Jesus is the I Am Part 1 - John 1:14-18

1:10And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about him and cried out, saying, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. For of his fullness we have received, we all have received, and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. You know, one of the most satisfying things in life, one of the things I love to witness the most, is a race well run, whether it's in sporting events like track and field or just in life, watching a race that is well run, somebody throughout their life who runs the race that God has given them and runs it well. To me, that is one of the most beautiful things on earth, one of the most beautiful things that I've witnessed. I love to see someone accept what God has given them, the path marked out for them, and run it with all their heart. That is a beautiful, beautiful thing in life.

2:41On the other side of the spectrum, one of the most disappointing things that I've witnessed in life is a race that is not well run, or one that is tripped up in the beginning, or one that may start well. But the person ends in living in the ruins of a good start. And this can happen. I see this all around me. I see this in marriages. I see this in families. I see this in occupations. I see this in people's health. Listen, life shows up a little bit differently than what we expect, doesn't it?

3:27Life doesn't turn. In fact, I would venture to say that if we all went around the room, we would all have some way of expressing how life has turned out differently than what we may have originally expected, hoped, or what we would have written for ourselves. Well, one of the things that impresses me most about John is the race that he ran. He was youthful. You could picture him early in his ministry or early in life being taken by John the Baptist, sat under his teaching, moved a disciple. John, he had obviously been close enough to hear him. And you could see him young and energetic, and then hearing the words, Behold the Lamb, follow him. And having then been brought into one of the inner circles of Jesus Christ himself, and having walked with the Son of God and Son of Man.

4:27And then to go up to Jerusalem and. And to see the disappointment, the crucifixion, it was very different than what John probably had originally imagined or what he would have written. And yet, you come to John. Now, when we're reading this book, as we're coming to the latter part of the first century, he's probably in his upper 80s, maybe even getting close to 90. And yet, he still has this strength and a joy and a love.

5:07He hasn't grown cynical. His youthful idealism has turned into a mature joy and a mature love and a tenacious run. It's beautiful. As I come to this passage and I look at this incredible figure before us, I asked, How? How does John stay the course? How did he pick up strength and pick up joy and pick up an optimism as he grew instead of growing the other way, growing cynical, disappointed? Well, there's two verbs in these verses this morning that I want to key on. I'm going to take two weeks to go through this, but in verse 14, it's what he saw. He saw his glory. And in verse 11, 16, he says, for of his fullness we have all received. It's what he saw in Christ, and it's what he received from Christ that gave him such a tenacious and beautiful run through life. And if there's one thing I could wish for all of you, one thing I would delight to see more than anything is each of you accepting the race that God has set before you and running it in the beauty of strength and joy, ever increasing in your love and joy and optimism.

6:42And you can do that by embracing, by seeing and embracing these two things that John saw, embraced, Christ's glory and Christ's fullness. And so this morning I want to start walking through this passage. I've framed these verses, verses 14 through 18, around John's two major verbs, we saw and we received. And this morning we'll be able to look at the first one, what John saw, and that will be in verses 14 and 15. I want to start walking through. There's two declarations. We will only get through the first one today.

7:25And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten Father, full of grace and truth. Notice the two actions of the word there. Christ invaded our world, he is the light, he is the life and light of man. And now John goes back to the word. Look at verse 14: the word, the word which was, he began in verse 1, 2, and 3. He's picked up again. The word. The word invaded our world. Look at the, and the word became flesh. Literal Greek, and the word flesh he became.

8:10So I want to look at these three verses in the order that they appear in the Greek, just to get you a sense of what John is saying here. The word. He's already made it clear in verses 1 through 3 that the word is coexistent with God, co-eternal with God, and of the same essence of God. He created all things. He is God. Nothing less. The word is the very self-expression of God. As I am speaking to you today, what originates from within me is my word, if you will. And it comes forth and it communicates. It's my expression, my communication. And in a similar way, God is the expressing God, and he expresses himself through this person, through the word, this self-expression. He is a communicating God. And so the word is the very Same nature as God Himself. Second word is the flesh. The flesh, the word flesh, he became. And the word for flesh encompasses man's whole being. It isn't just the word for body. That would be the word soma in the Greek, but he didn't just take up a physical body.

9:22John is saying the word has taken up our humanity, not just a body like ours, but our whole being, mind, soul, body, and moral nature. He took up our whole nature. And the third word is became. The word became. The word flesh, he became. He took upon himself a human nature. There was no alteration. He wasn't transformed. He took upon himself. He became, in addition to himself, he took upon. He was not transformed, but he took upon flesh. And the tense of the word makes it clear that he didn't just take up human nature for a little while and then throw it away and go back to the way he was. He became flesh. He took upon himself human nature, and he never set that aside. He took that human nature to the cross. He took it to the grave. He came forth from the grave with the human nature, and he ascended into heaven with the same human nature.

10:30And now, flesh, human, human being is in the presence of God. And if you take these things just as they're, take John's words, just at their simple face value, what John is saying is the word, the very self-expression of God always possessed a divine nature. He took up in time human nature just like ours. Of course, sin excluded, but that truth is going to be commuted elsewhere in Scripture. John is making an emphasis: he took upon a nature just like us.

11:06And what John says in five simple words, it took 500 years of early church history to really work through. 500 years. And I am going to, I'm going to do the fives this morning. Five words of John, 500 years of history in five minutes. All right? But there were, and I'm going to take you through the erroneous views of Christ that developed. The early church was fixated around this theological preoccupation of the person of Jesus. Who was he? Was he man or was he God? And if, or both, or and how do we explain this? And John has already said the most important thing about you is how you receive Christ.

12:00You receive the light. This is what's going to determine whether you are born of God or not. And so, your understanding of Christ is paramount. It's one of the most important things about you. Certainly, that's what John is communicating. And understanding who Christ is and properly relating Him is what defines whether you relate to the darkness or you relate to the light, or if you receive the light. And so, I want to walk through these five minutes. I haven't started the clock yet, by the way.

12:36500 years, five minutes. First, the earliest heretical view concerning the person of Christ was that of Ebionism. And this, this is, you can kind of think of this as like a pendulum that went back and forth between the first 500 years: is he man or is he God? And kind of thing, and everything in between, and trying to relate that. But the earliest heresy denied the deity of Christ. So, it went over here to the pendulum way over here that he was man. He was a man who was totally endowed by the Holy Spirit. And so, he was man, but he was, he is just Spirit of God was on him. Well, such a position denies John's testimony that the Word was God. And then the next one goes to the other extreme: the dose, I'm sorry, the docetesis, and that. They emphasize the deity of Christ. He's all God, and he took upon a human body in appearance only. It was only an illusion.

13:41He was all God, and he really didn't become man. It was all just an illusion. Of course, they were built upon the philosophical assumption that matter was inherently evil, and so that God could not become man in that sense. And so it was a syncretism. But such a view of Christ denies John's testimony that the Word became flesh. And then the next heresy in time was that of the Arians, probably the most persistent. They saw Jesus as they denied that he was of the same substance of God, that he himself was a created being, better than man, but that he himself was created, that he was created. He was pre-existent before the world. He was a great creature, but still a creature. And certainly the most widespread. Of course, today you see it certainly in the Jehovah's Witness.

14:41And John makes it clear that the Word was of the very same essence of God. And it is a contradiction. It would be a self-contradicting assertion to say that Christ created everything or that the Word created everything, and yet Jesus himself was created. Do you see the inconsistency? He can't, at one hand, be the creator of everything and yet be created himself. And, you know, the Christ of the Jehovah was witness is not the Christ that John is testifying to, and he is not the Christ who can save.

15:22And by the way, it wasn't just John, all this New Testament theology. Certainly you see in Paul, for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. But such a position denies John's opening testimony, the word was God. Well, then the next, the pendulum goes back to the deity side of things. The Paulinarians come along and they denied the completeness of Christ's human nature. They acknowledged he was truly God and he took upon himself a human body, but he kept the mind of God. So if we said, do an experiment, let's take one of my kids and we want to take a lion and we want to put one of my kids' brains in the lion, that the lion would look like a lion, but would think like a man. That's kind of the same picture. It's kind of like this brain that. Christ really had the mind of God, but he was really, so that that convoluted things. He did not take on a complete human soul. And if he didn't take on a complete human soul, he was not a sufficient offering for humanity. Such the word denies that he became flesh. Then the next one, Nestorians.

16:53They went to the error of the dual, they emphasized the dual nature over two people. Not just that he was son of God and son of David, two persons, two persons. And so that what actually died on the cross was the son of David, not the son of God. And they divided him up into hard, a hard distinction. Jesus was two persons. And really, what you have here is more of a picture of Simeon's twins, that God had made a distinct alliance with man. But such view denies Jesus' testimony that the word became flesh. He became, he took it upon. He did not join himself to another person. He became. And then there was the Eudichians. They taught, they went to the other era. Well, they went to another one. They took, okay, well, Jesus is God, he's man, and it mixed together, and we came up with a third entity that's neither God nor man. So, like, when you mix a bunch of ingredients in a Cake batter, and you get something different than the original ingredients. And this was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon. So we come to 451. I've got a minute left, right?

18:13And I'll just read you a portion of the Chalcedon confession. After all this, they break this down for 500 years, have been wrestling with this, and this is the articulation. We then, following the Holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same, perfect in Godhead, and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.

18:52And the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person and in one substance, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. Got all that? Well, John said all this simply by saying, and the Word became flesh. And the Word became flesh. Don't you love how John just kind of boils it all down?

19:28The Word invaded our world. World. That was the first action of the word. Look at the second one. Look back at verse 14. And the word became flesh. That is, he invaded our world and dwelt among us. That's the second action. And dwelt among us. And the word for dwelt is literally, he pitched his tent among us. A literal interpretation is, he tabernacled among us. And John is using a term that brings to mind the rich image of God's tabernacle dwelling with his people, Israel. John is on, is doing this on purpose. This is the image.

20:12So the word took up residence. What John is saying, the I am lived among us as a person. And he's different. When Moses went up on the mountain, Mount Sinai, he met the self-expression of God, and he came down with two stone tablets chiseled in words. But John is testifying that something way more profound has happened. The self-expression of God, his word became like one of us, and he lived among us. Not cold, chiseled letters, but warm, blooded humanity. We walked with him. He was both with God and with God. Was God for eternity, and yet he became flesh in time and space. The word became flesh, he dwelt among us.

21:08The I am became man. Now look at John's declaration. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory. We saw his glory. This is what John is. We saw it. We beheld it. We took it in. It's from the word doxa, which we get the word doxology, and it speaks of a brightness, a radiant splendor, God's greatness, his glory, his majestic being. And again, John is purposefully using language that would call to mind the glory of the tabernacle, that Shekinah glory that would come upon the tabernacle, indicating God's presence. Take a couple of moments just to talk about the glory in the Old Testament. I want to make sure you get this in your mind. You remember in Exodus, after they came out of Egypt, Moses constructed a tent of meeting that later while the tabernacle was being built. And there's an instance where Moses met with.

22:30God there in chapter 33 of Exodus. Just read to you what he goes in and just read to you what would take place there. Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. So this is where Moses would meet with God. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. And it came about whenever Moses went out to the tent, that all the people would rise and stand each at its entrance in his tent and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent. Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.

23:31Then he goes on, and he speaks about Moses there meeting with God, and he says in Exodus 30, he goes on to Exodus 33. Let me see. He says to God, Show me your glory. Show me your glory. In verse 18, Moses, and you can. Can turn there and look at this, or you can just listen to me read this to you. But I want you to see something in this passage. Moses is there meeting with the Lord, and he says, If I have found favor in your sight, and you have said you have known me by name, then Moses, say, I pray you, show me your glory. Show me your glory, God.

24:26And listen to what God says. And he said, God said, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you and proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show compassion on whom I will have compassion. So when Moses cries out, Show me your glory, God says, I will show you all of my goodness. That is his glory, the goodness. He's full of grace, full of mercy.

25:01This glory, God is his good. He is full of grace. He is full of compassion. And John, coming back to John chapter 1, John is saying, I saw his glory. It's as though his goodness, we saw his glory. Now, the word for Shekinah glory, you've probably heard that, it's actually a post-biblical term, but it actually comes from. From the Hebrew verb to dwell and the noun for tabernacle. Not that that probably rots your socks off unless you're a linguist, but the point is the Shekinah glory, that bright, brilliant cloud showed where God's presence was. It was the Shekinah glory. It filled the temple and filled the tabernacle. And then the temple, back in Exodus 40, I'll read this to you.

26:04When the tabernacle had been completed, verse 34, the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all of their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day it was taken up. For the Lord, throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and there was a fire in it by night in the sight of all of the house of Israel. Such was that Shekinah, that glory that spoke of God's presence. He was there. If you were out there in the wilderness walking in the camp, you would see the glory, and you knew God's presence was there.

27:02It's, you know, like even today, if you'll pay attention and watch Queen Elizabeth make her rounds or go to places or where she's in a certain building or where she's traveling, you'll see a little flag somewhere close by that is called the Royal Standard. I don't know if you don't use it as much anymore, but certainly it was the official flag of the British monarch, especially in history. It represented and still does the place where the monarch was at.

27:40Whether it was Buckingham Palace, Windsor, or wherever, the flag would go up and that would mark the presence. And it was the purpose of it was to visually announce the presence of the monarch. Of course, that was more in days of battlefields and high seas and tents, but the idea of the royal standard representing the presence of the monarch. Such was the Shekinah glory. It was that cloud, that fire, that royal standard that signified to everybody, God is here.

28:15But here is what I want you to understand about the glory of God in the Old Testament. Much of the Old Testament glory was a hidden glory, it was hidden. The tabernacle's outward appearance was not much to look at. It was pretty much a tent like all the other tents. It was bigger and set apart, ordinary poles, sun-bleached curtains all the way around. It was a shock of color at the front, showing the one entrance. But even, but most people, that's all they ever saw was from the outside. That's all you wouldn't be able to look in. It was high enough to where you couldn't see in. It was just a pretty plain tent, bigger than the others, but still a tent. Even the furniture of the outer court was made of brass, a copper, kind of like an have a copper look.

29:11And if you've ever seen one of the tabernacles on display, you know what I'm talking about. You go, let's go see the tabernacle. Let's go see the tabernacle. You're kind of like, well, that's pretty plain. It was. In fact, it's not anything that you would expect of a monarch or of a king who just, or of a God who just totally wiped out the superpower Egyptian army in the sea. And yet it was a very humble-looking dwelling. But on the inside of the tabernacle was a whole different story. The inner hangings were made of fine colored linens. There were blues, there were purples, there were scarlets. Their furniture was gold, and it was overlaid with gold. And you can imagine when the bright Shekinah cloud was present in the temple.

30:00Inner beauty that sparkled and shined and gleamed with the brilliance of a heavenly light. A beautiful, beautiful glory. But you know what? Only the priests could see it. Only those with access could see it. For the most part, it was a hidden glory. And even when they picked up the tabernacle and moved it, they covered all of the furniture so that it wouldn't be seen. All this signified the beauty and the goodness was for those who had access to see it, but it wasn't for everyone. And the Apostle John testifies that God became flesh and dwell with his people.

30:49And yet Jesus' glory was very much like that glory of the old, it was a hidden glory. There wasn't a pillar of fire that walked around wherever he went. But you know what? People did know that God was with him. The signs testified what he did. They knew God was with him. Even Nicodemus, in a few chapters later, is going to say, We know that God is with you because no one can do these things unless God is with him. So they knew about Jesus, kind of like that Shekinah glory. They knew, but it was unintelligible. You couldn't, we knew God was with him, but we didn't know much more beyond that.

31:32So, those who did not receive the light did not see the glory of Christ. And that's what John is saying. We beheld his glory. We were like those who went into the inner sanctum. We saw his glory. We saw his brilliance. We didn't just see the works. We know that God was with him, but we know something about God now. We know the beauty of God Himself because we beheld His glory. We saw it. Listen to John's description of that glory.

32:11And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the Father. We gazed upon it, we soaked it in, we saw His glory. And He gives us the descriptions here: Glory as of the only begotten of the Father. That is the only unique one. It has nothing to do with begetting, nothing to do with being born. It has everything, a literal interpretation would be the only one, the only unique one, the only beloved one, the only one who is intrinsically beloved, the one that God is excited about. That one that God loves glory as that only one that has come from the Father, the only one. There is no other that has come from the Father like this. One glory, and then he gives another description. We saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, then full of grace and truth. He was full, and this is what he's going to receive. This is what he's going to partake from. He saw, and then he's going to receive. But this glory was full of grace and truth. And John ascribes these two characteristics to Jesus that were usually only ascribed to God, full of grace, truth. Grace is the word that is often translated from the Hebrew Hesed, which speaks about loving kindness, that covenant faithfulness, that gracious mercy. We have seen his glory.

33:47Gracious mercy. Second term, truth. One of the major themes in the whole Hebrew Bible is our Hebrew text is this idea of faithfulness, steadfastness, consistency. He is full of grace, always. And we often usually see these terms as mutually exclusive. I think today we see grace as in opposition to the truth, that in order to be full of grace, one has to compromise truth. But that's completely foreign to God. Truth. And grace. That's who he is.

34:35He upholds righteousness, upholds holiness, and yet he is full of grace. So John saw them joined together. Truth and grace, perfect union in a perfect man as a reflection of the perfect God. Then he goes on. John the Baptist also testified to his glory. Look at verse 15. So John the Apostle testifies to his glory. John the Baptist testifies to his glory and basically says the same thing. John testified about him and cried out, saying, This was he of whom I said, he who is coming, who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. And what John is saying is, John witnessed about him and he cried out. That is, he exclaimed boldly. John is crying out boldly, saying, he, it's a demonstrative pronoun. He, this one. This is John's testimony. This one, you see him right there? He, that one. This is the one.

35:40This is the one of whom I said, he who comes after me, he is a higher rank. He is first before me. Of course, John was a little older. But what John is saying is, Jesus is first in time. He had his beginning before me, and Jesus is first in priority. He has a higher rank. Well, that was John's testimony and John the Baptist's testimony. But you know, today, just like in the Old Testament, there was a veiled glory. Even in Jesus' day, there was a veiled glory. And even today, there is a veiled glory. Jesus' true glory is veiled to the masses today.

36:28I think today that most people know that Jesus is a special guy, right? You ask pretty much anybody, unless you're an atheist or something, and even atheist, you know, well, no, I guess atheists wouldn't fit that category, but pretty much everyone else would say, yeah, Jesus was special. Even many people would say, he was from God. We know, we know God was with Jesus. It's kind of like the Shekinah glory. Like, we know God was with him, but we really don't know the details. I'd say that's where many are today. God was with him, but only those who receive him will see his true glory. Only those who will accept his testimony of who he is. Only those who will receive him for who he is. Only those are going to see his true glory. And that's what John is saying. He's saying, we have seen his glory. We have seen his beauty from start to finish. We know it. We have seen it. And this we're testing. To you, so that you may behold it as well. It's the purpose of his gospel. John is running his race, excited at the very end about the glory of Christ and the energizing power. Listen, you will not be able to run your race through life if you have a weak view of Christ. But when you start to get your mind around the fact that you are put in this time, in this place, with the events and circumstances and situations that you and you alone face, and you understand that God Himself has placed you here, that you might come to know Him and see His glory and find Him sufficient in everything, until you catch the glimpse of that, you're not going to be able to run your race. And that's what John is saying: we saw His glory, and I'm still talking about His glory, and it is still glorious.

38:26You know, if I could boil life down to one purpose, it's this: that you would see the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. That's what I believe God's purpose is for all of our circumstances, all of our situations, is for you to see the sufficiency, the glory of God revealed in Christ. I think of life as kind of one big death march. We're all going to part with everything and everyone we hold dear. That's what life is. We come, we go. We come into possession of things, we come into close relationships with people and stuff, and as time goes on, you just, if you live long, life becomes one severance of relationship, one severance after another.

39:17But on the other hand, for those who behold Christ's glory, life is one big glory march. Because at every juncture, we see Him, we behold His goodness, we find Him sufficient and more glorious in every situation and more sufficient, and we see His goodness. And though we are wasting away on the outside, yet we are being strengthened like John, who at the end of His days could speak of the glory of Christ. And He found Christ to be sufficient in every season of his life and going strong at the end. Well, next time we'll pick up with part two of this, or John in the next three verses, where he says, We received grace upon grace. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this testimony of the man whom you loved, this disciple whom you loved. Father, may we see your Son's glory. We're not deserving. But, Father, please turn your attention to us. Grant that we may know you and that we may follow after you. Father, thank you. Lord, I pray for everyone here who does not know you, who has not truly come to that point in their life where they have truly received you. Father, I pray right now that you would awaken, Father, and that they would purpose to know you and that they would cry out and say, I receive, I receive.

41:04Father, thank you for everything. In Jesus' name, amen.