Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 1 Study # 1
August 21, 2022
Broadlands, Louisiana
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Thesis: John's focus, as he begins his "Picture of Jesus" is upon His identity as "God" in relation to "The God" in respect to His identity as "The Word".
Introduction: Now that we have made a "beginning" of our study of John's picture of Jesus by looking into God's reason for using "John" to write the last of the four "Gospels", we are ready to begin to look into
his message regarding Jesus' message. His message is uniquely fixated upon "The Grace Of The God" (a history-critical shift of focus away from "The Justice Of The God") and is totally wrapped up in the issue of God's message through Him to us.
When we read these first two verses of John's introductory words, we immediately see three uses of "The Word", three uses of "God" with two of the three focused upon someone other than Himself, and two uses of "in the beginning (He) was".
For our consideration this morning, we are going to focus upon Jesus as "The Word".
- I. The Enormous Significance Of Jesus As "The Word".
- A. The "time" related issue of Jesus as "The Word".
- 1. John indicated a great importance to this "time relationship".
- a. First, because he used the same terminology as Moses did in Genesis 1:1.
- 1) This is important because not only are the words the same, but the focus upon creation is the same.
- a) Moses said, "In the beginning God created...".
- b) John says, "In the beginning..." and then immediately identifies Jesus as "The God Who created everything that has time-related existence".
- 2) The significance of this repetition of words and theme is directly tied to the particular attribute that we call "Grace" that was the root of John's identity as the author of these "Divine Creator" words.
- a) That the "message shift" was to the graciousness of God cannot be overstated: the Jewish focus of message was upon the "Justice" of God and that focus led directly to the Jewish murder of their Creator-Redeemer ("...the strength of Sin is the Law...": 1 Corinthians 15:56).
- b) This "message shift" does not mean that God is not Perfect Justice; it means, rather, that fallen man cannot tolerate that message (Romans 7:12-14).
- b. Then, because he used the same terminology in the opening of his first "epistle": 1 John 1:1-2.
- 1) This is important because in this text, John identifies "The Father" as the One with Whom "The Word was...".
- a) In John 1:1-2 we find the words, "He was with The God" written twice.
- b) In the repetition of those words, we also have the plain declaration that "The Word was God".
- c) Thus, we have the great anomaly that stumbles many because "The Word of God declares that, "The Lord our God is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4), but in all of John's words regarding creation there is "God with God" that fits Moses' creation words, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26).
- d) This is not the conundrum many make it out to be: there is a "One" that signifies a singularity of entity; and there is also a "One" that signifies a singularity of essence and upon this distinction rest the words of John who tells us that the The Word that is God is also The Word of Another Who is God [Note Genesis 41:25-26].
- 2) The significance of this specific identification is that John is telling us that The Word is The Word of The Father: the "message-shift" (To "Grace" From "Law") was endemic to the overall character of what we know as "God"; both Son and Father.
- 2. The "time" relationship to Jesus' identity as "The Word".
- a. When Moses and John wrote "In the beginning..", they did two things at once.
- 1) First, they identified the "beginning" of which they spoke: they tied it to creation in such a way as to make "Time" a fundamental aspect of "Creation".
- a) The philosophers struggle to say just exactly what "Time" is.
- b) But, struggle or no struggle, we know that a critical aspect of "Time" is a progression of events, so that before the event called "Creation", there was no progression of events: there was only the Eternal Present.
- 2) Second, they tied "The Word" to "Time".
- a) At creation, according to Moses, God spoke words and worlds came into existence: Hebrews 11:3.
- b) At creation, The Son of God became The Word of God.
- 1) In the Eternal Now, both Father and Son were omniscient and had no need for "words".
- 2) Before "creation" there was no "Word" because there was no audience to hear words.
- b. When John wound up the last of his "words" from "The Word", he wrote of the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, thus making "Time" a permanent fixture of man's experience.
- B. The Word, then, means that Jesus is God's message to men.
- 1. What He said was His verbal declaration of this "Message".
- 2. What He did was his physical demonstration of this "Message".
- a. When John told us in 1:14 that "The Word became flesh ... and we beheld His glory..." he added that what we "beheld" was a "fullness of Grace and Truth".
- b. This means that Jesus, as God's message for men, was focused upon the "graciousness" of The Truth.
- c. This brings us "full circle" in that "John" wrote his words to emphasize God as gracious, and what he wrote was that "Jesus" was the visible demonstration of that "Truth".
- 3. Thus, "Grace" is the Word for men in their Time-framed existence.
- a. This does not mean that men are free by Grace to be wicked and to do wickedness, because the apostle of Grace wrote in his letter to Titus that "the grace of God ... teaches us..." how to live properly in "Time" (Titus 2:11-14).
- b. That same apostle of Grace outstripped everyone in his generation in the "doing" of good and attributed it to "the grace of God in me" (1 Corinthians 15:10).
