Hope Through the Eternal Word
John 1:1-3 (ESV):
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2He was in the beginning with God.
3All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Eight more days, and it’s Christmastime! Praise God because we get to celebrate Christmas as God’s people! Why? It is because Christmastime is more meaningful to us compared to others who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior, and I trust this is all true for all of us. You see, when you and I celebrate Christmas, we celebrate Immanuel – God becoming human like us so that He can be with us in our life’s journey here on earth. Dr. Richard Blackaby explains why this is im portant to us as believers. He says,
“God so highly prized humanity that He assigned the work of its salvation not to an angel, but to His beloved Son. His incarnation proves that He is willing to personally enter our difficult, painful worlds and make a profound difference.”
That’s so true! Without Jesus becoming like us and offering Himself on the cross for our sal vation, we would all be left struggling with our own brokenness and hopelessness.
The apostle John could not agree more. This is the reason why, when he wrote about the life of Jesus Christ (unlike Matthew and Luke), he did not start with the typical birth narrative in Bethle hem. He pushes it back in eternity past, with Jesus Christ existing, communing with the Father. This fact can give us a much better appreciation of our salvation in Christ.
For the past two Sundays, we have been studying this Christmas theme about the hope we have found in Jesus Christ. Last Sunday, we tackled His virgin birth and how important it is in His work as the Savior of the world. This morning, from our text in John 1:1-3, we will highlight Jesus as the eternal Word. This title, “Word,” is foundational in our beliefs about Jesus. Dr. Warren Wiersbe, a great Bible commentator, defined for us why Jesus is referred to as the Word, saying:
''Just as our words reveal our mind and heart, so Christ reveals the mind and heart of God to men.''
From the very beginning of God’s relationship with humanity, He has consistently revealed Himself to us. During the Old Testament times, He revealed Himself, His will, and His actions by speaking through the prophets. In the New Testament, He gave His ultimate communication through His own Son, Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews affirmed this truth:
Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV):
1Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
3He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Therefore, God clearly gave us the best Word or revelation in Jesus Christ today. Why? It is because He is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Obviously, all the previous revelations were not enough. Only Jesus Christ can adequately represent Him to us. If you keep reading the first chapter of John, he also declares:
John 1:18 (ESV):
18No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side,[b]he has made him known.
Since He is the only One who really knows Him, He is the only One who can reveal Him. One thing we should not miss about this revelation is its context. All throughout the Scriptures, God wanted us to know Him better because He graciously wants us to have a relationship with Him. He took the initiative to let us know how we can intimately relate to Him.
Now, let’s begin our study of our text and discover three basic truths about our hope in Jesus as God’s eternal Word:
I THE WORD BEFORE THE BEGINNING.
Our text begins with these words, “In the beginning was the Word.” These words were never meant to tell us how the Word began His existence. Rather, the phrase “In the beginning” is clearly a reference to Genesis 1:1, which says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” John intentionally chose this phrase because most of his readers could associate this immediately with the beginning of creation. So, John was simply conveying that Jesus Christ was already existing even before the beginning of anything.
This perspective is so important for us to understand because it separates Jesus from all of us human beings. We all have a beginning. But Jesus, as God, is an eternal being. He has no beginning and no ending. There are so many Scriptural references to Jesus as an eternal being. Here are two of them:
A. John 8:58
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” B. 2 Corinthians 8:9
9For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he be came poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
Both references reinforce the Biblical teaching that Jesus already existed
before he came into this world as a human being. If you examine 2 Corinthians 8:9, there was never a time on earth when Jesus was rich. This reference is to His existence in heaven before he came to earth as a human being. This doctrine is essential to establish one of the natural attributes of God, which is His eternal ex istence.
But there is also a prophetical aspect of why this truth is necessary. Let’s examine the words of Isaiah in Isiah 9:6:
6For to us a child is born to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
As the prophet Isaiah talked about the coming of the Messiah, one of the titles he empha sized was “Everlasting Father.” Clearly, the coming Messiah is from everlasting or without begin ning. The word “Father” here does not reference the first person of the Godhead. Rather, it de scribes the way He would rule His kingdom. He will be like a loving and caring father to His people. So, to establish the pre-existence of Jesus Christ is also necessary because it fulfills the prophecy that He is the Messiah.
II THE WORD BONDING WITH GOD.
The next phrase in verse 1 read, “and the Word was with God.” This statement poses a lot of problems to many because the Word is distinct from the Father. Therefore, in eternity past, the two persons, the Father and the Son, existed separately. The key word here is the preposition “with.” The Greek used here is “pros,” which can literally be translated as “by the side of” or “near to.” No tice this is followed up with verse 2, saying, “He was in the beginning with God.”
I recognize that there are many people who struggle with the idea of the “Trinity.” But this is one instance where the Father and the Son are mentioned as distinct from each other. Of course, in the doctrine of the Trinity, we also have the Holy Spirit. But in our text, the two persons of the God head are the only Ones mentioned. There are other passages where the three of them will be men tioned together but distinct from each other, like in the baptism of Jesus Christ (Matthew 3:16-17), the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19), and in Paul’s benediction (2 Corinthians 13:14).
Of course, the mention of Jesus side-by-side with the Father in eternity past clearly speaks about Christ’s equality with the Father. This is not a ridiculous idea, as some may suggest, but even Jesus Christ openly made this claim during His earthly ministry. Notice, John 10:27-32:
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out
of the Father's hand.
30 I and the Father are one.”
31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”
Here, the Lord Jesus was talking about the double protection that believers receive from Jesus and the Father from the moment they believe and follow Jesus. No one will be able to snatch them from their hands. Then, He referred to the Father, who is greater than all. But in verse 30, He said – “I and the Father are one.” This is really the bottleneck. He claimed that He possesses equal power with the Father. If you proceed to verse 31, the people listening to Him were offended by His claim that they were about to stone Him for His blasphemous claim. However, Jesus quickly defended Himself, saying that He had demonstrated His divine power through His miraculous works before them. C. S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, defended the deity of Jesus by saying these words:
I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . .. Now it seems to me obvi ous that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend, and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (Mere Christianity, 55-56)
So, since Jesus Himself openly claimed equality with the Father, we only have three options on how we would see Him. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Who is He to you?
But more than equality with the Father, John mentions Jesus Christ with the Father to empha size the nearness, the bond, or communion that the Son had with the Father in eternity past. When Jesus took on the responsibility to come into our world to offer Himself as the sacrifice for sin, He had to leave this sweet communion with the Father. Truly, the sacrifice of Jesus to be our Savior was great because He had to leave heaven and that close fellowship He once had with His Father.
The culmination of this separation took place at the cross when the Father had to turn His back on Jesus being the sin-bearer of the world and Jesus Himself crying out in Matthew 27:46: 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Why would the Father do that to His Son? The answer is obvious: the Fa
ther needed to forsake the Son at that moment so He could forgive and receive the sinners who would go to Him through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
III THE WORD BEHAVING AS GOD.
The last phrase in verse 1 says, “And the Word was God.” I must mention that based on the original Greek wording, a better translation should be, “And God was the Word.” During the time of John, if you were writing and you wanted to emphasize a word, you had to put it at the beginning of the sentence. So, it is evident that the apostle John emphasized the divinity of the Word, so he placed God first before the Word.
John did not want any confusion regarding the person of Jesus Christ. He was not only with God, but He is God Himself. And if you are still in doubt about what he meant, He added verse 3 to show what He did to prove His deity – “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”
In creation, the Bible is quite clear that the three persons of the Godhead cooperated and played distinct and specific roles. But consistently, Jesus was the main agent or performer in crea tion. Other New Testament Scriptures support this truth:
A. Colossians 1:16 (ESV)
16 For by[a]him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
B. Hebrews 1:2 (ESV)
2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
The work of creation is possible for the Lord Jesus because He possesses all the power of God in Him. No human being can create in the same way God created the world. Do you know why this truth is so important for us to understand? Just like in creation, the work of salvation is an exclusive prerogative of God. No man is capable of saving himself because it demands the mighty power of God to save sinners like us from our sins. No wonder Acts 4:12 declares:
12And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Amazingly, He is the Christ we are celebrating during Christmastime. As the Almighty God, He was willing to do whatever it took to redeem us. And He was willing to come where we are so He can have a relationship with us. Let me close with these words that someone wrote to show that He is the only one who can meet our needs:
“When you are the neediest, He is the most sufficient. When you are completely helpless, He is the most helpful. When you feel totally dependent, He is absolutely dependa ble. When you are the weakest, He is the most able. When you are the most alone, He is intimately present. When you feel you are the least, He is the greatest. When you feel the most useless, He is preparing you. When it is the darkest, He is the only Light you need. When you feel the least secure, He is your Rock and Fortress. When you are the most humble, He is most gracious. When you can't, He can.”