IntroductionToday we begin a study of the gospel of John. Before we dive in, we need to know a little bit about the background of this book. AUTHOR & DATE:

- It was written by John the son of Zebede between 80-100 AD. - internal evidence - elimination of the other intimate disciples--Peter and James

- external evidence of the early church fathers: Polycarp; Irenaeus; Papias - identify John as the author.

ORIGINAL AUDIENCE:

- non Jews

- clear because he explains Jewish customs and terms.

- After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, John moved to Ephesus and worked primarily with Gentiles.

- The Gentiles of John's day were spiritually-oriented, but relativistic (situational ethics, relative truth, etc of our day).

PURPOSE:

John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

- an evangelistic account of Jesus' life.

- material for John's Gospel purposefully different from the others

- designed to show the unique nature of Jesus, Messiah, Son of God deity.SIMPLICITY AND PROFUNDITY:

- it is the most simple of all the new testament writings.

- has only 400 different Greek words.John's gospel has the smallest.

- even though it is so simple it is the deepest in theological concepts.

One theologian said it is "shallow enough for babies to wade in, but deep enough for elephants to drown in." RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER GOSPELS:

- It was the last Gospel written.

- Material used was purposefully selected to fill in the gaps of the other accounts and to be thouroughly evangelistic.

- The Synoptic Gospels are Historical accounts building to a conclusion.

- John begins with His conclusion about Jesus and then supports it with the evidences of Jesus testimony, teachings, and miracles.

We call John 1:1-18 the prologue of John; it is perhaps the greatest distillation of Christian theology in the whole New Testament . . . I. The Logos Is Ultimate Reality (vs 1-3)John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

a. John introduces us to an entity he calls "the Word." This is the Greek word logos. Since John is writing to Greeks, he uses their own philosophical term as the starting point for his message.

From their observation of order in the external universe and human rationality, they believed there must be some universal "reason" which undergirds reality and provides meaning for the universe. They sometimes called this "cosmic rationality" (or Ultimate Reality) the logos.

Their problem was that they didn't know where to go from there. There was endless speculation and disagreement about the nature of this logos: is it personal or impersonal? is it eternal or temporal? what is its relationship to the material world? is it interested or disinterested in individual humans?

b. Using their own term for Ultimate Reality, John answers their questions with a series of block-buster assertions. What humans can only guess at by observation, John reveals to us in this passage.

1. The logos is eternal (vs 1a).

2. The logos is the Creator of the universe (vs 3).

The universe is not eternal (NATURALISTS), nor is it somehow God (ANIMISM & PANTHEISM). It was "spoken into existence" by the logos (Gen. 1 CONFIRMATION OF BIG-BANG).

3. The logos is a Person. The logos is not called "it", but "he" (vs 2) and "him" (vs 3).

4. The logos is deity, or God (vs 1c).

The Greek emphasizes this. Because of the above, the logos clearly deserves this title.

5. The logos is also personally distinct from God (vs 1b,2).

He is both God, and was also always "face to face" with God.

This is one of many passages (OT and NT) that reveal that God while God is a unity in his essence, he exists as more than one Person. We call this the "Trinity." Here, two of these three Persons are mentioned: God the Father ("God" and God the Son (called "the logos").

This sounds very abstract, but it resolves a profound question: How God can be both personal and self-existent? How can God be personal without needing to create other persons with whom to relate? But if God needed to create other persons, God is not truly self-existent. The biblical answer to this question is the Trinity:

God has always existed as a community of Persons who have always loved one another. One hundred trillion years before anything or anyone else existed, God was already there forever before. But he was never lonely because he related to himselves.Jn. 17:24 "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world."

The logos, of course, is Jesus (vs 14a). The historical Person Jesus of Nazareth, who was born into the human race at Bethlehem between 10 BC and 3 BC and died sometime between 30 AD and 33 AD, is in fact God, the infinite-personal-eternal Creator of the whole universe!

He created the materials from which his feeding trough crib was made. He created the angels that announced his birth, and the sheep the shepherds tended, and the star that guided the magi . . . II. Jesus Is the Savior of Humanity (vs 4,5,14-18)

But John doesn't stop here. Jesus is not only the answer to the most abstract philosophical questions about Ultimate Reality.

a. He is also the Savior of humanity. John 1:4-5 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Jn. 10:10b I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

This is the special quality of life which is personal union and fellowship with God. Jn. 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

"This life was the light of mankind." This spiritual life is what gives human existence meaning and direction. Unlike the animals,we were created to know God personally, to fellowship with him and experience his direction for our lives.

"And the light shines in the darkness." The problem is that we don't possess this life/light. We have physical life and light, we have incredible intelligence and resourcefulness, but we live in spiritual death and darkness.

But Jesus has come into this darkness to make God's light and life available . . .

b. What would it be like to have this light/life?

John provides his own testimony in vs 14-18. John 1:14-18 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

God actually became part of the human race (vs 14) so that people could have this.

John sums up his own personal experience with Jesus by saying he was full of "grace and truth."

1. Jesus was full of truth.

"Truth" means reality, the way things really are. As they got to know Jesus, they learned who God really was because Jesus "exegeted" God to them (vs 18)Jn. 14:9 Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? As we study John's gospel, we will learn this also. And as they came to know Jesus, he inevitably exposed people for who they really were.

When he exposed the pretense and hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders, his disciples loved it.

But he also had an unnerving way of peering into the deepest recesses of their hearts and laying bare their weaknesses and sins and foolishness . . .

2. But he was also full of grace.

"Grace" means God's unmerited favor. It means God showing up in Christ to pay for our sins himself so we can have the free gift of his love and mercy and forgiveness and power to transform our lives.

The same Jesus who knew and exposed their sinfulness was also an inexhaustible source of grace (vs 16).

No matter how badly they blew it, no matter how foolish and sinful they realized they were, he always made more grace available to them. No wonder they were never the same . . .

How different this was from the Old Testament religion in which they had been raised (vs 17)! Illustration The Law, as great as it was, was only a dim reflection of Jesus. Like the MOON, it got its light from the SUN, and once the sun comes up, the moon fades into relative insignificance. God's Law gave them an outline of his moral character and a foreshadowing of his mercy.

But Jesus showed them all they could understand about God's character and made God's mercy and transforming power accessible to them.

3. Where can we get this spiritual light/life?

Not from Buddha, not from Mohammed, not from any other avatar or guru--only from Jesus.

To a spiritually relativistic culture like our own, he keeps reminding them that Jesus is the only source:

"In him (alone) was life . . . " (vs 4).

"The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. " (vs 9).

Only in Jesus has "the logos become flesh" (vs 14).

Only Jesus is "the only begotten God" (vs 18).

Jn. 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by me."

There is no room here for the popular view that Jesus was one of many spiritually enlightened masters, one of many ways to God.

He is either God incarnate and the sole provider of spiritual life--or he is a liar, a fake, a scam artist. III. How Will You Respond To Jesus? (vs 9-13)

a. Jesus is who he is regardless of how you respond to him.

But that doesn't make your response to him unimportant. In fact, your response to Jesus is the most important decision you will ever make--because God has decided to let it be the basis for whether you benefit from him or not.

John 1:9-11 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

b. What an incredible and tragic irony! God visited the creatures who were designed to know him, and most didn't even recognize him. He visited his chosen people and fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, but they didn't receive him.

Why? It wasn't because of inadequate evidence (as we'll see), but because of an unwillingness to humble themselves and admit their need for his light and life . . .

c. But not everyone responded to him this way. John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (NASB)

Some responded differently, and he gave them the right to become part of God's own family (another synonym for "light," "life," "grace," and "truth"). And we can get in on this, tooJn. 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

But there is only one way to get this--by personally receiving Jesus. To make sure we get this, John tells us what won't suffice: "blood" -- family/ethnic background. Being a Jew (God's chosen people) didn't prevent most of them from rejecting Jesus, and being non-Jewish didn't prevent many Gentiles from receiving him.

Likewise, it doesn't matter how many people in your family are Christians -- you still have to receive Christ. And it doesn't matter if none of your family members have ever been Christians--you still can receive Christ.

"the will of the flesh"--human moral achievement. Being morally better than most people doesn't qualify you to be a member of God's family--you have to receive Christ. And being morally worse than most people doesn't

disqualify you from becoming a child of God--you can still do so by receiving Christ. "the will of a husband"--other people's decisions about Jesus. You have to make your own decision. Just because your spouse believes in Jesus doesn't make you a Christian--you still have to receive Christ. And just because your spouse doesn't believe doesn't mean you can't--you can still receive Christ.

Some of you have never received Christ. I challenge you to come back to learn about this Jesus and come to a decision about whether or not you will receive him.

Some of you may be ready right now . . .