[Prayer]
Today’s message is from John 1:1-5. It’s about who Jesus is. Jesus is the Word of God who became flesh. And, as always, as we read the passage, remember that we are reading the word of God.
Also, as always, I encourage you to read your Bibles every day. Know the word of God! And know the Word of God who became flesh.
Let’s read the passage—John 1:1-5:
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. 4Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men. 5That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it. (John~1:1-5)
Today’s passage is about who Jesus is. John tells us that right up front: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” The meaning of word is much broader than just a reference to what someone has said. We say that the Bible is the word of God and think of it as meaning what God said and had someone write down—the word of God. But the word of God is actually not only what God has said, but all that he has done and will do, and ultimately, who he is.
Jesus is the Word of God. Verse 1 tells us that he was there in the beginning. The beginning is the beginning of creation. Jesus was there before any of this stuff we can see around us existed. He was there before we existed, before any people existed, even before there were angels, or anything else. (Jesus wasn’t called Jesus until he became a man, but he was the same person that was there in the beginning, so I’m going to call him Jesus even back at the beginning of time.) Jesus was not only there before creation, but there was never a time that Jesus didn’t exist.
Listen to what the writer of Hebrews says. He used the example of the priest Melchizedek, who blessed Abraham back in Genesis 14, to illustrate who Jesus is:
6:20Jesus has entered there (the inner sanctuary) on our behalf as a forerunner, because He has become a “high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” 7:1For this Melchizedek—King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham and blessed him as he returned from defeating the kings, 2and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything; first, his name means “king of righteousness,” then also, “king of Salem,” meaning “king of peace”; 3without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God—remains a priest forever. (Hebrews~6:20-7:3)
Jesus is “without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Of course God the Father is Jesus’s father and always was. And when Jesus became a man, he had a human mother, Mary, and a stepfather, Joseph, but the point is that he is without beginning of days or end of life. Jesus always was and he always will be. He is a high priest forever.
And look at what the writer of Hebrews say about the name Melchizedek. In Hebrew it means “King of Righteousness”. Do you think Jesus is the King of Righteousness? He is! And the writer of Hebrews says that “king of Salem means” “king of peace”! Salem is Shalom—peace in Hebrew. Jesus is King of Peace! Do you think that fits Jesus—King of peace? Listen to what Isaiah says, “For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah~9:6-7)
Jesus is without father or mother and without beginning of days or end of life. This is not something we can understand. But consider the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. The angel of the Lord, I am convinced along with many other people, is Jesus before he was a man.
Back in the book of Judges, the Angel of the Lord appeared to a woman who had been barren, who had no children, to tell her that she would give birth to a son. The Angel of the Lord gave the woman and her husband instructions on how to raise their son when he was born. (The son was Samson.) The woman’s husband didn’t know it was the Angel of the Lord who had come, so he asked him what his name was. The angel of the Lord said, “Why do you ask My name, since it is wonderful.” (Judges~13:18) (We sing a song: His Name is Wonderful. It’s about Jesus. I think it’s in the green books.)
In the Bible, a persons name is not just what you call him. It represents everything about him—who he is and what he does. In the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God. Jesus is God. Jesus is not God the Father, but he has the very same nature as his Father—the nature of God. Jesus himself told Philip, in John 14:9, that anyone who has seen him has seen God the Father. And do you know what? It doesn’t say so, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Melchizedek who came to Abraham was Jesus just as the Angel of the Lord was Jesus. (It doesn’t say that the Angel of the Lord was Jesus either. But as I said, a lot of people think he was—and I do, too.
Now let’s look at verses 3 through 5 in today’s passage. I’m going to use a little different rendering of these verses than most major translations use. I’m going to use the rendering that is given in the HCSB footnote to verse 4. I believe it’s more accurate. It agrees with the Greek New Testament text that is most commonly used by Bible translators. (If you want a more detailed explanation, ask me about it later. But I believe the footnote translation is more accurate. I suspect most Bible translators do, too. But the’re afraid to break with tradition.)
Now listen while I read verses 3 and 4 as the HCSB translators translated it (not the footnote version):
3All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. 4Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men. (John~1:3, 4)
Now here’s the footnote version. Listen for the difference:
3All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created. What was created in Him (that is, through Him—my comment) was life, and that life was the light of men. (John~1:3, 4)
The HCSB and the major translations say, “...apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. Life was in Him …” The HCSB footnote, the Greek New Testament and quite a few, maybe most, of the newer but maybe more obscure translations say, “Apart from Him not one thing was created. What was created in Him (through him) was life...” or something similar. “What was created through him was life”, not “Life was in Him...” Did you notice the difference?
What the Bible scholars did more recently was move the period between the two sentences (verses 3 and 4) back a couple of words. This is entirely permissible because the earliest New Testament manuscripts didn’t have any punctuation at all! You had to decide as you read where one sentence ended and the next began. (In fact it was even harder than that. There were no spaces between words! Try reading an English sentence with no spaces or punctuation.) The HCSB footnote makes more sense, so that’s what the Bible scholars chose. (I think the more common of the newer translations don’t move the period because they are afraid of being lynched if they try it.) I don’t know whether all of you followed that or not, but you can ask me about it later if you want more details. You can ask me about the angel of the Lord being Jesus, also.
Well, the bottom line is that, not only was Jesus alive (and still alive, by the way), not only was life in him, but he’s the one that made life. That’s true regardless of how you read those verses. He gave life to every living creature and he gave life to us also. God the Father gave us life through his Son—through Jesus. We don’t think about it too much, but isn’t being alive a strange thing? People talk about “self-awareness.” You know you exist, don’t you? You know you’re alive. You just know it.
You know, it’s possible to program a computer to act like a person. They did that as far back as the ‘60’s. You “talked” to the computer through a keyboard just as we do now. The programs weren’t too good, but they fooled some people. I’m not sure what’s being done now, but you could probably program the computer to tell you that it was aware of its own existence—that it knew it was alive. But, do you think that a computer could really have self-awareness? Do you think it could know it’s alive? But we know we’re alive. More than that, we don’t just know that we are alive, but we know—we can know—that we have life through Jesus Christ—that we have eternal life through him. We were made alive through him. He’s alive and he’s the source of all life.
The second part of verse 4 in today’s passage says that the life that came through Jesus was the light of men—“ Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men.” Jesus himself said, “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” (John~8:12) Without the “light of life,” without Jesus, we would not be much different from the computer that may say it’s alive and aware of itself, but in reality is just a bunch of lifeless silicon and copper.
Now let’s look at verse 5. Verse 5 says, “That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it.” Jesus is the light. When he came as a man, the world was a dark place. It still is, maybe even darker. But the darkness has not overcome it.
A minute ago I talked about moving the period and so forth to get the translation that makes more sense. One of the translations that does that—moves the period—is the New Living Translation, the NLT. I’m going to read today’s passage from the NLT:
1In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He existed in the beginning with God. 3God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. 4The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (John~1:1-5 – NLT)
The world is indeed a dark place. But the darkness can never extinguish the light that comes through Jesus, the light of life. John 1:16-18 says, “Indeed, we have all received grace after grace from His fullness, for although the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The One and Only Son—the One who is at the Father's side—He has revealed Him.” The world has chosen to stay in the darkness. The world has not understood the light. Fallen man cannot understand God’s grace. The cross of Christ is foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). The world has largely rejected Jesus, but to those who accept him he gives the “right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.” “We have all received grace after grace from His fullness.” (John 1:12)
[Prayer]