Sermon Tone Analysis

December 14, 1997

RMCC SMW

Jn. 1.1,14,18

john\ser\dec14ser.jn1

Jesus: The Word, Life, & Light. . .

One day Jesus took his disciples to a place called Caesarea Phillipi.

Caesarea Phillipi is Gentile country, located 25 miles north of Galilee and sits at the base of Mount Hermon, which towers some 8,000 feet above the valley floor.

It is a majestic site, snow-capped almost the year round.

From ancient times, the people of the area had long thought it a sacred mountain.

Visiting the city you could see high on the cliffs behind it, a cave dedicated to the Greek god Pan.

It was in this setting, Gentile territory with Gentiles gods and goddesses, that Jesus posed this question to his disciples: *Who do you say I am?*[1]*  *And it was Peter who responded: *You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.*

No sooner were the words out of Peter’s mouth, then Jesus tells Peter: *This was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.*

\\ It is important to remember this.

All the seeing and hearing and touching in the world is insufficient for someone to come to the knowledge of the truth about who Jesus of Nazareth is.

It is a truth received only when it is revealed.

Until the Father shines the light of his glory into our eyes, we remain blind in our darkness.

Over the next three weeks I will be preaching from these first 18 verses of the Gospel of John.

In them John himself answers Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?”* *With that in mind, let us read John 1.1-18.

*[Read Jn. 1.1-18]*

1.  Introduction to John’s Prologue

These 18 verses make up what scholars have call John’s Prologue.

What’s a prologue?

A prologue is a book’s introduction.

In a prologue, an author introduces the key terms and themes that he will develop in his book.

And so John does in this prologue.

On the back of your sermon notes, I’ve provided you a set of columns showing some of the connections between the Key Words & Themes in John’s Prologue and their development in his Gospel.

Now this prologue is organized around three themes: 1]  v.1-5

Jesus is the Word; 2]  v.6-13

Jesus is the Light of Salvation; 3] v.14-18 Jesus is the Revelation of God’s glory.

\\ Now let me say something important about how to interpret John’s gospel.

Of the gospel writers, John’s vocabulary is the smallest.

Yet, the terms he does use have universal religious appeal like the words: life, light, world, darkness, truth, and glory.

They carry a weight of meaning and are put to multiple service by John.

All of this to say, John invites us, his readers, to linger over his words and their layers of meaning.

In once sense, you must approach John’s gospel as you would a great salmon dinner.

You cannot gulp it down.

You must instead linger over the salmon slowly, carefully, picking out the succulent pink flesh from the bones, savoring each bite.

Yet, unlike salmon, John’s gospel has no bones; it’s all meat!

So that is what we will do today -- linger a while over the rich meat of this gospel.

With that aside, let us look at the first verse.

2.      “In the Beginning was. .

.”

John opens his gospel with a puzzling term “the Word.” (I warned you, didn’t I?).

Three times it is used in this first verse, and once again in v.14.

And after that he never uses it again.

\\ Now the first thing he says about the Word is, it was in the beginning: *“In the beginning was the Word.”

*  John eventually identifies the Word with Jesus, God’s Son.

So what special thing does he want to tell us about the Word by telling us that it was in the beginning?

I think two things:

1] First, the phrase *“in the beginning /was/”* is a strong way to say that the Word is eternal.

The Word wasn’t /created/ in the beginning.

It didn’t begin in the beginning.

It /was/ in the beginning.

The verb “was” has the force meaning “already was.”

In the beginning the Word already was in existence.

So John says this Jesus, the Son of God, the Word, was already existing eternally in the beginning.

But he is saying more.

He could have easily begun by saying “The Word was from all eternity.”

But he doesn’t, does he?

What does he say?

*“In the beginning. .

.” *That leads us to our second point:

\\ 2]  Who can read these words and not have his mind instantly transported back to Genesis 1.1 *“In the beginning God . .

.”? * That is the very first sentence of the very first book of /this/ Bible.

Do you see how important this is?

Had John said “The Word was eternal” he would still be speaking abstractly.

It would still be a phrase easily confused with similar phrases found in other religions.

But by saying “in the beginning was the Word,” John defines the Word by confining our interpretations to that beginning.

Everything now that follows this first clause, the entire gospel about Jesus of Nazareth is confined to /that/ beginning.

The Biblical beginning.

The Torah, the Word of God.

And that means the Biblical God.

Whoever Jesus is, he is no Muslim Jesus, no Hindu Jesus, no Buddhist Jesus, no New Age Jesus, no Mormon Jesus, no Jehovah’s Witnesses Jesus.

Because he is not defined by the Quran but by the Bible.

Not by the Tripitaka, but by the Bible.

Not by the Book of Mormon, but by the Bible.

He is the Biblical Jesus!

By this, John keeps us from making Jesus into a wax nose which we can twist and turn to distort to our own private likings.

If you want to know who Jesus is, you will only find him as revealed on the pages of /this/ book.

3.      “The Word”

Now we have a good foundation for the next question.

What does he mean by “The Word”?

Why does John use this puzzling term “the Word”?

The Greek is the/ “Logos/.”

It is a peculiar term.

In the entire Bible it is only found here in its absolute form “the Word.”

Moreover, it is not easily defined and that for two reasons:

\\ A.      First, the dictionary meaning of /Logos/ has a wide range of meaning.

It can refer to “reason” or “thought,” to the expression of reason or thought, which we’d call “speech,” “message.”

It usually doesn’t refer to one single term; rather, its use is similar as when we ask someone “What the word?” and what we intend to here is not a single word but a statement or message.

B.       Secondly, in the ancient world, the term /“Logos”/ was a philosophical term freighted with meaning.

For example, in the popular philosophical movement called Stoicism, the /Logos/ meant “the rational principle by which all things exist.”

That is, the /Logos/ was an impersonal force, an abstract principle, not a concrete person.

In the hands of the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, and under the influence of Plato, the /Logos/ was thought to be the intermediary between God and the world.

Philo can even speak of the Logos as that through which the world was made.

Yet, again, it was an attribute of God, not a person.

\\ C.  A third understanding is found among certain Jewish thinkers, who, in the two centuries prior to the time of Christ, developed a dynamic conception of the Wisdom of God.

They gave to God’s Wisdom characteristics of a person.

This is a poetic device already present in the book of Proverbs.

For example, Solomon speaks of Wisdom as a Woman.

So we read: *“Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares. . .