Gospel of John, Introduction John, 1:1-3
John 1:1-3 · Mike Doyle · Jan 6, 2008
Gospel of John (2008), No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926049405561

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I remember when I was a young Christian and I was going to a Bible study out at Cherry Hills and somebody invited a kid who was a seminary student at Iowa School of the Bible or whatever that thing is and he was going to give us a lecture on the Gospel of John and for 45 minutes what he tried to do was to prove that John didn't write John And it was apparent to me that he probably never read it.

Anyway, the given is that the Gospel of John was written by John. And in your overview there, which I will go through, the four Gospels are very interesting in their location and position in the Word of God. We view the four Gospels as New Testament, when in fact the content would indicate that maybe they're not all New Testament. Because Matthew, written in about 50 AD, we would call it the Jewish gospel, and it has to do primarily with the Lord Jesus as King of Israel. So it would be primarily Jewish in content.

In Mark, written about 68 AD, it contemplates the Lord Jesus as a true servant and a prophet. A prophet is a person. Now, what is a prophet? That's one of the questions we'll talk about next week. If you have the title of prophet, what's your job description? Provide signs and wonders. Provide signs and wonders, but where'd you get your job? Where'd it come from? You got it from God. You were the person that represents God to the people. Mark talks about the Lord Jesus as a prophet. He's talking about the Lord Jesus representing God to the nation of Israel. He's a prophet. Because Aurora, Colorado doesn't have any prophets. Only the nation of Israel does.

Luke, written in about 60 AD, talked about the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect man. He begins to get away from Judaism. to some degree, but mostly Old Testament. So if I were writing the Bible, I would put those three Gospels in the Old Testament. John, who's the son of Zebedee, and he was an apostle and he's a brother of James. And we think he wrote this around 90 AD. Now that's a very significant time because How many of the original characters are still around? At 90 AD? None. He's the only one.

So he writes it from a perspective of watching all of the early church history take place, of knowing all of the main characters, and watching and observing what's happening. So it's very important to look at it from that perspective, because you can see he's got kind of a bird's eye view from a historical standpoint of all of these events that took place and to some degree the spiritual significance of them, but not to the degree the Apostle Paul did. Now, the Apostle Paul at this point has been gone for 25-30 years. He's not around. Church has grown. So, in 90 AD, he wrote it from the city of Ephesus, which is in Asia. Another interesting thing about this book is John never mentions his own name. Kind of an interesting concept.

He refers to himself as the disciple that Jesus loved and other references and the disciple that leaned against the Lord's chest in John 13 23 and chapter 20 verse 2. He never mentions his name. I kind of like that because If the focus is to be on the Lord Jesus himself, then why would you mention your own name? You wouldn't.

John was the first disciple to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. If you look at John 20, verse 8, he says, So the other disciples who had first come came to the tomb, then also entered, and he saw and believed. This is the first indication by any person who believed in the resurrection, John was the first one. He was also the first one that was recognized the Lord Jesus after his resurrection at the Sea of Galilee.

So he was the youngest of the apostles when they were first called and so he has 90% of his life is with the Lord Jesus while he was here and then involved in the growth of the church all of his life. So purpose, why would you think that after 90 or you know the Lord Jesus supposedly was born around 2 BC or 2 AD who knows But in 90 AD, some 90 years after the Lord was born, came to the planet, lived 33 and a half years, died, church begins, Pentecost, the spread of the gospel went from Jerusalem throughout Judea to Samaria and the whole world. And all of this has taken place in 90 years.

And then John sits down and decides, well, I think I better write Why do you think he did it? Why do you think the Lord did it that way? I mean, is John an afterthought? He certainly has a much different perspective than the other three. Now, to answer that question, you have to look at the purpose. And the purpose is John chapter 20, verse 31. And if you look in the front of your binder, I put that in there.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. That's the reason he wrote the gospel. Now, we'll see in a minute, there were some reasons, not just starting out and saying, I'm writing this so that you might know that Jesus is the Son of God and you might have life in his name. By that time, 90 AD, there was a few heresies around and lots of contradiction as to what Christianity really was and who the Lord Jesus really is. So, part of what he's writing is to contradict like Gnosticism and some of those things had already sprung up. So, twofold purpose. That Jesus is the Son of God, and we'll see that as we go through almost every chapter. He's the Son of God, and not just in name only, and that if you believe in Him, you'll have life through His name.

Now, there's another part here too, is that there's a few miracles listed but not a ton and there's a purpose for those and they're stated near the end of the book they present signs and wonders that Jesus performed so that those who read it would believe that he is the Christ and one of the interesting things about the miracles that Jesus does in the book are all things that couldn't be done by anybody other than him and miracles that were prophesied that he would be able to do and he did and so they're designed like on Tuesday we're studying the book of Acts and the apostles could do miracles and under the Jewish system if you were sent from God if you were a prophet you had to be able to perform some signs and wonders that was part of the job description and if you couldn't you would be discredited. See that? The Jews demand a sign, the Greeks want wisdom. So if you were going to be a prophet or a teacher or a leader in Judaism from a spiritual standpoint, you better be able to perform some miracles which would verify your ministry.

You'll see through John's Gospel where disciples come to him or people come to him and say We saw the last 15 miracles, and they're pretty cool. If you do one more, we'll believe you. So he'd do another one, and they wouldn't believe him. Okay, one more, and then maybe we'll believe you.

The Jews always demand signs, and so part of the miracles that go on are to verify his ministry. That's why the apostles could do a lot of signs in the early ministry, and the apostle Paul could. But you'll notice if you study Paul, The farther his ministry goes, the less and less miracles there are. Because people, at that point, the Word of God is being developed, the letters and the epistles are out, and the object of your faith were facts in the person of Christ, and Gentiles don't demand miracles and signs.

So, the style. Another important point, if you contrast John or any of the Jewish writers with Paul, Paul thinks like we think. He's got a Greek mind. He puts fact leads to the next fact, leads to the next fact, leads to a conclusion. He thinks very logically. Jews don't think like that and they don't write like that. John is very simple to understand. And each incident and discourse of Jesus is treated as an isolated event or a statement rather than being incorporated into an overall framework. We're finding that in study in Luke. You find that in study in any of the epistles or gospels written by Jewish men. There's sound bites. This event happened.

And then you know what? There may not be any explanation as to why it happened. You've got to go to Paul and find out why. So as we study John, you're going to see lots of times where here's an incident, here's an event without very much explanation. Because that's the way Jewish people think. Here's the event, take from it what you want. Paul wouldn't teach like that. Paul would show you the event and then give you all the logic as to why it happened and draw a conclusion.

So keep that in mind. Sometimes we, because we think we're taught and raised in the Greek mentality, we're always trying to feed into, like when we studied Hebrews, we were trying to draw conclusions in that, and sometimes you couldn't. when you study, and you will see this in John, we'll try to logically come to some sort of understanding when there isn't any logic, it's just an event. Here it is.

The Gospel of John, I'll read a quote from a guy named Merle Tenney who was about 1925, I think he was the president of Wheaton College. The Gospel of John contains some of the most profoundest truths in the New Testament, but there are no other writings which express it more simply. The imagery is clear, concise, and rather limited. The author employs a restricted vocabulary to convey his thoughts, but each word is filled with spiritual significance. His metaphors are frequently repeated, And some of them become technical theological terms because of their constant occurrence in his teachings. So John can be repetitive from a good standpoint. So John presents Christ as a son of God on earth, sent from God, and he always, the Lord Jesus, always spoke the message that God gave him.

I forget the chapter now, but we will arrive at a chapter where the Lord Jesus' buddy Lazarus is sick and he's probably going to die and word is sent to the Lord Jesus to come to Bethany to fix him and he didn't go. Why didn't he go? I mean, if I had that power and one of you were sick and you sent somebody to me, I'd probably be on the next plane. Why didn't Christ go to fix Lazarus? Why did he not go? Remember why? Nobody's ever read John before?

He had another plan. And the other plan was that his father be glorified. Was it a greater demonstration of his glory to heal Lazarus or to raise him from the dead? obviously to raise him from the dead. And we'll see when he gets there, Martha's all over him. How come you weren't here? Don't you understand? My brother was sick.

And he says the only reason he doesn't go is because it's not the Father's will that he go right then. So that's the other thing you want to watch for in John's Gospel. The Lord Jesus never acts independently. He never responds to circumstances unless it's the Father's will that he do so. He goes to the cross because it's the Father's will. He never deviates from that sole focus that he has which is always to do the Father's will.

We can probably take a lesson from that, right? As we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be me. Sorry about that. Like somebody's calling me on Sunday morning. Maybe. We can take a lesson from that as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus and our intimacy with Christ grows. It's dead. Maybe I'll put it over here.

As we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will discover that our lives respond to what the Lord Jesus directs us to do through his word. And it may not seem earthly logical to do it that way, but as we are his servants, anybody who would serve the Lord must get his directions from heaven. That's where they come from. They come down to us. We don't go up. Well, here's the Lord Jesus functioning in his ministry for three and a half years, only doing what the Father has directed him to do. Never varies from that. Not one time.

What you're going to find in terms of interesting words that will be in John's Gospel, believe in life are two words that are there an awful lot. You will see believe and life. You'll also see titles Son and Son of God a lot. And they're used a lot more times, these four words, than any of the other Gospels. Other words used are true, truth, love, witness, world, or cosmos. Those words are used a lot. And John is the first one to record Egoemi. What's Egoemi? I am who I am. And what does that mean? I'm the pre-existent one.

He's the first one to talk about that. So, the other interesting thing is that the Gospel of John allows us to determine the approximate length of Jesus' public ministry. His ministry was about three and a half years, and the way you determine that was his Gospel goes through three Passover celebrations. That's how you know.

The first one is John 2.23.

The second one is John 6.4.

And the last one is John 11.55. So it gives us dating that others don't. Another quote from Merle Tening.

The Gospel of John is a unique document. It differs from the synoptic Gospels in its language, in its structure, and in its approach to the person of Christ. It differs from the epistles because it is concerned more with viewing Christ through the glass of personal contact than through his significance in the theology of the Church. It is unique in religious literature because it combines a mystical relationship, for example, abide in me and I in you, with genuine historical framework. So that's another reason why John writing so many years after the other disciples and apostles wrote, is that John began with the Lord Jesus with a unique intimacy with Christ that none of the other disciples had.

And so now he's 90, it's 90 AD, and he's writing this, this intimacy has grown all of these years, and so he tries to convey to his readers that intimacy with Christ is the real thing, that as important as the theology in the church is, contact or intimacy with Christ supersedes all of that. A bit of an outline, and the outline isn't perfect, but There are some people that differ in what should be in the outline and what shouldn't be in the outline.

The first part we're going to talk about this week and next week is what is known as the prologue, and it has to do with the eternal Word incarnate in the Son of God, and that's chapter 1 up to verse 14. Now, in that, there will be some discussion about John the Baptist. The second section is the witness of John the Baptist to the Son of God, and that's verse 15 through 34 in chapter 1. The third section is the Son of God manifesting his power in public ministry, and that goes from 35 to 12, chapter 12, verse 50.

When you get to chapter 13, there's a dramatic change in the focus of the gospel. The Lord Jesus' public ministry is over at that time, and from chapter 15 through chapter 17 is the private ministry for Him and His disciples. Those 15, 16, and 17 are information that only his disciples got from him. Now, none of the other Gospels are divided up that way. And so, we as believers love chapter 15, 16, and 17. There's so much wonderful information in there that we don't necessarily, unless you understand, that at the end of chapter 12, he is finished with his public ministry. Everything he says, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, is directed to the disciples only. They're the only ones that hear it. So you won't see crowds and that kind of stuff anymore.

Chapter 18 and 19 have to do with the sacrifice of the Son of God, but different from the other Gospels, in about three sentences, the crucifixion is over. It's very quick. The other Gospels run it out in long detail. The sixth section, chapter 20, is the manifestation of the Son of God and resurrection, and the last section, 7, is the risen Son of God and the master of life and service, that's the epilogue, chapter 21.

Okay, let's see how good historians you are. What do you think are the historical facts that caused the Holy Spirit to move John to write this gospel so much later than the others. From a historical standpoint, think about what's going on at 90 A.D. or what's already happened. Destruction of the Temple. Hm? The Destruction of the Temple. Louder, I can't hear you. The Destruction of the Temple. Destruction of the Temple, that's happened. What else?

How about the nation of Israel in terms of their relationship or their enthusiasm about the Lord Jesus and Him being their King. Have they accepted that as a nation? No. If they do, they become believers. But the nation itself has rejected Christ as King and so that's taken place.

The Lord Jesus prophesied that some nasty stuff was going to happen to Jerusalem and to the temple. And all of that has already happened. Maybe 15 years before, 12 to 15 years before he starts to write, the temple has been not only destroyed, but leveled. Verne was, a fact that Verne told us about that the reason that the Romans took every brick or every stone away from every other stone is that there was, when they burned it, the gold went down in between the stones and they separated them all out to get to the gold. The Roman army had burned the city and the temple. And another interesting thing is that the Gentiles had come into Jerusalem and the Jews had been scattered.

Now, when you study the book of Acts, one of the things you discover is that the church, the Lord Jesus gave the disciples or the apostles specific instructions on how they were to propagate the church right before he went up into heaven. He said, you're going to be witnesses of me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the whole world, in that order. So, from a practical standpoint, if you became a Christian in Jerusalem through the auspices of the apostles, and the Lord wanted to spread out the message, how would he do it?

Send you all tickets on the next train? How would he do it? Persecution. That's right. He would cause a persecution to happen. You'd have to leave town. And so you'd go to Samaria and people in Samaria would say, well, how come you're in Samaria? You say, well, I fled Jerusalem. Well, how come you fled? Well, let me tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here we are, a Samaritan and a believer talking about Christ. I become a believer and the next thing you know there's a couple of apostles up in Samaria talking to us about the gospel.

And then the Romans come in in 77 AD and they totally wipe out everything and the message and Paul's ministry is all over the civilized world at that point. That had happened. Israel's dispersion among the nations had come, had begun. Now, here's some other interesting facts I think that help.

The enemy had come in perverting the truth of the gospel. One of the things that was rampant was the denial of the Lord's person. That he wasn't a person. That he wasn't deity. That the virgin birth wasn't the virgin birth. That the work of the cross was not finished. That he didn't really physically resurrect. And a lot of those are elements of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was rampant, or beginning to be rampant in those days.

Here's the $25 question. What's the best example of Gnosticism in our contemporary society? What religion is the best example of Gnosticism today? Got all the tenets of it. We might vote for one to be president. Mormonism is contemporary Gnosticism. That's really what it is. So, all of those things had taken place and God had withheld John's pen until these denials had all been matured. So we'll see as he writes, he's dealing with these theological issues as he goes along.

OK, now. So what's your full definition of Gnosticism? Oh, boy. I didn't spend any time looking at that. But I do know this, that the Gnostics didn't believe that Jesus was a person. They thought that he was an apparition. That he really didn't die on the cross as a man or die on the cross. They believed that he was just a succession of people that keep moving into higher states of spirituality. That he was probably higher than others. that knowledge was more important than personhood. They denied there wasn't any virgin birth, but that wasn't from a logical standpoint, that couldn't have happened.

So I'll do a little research on Gnosticism for next week. And didn't they believe also that there was a hierarchy of... Yeah, hierarchy of beings, of spirituality. Between us and God. It's interesting that, and I should have brought this, we studied, is it four big lies that Satan is still telling?

One of them is the fact that you don't have to pay the consequences for your sin. And Gnosticism was one of those consequences. That you keep moving to a higher level of spirituality, that you're not really going to suffer the consequences. Or reincarnation is that you don't really die, so there isn't a consequence.

And that lie is still present today. It's exactly what Satan told Eve in the garden. you know, you're not really going to die. Has that story changed in 10,000 years? Not one time. There's all kinds of people on this earth that don't think that, you know, that they're really going to die. They're just going to become something else. Okay.

So lesson one, and this is kind of how the class will go. Let's open your Bibles to chapter one. If we could spend an awful lot of time in chapter one, actually we'll probably spend about two and a half weeks in it. John chapter one. I'll have it myself in a minute. Somebody read the very first verse. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So my question is, if you look at your question sheet, how can you tell from this verse that Christ, the Word, was pre-existent to Genesis? How can you tell? Are you with me? Do you understand the question? Well, He was there in the beginning. What's that? He was there in the beginning. He was there in the beginning. The word was there indicates that the word was existing before the beginning.

That make sense? It's past tense, isn't it? What's that? Past tense. He was existing before the beginning. That make sense? The word in indicates before rather than from the beginning. Do you see that? In the beginning, it indicates that Christ, the word, already existed before the beginning happened. Sounds like weird language, doesn't it? So, he was the word existing before creaturehood. Make sense?

Before time. before there was anyone for God to reveal himself to. He is an eternal being. He never had a beginning. What does it mean that Christ is an eternal being? Just that he never had a beginning? No end either. No ending either, so it wouldn't... Do you think of eternity as an expansion, an unlimited expansion of time? Is that how you look at it? No time. No time? Well how about events then?

This is like, is it Prometheus, the guy that was walking along the beach one day? Oh, it was Dimanthanes walking along a beach one day and a kid was scooping up water and sticking it in a hole in the beach and he said, what are you doing? And the kid said, well, I'm going to put the ocean in the hole. And Dimanthanes said, well, that's impossible.

So how can we understand eternity? It's impossible. We have finite minds and our whole arrangement is time-space reality, right? Now wait a minute. Are we not spiritual beings? Are we not recreated in Christ? Are we not positioned in Him? Do we not have the resurrected life of the Eternal One? And not only that, Corinthians says we have the mind of Christ, so why can't you think eternally? Can you think eternally? Well, to the point that we could be with the Lord forever, I mean, we know that. what that is, I don't think.

I think how Malloy did it best. He said, rather than think about it this way, think about it this way. That eternity is everything compacted into right now. And one of the ways that makes sense to me is that I think like you think, I think sequentially. I have this thought, this understanding, and then the next thought. But the mind of Christ has all knowledge in play all the time, right now. There's no sequence. It's all right now.

So, this is the person who the Lord Jesus, the Word is, existed before there was even this thing called time. John is the only writer who begins the story of Jesus with his eternal existence, rather than the time he appeared on earth. This is the only gospel that does that. The word given to describe his existence at the beginning is the intelligence. He is said to have originated everything that is, and then he became the word, which is the expression that explains that intelligence.

Now, verse 2. And we'll put some of this together in a minute. Somebody read verse 2. He was in the beginning with God. Okay, what does the verse say, with God and not with the Father? Why do you think it says it that way? Because they were trying, the three of them. If it were to say, with the Father, it might indicate that he was not God himself. but it says he was in the beginning with God. You see that note there? With God indicates that the Word and distinct personality was there as God together with the Spirit, the three of them, prior to anything being existed.

Why do you think he's referred to here as the Word? So we can understand the word. We can understand the word. The Greek word is Lagos. So, there's the Father, there's the Word, and there's the Spirit. And that's the name that John gives to the second person of the Trinity at the very beginning of his gospel. He calls him the Word. Why? Expand. so we might know who God is? He is the Lord. Right. Maybe go at it from a negative standpoint. He has a direct representation of our likeness. That's exactly right. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, without Him, How much acquaintanceship would we have with God? How much would we know about Him? We'd know Romans chapter 1, wouldn't we?

We would know that God existed because we could see it in His creation. Because God reveals Himself in His creation. We'd know that much. And we'd also probably know that He existed because we have this little thing called the conscience. And we would also know, because God built it into us, that he requires a few things of us as human beings. One is that he requires us to be thankful. And two is he requires us to honor him as God. That's Romans chapter 1, right? The first part of it.

So every human being knows that God exists. I don't care what they tell you, they know. Because if the word of God says they know, then they know, even if they deny it. But how much does that tell you about I mean, it's one thing to know that God exists, it's another thing to know what he's like.

The Father is a spirit, and the Holy Spirit is a spirit, and because we're human beings, when's the last time you saw a spirit? Might have thought you saw one. You can't understand or comprehend or get your arms around who God is, what he's like, without the Word, or the one person of the Trinity who has been designated to be the revealer of who God is personally. In the beginning was the Word. So, the Lord Jesus even says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

So, without the Word, we would not know anything about God other than that he does exist, he's powerful, you know, that kind of thing. But there would be no intimacy. One of the answers I came up with is the Greek word Lagos is the expression of the whole mind that subsists in God. God is a spirit and is not known by man as such. The second person is the one who expresses God to his creation He has been God and the expression of God without time. So did the Word become, now listen to this question, did the Word become the Son at Incarnation? Do I need to explain what Incarnation is? Did He become the Son at that time? No. Okay, no, why not? He was.

Why do you think that God has this father-son, why couldn't he instead call each other buddies? Or you're number one and I'm number two. Or I'm number 1A, you're 1B. Or we're brothers. Why father and son? Why do you think that? Because they're part of each other. They're part of each other. What do those terms indicate? Personal. They're personal. They have more to do with their relationship than they do with progeny. There couldn't be a better use of words to demonstrate the intimacy between two pre-existent creatures than father and son. I don't think. I think that it's the words of relationship, father and son.

So the answer to my question is that he didn't become the son at the time that he came into the world. He's always been the son. The son is a term of relationship, not of prior existence. He is in his existence eternally in His nature divine and in His person distinct, He's always been the Son.

Let's see, verse 3. Somebody read verse 3. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made. So my question there was, were all three persons of the Godhead involved in creation? Answer yes. So give me their roles, because all three didn't do the same thing. If all three persons of the Godhead were involved in creation, what was the father's role?

That's right, he planned it. It was his will that it be done. So what's the son? What did he do? He's the creator. You might say he's the agent through which the will of the father was carried out. How about the Holy Spirit? Convict us. Convince us. No, in creation. He's the power? Yeah, he's the executor of the divine counsels. He is the power that did it. By the way, this is an aside question. In creation, or in our understanding of who God is and the demonstration of his power, what is the greatest manifestation of the power of God ever? Is it this creation? It's the resurrection of Christ.

That took more power than anything, way more than the creation of the earth. Now, all things were made through him. Now, what does this word made mean? He went to his closet, got some stuff together, put together a planet, created from stuff he already had.

Came into existence where there was no existence before. Now what's interesting about that, when you get to, in the Genesis class upstairs, God created man, but he didn't create man out of something that didn't exist before. Understand what I mean? He created man out of some substance that he'd already created. It's very interesting because then he breathes into man the breath of lives and man becomes a living soul. But God created everything, all the substance, from nothing.

How did he do it? We're putting a new kitchen in my house. Trust me, that was a creation. It took me a lot longer than that. He spoke it. He just said it and it was. That would be kind of a cool thing to be able to do, wouldn't it? Just speak it and it is. Okay, the next question is, why did he do it? Why did God go through all this trouble? To glorify himself? To glorify himself. So let's follow that down a little bit. God does everything to glorify himself. So what does glory mean? What is glory? What is it? God's essence. God's what? Essence. It's his essence? Everything he is. I'm sorry? Everything he is. Everything he is. So he does it so that he can just put everything he is into it. Why does he do it? That's not enough. We need more. He wants fellowship. He wants fellowship.

If you're God, and you're all that God is, and you determine that you're going to create time space, a world. I was watching some program the other night on the universe. They're putting the Hubble telescope in these black holes and they're finding millions of galaxies in these black holes. I mean they can't imagine the numbers.

So he creates, you create to do what? To manifest to your creation who you are. Sounds egocentric to me. Is God egocentric? He wants to share His glory, declare His glory, share His glory. Yeah, because of who He is and the manifestation of His character, which is holiness, righteousness, goodness, He creates so that He can share who He is with His creation and He creates us the kind of beings that we are, sentient beings, spiritual beings, so that we can respond to his glory and reflect his glory back to him. That's why he does it. Okay. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the word, who is your son, who is our very life, and we pray in his precious name.