KNOWING GOD as THE WORD

The Apostle John begins his gospel with these words,

 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).

What follows throughout John’s gospel makes it clear that who he is speaking of here is Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God,  whom John states is the whole reason he wrote the gospel; that men, women and children would believe, receive and embrace Jesus as such, and in doing so receive eternal life in Him as a beloved child of God (John 20:30-31) (John 1:10-13) (Ephesians 1:6-7).

 In referring to Jesus as the Word, John is identifying Jesus as the eternal God, God the Son, whom with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, is revealed throughout the words of the Old Testament as creator and sovereign ruler of all that exists apart from Him (Genesis 1:1) (Genesis 1:26) (Revelation 4:11) (Romans 11:33-36).  As the Word, Jesus is the embodiment of all that God has revealed regarding His glorious person and purposes in creation as well as the fulfillment of all the prophesies and promises God had made to Israel and mankind in the Old Testament (Luke 24:44-49).  He comes into this world 2000 years ago as the revelator and ultimate fulfillment of God’s words and life-giving promises found in the New Testament, specifically to those who believe on His name (Hebrews 1:1-4) (Colossians 2:8-10) (2 Peter 1:2-4) (John 1:12).

In the above verse, John identifies Jesus as the source of all life, and the light, the revelation of the glory of God, of the infinite value and perfections of His eternal being (John 8:12). It is glory initially revealed in His creation of the universe and most prominently in His creation of mankind in His image and likeness so that the infinite perfections of His being may be seen, displayed in, enjoyed and rejoiced in by all mankind (Genesis 1:26) (Isaiah 43:7) (Isaiah 19:1-6).  It is a glory that tragically has been marred, corrupted and suppressed by the sin of man, wherein we are no longer willing or able to fulfill the purpose for which we were created, and thus have made ourselves subject to God’s wrath and judgement (Genesis 3:6-7) (Genesis 6:11-12) (Romans 1:18-22).

The good news (the Gospel) however, is that God’s glory will now be revealed in and through the person and work of the man Jesus Christ, who will take upon Himself, on the cross,  the wrath and judgment we deserve so that this glory will one day be restored to all who identify their lives with His, by faith (Colossians 1:27-29) (Galatians 2:20) (Hebrews 2:10).

Theologian Sinclair Ferguson notes in commenting on this passage, “The invisible God has made himself visible in the most perfect way human beings are capable of apprehending and that is in the face of Jesus Christ in whom God made himself visible – the Son who was face to face with the Father has now made himself face to face with us” (2 Corinthians 4:4-6).

John thus tells us in John 1:14, that the Word became flesh (human) and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John here is most likely referring to the intimate relationship he and his eleven fellow apostles had with Jesus, who had chosen and called them to walk with Him throughout His earthly ministry (John 15:16-17) (1 John 1:1-4) (Luke 6:12-16).  Having left everything they held dear in this world to follow Him, they daily would eat with Him, sleep with Him, breath the same air that He breathed, be loved, protected and provided for by Him, while holding fast to His promise of a glorious life (eternal life) with Him, the life for which men and women were created, beginning in part while in this world, but in all of its fullness in the ages to come (Mark 10:29-30) (Ephesians 2:4-7) (1 John 5:12).

They would see His glory displayed daily in His sinless life, His awesome miracles, His authoritative teaching, His compassionate interactions with sinners including His forgiveness of their sins (Luke 7:44-48), His authority over demonic activity and His wise rebukes of the prideful religious leaders who were misrepresenting the truth of God and the glory of His grace.  John as well as James and Peter would get a glimpse of future glory, beholding Jesus in His glorified state speaking with Moses and Elijah, and having His divine glory affirmed by God the Father who spoke audibly from Heaven proclaiming of Jesus “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 17:1-8).

The apostles would witness His betrayal by Judas, His agony in the garden of Gethsemane the night before His death and His subsequent arrest (Matthew 26:36-46).  Unfortunately, only John would behold the ultimate display of His glory, wherein He was placarded on a Roman cross, in obedience to the will of the Father, taking upon Himself the wrath and judgment of God we deserved, so that our sins could be justly forgiven, and He could bring us back into right relationship with God. (John 19:25-27) (1 Peter 2:24) (1 Peter 3:18) (Philippians 2:5-11).

Jesus’ glorious, miraculous resurrection would be witnessed by all of the Apostles, minus Judas, as well as 500 others whom Jesus would appear to (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). After being commissioned by Jesus to go into all the world to proclaim the greatness, the goodness and the glory of God’s grace as displayed in His person and saving work, His Apostles would behold His glorious bodily ascension back into Heaven, with the promise of Him one day returning in like manner (Matthew 28:16-20) (Acts 1:4-11).

I have no doubt that as they beheld Jesus’ glorious ascension into Heaven, they stood in awe and wonder, amazement and adoration of Him, believing Him to be all that He had revealed Himself to be in all of His glory, namely, the indisputably holy, stunningly majestic, fearfully awesome creator and sovereign ruler of the universe – the gracious and merciful savior of a people He had and would call into intimate relationship with Himself (Acts 2:38-39) (Jeremiah 31:3).  They would be a people who would, like the apostles, come to behold His glory, but now by faith from the pages of scripture (Romans 1:1-7) (Romans 1:16-17) (Romans 3:21) (Hebrews 11:1).

Such faith would come to us from God as a gift, as does every other good thing related to our salvation (James 1:17) (Ephesians 2:8-10).  While in this world God’s glory in Christ would be revealed to our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirt through the written word, both Old and New Testaments, although the New makes clear what is written about Him in the Old (John 5:39) (John 14:15-19) (John 16:12-15).   Through our diligent study of the scriptures and the preaching and teaching on them by gifted men, we come to behold, by faith, the glory of our Lord – of His infinite worthiness to be known intimately, loved supremely, trusted explicitly, obeyed perfectly, worshiped exclusively and pursued passionately as the desire of our heart and delight of our soul, the object of our deepest love and the source of our eternal joy (Romans 10:17) (Hebrews 11:6) (1 Corinthians 8:3).

And what should excite our hearts even more is the promise that as we behold Jesus by faith, we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will progressively be made like Him as He is in His perfect humanity, partially in this world, and fully in the world to come when we see Him face to face (2 Corinthians 3:15-18) (1 John 3:1-3) (1 Corinthians 13:12).  In fact, we are told in Romans 8:28-30 that God is working all things that occur in our life in this world for that very purpose, through a process the Bible refers to as sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8).  And it is this glorious process and our role and responsibility in it that I will begin to look at in my next post.

Grace and Peace ×