Sermon Tone Analysis

/There was nothing peculiar about the birth of Jesus.

He was not God incarnate and no Virgin Mother bore him.

The Church in its ancient zeal fathered a myth and became bound to it as dogma.

Since Christians largely continue to suppose that their faith stands or falls by the doctrine of the deity of Christ the dogma goes on being sustained to the detriment of what is really significant about the person and contribution of Jesus.

It is pathetic to have theologians, whether orthodox or liberal, trying to save themselves and the credit of the Church's teaching by questing for terms which enable them to retain what they should have outgrown./

These sentiments are of course, not mine.

They are taken from Hugh Schonfield's book, The Passover Plot.

His words are testimony that unbelief, disbelief and heresy are still enemies of the truth and that the church must be vigilant.

What is shocking to me, is that an increasing number of Christian theologians agree with him.

A significant number of liberal New Testament scholars openly deny the validity of the miraculous associated with the life of Jesus.

They explain that we really can’t trust the Bible to tell us the true story about Jesus.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you dismiss the miraculous you deny the divinity of Jesus.

Once you deny the divinity of Jesus, He becomes merely a Jewish peasant who entertains visions of grandeur, is motivated by political passion, becomes swept up into the ‘Kingdom Movement’ of John that Baptist, and is ultimately killed by the Romans as a nuisance.

Some of you may remember an ABC special that was televised in 2006.

It was entitled, The Search for Jesus and was billed as /“ ... a journalist’s exploration of the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth.”/

That journalist was Peter Jennings.

In his opening monologue, Jennings tells us, /“Jesus has had and continues to have an extraordinary influence in people’s lives.”/

He concludes by saying, /“The search for Jesus is an irresistible story.”/

The only problem was that this highly-hyped show shed precious little light on the person and nature of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jenning’s ultimate conclusion?

/“All we really know about Jesus is that he was Jewish and that he was born during a turbulent time.”/

It’s hard to imagine how the Jesus that Jennings portrayed could have an /“extraordinary influence”/ on anyone.

Actually, we know much about the life of Jesus.

It merely depends on what sources we choose to accept and believe.

The bottom line is this: If we accept the conclusions of today’s liberal scholars and their presuppositions concerning the Gospel accounts, then indeed there is not much we can know about Jesus since most liberal scholars view the Gospels as historically unreliable accounts of the life of Jesus.

If, however, we accept God’s truth as revealed in the Scriptures—assuming the Gospels to be authoritative, and historically reliable—then there is a great deal that we can know about Jesus.

In fact we can know Him personally!

There is noting more incredible that we are asked to believe about Jesus than is found here in the prologue to John’s gospel.

He maintains that the eternal God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the Ancient of Days, willingly gave up His heavenly status, taking the form of a man, and became subject to the death of the cross!

How incredible!

!

I. THE LIVING WORD IS THE ETERNAL SON OF GOD

#. the Christmas story does not begin with a birth in Bethlehem, but in the eternalness of God

* John 1:1 /"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."/

#. the gospel of John opens with a magnificent statement

#. its theological sweep and grandeur is breathtaking: /In the beginning was the Word; And the Word was with God; And the Word was God;/

#. it begins by portraying the life of Jesus—whom he calls The Word—with the heavenly Father in eternity before the world began

#. before our Lord became a man, his life was rich glorious, filled with infinite delight and serene blessedness, receiving the worship of the angels

#. the eternalness of Jesus is as much a part of the Christmas Story as are the birth narratives

#. this must never be forgotten

#. the first three Gospels begin by placing Jesus within a historical setting

#.

Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus that connects Him to David and Abraham

#.

Mark starts with the preaching of John the Baptist

#.

Luke has a dedication of his work to Theophilus and follows that with a prediction of the birth of John the Baptist

#. but John begins with a theological prologue that takes us into the infinity of eternity

#. it is almost as if John had said, /“I want you to consider Jesus in His teaching and deeds.

But you will not understand the good news of Jesus in its fullest sense unless you view Him from this point of view.

Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, and His words and deeds are those of the God-Man.”/

#. this is still true—you will never understand the man named Jesus—until by faith you see Him as the Christ, the Son of the Living God who taketh the way the sins of the world

#. the incarnation is the first great miracle of the New Testament and is at the heart of historic Christianity

#. it is central in the New Testament witness

!! A. THE LIVING WORD IS ONE WITH THE HEAVENLY FATHER

#. /"In the beginning"/ – these words are suggestive of the opening words of Genesis

#.

Genesis begins with the foundation of the world and tells us of God's creative efforts

#. in John 1:1, the apostle goes behind the creation account into eternity itself and tells us the story behind the story

#. that story is of an eternal Christ in glory with the Father, high and lifted up and on his throne

#.

Jesus is the /"Word"/

#. words are used to convey the meaning of our thoughts and intents

#.

Jesus Christ—as the Word—is the living expression of God's thoughts and intents toward us

#. it's one thing to say, /"I love you"/

#. it's another altogether to "inflesh" our love through personal direct action

* ILLUS.

Linda and I were still newlyweds while in college at Southwest Baptist University.

One evening I came home from working at the local grocery store.

Linda was sitting at the counter top, busy doing something.

I took my coat off, put my arms around her waist, kissed her on the back of the neck and said, /“I love you.”/

Without missing a beat, she said, /“Yea?

Then please take out the garbage and do the dishes for me!”/

#. she did not want just words of affection

#. that's exactly what God has done through Christ

#. why is it so important that the very first portrait John paints of Jesus is that of the Eternal Christ?

#. when we understand the nature of our Lord's glory, and his eternal character, and the condescending love of Christ, in becoming flesh, it is more fully appreciated

#.

Jesus is and forever has and will be eternal with the Father and has all the essence and attributes of deity

#. three times in the first verse John uses the word /"was"/

#. for those of you who may be interested the word /"was"/ is the imperfect form of the verb /"to be"/

#. we have no real translation for the verb in the English

#. in the original language of the N.T. it's a word which expresses timelessness

#. thus, we might read the verse like this: /"In the beginning always was the Word, and the Word always was with God, and the Word always was God."/

#. before time was created, Jesus existed - Gen. 1:26

#.

Jesus has equality with our Heavenly Father

* v. 1 /". . . the Word was with God . .

."/

#. the nature of Christ has been at issue since the earliest days of the Church

#. some have maintained that Jesus was merely human and had great wisdom and spiritual insight

#. some have believed that he was "adopted" by God at his baptism and was divine only until abandoned by God at his crucifixion

#. a few have advanced the idea that Jesus is divine, but not on equal footing with the Father—in other words he is God, but not as god and God is

#. that Jesus was not created is evident in the second phrase of the verse

#. the verse literally says the Jesus was /"face to face"/ or /"eyeball to eyeball"/ with God

#. the idea is that of complete equality

#.

Jesus is God come to us in the flesh

* v. 1 /". . .

and the Word was God . .

."/

#. how can the apostle surmise that Jesus has equality with the Heavenly Father?

#. because Jesus is God

#. a more accurate translation of that third phrase of the 1st verse would read: ?"And the Word was God Himself"/

#. in His incarnation, Jesus did not cease to be God

#.

Jesus said of himself: /"I and the Father are one."/

- (John 10:30)

#. if you want to know what God is like, then you have to look at the portraits of Christ painted of Him with words in the N.T.

#. to know Jesus personally is to know God

* ILLUS.

Shortly before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus is attempting to prepare his disciples for the events which are about to take place.