We have seen His glory (John 1a)

We have seen his glory,

John 1:1-18

Key Verse 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Introduction: Christmas is the day of celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus. What does it mean to celebrate Jesus’ birth? What does his coming to the world means to us as well as to the world? John, in his summery of the Gospel, succinctly summarizes Jesus coming and its significance for the entire human races. There are two responses; one is to accept him and believe in Him. The other is unwillingness to recognize him as the Lord and as the source of life and did not receive him as he claimed.  Through today’s passage, I like to explore the true significance of Jesus’ coming for us and for the world.

        I.            The light shines in the darkness (1-5)

A.      The Word, creator God who carries the light for all men.

John introduced the Word at the outset of his gospel. In order to understand the Word, we will first try to find the meaning of common noun, word. The word is used to communicate between two people. One has in his heart something and let it out by saying words. The other listen to the words spoken by this person and understand the will or thought of that person. So the word spoken by that person carries the thought or ideas or the will of that person. So the meaning of the original word ‘logos’ is thought, idea or principles that governs the world.   It is said to be idea, thoughts or some principles. Though John used the Greek word Logos, a common noun, the Word carries only some elements of the word ‘logos’. There are other unique natures of the Word.

The Word is not an impersonal thing but a personal being with personal character and will. So it is replaced with a personal pronoun ‘he’.

Second, the Word was in the beginning and was with God. In this way the Word shares full power and authority of God. Actually in the essence of his being is God himself. So the Word was God. Simply the Word is functional description of the third person of triune God-heads. So by making ordinary word into particular ‘the Word’, it is to denote the person, the Son of God, as the one who has all thoughts, wills and purposes of God. Why did John use the word, ‘WORD’ to denote the Son of God? This is to make emphasis on the primary and the most important role of the Son. That is to communicate God’s will and exerting God’s will or purpose to his creation.

The first of this is the creation of the world. When God created the world, God created it by His Word. So it says ‘Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.’

So the Word is the God-head that exerted God’s will for the world and since the Word sustained his creation and is still exert his power and will to put the world in line with God’s will and purpose. In this regard he is the WORD.

In looking at the world that he created according to God’s will, we have to come to know that God’s will is embedded in every single creation.  When the Sun rises in east, it serves the will and purpose of God. When the birds are singing they serves God’s will and purpose. Likewise all human being was created to serve God’s will and purpose.

B.      In Him was life (4)

As we noted, all things that have been created were created by the Word.  Among all created things, living beings were the most remarkable expression of God’s will. Among them were many lives, fishes, birds and animals and human beings. This he could do because in him was life. So all life is from him. He was the source of life for all living from the beginning of its creation. Since then He has been the source of life for all living.  So it says that God sustained all things by his powerful word (Heb 1:3)

In this way, Life is inherent in the Word; So the Word has been the sole source of all lives on earth. The life was never apart from God. Simply no other being has life in itself. The Word is the one that created us and is the one that imparted to us the life from the beginning. Our life did not begin from our parents. It did not come from ameba or by energy.

In this regard, the life in the Word is the light of all men. The Word is the source of life every human being.

C.      The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it(5)

Darkness

Death came upon men when men decided to reject God’s authority and chose to be independent from God, the source of life. So being cut off from him, men are cut off from the source of life, the Word. So the loss of life is called darkness:

Matthew 4:16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

Light means life. No light means death.  So darkness is not the antithetical force of light but an absence of light. 

Since the men rejected God, the source of life, death came upon men and it overwhelmed the entire human races.  This is not if’s or but’s. Darkness in death is living reality for all human beings. So the Bible say it without any ambiguity.

Hebrews 9:27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

So when men rejected God, they lost life; so all men shall die life.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But the Word is still the light for all men because in him only is life and there is no other. In this regard, what the Word would do is vital for all men living in darkness of death.

So far we noted three things: the Word is the one created all lives and the Word only has life and that life was the light for men. At the same time we noted that there was darkness. It is the result of men’s rejection of God. All men were cut off from the true source of life. So God gave them a glimpse of light to his people Israel. But this glimpse of light did not do much. The darkness was so overpowering and Israel, God’s chosen people for the purpose of blessing, still remained in darkness of death.

Unless the light does something new or something extraordinary, then the outlook was grim. Darkness of death would prevail.  The Word, the source of life, the light, made a decision to come to the world to shine the light of life.

In this way, the light penetrated deeply into the darkness and shined in full strength. The outcome is remarkable;

V5.

The darkness of death, despite of its stubbornness in its ignorance and arrogance, could not overcome the light. The result is remarkable or astounding. The victory of the light is certain because of fullness of the light and many came to have this light, the life.

How did this happen or are such thing happening? There are two responses of the world; one is rejection and the other is acceptance of this light.

      II.            The world rejects the light (9-13)

The life in the Word was the true light because he created the life and he sustained the life. He is the only one who has life. So in order to give life, the Word came and shone the light in the darkness.

It is described more explicitly;

V14. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The God that created the world and gave life to all of his creation became flesh and dwelt among men. Though he was God, he became like one of us in flesh and revealed the Word of God to men.

The light shone to give life when he spoke the truth of God. The light gave life when Jesus did miracles. The light shone when Jesus suffered and died on the cross to pay for the sins of men. The light of life shone when he rose from the dead to life.

Literally Jesus ate with men and talked with men and reasoned with men and taught men daily. He was among them day after day. They saw him as much as they wanted to see. They heard the words of Jesus as much as they desired. They saw so many miracles of Jesus. All these works of Jesus testified to the fact that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, the creator and the source of life. But the world failed to see the light, the life of all men. Why?

V10-11.

They failed in two ways. They failed to recognize him as the Word, the Son of God. They did not receive him as the Lord. Jesus came and did everything to give them life. But the power of sin and death in them was so overwhelming and blinded their eyes. In their rejection and failures,

it seems as if all-out effort of Jesus was becoming futile. But in His grace, God offered something remarkable.

V12.

Two things are necessary for this blessing to happen: to receive him and to believe in his name. To receive him is to accept him as he claimed to be; the Son of God and the Lord and the Savior. To believe in his name is to accept Jesus’ life as the way and the truth and the life.

If one does these things, God will give him a right to become a child of God.  

This is a bare minimum that anyone can do. There is no need to work hard, no need to prove anything, no need to clean up things in his or her life.

But what God offers is great.  God wants to count all men or women, to be his children. He wants to accept and to embrace all of them as his children and wants to pour out his blessing to all.  He wants to impart his life to all of them.

What does God want to do? How can one become child of God just receiving Christ or believing in Jesus’ name?

V13. As we noted here, being a child of God is not by men’s decision. Even if I make a decision now to accept God, that does not make me a child of God. Also even if one has pastor parents, that does not make him as child of God. Having believing parent does not make the person a child of God.  How about having a devout husband? This does not make his wife a child of God. Only one thing works; one must be born of God.

This means that one must be born again by God’s power and by God’s grace.

This is an amazing offer through Jesus, the Word who became flesh.

    III.            We(John) accepted the light (14-18)

John was the first disciple that Jesus called. He followed Jesus from the beginning of his ministry until he ascended to heaven in glory. We can say fairly accurately that whatever Jesus did to his disciples, John did not miss any. John saw it all and heard it all. He was the disciple most intimate to Jesus, the one of the top three.  

After all, John saw in Jesus that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among them.

This means three things; John saw the Word that created the world has come and did stay with him and he had chance to get to know him in such an intimate relationship. John saw or tasted the full power of God in and with him that was commensurate to the power of creation of the world. John saw the life that the Word created in the beginning of the world.

He sums up all these in this way:

V14b. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In order to understand the full meaning, it is good to find what it means when it says that the glory of the one and only Son. It is Greek work ‘monogenes’, interpreted as one and only son.

From the beginning of the passage, the Word was with God was God. Yet he is ‘the Word’ implying that the Word is God’s exact will, purpose and thought.  That idea is embedded in the idea of one and only son.  A son is like the father. Whatever the Father has, character, knowledge, and will, purpose, wishes, the son has. The exactness in resemblance of the Father is found in the Son, So he is called one and the only Son.  

I have two sons.  They are totally different from each other. Also, none of them is exactly like me or their mother though each of them shares some of my thoughts and characters and traits.  But unlike my two sons, the only Son of God shares all that the Father has in all aspects of his being, i.e, power, knowledge, will, and character. So it says in the Book of Hebrews that the Son is the exact representation of the Father himself. In this regard, Jesus is the one and only begotten son of God the Father. He is the Word that God would use to exert, implement, and execute His will, his purpose on his creation.

This means that God himself presented to the world in flesh in full force for the purpose of appealing to the people living in darkness. If we say it different way, God went out all the way in order to get across his message of salvation. He wanted to appeal to the world, the truth and the life in him in full force.

What did he appeal them with? It is the glory of God in flesh, in the form that we can see and touch and understand and we can get close to and to have intimate relationship with. That glory is clothes with full strength of two characters: grace and truth.

So it says:

V14b We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

What does it mean full of grace and truth? It is explained more in v16.

V16

The literal meaning is that God gave grace before. But in order to appeal to men all the way, God replaced that grace with something more powerful and more explicit one.

What was offered before?

It is far more than what God offered in the past through Moses.

·         God gave Israel a covenant; a written contract. But at that time God showed Moses a glimpse of his glory. Israel did not see him and they only had the covenant written in words. But at this time, it is neither a word, written or vocalized word. It is the Word himself became flesh and dwelled among men. He personally came and appealed to the people living in the darkness of death. This is a great love and compassion for sinners. It is far beyond what all sinners deserve. It is love in fullest extent. Simply God gave everything possible for sinners. In this sense it is out of fullness of grace and truth.

It is full of grace and truth. The meaning is explained more in v 17

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

·         When God gave the law to Moses, it was given as a covenant. In this covenant, the law offered two choices: to obey the law or to disobey the law. So the law concerns one thing; is one godly and true or not. So the law is to reveal that one is godly or not. So it will end in two; to judge, when one is ungodly, and to free, when one is godly. 

·         The grace and truth:  Jesus has these two facets of his work. Jesus concerns deeply about truth. Truth is something of noble, pure and in its essence it is holiness of God. It is God’s inherent character, the essence of his being. According to the truth, men’s rejection of God is sin and this sin must face its judgment. Simply men have to bear its consequences. How did Jesus uphold the truth? Stark display of God’s truth is Jesus’ suffering on the cross for sinners. God is holy and just and would not overlook sin. That holiness of God demanded the payment of sin and that has been paid by Jesus, offering his life on the cross as the payment for the sins of men.  

·         Then what is grace? By bearing the sins of men, Jesus offered a new life for all sinners. They do not have to pay the real cost of their sins. This is free offer of God’s blessing. So Jesus’ grace is his unconditional offer of blessing; there is no prior condition, no prerequisite; It is one sided and it is overflowing love and compassion. This is grace.
Examples are : a woman caught in adultery.

·         If Jesus was to reveal the truth only, then coming of Jesus has not much different from the law given through Moses. But Jesus dealt men with grace as well along the side with the truth. So for Jesus, actually for God, both are so important and neither one of them cannot be ignored. The angels praised God as the baby Jesus was born in this way: Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." In truth Jesus upheld the glory of God by his own death. In grace Jesus offered life without paying the cost of sins. So Jesus brought the peace for all men.

·         This is truth and this is also grace. In this regard God is full of truth and God is full of grace. In its entirety it is the glory of God. So John’s word is very precise:
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.(14b)

All these were made possible because Jesus, the Word of God, came to be with us in his flesh and redeemed us from our sins.

We have seen two choices; one, the world in darkness; the other John and his fellows who saw the glory of God in Jesus.

So what we are to see and what we are to know through the birth of Jesus?

18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Jesus came as a baby in a manger. This is incarnation. This is the beginning of grace and truth in its full extent; God did all; Christmas is the beginning of that grace and truth. He began this by becoming flesh in order to dwell among us. We are to see in Jesus,  glory of the one and only son,  full of grace and truth

May God bless you richly!