” So how did the Logos create light and life from nothing? It is because light and life are inherent in who He is. “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” Because He is life, He is able to impart life to that which has none. Because He is light, He is able to impart light into the darkness that exists apart from Him. This is true in creation, it is true in revelation, and it is true in redemption. Apart from God’s revelation of Himself and His truth, all is death and darkness. But by His eternal Word, He has revealed life and light to all mankind. And apart from Him, there is no spiritual, eternal life; only spiritual death and spiritual darkness. But God has acted by His Word to bring both spiritual and eternal light and life to humanity. He has shone into the darkness. He shone into the darkness of creation and there was light and life. He has spoken His divine Word into the void and brought the light and life of the knowledge of Himself. He has acted in history to bring the spiritually dead into life and those who grope in spiritual darkness into His marvelous light.

John says, “The light shines in the darkness,” but he says that “the darkness did not comprehend it.” You will observe in some translations of the English Bible a variation in the wording here, perhaps in the text or in a footnote, which indicates that this may read, “the darkness did not overpower it.” Both senses of the word are correct. Where the light of God and His Logos has shone, it has not been comprehended by men because we are darkened by our sin. Mankind sees the created order all around, but does not comprehend that God and His Word are the source of this light. Mankind has an insatiable longing for spiritual and eternal realities, but cannot identify on our own power the source nor the object of that longing. We possess both a realization of right and wrong, and the profound awareness that we are most often guilty of the wrong and incapable of the right. But we do not know what to do about it. There is light, but left our own devices, we cannot comprehend it. Even still, however, the light of God and His word are not overpowered by our darkness. Just as the blackness of the darkest room is shattered by the striking of a single match, so the darkness of this world filled with sin cannot extinguish the light of God, try as it may. A person in that room can see the light, though he or she may not know what is the source of that light. So it is that rejecting the belief that God created the universe and all that is in it does not make those things go away, and it does not disprove the truthfulness of it. Rejecting the truth of God’s revelation does not render it invalid. And refusing God’s offer of redemption does not open for humanity another way to Him. Though we may not comprehend the light that shines in the darkness, neither can we overpower that light that shines in the darkness. True light and true life are found only in God and in His eternally divine Word. God has made this light and life known throughout all of time in various ways and in varying degrees. The writer of Hebrews said that God “spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways” (Hebrews 1:1). But in these last days, He has spoken a final Word. And this brings us to the wondrous truth of God’s Amazing Word in verse 14.

IV. God’s Amazing Word Became Flesh (v14)

In the summer of 2005, Dr. George Braswell took several of us seminary students to visit and dialogue with a Reformed Jewish Rabbi at a synagogue in Raleigh. It was one of the most enlightening experiences of my academic career. We talked at length about many theological issues and many passages of Scripture. At one point, the Rabbi said, “Do you know that passage in Proverbs 8 where Wisdom is personified in human terms?” And of course, we were well familiar with that passage. There, Wisdom is said to call out to humanity, beckoning to be received and understood. Wisdom is said to have existed with God before anything else was ever created, and when it was all created, Wisdom was at work beside Him as a master workman. The Rabbi said, “What would you say if I told you that we believe that this Wisdom is nothing other than the Torah, the living Word of God?” I spoke up among my peers and said to the Rabbi, “What would you say if I told you that I agree with you, but that I also believe that this Wisdom, the Torah, the living Word of God, became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ?” The Rabbi, sadly, seemed to ignore my comment, and made no response. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.

This is exactly what John is saying here in verse 14. In the beginning was the Word, the Logos. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word created everything exists with no exceptions. This Word has within Himself both life and the light of men. And this Word, the eternal and divine Logos, “became flesh and dwelt among us.” John is referring to nothing other than the incarnation—God becoming flesh—that occurred when Jesus the Christ came into the world. A week ago we celebrated the miracle of His birth. But though Jesus was born into the world on a certain day to a virgin mother, He did not begin to exist on that day. The baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the eternal and divine Logos, the living and amazing Word of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us. It is He who created the world and all that it contains. It is He who is life and light. It is He who shines in the darkness. Though the darkness did not comprehend Him, neither could the darkness overpower Him. Though the darkness of man in this sin-darkened world crucified Him, He overpowered the darkest of the dark and triumphed over the tomb in glorious resurrection.

He became flesh and dwelt among us. The word that John uses means literally that “He pitched His tent” among us. We might say that He tabernacled among us. The idea of it carries us back to the days of old in which the glory of God resided among His people in a tabernacle in the wilderness. During the days of the Exodus, a stranger might ask a Hebrew, “Where can I find God?” and the Hebrew would say, “He lives there, in that tent in the midst of us.” John is saying to the world, “If you want to know where to find God, you will find Him there, in that tent of flesh—in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ—who came to us and dwelt among us.” Moses cried out to God, saying “Show me your glory!” John says that when the Word became flesh, we beheld His glory, glory that no one other than the Father ever had. This was the Son who was of the same eternal and divine nature as the Father. He was fully man, born in the flesh. But He was fully God, glorious and filled with grace and truth.

Every human being, whether they admit it or not, desperately needs and longs to find life, and light, and glory, and grace, and truth. And all of those longing are satisfied in Jesus, and only in Him. He is the Amazing Word of God. He existed in the beginning with God and He is God. He created everything that is. He is life and light to all men. He is filled with glory, grace and truth. And He became one of us—He became flesh. In Him God dwells among His people. He is Immanuel, God with us. And all that the Apostle John has written about Him here and in the chapters and verses to follow has been written that you might believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life abundant and eternal in His name.

Today we stand on the threshold of a new year, a time of new beginnings. In Jesus, God has given the world a new beginning. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Him, you have the opportunity for more than just a new year. He offers you a new life. The Apostle Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). My prayer is that you would begin this year believing that Jesus is God, He is the Christ, He is Lord, and He is the Savior of humanity, delivering us from the darkness of our sin by His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His glorious resurrection; and that believing, you may have life in His name. And if you have that life in Him, I pray that the year ahead will find you growing, in the words of Peter, “in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), walking with Him through each day that comes, serving Him faithfully and making Him known fervently. May this be the resolution of all His people for 2012.

[1] Andreas Kostenberger, John (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 5.

[2] William Temple, quoted in Morris, 123.

[3] Morris, 123.

[4] Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2007), 1.

[5] W. Robert Cook, The Theology of John (Chicago: Moody, 1979), 49.

[6] Hendriksen, 70.

[7] Edmund Clowney, cited in Carson, 117.

[8] John Calvin, John (Crossway Classic Commentaries; Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), 15.

The Glad Tidings of a Christmas Gospel (Luke 2:1-20)

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. J. Russell Reaves) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:55:14 PST

Audio (Sound quality is poor because the .mp3 was made from a tape recording)

It has been a blessing for me over these weeks of Advent to study afresh the angelic announcements in the Gospels that lead us toward the birth of Christ. We’ve had as our theme this season that line from “O Little Town of Bethlehem” which says, “We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.” We’ve considered the glad tidings of God’s faithfulness in the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist. We’ve considered the glad tidings of grace and glory in the announcement to Mary, and the glad tidings of Christ’s mission in the announcement to Joseph. Today, we reach the summit of Advent as we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus, and we turn to the most appropriate narrative passage in the Bible. I first heard these words spoken by that great theologian and philosopher, Linus, when I was just a little boy. When Charlie Brown asked, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”, Linus said, “Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.” And then he read Luke 2:8-14, and said, “That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.” Linus was right. This text helps us, amid all the chaos, and all the hustle and bustle of the season, to remember exactly what Christmas is all about. We continue our study of the angelic announcements by looking at the words spoken to the shepherds. These are “Glad Tidings of a Christmas Gospel.”

After narrating the birth of the Lord Jesus, Luke tells us that there were some shepherds out in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. It was just an ordinary night in the fields for them for a little while, until an angel of the Lord stood before them. He had just come from the very presence of God, and was radiating the glory of the Lord, filling those dark hills with brilliant light. As we’ve seen in every angelic announcement we’ve looked at this season, the initial reaction is one of fear. And in every case, the first words of the angel is, “Do not be afraid.” The reason they can take courage is that the angel says, “I bring you good news of great joy!” The words “I bring you good news” translate the single Greek word euaggelizomai, from which we get our word evangelism. To evangelize is to proclaim good news. The noun form of this word is what we translate in English as “gospel.” The angel is saying to the shepherds, “I have come to you with the gospel!” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed “good news of great joy”! And this news comes to the shepherds like all good news stories do. All good journalists know that to get to the bottom of a news story, there are six questions that have to be answered: Who? What? When? Where? Why? And how? In the brief message given to the shepherds by the angel, all of these questions are answered.

I. What is the good news of Christmas?

I learned early in our marriage that men and women handle the news of a baby’s birth differently. I would go to the hospital to visit a new mom and baby, and I’d come home and say, “Well, the baby is here and healthy.” And Donia would say, “Was it a boy or a girl? What time did the baby come? How much did it weigh? What’s the baby’s name? How long was it?” I would just stand there looking stupid, and say, “I’ll have to get back to you on some of that. All I know is that the baby was born and is healthy.”

The angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds and announced that a Baby had been born. The angel did not give details like the weight or length of the Baby, but he said something far more important. He said, “A Savior has been born.” The announcement is that the Baby who has been born is no ordinary baby. This Baby is the Savior.

The news of a Savior is good news for people who need saving! And this Baby had been born to save humanity from its greatest peril. Remember that the angel had announced to Joseph in Matthew 1, “He will save His people from their sins.” This is the Savior whose birth was announced from the beginning of time. When Adam and Eve fell into sin in the Garden of Eden, God made a declaration that there would come a Redeemer, the Seed of woman, who would deliver a crushing blow to Satan and deliver humanity from the curse of sin. Isaiah looked forward to a day when the anointed Servant of the Lord would come, and He would bear the sins of humanity in His death. He would be a substitute, a sacrifice, who would die a death He did not deserve to redeem sinners and reconcile them to God. Centuries of waiting had elapsed, but the angel is bringing good news to the shepherds that the wait is over. The Savior has been born!

Now, if you are like me, when you read the newspaper it doesn’t take long to figure out whether a particular story is relevant to you. And the news of the birth of a Savior is the same. This news is only relevant to you if you are a sinner. If you aren’t a sinner, you don’t need a Savior. You can turn the page or change the channel, because this news doesn’t apply to you. But the truth of the matter is that every human being who has ever lived is a sinner, so this news is relevant to us all. All of the longings of humanity, long oppressed in the bondage of sin, are met in the birth of this Child, for He is the Savior. The announcement of His birth is the good news of Christmas.

II. Who is the good news of Christmas about?

In verse 1, Luke tells us that this story takes place during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Born to the sister of Julius Caesar, he began his life with the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, and came to also be called Octavian. Following the death of his uncle, he became one of three men to govern the Roman Empire in what was known as the Second Triumvirate. After Lepidus was exiled and Mark Antony committed suicide, Octavian became the sole emperor of a Roman Empire that was weak, the future of which was uncertain. The Senate gave him the title “Augustus,” meaning “the illustrious” or “revered one.” It was with his ascension to the throne that the storied Pax Romana, or Peace of Rome began. By the time of the birth of Jesus, he had been in power alone or as a part of the Triumvirate for 44 years. During that span of years, legends grew up around him. The date of his birth began to be celebrated as “the beginning of the good news” for the world. He came to be viewed as the Savior of the Empire.

With that in mind, you can imagine the shepherds hearing the news delivered to them by the angel while they were out in the fields that night. “I bring you good news of great joy … a Savior has been born!” Was this a new emperor? Had Augustus had a son? Who is this Savior who has been born? And the words of the angel make it clear that this is not a mere mortal who govern the Empire. This Savior who has been born is greater than that. He is infinitely greater than Augustus, the so-called illustrious and revered one. This Savior is none other than “Christ the Lord.”

We do not know what language the angel used to speak to the shepherds, but Luke has written the account in Greek. The word used here, Christ, is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Meshiach, “Messiah.” It means “anointed one.” This is the one whose coming has been promised, God’s anointed Servant who would come as the ultimate and final prophet, priest and King. And He is the Lord. Though the word “lord” could be used to describe human beings who possessed authority, the immediate association that would occur to the Hebrew mind upon hearing the word “lord” would be God Himself. There are many lords, but this not “a lord,” this is Christ the Lord. This is the Lord of lords, the One whose authority surpasses all others. In the person of Jesus, God had become man. The incarnate God is Himself the Messiah and the Savior of the world. The good news of Christmas is about a Savior who was born, that savior is Christ, the anointed Messiah, the Lord God of the universe incarnate as a man.

III. When did the good news of Christmas take place?

The internet has revolutionized the way many of us receive news. The phrase “breaking news” doesn’t quite mean what it used to. Once upon a time, if you found out about “breaking news” event, that could be hours or even days after it had taken place. Now, information is available within seconds to anyone in the world. Often, what I see in the newspapers or hear about on the nightly news is something I first discovered hours or days before on Twitter. It is quite amusing to see news anchors sitting at the desk looking at their Blackberries and iPhones as breaking events take shape. Twitter first came into being in 2006, but in our Scripture text, we see that God had his own way of delivering breaking news. Better than Twitter, the announcement came to shepherds by an angel of heaven announcing that the Savior had been born today! It just happened! And the shepherds are the first to know about it.

Now, when we say “today,” what day are we talking about? Is “today” actually “today,” December 25? If you do not already, then you should know that some scholars insist that the birth of Jesus could not have occurred on December 25, for sheep were not typically out in the fields during the deep midwinter. Typically, shepherds would only be “out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night” between March and November. Before we allow this to dismiss our date of December 25, we should acknowledge that some Jewish sources speak of a particular group of sheep being tended in the fields, even in these very fields of Bethlehem, throughout the year, even in December. These sheep were those which were being raised for sacrificial slaughter at the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, if this did take place in December, it would mean that the shepherds to whom the angels appeared were tending sheep for the temple sacrifices. This would make these shepherds all the more significant in the story, given that the Baby who had just been born was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

There are some who insist that the date of December 25 was chosen centuries later by the Roman church in order to “Christianize” pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice. Indeed, there are pagan celebrations at this time of year, but many of them originated after the time of Christ, and it may be argued that at least some of them may have been created to overshadow a date that Christians across the Roman Empire already held dear. It is true that the official date of Christmas did not get established until the mid-fourth century, but it was actually calculated based on the traditional dating of other events in the life of Christ, and not chosen to compete with pagan festivals. Now, whether those calculations are correct or not, we will likely never know. And ultimately, it is not of great importance when we believe that Christ was born. It is of the utmost importance that we agree that He was born, how He was born, and why He was born.

For the shepherds, the point of the message was not that the Savior was born today, so mark it on your calendar, and next year you can celebrate it with by putting lights on a tree and hanging your socks by the fireplace. The point was that the Savior was born that very day, making today (whatever day it was) the beginning of a whole new world. It was an event that they could personally participate in, for it was happening even as the angel spoke to them.

IV. Where did the good news of Christmas take place?

In most of our nativity sets, we have Mary and Joseph, and the baby Jesus, and the shepherds and the magi. Now, I am a stickler for detail, so I always have to put the magi on the other side of the room. They weren’t there that night. They saw the star that night, and then they began their journey from the east. Matthew tells us that they visited Jesus in a house, and based on the information they provided to Herod, he concluded that Jesus may have been up to two years old by the time they arrived. They had to come a long way and it took them a long time to get there. But the shepherds had a great advantage over the magi. They did not have to travel across the continent of Asia to find Him. The angel told them that He had been born “in the city of David.” Though Jerusalem was the place where David reigned as King, Bethlehem was the city of his birth. Even the shepherds understood that the “city of David” was Bethlehem (v15).

Now why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? Simple. Because that’s where Mary was at the time! That’s a joke, but it is still true. If she’d been in Miami Beach at the time, He’d have been born there. But the thing is, she was in Bethlehem for a reason. There was this census going on (v1), and it required Joseph to return to the city of his family, which was Bethlehem. And the census was going on because Augustus demanded it. But these are all secondary causes. You see, mysteriously and miraculously, it was God who put it in Augustus Caesar’s heart to demand this census requiring Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem. Augustus Caesar died in 14 AD, and probably never knew a thing about Jesus. He couldn’t have cared less about Joseph, Mary, or this Baby. All he was interested in was making sure that the Empire was receiving their taxes from the people. But God orchestrated all of this for a greater purpose. It was significant in the plans of God for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, because that was the place where Micah had prophesied, 700 years earlier, that the Messiah would be born.

In the fifth chapter of Micah, the Lord spoke through His prophet saying, “But as for you Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in

Israel

. His going forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” He went on to say, “He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they will remain, because at that time He will be great to the ends of the earth. This One will be our peace” (Micah 5:2-5). Now, lest you think, “Well that isn’t really specific enough to say that Bethlehem was the prophesied birthplace of the Messiah,” keep in mind that when the magi finally arrived in Jerusalem and asked Herod, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” the scribes and priests knew that Bethlehem was the place. How did they know? They said, “This is what has been written by the prophet,” and then they quoted Micah 5.

So true are the words we sing, penned by Phillips Brooks: “O little town of Bethlehem, … the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight!”

We’re talking about a message brought by an angel to shepherds. It is good news! The what of it is that a Savior is born. The who of it is Christ the Lord. The when of it is today. The where of it is in Bethlehem, the city of David. Now briefly a word about how.

V. How did this good news of Christmas come about?

Luke tells us in chapter 1 how the angel had announced to Mary that she would conceive the Savior in her womb, though she was still a virgin, and here in chapter 2 he tells about how they came to Bethlehem and delivered the Baby, the angel doesn’t go into that kind of information with the shepherds. He merely says, “You will find a Baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” That is enough to say that the good news of Christmas took place in a way that was both ordinarily normal and strangely bizarre. It was perfectly normal to find a newborn baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. That could still be true today. We brought our firstborn child home from the hospital eleven years ago today. It was an almost an hour-long drive in the snow on Christmas day, so we have some pretty special memories about that. But before we left the hospital, we learned how to swaddle the baby in his little blanket. If the angel said, “Here’s a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths,” they could have looked all night for him because every baby in Bethlehem was wrapped in cloths. The “sign” that the angel directs them to is that this baby was “lying in a manger.” That’s just weird. A manger is a feeding trough for animals. That’s a strange place for a baby, much less a baby who was God in the flesh, born as the Messiah and the Savior of the world. But it was the best they could do, because there was no room in the inn.

There is something beautiful symbolic about Jesus being placed in a manger. He had left His glorious throne in heaven and come to rest in a crude and humble manger. He had joined His glorious divine nature with the frailness of humanity. His manger reflects the humility and the condescension of His incarnation. Paul said it this way: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). And that brings us to the final matter in this good news.

VI. Why did the good news of Christmas take place?

There are two very important words, easy to overlook, in the angelic announcement that explain why this Baby was born. The good news for these shepherds is not just that a Savior has been born, but that He has been born, the angel says, “for you.” “Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

You have to understand that these shepherds were not very highly esteemed in their society. A shepherd in that day was something of a social pariah. They had bad reputations. The were viewed as dishonest people by most, and they were considered unclean according to the standards of the Law. They might have been raising sheep for slaughter in the Temple, but they would never be able to enter the temple or take part in the sacrifices there. But it was to the likes of these that message is delivered. God could have made that announcement to anyone, but He announced it to shepherds. And He said that the Savior was born for them.

But notice that the good news is not just for shepherds. The angel said in verse 10 that the news he is bringing is “good news of great joy which will be for all the people.” No matter who you are, where you are from, what you have done, what others think of you, or what you think of yourself, the good news of Christmas is that this Savior, Christ the Lord, was born for you. Jesus is the greatest gift ever given. He was given by God Himself, and He was given for you.

Have you received this gift? Have you received Jesus as your Savior? For you He was born. For you He lived. For you He died. And for you He is risen and ascended back into heaven. It is for you that He is at the right hand of the Father, making intercession. He has come to save you from sin. He offers you the gift of Himself. If you have never received that gift, I can think of no better day to do it than today, Christmas Day! I don’t know what the rest of this day has in store for you, but I pray that whatever it is, that throughout this day, and for the rest of your days, you will always keep in the forefront of your mind this good news of Christmas: today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

As you reflect on that, you will be drawn into the same chorus of worship that is exclaimed by a host of angels in the sky over Bethlehem on that night: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

The Glad Tidings of Christ's Mission (Matthew 1:18-25)

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. J. Russell Reaves) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:58:12 PST

Hear it here

Throughout this Advent season, we have been examining the Gospel accounts of the angelic announcements leading up to the birth of Christ under the heading of that familiar phrase, “We Hear the Christmas Angels,” from the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” We sing, “We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.” We have examined the glad tidings of God’s faithfulness in the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist to his father Zacharias in Luke 1. We have examined the glad tidings of grace and glory in the announcement of the birth of Jesus to Mary, also in Luke 1. Today we make our way to the Gospel According to Matthew and examine the announcement of the birth of Jesus to Joseph, in which we find the glad tidings of Christ’s mission.

I want to tell you everything I know about this man Joseph. It won’t take long. We know that he was betrothed to be married to Mary, and that he eventually took her to be his wife. We know that he was a carpenter. We know that he lived in Nazareth and that his family origins were in Bethlehem. He was a descendant of David, as was Mary. We know that he was a righteous man. And that is about all that we know about him. The Bible never records any words that he spoke. He is never mentioned during the adult years of Jesus’ life, though Mary and her other children are. This has led some to conclude that he must have died before Jesus began His earthly ministry, but we cannot be certain. So, here’s a man that most of us probably have a little statue of in our homes (and we have a big statue of him right here in the front of the church), and yet we know almost nothing about him. But I suppose that Joseph would not mind. Being a righteous man, I suppose that Joseph would prefer that we know less about him and more about Jesus. His identity is practically consumed within his relationship with Jesus. That’s not a bad ambition for any of us! We might wish that our own identity was so consumed in Jesus that the world knew little of us and more of Him.

The most vivid picture we have in Scripture of Joseph comes from this passage. Let’s put ourselves in his shoes for a moment. He is a hard-working man, a carpenter by trade, hammering out a living for himself and preparing for his future as Mary’s husband. They are betrothed, which means that they are engaged in a legally-binding way. A betrothal could only be broken by death or divorce. They still live apart, and there are no physical relations between them. A betrothal may last a year or longer, and during that time, it is the husband’s responsibility to get a home prepared for his bride and prepare for their future. Now at some point during this betrothal period, Mary “was found to be with child.” We do not know how much time elapsed between Gabriel’s announcement to Mary and Joseph finding out. Did she tell him immediately? Did he find out once she began to show? We don’t know. But we can imagine how he must have felt when he found out. He hasn’t had any visions or angelic messengers. All he knows is that his bride-to-be is pregnant, and that he is not the father of the child. She says that the Holy Spirit has accomplished this, and that she remains a virgin. But Joseph must find that hard to believe. Wouldn’t you? You’ve only heard of that ever happening once. He has never heard of it happening at all! There are no pregnant virgins, or at least that is what Joseph must think.

We get a glimpse of the kind of man that Joseph is as he considers what to do next. If he made a spectacle of this scandal, she could be put to death for adultery. He loves her in spite of his confusion and the feeling of broken trust, so he decided to “send her away secretly.” That means that he would divorce her, but he would do it privately in such a way that no one would ever know the reason. His plans were made, and he went to bed. During the night, an angel appeared to him in a dream and brought him a message. The message is one of comfort and assurance. The first words spoken by the angel direct Joseph to action: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” But the angel does not end there. Indeed, as in all Scripture, right conduct is built upon right belief, and right belief always fuels right conduct. So the angel proceeds to give Joseph an insight into who this Baby is, and what He is coming to do. These are the glad tidings of Christ’s mission.

I. Christ has come to save His people from their sins (v21)

The angel told Joseph, “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus.” This name is significant. It means “The Lord is salvation.” This name was not chosen by Joseph or by Mary. It was chosen by God! And the reason why this name above all others was chosen is that “he will save His people.” Throughout Israel’s history, indeed throughout all human history going back to the Garden of Eden, the world had been awaiting a Savior. During the time in which Jesus was born, there were many ideas about what the Savior would do when He came. There were many who believed that He would come and deliver Israel from their bondage to Rome. They envisioned a conquering king entering Jerusalem on a white horse and waging a bloody war against their oppressors, ushering in a time of peace and prosperity in the land. Jesus had come as the long-awaited Savior, but He didn’t come as so many had expected. He came to save His people, but not from the oppression of Rome. Jesus had come to save His people from an even crueler oppressor, one that had subjected the entire human race to slavery. He came to save His people from their sins.

Did you realize that you were born into slavery? Jesus says that everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34). So, since we all commit sin, we are all enslaved to sin. Now, how did this happen? Do you remember when you first learned to sin? Of course you don’t, because you were born knowing how to sin. You inherited a human nature that is defiled and corrupted by sin. This has been true of every human since Adam. Paul says in Romans 5:12 that it was “through one man,” Adam, that “sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” We are sinners by nature, and our sin nature manifests itself in us every time we sin by choice. What hope do we sinners have? Will you try to be better? C. S. Lewis said, ““No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”[1] Try as you may, and you won’t be able to do it. And even if you could decide today that you would never sin again, which you can’t, what would you do with all the sins of your past? No, the only hope that we sinners have of escaping this slavery is to be saved from it. And Jesus has come to save us!

He alone has lived a life perfectly free from sin. If, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death,” then we must conclude that Jesus did not deserve to die. He did not die because He deserved it. He died because He chose to in order to save us. In His death on the cross, He became our sacrificial substitute. He took our sins upon Himself and received in Himself the full penalty that they deserve under the righteous judgment of God the Father. And in His death and resurrection from the dead, He has conquered our sins and their penalty. Thus, He accomplished what He came to do! He came to save us from our sins, and this is exactly what He did.

Though there were many who had wrong ideas about Christ’s mission to save, there were some who understood. We meet one in Luke 2:25. His name was Simeon, and the Bible says that “this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel.” And when he laid eyes on the Baby Jesus as He was presented to the temple, he took the Baby into his arms and began to sing, “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation, Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, A LIGHT OF REVELATION TO THE GENTILES, And the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32). Now, how did he know this, when so many others didn’t? It was because he knew his Bible. He had read and understood the prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the Messiah. And that brings us to the second truth in this angelic message.

II. Christ has come to fulfill divinely-inspired prophecy (v22-23a)

The prophets of old were not men who expounded their own opinions. Second Peter 1:20-21 says, “no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” When the prophets delivered their messages, they were messages from God. Thus the angel speaks of that which was “spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” The messages of the prophets were divinely inspired. Through the prophets, the Lord spoke of things that would happen immediately, things that would happen a long time in the future, and things in-between. And when Jesus came, many of the prophecies and promises of God were fulfilled. We call the prophecies that point to Jesus “messianic prophecies,” for they point to Christ as the Messiah. After recording the words of the angel, the Apostle Matthew says, “all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.”

The most complete list of messianic prophecies I have ever seen is found in Alfred Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. He does not claim to provide a complete list of every messianic prophecy in the Bible, and there are a few that he plainly omits. What Edersheim presents is a list of “passages in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah or to Messianic times in the most ancient Jewish writings.” Edersheim was converted to Christianity while studying to be a Jewish rabbi, so he understood the writings of the rabbis. He claims that his list was drawn from “more than 558 separate quotations from the Rabbinic writings,” including the Targums, the Talmuds, and the Midrash.[2] And in Edersheim’s list there are 456 separate messianic prophecies from 29 of the 37 books of the Old Testament. As I said, there are some glaring omissions even in that list, so the total number would be even more than 456. And Jesus came to fulfill every one of them. He said to His disciples following the resurrection, “all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44).[3]

Matthew tells us that the angel’s message to Joseph points to the fulfillment of one specific prophecy here, made some 700 years before the birth of Jesus, in Isaiah 7:14. The quotation is nearly verbatim: “Behold the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” Now, there are some who claim that Christians are reading a wrong interpretation into this Jewish scripture. They say that the word translated “virgin” here, the Hebrew word almah, does not mean “virgin” but a “young woman of marriageable age.” It is true that the word can mean that, but it can also mean “virgin.” In fact, of the seven uses of this word in the Old Testament, whenever the precise meaning can be determined, it seems to refer to a virgin. There is not one instance of the word where it clearly refers to a woman who was not a virgin. Additionally, when the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, a project we call the Septuagint, the most capable Hebrew and Greek scholars of the day chose the Greek word parthenos to translate Isaiah 7:14, and that word means exclusively “a virgin.” And the Septuagint was translated 200 years before the birth of Christ and it was done by Jewish scholars, so we cannot accuse those men of reading a Christian interpretation into the verse.

Besides this, in the original context of Isaiah 7:14, the birth of this child was said to have been a sign. Israel was on the brink of destruction and the Lord was promising that He would uphold them if they would trust in Him. He would preserve the house of David, from which God’s anointed King would come and reign. But Ahaz refused to believe, even though the Lord offered Ahaz the opportunity to choose a sign in order that the Lord might prove Himself. Ahaz refused to ask for sign, and so the Lord spoke through the prophet and said, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son.” Now, understand that the only way this could be a sign is if it was something unusual that was taking place. Otherwise no one would notice. Thus, suppose that the prophet had said to Ahaz, “Behold, here is a sign for you, a young woman of marriageable age will be with child and bear a son.” Big deal! That happens every day all over the world. But now, if there is a pregnant virgin walking around somewhere, now that get’s our attention! And the Hebrew language in Isaiah 7:14 is specific. It is not “a virgin,” but “the virgin” that will bear a son. Which virgin? The pregnant one! And history has only ever known one of those. She came onto the scene 700 years after Isaiah’s time. And the child she bore was Jesus, born of a virgin, and coming to fulfill every saving promise that God had ever spoken through His prophets.

There are a number of messianic prophecies in the Old Testament which have not yet been fulfilled. These await the second coming of the Lord Jesus. But just as surely as God fulfilled the prophecies of the first coming of Jesus, so He will also bring the latter day prophecies of His return to pass as well. This season we call Advent is one of looking back on the first coming of Jesus as well as looking forward to His return.

Now the prophet had said that the Child’s name would be “Immanuel.” Ah, but I thought this Baby’s name was Jesus? This brings us to the third truth concerning Christ’s mission.

III. Christ has come to be God with us (v23b)

Following the angel’s message to Joseph and the reminder of this great prophecy from Isaiah, Matthew offers a translation. He says that “Immanuel” means “God with us.” This was not the name that was to be given to the Child. The angel is clear that the Child’s name is to be Jesus. As far as we know, He never went by the name Immanuel during the time of His earthly life. But the name Immanuel is a perfectly fitting description of who He was. He was the infinite and eternal God who had come to dwell on earth among humanity as a man. We call this the incarnation, God becoming a man. And it is this which is the most glorious miracle of Christmas!

Listen to what the Apostle John says about Him: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). The Apostle Paul said it this way, “Christ Jesus … existed in the form of God,” yet He “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” In other words, He did not cling to His full deity. Rather, He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men …” (Philippians 2:7). Fully God, and fully man, this is who Jesus is, and He came to be God with us.

Because He was fully human, He could experience hunger, thirst, tiredness, pain, and frustration. Because He was fully human, He was able to face temptation as we all do. As the perfect man, He was able to overcome every temptation and remain free from sin throughout His entire life. Because he was fully human, He was able to die as our righteous substitute.

Because He was fully God, He could heal the sick, calm the storm, raise the dead, and forgive the sins of man. And because He was fully God, death could not keep its grasp upon Him. Because He was fully God He was able to destroy sin and death through His resurrection. And because He was and is fully God, He is able to forgive sinners, to declare us righteous before Him, and to grant to us eternal life.

He is God with us. This is why He came. But He remains God with us here and now. Remember that the last words spoken to the disciples by the Risen Lord Jesus, recorded in Matthew 28:20 are, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” For the rest of time, Jesus is God with us. And beyond this age, He will still be God with us. In Revelation 21:3, the Apostle John records, concerning the vision of heaven that he received, that he “heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” God with us. That is who Jesus was; who Jesus is; and who Jesus will forever be.

The fully human, fully divine Christ came, in the fulfillment of prophecy to save His people from their sins. This He has accomplished through His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His glorious resurrection. The only question that remains is, “Are you one of His people?” Who are “His people” that He came to save? They are those who, prompted by the Holy Spirit under the conviction of their sins, turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, calling upon Him as Lord and Savior. And these, He saves from their sins. Why did Jesus come? Hear His own words: “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). If you are lost in your sins, turn to this Jesus, the Christ, who was born as God in the flesh, in the fulfillment of all that God had promised through His prophets, to save His people from their sins.

If you are one of His people, if you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then He has invited you to join Him in His mission. In John 20:21, He said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” God has come to us in the person of the Lord Jesus to bring salvation, to fulfill the promises of God’s Word, and to be present among us. We have been commissioned to go into all the world to announce to the nations that Jesus is the salvation that all humanity needs, that in Him all the promises are fulfilled, and that only in Him can a human being meet God. Will you take part in the mission of Christ as He carries it out in the world through His church today?

[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 142.

[2] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993), 980.

[3] This tripartite division of Law, Prophets, and Psalms corresponds to the organization of the Hebrew Bible into three sections: Torah (Law), Nebiim (Prophets), and Kethubim (Writings, of which the Psalms are the primary portion). The Hebrew Bible is therefore called Tanakh, an acrostic in Hebrew that we would transliterate TNK.