John 1.3-4 - In Him was Life

What we’ve seen in John's book so far is that - In the beginning was, The Word.  And the Word was God (always was), AND the Word created.  With words.  Heb. 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.  John stresses this point: [3] All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  ALL things, through Him.  The very elements of the universe.  All things, through Him came to be.  John says it 3x here, for emphasis.  It’s the root of the word, [genesis].  Sometimes it means, you come to be something else.  You become a child of God.  The water becomes wine.  But in this case, it means, come to be, period.  Some thing didn’t exist, and then it came to be.  Here, we’re talking ALL things.  No thing, not one blade of grass, not one molecule or quark, not one person has come to be apart from this One-Who-Was-God.  No one.  We all [came to be - through this Word].  Through Jesus.  He made each of us.

Therefore, everything in the universe - including us - is [contingent: kuhn-tin-juhnt, adj, dependent for existence on something else].  Our very existence depends on Someone else, this God of words Who spoke the universe into being.  Now, inanimate objects, and all other living things, ants and algae and antelope - don’t even think about existence [“Who made me?”] - much less [talk] about it.  They’re not self-aware.  But humans - we can/do ask the zillion-dollar question, “How did I get here?  Why am I here?”  We humans use words to consider it and discuss it and write about it.  AND contingent image-bearers even have the freedom to think that maybe I am NOT contingent - as misguided as that idea is.  Maybe I’m an accident.  But John is telling us, look, I saw Him, I know Him.  All things came into existence through Him.

Now some of you smart kids are thinking, well Chris, I actually came from my mommy’s tummy.  My mommy and daddy.  And you’d be right - but where did your mommy and daddy come from?  Well, from their mommy and daddy, and so on and so forth.  All the way back to the first mommy and daddy back in the beginning.  Where did they come from?   The Word.  And He spoke.  ALL things, every [molecule] came into existence as He spoke.  But wait, there’s more.  There’s something else.  Because molecules don’t just come to life.  Not on their own.  That primordial soup that so many unbelievers so desperately want to believe gave rise to life?  That cocktail of atoms and energy - those are building blocks of life, but they are all caused by something/someone, AND there’s STILL something missing.  Life does not spontaneously arise out of non-life.  Which is why… [4 In Him was life…].  4 of the most powerful words in the entire Bible.  [In Him Life was.]  Always.  [Zoe].  That which is alive.  There is an animating power, a supernatural force, which animates and separates all living things from all those which are not.  Life only comes from life.  Always.  In the beginning was The Word.  He was towards God, always was, always will be God, and in Him always was this creative force.  In HIM was life… He had the [spark].

An honest person cannot simply dismiss what John is saying here.  Many people do, of course.  If you grow up in a home where there is no faith and the assumption is that we’re all an accident, then that IS most likely what you grow up believing.  That’s just foolish, the idea of a Creator.  Really?  I like the simple logic of [intelligent design] here.  How did THINGS get this way?  How did THIS happen?  Every time we see [order], we infer intelligence.  EVERY time.  The best, really the only obvious answer is that something intelligent made it that way on purpose.  NOT an accident.  Yet the one glaringly obvious exception happens to be the most important question of all - life.  How did life come to be?  Highly [irreducibly complex] structures, AND this miraculous scientifically-unreproducible force of [zoe].  Life.  Life is no accident.  In HIM was life.  Jesus.  Life comes from Jesus.  That’s where we came from, how we came to be.  And it’s why we came to be: [Col. 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and FOR Him.]  For Him.  He is the Why of life, The Meaning.  Why AM I here, people ask.  And the mind-blowingly simple-yet-profound answer John gives us is, Jesus.  The Word.  [In Him was life].  He gives life its life.  And He gives life its meaning.  Apart from Him, life is meaningless.  Empty.  Life is so much more than [survival of the fittest], just surviving and reproducing.  You and I came to be, NOT an accident - we were designed by the Ultimate Designer of the universe, outfitted with a glorious purpose - to seek out, to enjoy, and to show off the breathtaking goodness of this One Who Created all things.  To make much of Jesus.  All things, through Him, AND for Him.  [In Him was and IS life].

At this point, now that John has declared that there IS a Creator, THE Source of all life in the universe, we can go in one of two directions.  One is a path known as [deism]: God is an absentee dad.  I.E. He is NOT involved with the world He made.  This Word made everything, wound up the clock, and just let it go.  Turned it loose, left it to all to its own devices.  That’s what a lot of people would like to believe.  Because it removes most of our contingence.  Reduces the almighty Creator to a toothless Grandpa.  MAYBE he shows up in a [red suit] once a year?  Worst thing that might happen to you is a lump of coal in your stocking?  But deism is less than that.  It’s the [Prime Directive] taken to the extreme.  Non-interference.  Don’t interfere.  Deism says, God does not care.  Not enough to show up.

Many people do live their lives as practical deists.  There’s even a term for this: [Moralistic Therapeutic Deism].  MTD.  God is a Divine Therapist.  A heavenly butler.  I am not here FOR him - he is here for me.  When I’m in a pinch.  Or whenever it suits my purposes.

But think about it, how does deism jive with the notion of a God Whose lovingkindness is everlasting?  Who is clearly not at all absent?  The Lord always shows up, over and over.  Who called Abraham out of paganism?  Who called Israel out of bondage in Egypt?  Who showed up in the furnace with Rack, Shack and Benny?  Who called Lazarus out of the grave?  And what about this whole idea of [Emmanuel-God-With-Us]?  Deists, saying (or living like) God is not involved, haven’t read their Bible.  Not lately.  Not the best parts.  Sadly they’re just spiritualized examples of those who want less (or no) accountability.  God always intervenes for the good of those who bear His image.  The Word is actively involved with ALL of His creation - and ESPECIALLY with those who bear His image - because He totally loves us.  He interferes.  [In Him was life].  In the beginning was [the Word, He was God].  All things came into being through Him.  And in Him was life.  The power to create, to give and to sustain life.

Think about it - who on earth has this kind of power?  There is NO power on earth that can do this, impart life to that which is not alive.  Breathe the breath of life into so much dust.  And we’ve talked about this before - once extinguished, once the life force, the zoe has been extinguished, there is no bringing it back.  No power on earth.  No amount of medicine, no amount of science can bring the fully dead back to life.  Yes, some life functions can continue on life support for a time.  Those who are clinically dead have been resuscitated, yes.  But you take a bug - a fly, or an ant or a mosquito, and [squish it] - (yes please do that to pests btw) - and it ain’t coming back.  Once zoe has left the building, leaves behind the tent which we call our body, all that’s left is a bunch of life-less molecules.  [Life IS a precious miracle.]  It’s a wonderful impossible.  [In Him was life.]  The Word Who was God.  In the beginning.  In Him is your life, and mine.  We need Him - for all of life.  Will you trust Him today?

If NOT deism then what?  More on this other direction to take next time...

John 1.1-3 - The Word Was God Part 2

Last time we looked at how this One-Who-was, The Word, was WITH God and WAS God!  In the beginning.  This Word was already existing back in the beginning - because, John says, He WAS God.  And He was with God, meaning facing/directed towards God, but also somehow separate.  This is John’s mind-blowing conclusion after doing life with Jesus for three long amazing years.  He hung out with Him, reclined on Him at dinner, had a front row seat - for love, wisdom, miracles, resurrection: somehow this Jesus - He was/is God.

Now.  The deity of Christ.  People have struggled with and have been denying that Jesus is God from the very beginning.  It IS a fair question.  How could a flesh-and-blood person - who bled, AND died - be the eternal God?  How can this finite human being also be the infinite God?  AND if there is only ONE God - which God Himself told all the Jews, then how could one God be two?  How does [1+1=1]?  To any respectable math major, that’s lunacy.  To a respectable Jew, it’s heresy.  Hear O Israel, God is how many?  This is why the Jews eventually DO decide to kill Jesus - because there is no denying, HE was claiming to be God [Jn 10.30-33].  John knows this.  Full well.  But he also knows Jesus.  Very well.  Front row seat, remember?  He knows what he’s writing here - yet John’s inescapable conclusion as THE first-hand witness is that Jesus really is God. 

Of course even Christ-followers have struggled with this truth, that Jesus is God.  It came to an early head [300 years after Christ].  A church elder in [Alexandria] named [Arius] was actively teaching that Jesus was an exalted person but not God.  Emperor Constantine called together hundreds of bishops for a [council in Nicaea].  Together they came up with what is known as [the Nicene Creed].

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, 

the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God;

begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, 

by whom all things were made.

It may not make logical sense - but it makes the best sense of the truths of Scripture.  [The Word WAS God].  God of God.  Always was God.  There was never a time when Jesus was not God.  He was/is not a created being, some lesser God.  In the beginning, the Word was God.  The One Who used words to form everything in existence out of nothing.  Exactly what John says next: [v3: All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.]  And again, He was no [puppet] in this process.  If He was merely a puppet, there’s no need to kill Him as a lunatic heretic.

And this is why John hammers this truth home right from the get go.  He knows we need to understand the truth, in no uncertain terms, that Jesus, The Logos, was in very fact, God.  Always was.  The Word was (and is) God.  This is a foundational truth of the Christian faith.  The truth about Christ, about Who Jesus is.

Because Jesus was tried, and convicted, and executed, He was killed not so much for anything He did, but for Who He was.  For Who He claimed to be.  He was put on trial for His identity - and isn’t that still the case today?  People generally have a lot less angst about His teachings, or His miracles, but when His words and deeds point to the claim that He was - and is - God, then folks bristle.  They begin to protest, and push back.  And why is that?

There’s the obvious intellectual hurdle - how can a man be God, and vice versa?  How can one God be two?  Again, John doesn’t try to explain it for us.  He’s saying, look, I was with Him for three years.  I saw what He did.  I heard what He said.  And I’m telling you the truth.  You know that I’m telling you the truth [21.24].  And this is what WE believe.  These two truths - the [Trinity] and the [Incarnation] - two of the core teachings of the Christian faith, they’re what we call an antinomy [two things which cannot both be true, yet must be true].  This is what makes the best sense of all the teachings of Scripture.  And if you try to hold to only one side or the other, you deny part of the truth.  And you diminish Christ.  You minimize Who Jesus is.

THIS is where we find that there IS something else in play here, something far deeper, far more nefarious.  It goes back to the very beginning in fact, to the Garden - and before.  It’s the age old rebellion against the supremacy of God, led first by the [serpent] of old, and carried out by the masses of rebellious humanity ever since.  All people reject God, and His rule over our own lives - and over creation.  A rising tide.  We’re loathe to be accountable to God in any way whatsoever.  Desperately trying to put anything else in His place in my heart.  I so want to be able to do whatever I want, and I don’t want any consequences.  So I reject the idea that there is a God Who cares about what I do, Who cares about me.  A Jesus Who makes me accountable.  Cuz Jesus primarily came to deal with my sin, to pay the penalty I owe as a result.  And because I resist the idea that I am accountable to any God, I must resist the idea that Jesus is God.  I must oppose that however possible - and the world has been trying to come up with ways to throw shade on that truth, to minimize Jesus for hundreds and hundreds of years.  I doubt that Jesus is God.  I doubt that Jesus is Who He says He is.  Doubting Thomases.  

The world totally tries to minimize Jesus.  They reduce Him to an [afterthought].  Or a curse word.  Look at the non-Christian religions, look at the cults - they all minimize Jesus.  He didn’t die for our sins.  He certainly didn’t rise from the dead.  He’s definitely not God.  Rather than make much of Him they change God’s Word and try minimize Jesus.  But that’s not what God does:

Phil 2.9-11 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  Acts 2:33 “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.  Nor what Paul does:  Phil. 1:20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

Exalted.  Enlarged.  Magnified.  This is what God the Father has done for His Son.  Jesus.  The One-Who-Was.  Exalted Him, magnified Him, made much of Him.  This is what Paul aspired to, in everything he did and said, to magnify Jesus, to somehow turn up the magnification factor on Jesus [like what telescopes can do for things like the orion nebula].  So did John.  This is what John is doing, right out of the gate.  Making much of Jesus, magnifying Him.  Big picture, don’t miss this, make no mistake - Jesus is God.  ALL things through Him.  

Because what happens if/when you begin to say that Jesus is NOT God?  Once and if I ever begin to try and minimize Jesus, to somehow make Him less, to make Him out to be less than Who He is, than Who He always was, always has been and always will be, less than Who He needs to be in my life - then my faith itself will diminish.  My hope of eternal life will diminish.  My joy will diminish.  My world grows dark [v4!].  It all begins here: In the beginning was the Word and the [Word was God].  All things came into being through Him (and FOR Him).  [God With Us] My experience of life grows bigger and brighter as my view of Jesus grows.  How big is Jesus to me?

Is. 44:24 

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb, “I, the LORD, am the Maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone."

Col. 1:16 

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him.