The Eternal Word
John 1:1
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
It’s a joy to be back with you and once again to open the Word of God to you. Before our break, we finished up our exposition of the Book of Malachi. And after much prayer and counsel about where to go next, I’ve decided to preach through the Gospel of John. And preeminently, the reason I’ve landed on the Gospel of John is because the need of the hour, above all else, is for the church of Jesus Christ to fix the eyes of her faith upon her glorious, risen, reigning Lord.
One of the blessings of sharing the pastoral duties both at Grace Church as a whole and in GraceLife in particular is that I often get the opportunity to come to church as a member, and not just the preacher. And as I sit and stand, and sing and pray, and listen and take notes, I ask myself what I need from attending the morning services. I’m a Christian, whose desires and longings after holiness far surpass my own actual progress in grace. I need to be reminded, first of all, week in and week out, that there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins, where sinners like me lose all their guilty stains. I need to be reminded that there is a Redeemer, who has fulfilled the broken law of God on my behalf, who has borne in His own body all the guilt and shame of my sins, who has risen from the grave and conquered the punishment that I deserve, and who invites me, once again, to look unto Him not only to be saved, but to be assured and strengthened and fortified in that salvation by trusting afresh in His once-for-all and finished work.
You and I need to feast the appetites of our soul on that life-giving Gospel! That’s true when we’re tired. It’s true when we’re downcast. It’s true especially when our heart is cold and we can’t even sense our need for the means of grace. For all of that, we need to “lay aside every encumbrance,” Hebrews 12 says, “and the sin which so easily entangles us, and…run with endurance the race that is set before us.” And how do we do that? “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.”
I think not only about the darkness of my own heart, but I think about the darkness of the world that Christ sends us into, to minister, to serve, to preach His Gospel, and to be as salt and light. I think about the excessive nature of the corruption of our country, and especially the particular state and the particular city we live in. I think of the utter wickedness that our elected officials are committed to. And I think about the fact that you and I are sent into this world to preach a Gospel that is the mortal enemy of that wickedness, so that, if God would be pleased, some—those on whom He has set His electing love—will hear the voice of their Shepherd, and be brought into His fold by faith in Him.
But in the meantime, I think of the persecution that the church will have to endure in the next 50 years. How will we be equipped to stand firm when the government power brokers come for our livelihoods? when employers root out men and women of conscience who won’t go along with the sexual totalitarianism of the LGBTQ movement? What about when they come for our children? Right now, Grace Church has been able to shield our children from that godless agenda through educational ministries like Grace Academy and Faith PSP. But how long do you think the government will let that go on? And I just keep asking myself, “How do we prepare Grace Church to stand?”
And then, not only the darkness of my own heart and the darkness of the world, I also think about the darkness within the visible church. Each Sunday, I stand at the back of the gym until it’s just about time for the sermon, and I just look through all the precious souls that have gathered with us. Sometimes, I’m checking to make sure folks have made it; if I don’t see someone I think through how I’ll check on them during the week. Other times, I’m just praying for you; I see you and I remember a particular need or trial you’re going through, and I ask the Lord’s blessing. But often, I’m praying that those who are with us who don’t know Christ as Savior would turn from their sins, and would trust in Him for righteousness this very day. And I pray that, as Phil or I or another of the brothers preach, that we would preach the Gospel of Christ clearly enough, that we would set forth the glory of Christ clearly enough, that the unbelievers in our midst would finally bow the knee, and escape eternal punishment, and be delivered unto the eternal pleasures that belong to those who walk with Jesus by faith.
The answer to the sluggishness and backwardness of my own sinful heart as a believer is the glory of Jesus. The strength to stand against the persecution from a world hell-bent on the destruction of the church is the glory of Jesus. The sin-subduing, soul-conquering, unbelief-banishing power for the salvation of self-deceived pew-sitters is the glory of Jesus.
And the whole point of the Gospel of John is to put that glory of our precious Jesus on display. John 1:14: “And 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.” Chapter 2, verse 11: “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.” The signs of Jesus’ works manifest His glory, and that glory becomes the ground of the faith by which we live. Chapter 6 verse 40: “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life.” When sinners behold the glory of Jesus with the eyes of God-granted faith, they are saved.
This is what John has set out to accomplish in His Gospel. Chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, give the purpose statement for the whole book: “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” John is on a mission to display the glory of Jesus by showcasing His identity as eternal God, His incarnation as the true God-man, His perfect life of law-fulfilling righteousness, His sacrificial death as a full atonement for sins, and His death-conquering resurrection that overcomes the world. He wants you to believe, and he wants you to keep on believing. And so he shows you glory.
That is exactly what we need! I throw off the encumbrances of sin by fixing my eyes on Jesus, Hebrews 12:2. I overcome the wickedness of my own heart and press after greater likeness to Jesus, how? Second Corinthians 3:18: by beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and thereby being transformed into the same image, from glory, to glory. The Apostle John says in his first epistle, chapter 5 and verse 4, that the child of God overcomes the wearying, wicked world system by faith: “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” And the whole point of the Gospel of John is precisely to engender that very faith: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that eternal life comes by believing in His name. Dear people, the need of every hour, is that we know Christ.
Jesus Himself defined eternal life in this very way. In John 17:3, the Son says to the Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Eternal life is to know Christ! The Apostle Paul says nothing else is worth knowing! First Corinthians 2:2: “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Now, Paul wasn’t a one-trick pony. Elsewhere he said, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). But here he says the sum and substance—the very marrow of his ministry—is Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The Puritan John Flavel paraphrases Paul and says, “All other knowledge, how profitable, how pleasant soever, is not worthy to be named in the same day with the knowledge of Jesus Christ.” This is where life is! In Philippians 3, Paul will say, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” All other knowledge in the world is nothing but rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ! In Him, Colossians 2:3, “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Flavel says again, “Take away the knowledge of Christ, and a Christian is the most sad and melancholy creature in the world! [And yet], let Christ but manifest himself, and dart the beams of his light into their souls, it will make them kiss the stakes, sing in the flames, and shout in the pangs of death, as men that divide the spoil.”
The knowledge of Christ is the marrow of life. And the Apostle John is on a mission for his readers to know Christ by beholding His glory in the pages of his Gospel, and by believing in His name. John Newton famously wrote, “Look unto Jesus. The duty, privilege, safety, the unspeakable happiness, of a believer, are all comprised in that one sentence.” And so we turn to the Gospel of John to look unto Jesus, and to have the sight of His glory strengthen us for everything we could ever need.
The Book of John
Now, as we turn to the book itself, it’s necessary that we acquaint ourselves with some introductory matters. The author of this Gospel is indeed the Apostle John, one of the two sons of Zebedee (along with his brother James), who is often mentioned in the most inner-circle of Jesus among the disciples. “Peter and James and John” are the only disciples who were allowed to accompany Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, in the garden of Gethsemane, and at the house of Jairus as Jesus raised the man’s daughter from the dead.
There’s some controversy about authorship, because unbelieving scholars are always eager to cast doubt on the authority of the Scriptures, and if you can undermine the author you can show there’s no authority. But there’s also some controversy because the author of the Gospel never actually names himself as the Apostle John. In quite a curious fashion, he calls himself, “The disciple whom Jesus loved.” He refers to himself in this way in a number of places throughout the book, chapter 21 and verse 20 is most significant for determining authorship. It says, “Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them.” It’s in this interaction that Jesus prophesies Peter’s death, and Peter asks about how the other disciple will die, and Jesus says, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” And it says that the disciples interpreted that as saying the man wouldn’t die at all. Eventually, in verse 24, the author of the book says, “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things.”
So, the author of the Gospel is the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was the one who was reclining on Jesus bosom at the Last Supper, chapter 13 verse 23; he was the one to whom Jesus entrusted the care of His mother, Mary, at the crucifixion, chapter 19 verse 26; he was the one who outran Peter on the way to the empty tomb in chapter 20 verse 2. And so at the very least, we know that the author of this Gospel is not a distant researcher, reporting findings from inquiries made a hundred years after the events took place. He is an eyewitness of these things—a participating character in the very narratives that he writes about.
And chapter 21 verse 2 lists the disciples who were present when the risen Christ came to them. So, the disciple whom Jesus loved is either one of “the sons of Zebedee,” or one of the “two others of His disciples” who were unnamed. Now, it couldn’t have been James, because, as Acts 12 tells us, Herod had martyred him in AD 44, and John 21 tells us that there was a rumor about the disciple whom Jesus loved that he wouldn’t die until Christ’s return. The author would have had to have lived long enough for that rumor to circulate. So, it’s not James.
And it’s unlikely that it’s one of the unnamed disciples, because of how close “the disciple whom Jesus loved” was to Jesus and the inner-circle of the ministry. Further, the author never refers to the Apostle John by name, which is a huge omission, unless it’s owing to the humility of its author. He calls John the Baptist “John,” suggesting that his audience knew that he was John the Apostle, and so he didn’t have to distinguish. And, sure, it’s a little weird to refer to yourself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” But it’s probably stranger to refer to someone else that way! And besides, John doesn’t mean to say that Jesus loved him to the exclusion of anyone else—no more than Paul means to exclude others when he says in Galatians 2:20 that “the Son of God…loved me and gave Himself up for me.” John knew he was a sinner who deserved wrath. He remembered leaning on Jesus at the Supper as He identified His betrayer. He remembered the pain on Jesus’ face in Gethsemane, when he couldn’t keep watch with Him in the greatest trial of His life. He remembered how intensely Jesus cared for Him—even while He was suffering on the cross—so as to entrust his care to Mary. He felt Jesus’ mighty love for Him so deeply, that it became his identity! His name meant nothing; Jesus’ love meant everything.
The historical record places the date of John’s Gospel likely somewhere between AD 80 and 90—long enough after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 for it to be unremarkable to mention (because John doesn’t mention it), but also long enough before the end of the first century for the earliest manuscripts (P52 and the Egerton Papyrus) to have been well-circulated by AD 125. And so John is writing as an old man, between 45 and 50 years after the resurrection of Jesus, as he is an elder, shepherding the churches of Asia Minor. Tradition says he wrote this from the city of Ephesus.
The specific occasion for John’s writing his Gospel is debated, but many seem to agree that he desired to write an account of Jesus’ life and ministry in the context of particular false teaching that was rising in the first century church. Ebionism denied Jesus’ true deity, claiming that He was a mere man upon whom the Spirit of God descended at His baptism and then left Him before the crucifixion. At the opposite end, an early version of Gnosticism was springing up under the influence of a teacher named Cerinthus. The Gnostics denied that Jesus was truly man, because they believed that physical matter was inherently evil, and so Jesus couldn’t be truly God and truly man.
And so, somewhat similar to his first letter, John writes in that context to give a true account of Jesus’ person and work—specifically testifying that He is, as the purpose statement in chapter 20 and verse 31 says, “the Christ, the Son of God.” He is the Jewish Messiah who was to come, whom the Jewish Scriptures predicted to be both Mighty God and a genuinely human son born to us (Isa 9:6). He is the Son of God, who is both of the same nature as the Father, but is from the Father. And from the very opening of John’s Gospel, we see his chief concern to set forth as the object of our faith a truly divine and truly human Jesus. He is the eternal Word of the Father, God of very God, chapter 1 verse 1, who became flesh and dwelt among us, to live and die in our place for our salvation, chapter 1 verse 14.
And of all the Gospels, John shows us Jesus in a uniquely glorious way. He makes the case for His divinity in a way the other Gospel writers do not. Matthew’s emphasis is to show that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the rightful heir to the Davidic throne in fulfillment of the Old Testament’s prophecies. Mark’s emphasis is on highlighting Jesus as the Suffering Servant, the Man of Sorrows who comes to bear our iniquities in His own body on the cross. Luke underscores Jesus’ genuine humanity, showing that He is the Second Adam, through whom the failures of the first Adam would be overcome. But John reveals Jesus as the eternal Creator, the Only Begotten from the Father, whose divine glory was revealed both in the signs He performed and the heavenly discourses He revealed—and which glory summons the reader to faith in Him for eternal life.
Interestingly, John gives us no narrative of the birth of Christ, no record of His baptism or temptation in the wilderness. He doesn’t mention the Transfiguration, or the prayer in Gethsemane. And yet, some of the loftiest theology in all of Scripture is revealed to us in the Gospel of John—not least in the opening 18 verses. We read of Jesus’ early ministry in Judea, which none of the Synoptics record. The account of turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana, as well as Jesus’ interactions with Nicodemus concerning the new birth and with the Samaritan woman at the well, are all unique to John’s Gospel. The Bread of Life Discourse, the healing of the man born blind, the reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd, the resurrection of Lazarus, the Upper Room Discourse, the High Priestly prayer, and the restoration of Peter are all treasures we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for this book.
And in terms of structure, the Gospel of John has long been described as two books, with a prologue and epilogue appended to them. You have what’s called the Book of Signs in chapters 1 to 12, and the Book of Glory in chapters 13 to 21. The word “sign” appears 16 times throughout the first twelve chapters to refer to those works that Jesus performed to testify to His deity. In chapter 7, verse 31, the crowd asks, “When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?” And then the reference to glory has to do with Jesus speaking about His sufferings as, chapter 13 verse 31, the way in which “the Son of Man [is] glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” Throughout chapters 13 to 17, the term glory or glorify is also used 16 times to accentuate the beauty of the Savior’s sacrifice, and the honor that it is both to Him and to the Father.
And so this is the Gospel of John. A book of signs and a book of glory to summon the reader to faith in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, in whose name you may lay hold of eternal life. In Pilgrim’s Progress, when Christian first sets out to leave the City of Destruction, he leaves his house and takes off running. And his wife and his children call out after him, saying, “Come back! Don’t leave us!” And Bunyan says, “But the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on crying, ‘Life! Life! Eternal Life!’ So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain” (5). And upon the precipice of our study of this great Gospel account which was written that we might believe in Jesus and that by believing have eternal life in His name, may it be that we all find eternal life to be a prospect so precious, that we flee all distractions, all competitors for our attention and allegiance, stick our fingers in our ears and run after that life with all our hearts.
The Logos
And so, I can’t bear to wait any longer. Let us come to the opening verse of the Gospel of John—a Mount Everest of a verse if there ever was one—a majestic mountain peak that we will not scale this morning, but up toward which I hope to make a start. John chapter 1, and verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
You can see at the outset that John begins His Gospel by introducing us to the Word. And we’ll soon come to find out that this Word is “the Light,” verses 7 to 9; “the only begotten from the Father,” who “became flesh and dwelt among us,” verse 14; “the only begotten God,” verse 18; none other than “Jesus Christ,” verse 17. But he begins by calling Him the Word, the Logos. And in the time we have left this morning, I want to look into what John means by using that designation—which is so full of significance—so that we might begin to be acquainted with even the fringes of the glory of our Savior, so that our worship to Him for all that He is might approach something of what He is worthy of.
Now, the Greek term Logos, which the Apostle John uses to identify the Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, was an exceptionally consequential term in the history of thought and Greek philosophy. The term literally means “word,” or “reason,” and it was used as early as the sixth century BC by the philosopher Heraclitus, but it was most developed by the Stoic philosophers, who used the term to identify what they believed was the supreme, organizing, stabilizing, governing principle of the entire universe—which they identified with the impersonal force of reason. One commentator says, “It was an all-pervading principle, the rational principle of the universe. It was a creative energy. In one sense all things came from it, in another people derived their wisdom from it. … It was the force that originated and permeated and directed all things” (Morris, 102, 103).
Now, John is not technically using this backdrop of Greek philosophy as the context for the point that he’s making; he is writing to prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Jewish Messiah, and so the background and context for his comments here are particularly biblical—both Old and New Testaments by the time he’s writing. But, even though he’s not primarily commenting on Greek philosophy, for him to use this term Logos—so pregnant with significance in Greek thought, in a literary work in the Greek language, written in Ephesus which was a center of Greek thought and culture—it’s unthinkable that John would be unaware of the associations this term would arouse in his readers’ thinking (cf. Morris, 103n140).
And his point—even if somewhat secondary—would be clear. John is telling them: “That rational, creative, governing principle of wisdom that orders the universe—that is at the center of your worldview and is the marrow of all your thought—that’s not an impersonal force! That is the personal Creator, Sustainer, and one and only God of the universe! And more than that: This Logos is not just a god who is out there somewhere! This Logos has come to dwell among us! He has invaded time and space! He has entered into His own creation! He is here! And He is Jesus the Christ, the Son of God! Repent and believe in Him!”
But if, as I said, John is not leaning primarily on the Greek context to give significance to this word Logos, what does he mean by employing this term, so fraught with theological and philosophical significance? And I’ll answer that question, just briefly, under two headings—two certain implications of John calling Jesus “the Word.” Number one: eternal generation, and number two: supreme revelation.
I. Eternal Generation
In the first place, when John calls Jesus “the Word,” he intends to speak of His eternal generation. And this doctrine of eternal generation is as essential to biblical Christianity as it is unfamiliar to contemporary Christians. And we’ve spoken about it in GraceLife before—particularly when we focused on what it means for John to call Jesus “the only begotten from the Father” in verse 14, or “the only begotten God” in verse 18, or the “only begotten Son” in John 3:16. Eternal “begottenness” is what makes the Son the Son! It’s what distinguishes the Second Person of the Trinity from the First Person of the Trinity. The Father begets, and the Son is begotten. (It’s in the names!) But it’s also what identifies the Father and the Son as having the same divine nature—as both being truly and fully God.
Why is that? Well, as I’ve explained it before, it’s because a son has the same nature as his father, but the son has that nature from his father. Does that make sense? Sameness of nature—which we call “consubstantiality,” being of the same substance—and (2) fromness. My son is human like I’m human; we’re the same sort of being, and so we’re consubstantial. But my son has his human nature from me as his father. Consubstantiality, and fromness. This is what Scripture means to teach by calling the Father the Father of the Son, and the Son the begotten of the Father: the Son has the identical divine nature as the Father—He is God of very God. And the Son has that identical divine nature from the Father—He is God of very God. That is to say, that the Father eternally fathers the Son, by communicating to the Son the undivided divine essence.
And Scripture speaks of this same truth—of both consubstantiality and fromness—by the use of different figures. The author of Hebrews begins his letter similar to how John begins his Gospel. John says there was an eternal Word who is only begotten Son, and Hebrews says in these last days God has spoken (His Word) to us in His Son. John says without Him was not anything made that has been made, and Hebrews says, through this Son God made the world. And in that context, verse 3 says, “And He [the Son] is the radiance of [the Father’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature.” “Exact representation” there is the Greek word charakter, which refers to the imprint of a seal or a stamp. When you dip a stamp in ink and then press it on a page, that stamp produces the exact representation of its design on that paper. Hebrews is saying the Son is the perfect imprint of the Father’s nature. Everything that the Father is, He is. He is consubstantial with the Father.
But it also says the Son is the radiance of the Father’s glory, which speaks to fromness. Both the Father and the Son shine in the identical divine glory. But the Son’s shining somehow proceeds from the Father’s shining. Theologian Scott Swain comments, “Just as light naturally radiates its brightness, so too God naturally radiates his Son” (REG, 41). In other words, both Sonship and “exact-representation-and-radiance” denote consubstantiality and fromness. The only begotten Son is God of very God and Light of very Light, as the Nicene Creed says.
Paul points to these same truths of consubstantiality and fromness in Colossians 1. Also in a context in which He speaks of Christ as Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos, he calls Christ “the image of the invisible God,” Colossians 1:15. The Son is not the Father, but He is the perfect reproduction of Him: His image, begotten in the likeness of His Father (cf. Gen 5:1–3). Just as the image reflected back to you in a mirror is not modified or altered in any way, so also: all that the Father is, the Son is. They are consubstantial. But the Son is what He is by virtue of what He receives from the Father. He is from Him, just as an image is distinct from and derivative of the archetype it represents.
Now you say, “Mike, why are you telling me all this?” Well, because when the Apostle John calls Jesus “the Word” of God in John 1:1, he means to communicate these same truths of consubstantiality and fromness.
God’s Word is as God Himself. This is why 1 Samuel 3:21 says, “Yahweh appeared…at Shiloh…by the word of Yahweh.” If the Word is there, Yahweh is there. Why? Because, as Psalm 138:2 says of God, “You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” In Revelation 3:8, Jesus says to the church of Philadelphia, “You have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” God’s Word is as His own name—His own character, or nature.
You can identify a man with his word. The way you treat my words is the way you treat me. If you ignore the words I speak to you, you’re ignoring me. If you heed the words I speak, you’re listening to me. Inasmuch as my word is conceived in my mind before it’s uttered from my lips, my words are as my thoughts—the products of my own mind. And my mind is a faculty of my soul. My mind is me, in that sense. And so a man’s word is as the man himself.
And, of course, a man’s word goes forth from him—whether in thought or in actual utterance. Isaiah 55:11 says this about God’s Word. God speaks of “My Word which goes forth from My mouth.” God’s Word is as God Himself, but God’s Word is from God. Consubstantiality and fromness. Eternal generation.
The great Bible commentator Matthew Henry puts it this way. He says, “There is the word conceived, that is, thought, which is the first and only immediate product and conception of the soul…, and it is one with the soul. And thus the second person in the Trinity is fitly called the Word; for he is the first-begotten of the Father, that eternal essential Wisdom which the [Father] possessed, as the soul does its thought.” And John Gill agrees. He writes, the Son is “called [Word] from his nature, being begotten of the Father; for as the word, whether silent or expressed, is the birth of the mind, the image of it, equal to it, and distinct from it; so Christ is the only begotten of the Father, the express image of his person, in all things equal to him, and a distinct person from him.”
And so, from before there was a beginning, the Father eternally communicated the fullness of the whole divine essence to the Son, in this incomprehensible, inexpressible act, internal to the life of the Triune God Himself, which we call the mystery of eternal generation. This Jesus—the carpenter’s son, whom John says he saw with his eyes and touched with his hands—He is the Son, eternally begotten of the Father; the image, a perfect representation of the Father; the radiance, eternally shining forth from the Father; the Word, eternally uttered by the Father. He is God of very God.
II. Supreme Revelation
But then, a second certain implication of John calling Jesus “the Word” is, not only eternal generation, but, number two, supreme revelation. A person’s word is the means by which he reveals his thoughts, his intentions, his preferences, his loves—everything about him. A man’s word reveals the man. It reveals his character, what he is like. Our words are the means of our self-expression. Who we are on the inside is only revealed and expressed to others by means of our words.
One of the most heartbreaking things for me is to witness someone who’s gone through some sort of medical issue that has impaired their speech—maybe someone who has had a stroke, or someone who suffers with an intense stutter. I mean, we all know what it’s like to be speaking and not able to find the word we’re looking for; you’re searching for that word and it never comes. But to not be able to speak at all, it’s just unimaginable for me. It’s probably especially so for me because one of my great character flaws is that I talk too much. I hate the awkward silence; if someone’s searching for a word and I know what it is, I have this compulsion to say it or finish the sentence.
But it speaks to how deep of a desire I have to be able to take what’s inside of me—my thoughts, desires, loves, and preferences—and get them outside of me. And I think we all understand that to some degree. We long for someone to understand us—to put into words what is invisible and silent in our hearts. That’s what words are for: they are the vehicle for self-expression. John is telling us that the Son of God—this Word from the Father—is, in Himself, the very pinnacle self-expression and supreme revelation of the mind of Almighty God to mankind.
In the last verse of the prologue, chapter 1 verse 18, John tells us, “No one has seen God at any time.” In 1 Timothy 6, Paul calls God, “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.” This is a God to whom no man has a right to access, who is so sufficient unto Himself in the fellowship of the Trinity, that He might rest perfectly content and blesséd in silence! He is a God whose infinite being so transcends our mode of existence—whose wisdom and knowledge are unsearchable, whose ways are unfathomable—that even if He wanted to be gracious and communicate to us, it would be an infinite condescension!
And yet, because He is never without His Son, who is this eternal Word—with God, and God Himself—it is His very nature to communicate Himself, to reveal Himself! And this Word has done the impossible, and revealed the ineffable and inexpressible God to man! What does John say in verse 18? “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” The Greek word is exegeomai, from which we get the term exegesis. The Son is the exegesis of the Father’s nature, because He is the divine Word. That’s why Jesus will say to Philip in chapter 14 verse 9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”—not because the Son is the Father; but because the Son so completely and totally reveals the Father that seeing the One is as good as seeing the Other. He is, Colossians 1:15, “the image of the invisible God.” Jesus makes the mind of God known to man.
And that is fitting, because all throughout history, when God revealed Himself to His people through His prophets, over one hundred times in the Old Testament, you read the phrase, “the word of Yahweh came” to the prophet. When it all started with the Abrahamic Covenant promise, Genesis 15:1 says, “The word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision.” When God takes the kingdom from Saul, 1 Samuel 15:10, “Then the word of Yahweh came to Samuel.” When God institutes the Davidic Covenant, 2 Samuel 7:4, “the word of Yahweh came to Nathan.” And the prophets Elijah (1 Kgs 17:2), Isaiah (38:4), Jeremiah (1:2), Ezekiel (1:3), Jonah (1:1), Haggai (1:1), and Zechariah (1:1) are all called to the prophetic ministry by that same phrase, “the word of Yahweh came” to the prophet.
But then, we come to the opening verses of Hebrews, and we read, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son.” Then, the word of Yahweh came to the prophet. Now, in these days of Messiah, the Word of Yahweh came as the Great Prophet who was to come (John 6:14)—the fulfillment of all the prophets spoke! Jesus Himself says in John 5:39, that the Old Testament Scriptures “testify about Me.” He is the Word because He is the substance of the Scripture’s teaching. And He is the Word because He is the personal embodiment of everything that God would reveal of Himself by the Scripture. The Word is the supreme revelation of God.
And what does the Word say about God? Well, this Word is the divine Creator of all things. From the very beginning, Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” And “then,” verse 3, “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.’” Psalm 33:6 says, “By the Word of Yahweh the heavens were made.” God creates the whole of the cosmos by speaking it into existence by His Word. Yahweh’s Word is the agent of His creative act, and here we find out that that Word is a person: the Second Person of the Trinity.
This Word is also the Sustainer of all creation. Colossians 1:17 says that the image of the invisible God, the one by whom all things were created, is the one who is “before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Back in Hebrews 1:3, we’re told that the Son through whom God has spoken, “upholds all things by the word of His power.” Do you know why the entire universe doesn’t fold in on itself, right now? Do you know what keeps the planet from imploding? Jesus’ voice! The word of the Word! He sustains all creation by His word! If Jesus wanted to destroy the world, He wouldn’t even have to issue a command for it to be done—as easy as that would be. No, all He would have to do is as it were stop speaking, because it’s by His word that the Word sustains all creation.
And finally, this Word is not just Creator and Sustainer but also the Savior of God’s people. In Psalm 107:19–20, it says, “They cried out to Yahweh in their trouble; He saved them out of their distresses. He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” Yahweh sent His word, and His word healed and delivered His people. So also now, in these last days, Yahweh has sent His Word, and by His wounds we are healed. He is Jesus, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, who rescues us (or delivers us; same word) from the wrath to come. Indeed, He is the One who says, John 8:51, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” O dear friends! This is the eternal Word of God, your Savior! Do you hear Him?
Conclusion
What does God Himself say as He speaks from the bright cloud of heaven on the Mount of Transfiguration? “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” Listen to the One who is the Word of God to mankind!
And what is that word? John 8:24: “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” Your sins have separated you from God, so that you have become His enemy. And the just punishment for those sins is eternal spiritual death. And so the Word says, Matthew 10:28: “Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Dear sinner, the broken law of God testifies against you. You have sinned against this God every day of your life. And this holy God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Your sins condemn you and leave you open and vulnerable to His judgment. “What can I do? How can I be saved?” Back to the Word. Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” You who fear the One who destroys body and soul in hell—you who labor under the wearying burden of sin—come to Christ in repentance and faith, and find rest from that great burden of condemnation! For, He says, John 6:37: “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out”! In fact, verse 40, “This is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 5:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
Dear unbeliever, you may have done with death once and for all here this morning, if you would only heed the words of the eternal Word! Confess your sins, turn away from them, and put all your hope for righteousness before God in Jesus alone. He has obeyed the law that you have broken. He has died the death that you have earned. He has drunk the bitter cup of the wrath of Almighty God, precisely so that all who believe in Him may drink only from the cup of divine blessing and peace. Turn from sin, and trust in Christ for righteousness.
And dear believer, behold your God. Set your heart upon this eternal Word from the Father: the eternally generated, supreme revelation of God, now your Husband and Head, your Captain and Shepherd, your Lord and your Savior! And join me on this journey through John’s Gospel, as we tune our hearts to hear from this Word.