The True Identity of Jesus Christ

Good afternoon, everyone! It's wonderful to see all of you here on this very nice, somewhat warm Sabbath day here for January. Looking forward to this evening's activities as well with the games and with the Broncos. We do have a widescreen TV right here behind Sam there. Imagine that might be a little bit popular this evening or this evening. We'll see. We appreciate the choir's special music. That was absolutely gorgeous. We really appreciated the words to that, too. They're very appropriate. We certainly didn't coordinate the message there. I hadn't heard the words of it. As we'll see in the sermon today, there is a very appropriate tie-in there, which we'll learn about somewhat shortly here. I have a question for you this afternoon. Why did people want to kill Jesus Christ? Why did they want to kill Him? Some of them. Obviously not all. When Jesus taught, he was a very popular teacher. There were often throngs of people who came to listen to Him. He tended to draw large crowds. When he taught, sometimes people were just hanging, literally, on every word that he said, wanting to learn more about Him. Yet, at the same time, there were individuals who wanted to arrest Him, who wanted to stone Him for what He taught and said, who wanted to kill Him. So why? Why did they do that? Why did some people have those attitudes of so much hatred for Jesus Christ that they wanted to kill Him? Reading through the Gospels, we find several different motivations for people who wanted to kill Him, at least the religious establishment. In at least one case, they wanted to kill Him for healing. A man on the Sabbath day, which they viewed as breaking the Sabbath commandment. It's evident that sometimes the motivation for wanting to kill Him was simple jealousy. They hated the attention that He was getting from the crowds of people there, from the miracles, from the following that He had among people who wanted to learn more from Him, and they wanted to kill Him for it. It's also plain that the religious establishment wanted to maintain their position. They had a pretty good thing going there. So long as peace was maintained with the Romans, they had a good income from the temple, from manipulating that situation to their advantage, and so on. Jesus Christ and His teaching threatened to upset that.

So they hated Him for it, and they managed to trump up charges to bring to the Romans to have Him executed for that. But in the Gospels, we find one reason for their wanting to kill Jesus that is mentioned more often than any other. What was that reason? Let's take a look at a few passages from the Gospel of John and see the reason, see what all of these passages have in common, as to why they hated and wanted to kill Jesus of Nazareth. We'll start in John 5 and verse 15 through 18. It says here, the man departed, this was an individual whom Jesus had healed, the man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He had done these things on the Sabbath. This is the example I mentioned earlier where they wanted to kill Jesus for healing a man on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I have been working. Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill Him because He not only broke the Sabbath and their opinion, that is, according to their rules and regulations, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Okay, another passage, John 7, 28 through 30.

Then Jesus cried out as He taught in the temple, saying, You both know Me, and you know where I am from. And I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me. Therefore, they sought to take Him, to arrest Him, in other words, but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. Another passage from John 8, 56 through 59.

Jesus said, as He is talking to some of the Jews there, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to Him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Then they took up stones to throw at him. That doesn't mean they were just picking up rocks to throw at Him. It means they were trying to stone Him. They wanted to stone Him to death. But Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

And one more passage I'd like to bring up in part of this background, this introduction. John 10, verses 30 through 33. Jesus said, I and My Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones, again, to stone Him. Again, they want to stone Him to death. Jesus answered them, Many good works I have shown you for My Father. For which of these works do you stone Me?

The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy. And because you, being a man, make yourself God.

So we see from these verses, and there are various others as well, that they wanted to kill Jesus because of who and what He said He was, who and what He claimed to be. So who was Jesus Christ, really? What was He? Who and what did His followers think and believe that He was? Where did He come from? We can't really understand a lot of what takes place in the Gospels if we don't understand the answer to these questions. Most people see Jesus as a rabbi, a very great rabbi, many Jews even to this day view Him as a great rabbi and teacher. Many people view Him as a wise man, as a great teacher who happened to have found what would become a great religion. But there's much more to the story than that, and it lies at the heart of the true Christian faith and doctrines and belief. And if we understand that, we understand it helps explain everything that He said and did during His ministry here on earth. So today what we'll talk about is the true identity of Jesus Christ. And again, this is at the heart of our beliefs, the beliefs of the Christian faith. It involves the understanding that Jesus was not simply an extraordinary rabbi, not simply a great teacher, not simply a great human being. It involves understanding of who and what Jesus of Nazareth really was and is. So today we'll go through the Gospels and the rest of other portions of the Bible as well and look at some examples that tell us about who and what He was, the true identity of Jesus Christ. As we saw from the introductory scriptures there in John that I read, Jesus made statements that the religious authorities that caused the religious authorities of that day want to stone Him to death, for blasphemy, to put Him to death. He made many statements about Himself and His Father. So many, in fact, that we don't have time to go through nearly all of them today. We'll just touch on a few of those. But what we will cover today is the most obvious statements, the statements He Himself made and some of the statements of His apostles as to His true identity. So we'll begin here with a section that I skipped over in the last class on the Gospels, last Sabbath, and that's John 1. As I mentioned here in Denver, in Springs, last Sabbath, we'll go through John 1 today. You don't necessarily need your harmony. We'll cover a lot of other material that is not found in John 1. The reason I chose to cover it today is because it is a huge subject. We'll in many ways only scratch the surface of it today, but it hits some of the high points of that. So that's what we'll cover today. We'll begin over in John 1 and verse 1. This actually goes back to the very beginning. We tend to think that Genesis 1-1 is the beginning of the story, but it's actually not. The real story, the real beginning, even before Genesis 1-1, is found right here in John 1 and verse 1. Let's take a look at this, then. Read through the first 18 verses of John 1 today. In the beginning, so this is a direct reference back to the beginning of Genesis 1, deliberately there, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So this being called the Word, we see, is two different things. He was with God, and He was God at the same time. This is difficult for a lot of people to understand, but it really boils down to how do you find the Word God.

That's really the heart and core of the issues, because if you define God as one being, then you find yourself twisted into what I would call theological pretzels, because you try to twist things around to fit one belief when your foundational belief isn't necessarily correct. And that is how, incidentally, the doctrine of the Trinity came about, because there in the early centuries they were trying to figure out how to reconcile various scriptures, not realizing they had a basic misconception of some of those scriptures here. But if you define God as a kind of being, and we know that Eloam from Genesis 1, there is a plural word, the word that's used primarily for God there, in Genesis 1 and many dozens of other places in the Old Testament, that it is a plural word. The I-M on the end is the Hebrew way of indicating plurality there. So Eloam actually included more than one individual when it's talking about God. And if you understand it that way, then you don't have a problem with what we read about here in Scripture is consistent throughout, which of course it is anyway. And we know that when we put all the Scriptures of the Bible together, that God is indeed a family, as we'll touch on later on here, as we see throughout the Gospels and many other places as well. And if you want to research that, we have the booklet Who is God, as well as the Trinity booklet that go into all of these concepts in great detail. If you want to learn more, we'll just again hit some of the high spots of that today. So back to John 1. It says here, In the beginning was the word, the word. And this is a Greek word, logos, that is used here, the same word from which we get logo today. You know, your logos for signage and companies and so on. It's the same word, same root there. In the beginning was the word, the logos. This is an unusual word that doesn't have any direct English equivalent. It covers a wide range of meaning. It can mean speech, as I'm doing here, this speak, my speaking to you. It can refer to that. It can refer to a report. If somebody gives you a report, as Mr. Suckling was giving during the announcements there, that also, the word logos, could apply to that. Or, as the meaning here, used of an individual, I guess the closest English equivalent would be a revelatory agent, one who reveals things, one who makes things known. And that is why we have in the church, often referred to logos as meaning spokesmen. And that is indeed one of the meanings, one of the numerous meanings of the word logos, the spokesmen. And that is certainly appropriate, as we'll touch on today. So this word is a being who came to reveal God as the logos, as the spokesmen. And as we know, Jesus Christ did indeed come to reveal the Father. We'll see some scriptures on that later on today. But He also came to reveal something else about God that we'll see in just a few minutes here. Verse 2, He, the logos, the word, was in the beginning with God. Here, meaning referring in the beginning with God the Father. That's what it's talking about here. Verse 3, very important concept here that a lot of people don't understand. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Now, I mentioned just a minute ago that one of the meanings of word is the revelatory agent, the one who reveals things about someone else, someone who reveals God, and that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father and the true nature of God. But we see something else here very important about how the one who became Jesus Christ revealed God, and that is that He revealed God through the creation. As it says here, all things were made through Him, through the logos, through the spokesman, and He is revealing God through the creation. Does it bring any Scriptures to mind?

Anything pop into your mind about that? How about Romans 1 in verse 20? A familiar passage, I'd like to read it today from the New Living Translation, which I think makes a few things more clear here. It says, From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature, so they have no excuse whatever for not knowing God.

So this tells us that one of the most obvious ways of knowing God and knowing that God exists is by and through the creation, through the work that the Word, the Logos, made. This tells us here that the creation reveals His invisible qualities, His eternal power, and divine nature.

In other words, we can tell what a great and awesome and perfect and powerful being God is by looking at what He has made. So this tells us that the Word, the one who reveals, the one who became Jesus Christ, revealed the greatness and the power and the glory and the grandeur of Almighty God by the things they made, that they are a testimony, they are a witness to the greatness of God in all that we see around us. So yes, Jesus Christ did reveal the teaching about God, the true nature of God, did reveal the Father during the three and a half years of His ministry here on earth. But more than that, He also revealed a great deal about God that is evident to everyone for all time when we look at and examine the greatness and the grandeur of His creation. It's another level of thinking about this particular verse here. Let's take a look at a few more scriptures now that confirm who this Being was and that it was indeed Jesus Christ who was and is the Creator. One thing that will help you to remember this is chapter one. We're talking about John chapter one. We'll also talk about two other chapters, one Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1. I won't read the context, but we'll start here in Colossians 1. This is clearly talking about Jesus Christ. So we'll begin reading here Colossians 1 verses 16 through 18. It says, For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth.

Now heaven, we tend to think, the traditional idea of heaven, the pearly gates and where God and the angels are and all that. That's really not what it's talking about here in the Greek here. What it's really talking about, especially here referring to heaven and earth, it's sort of contrasting the two. We have the physical earth on which we live and so on. But the heaven that it's talking about is the sky above us and extending all the way out through the entire universe. Basically everything that we can look at and see up above us here. That's what the word heaven is referring here, not just the heaven of God's throne. It's a much broader, broader view than that. Paul goes on to say here that this being created all things that are visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

What's he talking about here when he uses these words? Thrones, dominions, principalities and powers. What's that referring to? Well, actually what it's telling us here is that Jesus created not just the visible universe of the earth that we live on, the world around us, the physical planets, the moon, the stars, the sun, the galaxies and so on. But he's saying that he created what we might call the invisible universe as well, what we would call the spirit world. That's what is being referred to here. These terms here, dominions or principalities or powers, Paul uses elsewhere to refer to different kinds of powers, of ranks and types of beings in the spirit world.

We know there are different types of angelic beings. There are the carabem, the seraphim, are two of the types that are mentioned in Scripture there. You might write down, we won't turn there, but Colossians 2 verses 10 and 15, where these same words are clearly used of the angelic world, and also Ephesians 1 and verse 21. Again, that's Colossians 2, 10 and 15, and Ephesians 1, 21. Again, Paul is using these same terms of the archangels of carabem, seraphim, and other kinds of created spirit beings. That's what Paul is saying here, that Jesus Christ is the one who created all of this in the physical, visible world that we see around us, as well as the invisible world here. Continuing in Colossians 1 and verse 16 here, Paul goes on to say, All things were created through Him and for Him. So again, Jesus Christ is the one who created all of this, the physical universe as well as this spirit universe. Verse 17, And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. All things consist? What's that referring to? What does that mean? In other words, this is telling us that Jesus existed before everything else began, which is what we read back in John 1 and verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That is the real beginning, again, before Genesis 1. So if He is the one who created all these things, then obviously He had to exist before these things. Verse 18, And He is the head of the body, the body being the church, as it says here, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence, that He would be above all things. In other words, so here again, we see this is clearly talking about Jesus Christ, the head of the body that is His church, and the firstborn from the dead, through His resurrection from the dead.

Now let's turn over to the other passage that I mentioned. This gives you some idea of the greatness of the one who created all of this. So let's look at, excuse me here, I got out of sync here. Yeah, Hebrews 1, another set of verses here we'll look at, verses 1 through 5. This is God, who at various times and at various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, others, as in these last days spoken to us by His Son. So again, Jesus is the Word, the One who spoke there and revealed God, the spokesman, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, the universe, again, visible and invisible. And we talked about it just a minute again. So again, this tells us these were plainly made by the Son, Jesus Christ, who, being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, in other words, Jesus the Son is exactly like the Father. I've explained before this wording here is referring to a stamp that they would use to make coins in that day. It would be like a die that you would hit with a hammer and it would create an image on a blank piece of metal there, similar to the way we make coins today. We just use hydraulic presses. But what it's saying is that as one, as the Father is the die, the Son is the exact image of that die and vice versa. They're almost like a twin image of each other. There is the point that is being made here. So let's see where was it? Yes. Who, being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power. Now earlier we just read that in Him all things consist. And here this gives us some more information that Jesus upholds all things by the word of His power. What's this talking about here? Talking about a concept we rarely discussed anymore. But basically what it says is that Jesus not only created the universe, but that He upholds it. There are some other versions put this, He sustains it. There's one that I like put it, He holds it together. In other words, He didn't just create it and set it all in motion. He is still sustaining it. He's still upholding the universe. He is still holding it together by His power. His creative work is not done. He's still continuing to hold the universe together, is what is said plainly there. What does that mean? It's just mind-boggling to contemplate that. He is the one who holds the universe together, keeps it functioning, in other words. Again, pretty mind-boggling concepts there. Continuing in verse 3, When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

So this is telling us the same thing we read in John 1, that He is God and that He is with God at the right hand of the Father. Verse 4, continuing on, Having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance attained a more excellent name than they, and then He goes on to explain, for to which of the angels did He ever say, You are my Son, today I have begotten You. And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son. This is quoting here from two Messianic prophecies found in Psalm 2 and verse 7 and 2 Samuel 7 and verse 14. These are both prophecies of the Messiah, the Son of David, as we covered last time, that Jesus would be. So again, we see clearly stated that God created all things through Jesus Christ, the Logos, the Creator, and that He is much greater than the angels, than any of them, and also that the Father and the Son have a family relationship within the family of God. Let's go back now with that little digression. Go back to John 1. Continue the story here, picking it up in verse 4 where we left off. John continues with the explanation of the Word of the Logos, who was with God and who was God, the one by whom all things were made. So continuing in verse 4, In Him was life. In Him was life. What is this telling us here?

I hope we understand as we read through this there's just an incredible amount of information packed into these verses here. It's just mind-boggling concepts to think and to meditate about and to pick up on the multiple layers and levels of meaning that John has embedded here.

So we've already talked about how the Word, the Logos, the spokesman, Jesus Christ, was the Creator. But what was the most amazing aspect of His creation? Yes, He made the physical world that we live in, the beautiful world that is all around us with all its glory and grandeur, made the entire universe, made the earth, made the seas, made the heavens, the planets, the stars, the galaxies. But what's the most amazing creation of all? That He took raw material, lump of dirt, in the case of Adam, and He made a living human being.

He made life out of dirt.

Not just human life, but the tremendous amount of life that we see all around us in the skies, the birds, on the earth around us, a tremendous variety of life, plant, animal life, made spirit life in the angelic world. That's the most amazing creation. Scientists for years have tried to, for decades now, have tried experimenting hours, hours, years on end, trying to create life in the whole half. And they can't do it. They have no idea how life began. The other ideas, they've experimented with this and that and combinations of all kinds of things. No dice haven't come close to creating life. They're mystified by it. Even Charles Darwin came up with his famous evolution theory of evolution. But even he had to start with pre-existing life. Couldn't explain where it came from, how life originated. They have no clue, no idea. And we read here that the life came from Jesus Christ. That in Him was life. He is the one who brought all of this that we see around us to life. Only God can create life from non-life, from non-living matter. So Jesus is not just the creator of all things that we see around us. He is also the creator and the giver of life itself. Another level of meaning. He's the creator of multiple kinds of life. Not just the variety, not just plant life, animal life, bird life, that sort of thing, but also eternal life.

Life that will never end. Let's look at a few passages here in John 6.

John 6, where he says that He will give eternal life to those who follow and obey Him.

John 6 in verse 40, all of these are directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. Who's doing the resurrecting?

Jesus Himself says, I will raise Him up at the last day.

Verse 44, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws Him, and I will raise Him up at the last day. Again, Jesus is the one who does the raising to eternal life. Another verse, 54, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood, referring to the symbols of Passover that we partake of every year, has eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. So Jesus can give not just physical life as the Creator, the one who set all of this in motion, and by the physical miracles that He performed during His ministry, raising several individuals from the dead, like Lazarus, and so on. But He can also give, as we see here, the gift of eternal life, life that will never end to His followers, to His faithful followers. So yes, in Him was life, as we see in John 1, but life on multiple levels. There's more than one level of meaning to what we read about here. In Him was life, and of course He was in Himself the perfect sinless life offered up as a sacrifice so that we might receive that gift of eternal life.

Let's continue back in John 1 and verse 4. Where we were, in Him was life, picking it up there, and the life was the light of men. Life and light are two of the great themes that we see in the Gospel of John. We don't have time to go through it all today, but the word life appears 39 times in John's Gospel, and the word light appears 16 times. That's a total of 55 times in only 21 chapters. So obviously these two concepts are very much emphasized by the Apostle John and his Gospel. Again, we don't have time to go into that. Maybe we'll cover it more later in the classes. I'll just comment here briefly that light is used as a synonym for truth, for the truth of God, for God's truth, for God's way of life. And again, this is something that the Word, the spokesman, came to reveal. What did he teach about? What did he speak about? What did he reveal? He revealed the light of God's truth to humanity, the light of God's plan, the light of God's way of life, the light of God's plan for salvation, God's light in everything that he revealed in the truth. Verse 5, continuing on, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Now, I looked up this word comprehend here, and frankly, it's not the best translation at all. Some other versions translate this as the darkness did not overcome the light, or the darkness did not overtake the light, or the darkness did not overpower the light, or the darkness did not extinguish the light. What's it talking about?

In other words, what John is referring to here is that there is a darkness that is an active and powerful force opposing the light. It's not just a non-entity of darkness. You turn out the lights and you're in darkness. No, it's talking about an active force in opposition to the light. It's something that is very real, that is very powerful, and that tries to overcome and to extinguish the light of God. Was such a force at work in the life of Jesus Christ, or against the life of Jesus Christ, I should say? Of course! What happened when He was still a baby?

What happened? The darkness tried to kill Him through King Herod, who had all of the babies below two years old murdered in Bethlehem because he had heard there was a new king of the Jews born. His parents had to be divinely warned in a dream to flee to Egypt.

Otherwise, Jesus would have been murdered when He was still an infant. What force was behind the attempts to stone Him to death, to kill Him that we referred to earlier? What force was behind that?

What force finally possessed Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus so they would be executed?

There is indeed a powerful force of darkness at work, all of that time trying to extinguish and overpower the light that was Jesus Christ. How many of you saw the original Star Wars movie? Maybe a few youngsters who haven't seen it yet haven't been exposed to it. Remember, there were actually a lot of spiritual concepts in that movie that came to be blunt right out of the Bible. What was one of the main key phrases from that? May the force be with you.

Where does that concept come from? It comes out of the Bible. It's analogous to the Holy Spirit of God that God gives us, the power, the strength that comes directly from God, the force, if you will. It's actually a pretty good analogy there. But there was something else. There was another force at work in the Star Wars movie that also comes right out of the Bible. Remember what it was called? The dark side. The dark side, yes. Where did that come from? Right out of the Bible. It's referring to this darkness here, the opposite of light. There is a very real dark side that opposed Jesus Christ during His day, and it still opposes the light two thousand years later. It's always been opposing the light. As we read in Revelation 12, verse 9, that deceives the whole world. Isaiah, I don't remember where it is, refers to the darkness, the shroud of darkness that covers the whole world. It's the dark side of Satan and his demons, and it's still around.

As we read here, the dark side cannot conquer the light that Jesus Christ taught and brought and reveals as a spokesman. Continuing here in John 1 and verse 6, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. It's not referring to John, the writer of the Gospel, but John the Baptist shifts gears here and starts talking about John the Baptist, in other words. This man, verse 7, came for a witness to bear witness of the light that we just read about, that all through him might believe. So what was the purpose of John the Baptist?

What was the purpose of his life? It was to bear witness of the light of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Remember what John said when he saw Jesus coming to be baptized? What did he say? What did he exclaim? Behold, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world!

Proclaiming Jesus Christ to be the atoning sacrifice, it would pay the penalty for the sins of all humanity there.

John was also the bridegroom of giving a sermon before about the wedding of the Lamb and the roles of the bride and the bridegroom and so on. And one of the aspects of John was that he was the best man, you might say, the one who came before the groom shouting, Behold, the bridegroom is coming! There. He was also, as we read in Isaiah 40, we won't turn there, but it says, He was the voice crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.

Prepare a way in the wilderness for the coming Messiah. In other words, John was a young man when he was put to death, probably age 30, 31, maybe 32, depending on when you date his execution, but he fulfilled the purpose for which he was miraculously conceived and brought into the world. He fulfilled a purpose that was foretold in Bible prophecy, that he would be one who would bear witness to the light, to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Continuing on in verse 8 here, He, John, was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. So John was not the Messiah, wasn't the light himself, but the one who again would help prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. Verse 9, That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. At one point to consider here, it does say that yes, Jesus will give light to every person, but it doesn't say when. Even the individuals who heard Jesus preach and teach, as the spokesman, as the logos, as the word during his ministry, did not have, in most cases, their opportunity for salvation. And that time, because they were still living in a world that was blinded and deceived by the dark side, by Satan the Devil. And, as we know, in God's plan, most people have never had the opportunity to really understand God's truth and to learn about that way of life and to receive His Spirit and His gift of salvation that He offers to all. We know that that is not going to happen until Satan is bound. And Jesus Christ returns and establishes His kingdom then. And then the whole world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the seas. And then after that, there's the period of the white throne judgment. And the Great Resurrection, when all who have ever lived will have their opportunity for salvation. When they, at last, will see and learn about the light that Jesus Christ brought and is personified. Continuing on here in John 1 and verse 10, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, as we've talked about, and the world did not know Him. This is now again switching from talking about John the Baptist back to Jesus the Messiah again. He is the one who created the world. And He, as God, came into the world that He Himself had created. But the world did not recognize Him. Verse 11, He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. And again, several different levels of meaning here in this verse. It's specifically talking about, most obviously, the Jewish people of His day, who had the Scriptures there. They had the Old Testament that prophesied of Him again and again, but they didn't recognize Him. And they didn't receive Him, and who, in fact, plotted to kill Him. But it's also true of His own immediate family. We find out that even His own stepbrothers, or half-brothers, I should say, didn't believe in Him. Didn't believe in Him until after He had died and was resurrected. And then we learn that at least two of them, Jude, or Judah, as his Hebrew name would have been, and James, or Jacob, as his Hebrew name would have been, came to believe in Him and actually gave us two of the epistles that we find in the Bible, the books of James and Jude. And on a third level, this applies to because the entire human race as a whole has not received Him either. Even though, as we covered earlier, the creation testifies of Him and shows the greatness and the power and the glory and the grandeur of God. And yet the human race still does not understand or receive Him. So this does apply on multiple levels. And that is why God's calling is necessary for us. It's not a choice that we make. It's a choice that God makes. We don't choose Him. He chooses us. Let's look at a couple of scriptures here that relate to that. Well, actually, let me cover verse 12 here before we get into that. It says, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. So let's look at a couple of verses now. Romans 8 and verse 29.

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn of many brethren. And another verse, Hebrews 2 and verse 10. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, again He is the Creator, by whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. So we see that Jesus is, here in these two passages, the one who makes it possible for many to be given the opportunity to become a part of the family of God, to be the children of God, to be God's offspring, His very sons and daughters. Going back here to John 1, continuing in verse 13, talks about those who are becoming a part of the family of God, who were born. This word, born, a little digression here, it's the Greek word gennao, g-n-n-a-o, which, depending on the context, can frankly refer to any part of the birth process, from begatal or conception all the way up through birth. You have to understand the context to know what it's referring to here. We believe and understand that we are now begotten through God's Holy Spirit to be a part of His family and the resurrection from the dead, but we are not yet fully born into that family, because that will not take place again until the resurrection, when we will then be the immortal and glorified children of God, having eternal life given to us by Jesus Christ. Continuing, who were born, not of blood, not referring to the physical birth process, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And of course, we're familiar with two passages where Jesus Himself addresses that. I'll just cover these briefly. John 6, verse 44 and 65, where it tells us very plainly that God is the one who does the calling and makes that decision. It's not us. Again, we don't do the choosing.

God is the one who does the choosing. It's up to us. Where do we stick with that choosing and that calling? John 6, 44, Jesus says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. And very similar scripture, verse 65 of John 6, and Jesus said, Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by the Father. So again, it's the Father who does the calling. And it's up to us to respond to that calling and to live up to that calling. Continuing in John 1, verse 14, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, the word, the logos, again, the one who became Jesus Christ.

In talking earlier in the classes about the background of the Gospels, I mentioned the concept of Gnosticism. And some of you might have missed that or are not picked up on it, because I covered quite a bit fairly quickly there. But I'd like to help us understand what John is really saying and talking about here, going to the background of Gnosticism just for a few minutes here. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis. It's spelled G-N-O-S-I-X. That's where Gnosticism comes from. G-N-O-S-T-I-C-I-S-M. Gnosticism, the G is silent there. In the Greek, Gnosticism was a, you might say, a philosophical movement that started around, we see the earliest signs of it, about the middle of the first century. And by the end of the first century, we see from the Bible, from John's writings, from John's Gospel here, his epistles, that this was something that was really affecting the church quite powerfully during that period. And again, it wasn't a specific religion. It was a philosophical system there based on secret knowledge. Again, Gnosis, Greek word for knowledge. And basically, and I mention this because it actually exists to this day in various forms, like the New Age movement that was very popular several decades ago, was nothing but Gnosticism being recycled today, to a large extent there. So it is something that is still with us to this day that started back in the first century there. And basically, a fundamental belief of Gnosticism was that anything that is physical is evil. And anything that was spiritual was good. That evil was basically created by the dark side, Satan and his demons and so on. They didn't necessarily use those terms.

But God could... The basic... What it boils down to that applies to the Bible, and it's a real problem with the Bible, is that God could not have been the Creator. So Gnostics taught that there were what they called emanations, which is kind of a spirit being removed from God, like a first cousin, and a second cousin, and a third cousin, and an eighth cousin, four times removed, and all this. You finally have to get far enough away from God that you have a being that can create physical matter. And a lot of this is rooted in a concept that also was adopted by false Christianity, and that is that the God of the Old Testament, who was the Creator, was evil and harsh, and so on, and how He dealt with mankind.

Well, we know that's nonsense because Jesus Himself was the God of the Old Testament. Why was the Creator there? But this Gnosticism actually came and infiltrated into early false Christianity, and those beliefs still continue to this day.

Now, in a practical term, the way some of this played out, and we see this reflected in Colossians 2 in particular there, where you find Paul discussing about people, church members, being condemned for keeping the Sabbath and the Holy Days and so on by these other people. It doesn't identify who the people were, but they were people influenced by Gnosticism. They were criticizing how the church members were keeping the Sabbath because what is the Sabbath? The Sabbath is a festival. What are the Holy Days?

They're festivals. They're celebrations. They weren't days for fasting and this kind of stuff, which the Gnostics believed. The Gnostics believed in asceticism, the concept that if it feels good, don't do it. We've gone the opposite way. They're mottos. If it feels good, don't do it. You're supposed to be ascetic, anything that's pleasurable, because it's physical or involves physical things like wine or good food or a nice comfy bed or something.

Any of that is wrong. It's evil. It's material. So this philosophical concept affected all kinds of aspects of their lives. And that, too, continued on in early versions of false Christianity and things like celibacy for the priesthood, with nuns, with the monastic movement where people would go off into the desert and build these monasteries and live out away from contact from the rest of the human race or anything else for that matter. They would be cut off from the world so they wouldn't be exposed to the evil. But they would also be there.

They would live celibate lives and would basically live on bread and water and beans. And that's about it. So this also is an outgrowth of this early asceticism. It comes straight from Gnosticism here. So it's all of these concepts that John is combating here in his writings here at the end of the first century.

That's why we think that his gospel was written probably in the 90s A.D. And I think that is true there because you don't see this Gnosticism reflected in the earlier gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke there. So in combating this idea, John is really emphasizing here that Jesus was God who came in the flesh.

Now the Gnostics taught that Jesus wasn't in the flesh, that he was, some of their writings refer to him as a phantom or an apparition or a spirit, in other words, who wasn't really real. He didn't really die on the on the stake for the sins of mankind. He was a phantom. He was an apparition who only appeared to die. Incidentally, you find that same belief in the Quran today. The Quran teaches that Jesus did not die, that it was just a phantom or something that looked like Jesus.

And therefore, he's not the Messiah and the Savior of mankind. But basically, John in his epistle talks a great deal about Jesus Christ's humanity. It talks about how Jesus got tired, how he showed emotion, how he wept over Jerusalem, how he cried, broke down in tears, showing emotion, how he was thirsty, various things like this. He talks a great deal about how he was an eyewitness to these things. The epistle of 1 John talks about how we handled him. We touched him because he was a physical being. Why does he talk about all of this? He's combating Gnosticism, the belief that Jesus was a spirit and not a physical being at all. So all of these things were very much opposed by John in combating these concepts of Gnosticism that were affecting the early church and again became some of the fundamental beliefs or aspects of false Christianity.

There is it developed forward. So continuing on here, after that digression, the latter part of verse 14, the second line here, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. This is probably a reference to the transfiguration when James and John and Peter accompany Jesus Christ up under the mountain, and so on transfigured there before them.

It's also likely a reference back to what was called the Shekinah glory, the glory of the Lord, as it's translated in the Bible that filled the tabernacle in the temple on occasions here.

It's interesting, John uses the word glory. That's the exact same word that's used in the Hebrew scriptures, referring to the Shekinah glory, the glory of the Lord that came down. Continuing on here, it also says that Jesus was full of grace and truth at the end of verse 14. And this isn't saying that grace and truth didn't exist earlier because they obviously did, because Jesus is the God of the Old Testament continually manifested and showed grace and truth. What this is saying is that what summed up Jesus Christ was that He was full of grace, grace being God's undeserved favor or special gift, in other words, and truth. He was the light who brought the truth into the world, in other words. Verse 15, John bore witness of Him. Again, John the Baptist talking about here, John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me. Again, this is emphasizing that Jesus Christ, even though John the Baptist was born six months earlier, it's saying that Jesus existed before John the Baptist came along. And it's also again referring to the mission of John the Baptist to proclaim the way of the coming Messiah.

Verse 16, And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

And this is pretty awkwardly worded there. I think the meaning is probably better expressed something like this from the New Living Translation. We have all benefited from the rich blessings He brought to us, one gracious blessing after another.

One blessing on top of another, in other words, was brought by Jesus the Messiah. And grace, what is grace basically referring to? It's basically referring to, for lack of a simpler term, the goodness of God. God's goodness that He grants and shows towards someone which is not something that we can earn, not something that we deserve. It can refer to one deserved pardon, which we've used in the church many times in the past. And that's true. His pardon, His forgiveness of our sins is nothing we could ever earn or deserve on our own.

But also grace is a concept that's much bigger than that. It's anything and everything that God does that is good and kind and merciful toward us that we don't deserve. God loves us, but it's not something we deserve. It's not because we're so good and right and wonderful and lovable, frankly. It's because of God's grace, because of His love and undeserved mercy toward us. He wants to give us eternal life and His family, but that's not something we can earn. That's not something we deserve. It's something God gives us in His grace, in His goodness, in generosity, in kindness toward us. God blesses us, not because we deserve blessings, but because God is good.

And He loves us, and He wants us to be happy. So it's all God's grace and God's blessing toward us, as it says here, one gracious blessing after another that comes through Jesus Christ.

Continuing in verse 17, For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And again, this is not saying grace and truth did not exist earlier. I think what John is probably doing here is pointing out a contrast, which we see again and again in his gospel. The difference in the mindset between Jesus the Messiah and the Jews of His day there. He says the law was given through Moses. Yes, the Jews of Christ day had the law of Moses, but what did they do with that law? They perverted it. They twisted it. They corrupted it. They made it a burden, an oppressive, hard burden on mankind, rather than the blessing that God intended His law to be. But Jesus came to restore what? To restore the light, to restore the truth about God's law. It's true spiritual purpose and intent that we read about in the Sermon on the Mount. What's the Sermon on the Mount? Three chapters about how the Jews had corrupted and perverted the law by their teachings and misinterpretations of it. And Jesus comes to show the true spiritual intent of the law. And what a blessing it is to be. And we see this conflict throughout the Gospels many, many times here. So I think this is really why John brings in this particular point here, that he's drawing that concept. And again, Jesus is the original law giver to Moses. So it's absurd to argue that Jesus came to change the law, to do away with the Sabbath or the Holy Days or anything like that. He's the one who gave the law to Moses. And he is the one who gave the law to Moses and the Israelites and to mankind. But because people don't understand who Jesus Christ really was, and he is, they come up with all kinds of cockamamie ideas like that. That, frankly, blaspheme Jesus Christ and who he was. Continuing in verse 18, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, the bosom of the Father referring to a very close, deep, personal relationship, He has declared Him, again, as the spokesman, as the logos, as the Word declared the Father.

Let's look at a few more scriptures that help us understand this. One, John 5, verse 37, says here, "...and the Father Himself who sent me," this is Jesus speaking, "...has testified of me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form." So Jesus said plainly of the Father that no one has seen the Father, no one has heard the voice of the Father. And He says that He came to reveal the Father. So the obvious question is, those people in the Old Testament period who saw God, who were they seeing?

Who was it that appeared to them? Let's look at a few verses that verify this happened. Exodus 33, verses 21 through 23. This is the incident where God appears to Moses, tells him to take that He's commissioning Moses to lead His people Israel out of Egypt.

And the Eternal said to Moses, Here is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock.

So it shall be, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, in a crack in the rock, in other words, and will cover you with my hand while I pass by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. So yes, Moses did not see God's face, but he clearly saw God here. Clearly did.

Another passage, Exodus 24, verses 9 through 11. We tend to skip over a whole lot. Don't realize it's there. But notice what this is. Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the novals of the children of Israel, he did not lay his hand. And then it repeats again, so they saw God and ate and drank.

In other words, they had a meal with God, had a meal with him, and saw him personally here. So what are we to make of this? What is John talking about here? Well, the only way we can make sense of this is to understand that no man had seen God the Father at any time. That's what it's talking about here. What we see in these passages, and in other times when God appeared to individuals, and there are other times, these are just two, that the God that they saw was the Word. Again, the spokesperson who was God and who was with God, and later was born as a physical human being, as Jesus of Nazareth. And as the Word of the spokesman, he declared God the Father, and taught about Him so that we could understand and come to know Him. That is only through the Son that we do know about the Father, that there is a Father, and what He is like.

As it says here, back in John 1, verse 18, where of Jesus and the Father, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. So again, Jesus is the Word, the revealing agent, revealing and declaring the Father. Now, in covering this part of John, we've seen a lot of what John and some of the other apostles said here. But what did Jesus Himself say about who and what He was? As we saw in the introduction, the few verses there, He claimed to be God, and they wanted to stone Him to death because of that.

In our remaining time, I'd like to look at one other important concept about what Jesus taught, and see some of these statements and understand what is really going on here. Jesus makes a very bold statement several times, we find in the Gospel of John, but we need a little background and understanding to really grasp what is taking place there and what He's saying. I quoted one of these statements in the introduction, but let's go back to it again, John 8 and verses 56 through 59. Here Jesus is arguing with some of the Jews, and notice what He says and the reaction that it gets. Jesus says, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to Him, You are not yet fifty years old.

And have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then they took up stones to stone him.

But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them and passed by. So let's notice three key points that are brought out here. First of all, Jesus claims to have existed before Abraham. Abraham lived about two thousand years earlier, roughly here.

So that's the first point. Jesus uses these words, I am.

And third point, His words there cause the Jews to want to stone him to death.

So translated into English, what Jesus says here sounds pretty confusing. It's not good English, but it's not intended to be good English. It's good Hebrew or good Aramaic, in which Jesus was speaking. And He says something here that immediately causes the people to want to stone him to death. So what's going on here? Jesus is actually revealing Himself as the actual one whom the Jews understood to be the God of the Old Testament. He was saying not only that He existed before Abraham, but that He was the same being who was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Israel, the very God whom they worshipped. And to understand the background, we have to go back to the time when God is revealing Himself to Moses. We talked a little bit about that earlier, where God allowed Moses to look on His backside there. So we read about this in Exodus 3, verses 13 through 14. We'll just look at a short snippet of this here.

Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, I like this portion because Moses is trying to make up excuses as to why he can't do what God has told him to do. So he says, Well, when I come to the children of Israel, who am I to tell them sent me here? And they say to me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. Again, this sounds kind of awkward in English, but I love the way Charlton Heston, or in the Ten Commandments, whoever is the voice of God does a tremendous job with this. He says, I am who I am. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. So Moses asked this God who he is. And God responds, I am who I am. And he told Moses to tell the Israelites, I am has sent me to you. I am is basically linked to the personal name of God in Hebrew. It would be spelled in English YHWH. It is mistranslated in various Bible versions. Jehovah, actually they didn't have the J sound. Most scholars today would agree it is probably pronounced something like Yahweh. Yahweh. And it is also commonly shown in our English Bibles with Lord, the word Lord with small caps there. It is a Hebrew name, a Hebrew concept that is impossible to translate precisely into English. But something close would be the Eternal One, or the One who always exists, or the One who was and is and will be. And that is why sometimes when we are speaking, we will just say when we come across the Lord there, we will just say the Eternal, because it is kind of a shorthand way of the significance of that name there. So again, what is going on here in John's Gospel when he writes about this? When Jesus said what he did, the Jews knew right away exactly what Jesus meant, because they immediately picked up stones to stone him to death, proclaiming to be the I AM, the God of the Old Testament. Let's look at another quick verse here, Isaiah 42 and verse 8. It ties into this. The same being says, I AM the Eternal, Yahweh. That is my name, and my glory I will not give to another nor my praise to carved images to idols. So he says very plainly, that is my name, I AM the Eternal, Yahweh. And he says he won't share that with anyone else. The name was considered so holy by the Jews of Christ's day that they wouldn't dare to pronounce it. That is why even Matthew we talked about in the introduction to Matthew. Why does he use synonyms like kingdom of heaven instead of kingdom of God? Because the Jews wouldn't even pronounce the name of God, because they considered it so holy. And what is Jesus doing? He comes on the scene and he says, I AM Yahweh. And it blew their minds, and they wanted to kill him for it.

That's what is going on there.

Now this wasn't the only time it happened. It actually happens repeatedly there. But a problem is that it's nearly always obscured in the way the King James translators worked with this concept. They apparently did not understand it. So they frankly messed it up, and other translators following in their footsteps have messed it up again. And we see this elsewhere in the Gospel of John here. What they did is they couldn't make sense of it in English. So I think we all understand that when we see an italicized word in the Bible, it means the word was added by the translators to try to make the meaning more clear. And usually it does, but in this case they just frankly really messed it up here by not understanding what is going on. So a few verses that demonstrate this. John 8, verses 24 and 28. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am he, the he is italicized and added here, you will die in your sins.

Another example of this, again I said this happens over and over again with Jesus. Verse 28. Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, referring to crucifying Him, then you will know that I am He, again He is added, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.

Two others, John 13 and 19. Now I tell you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am He, He is added. And last, John 18 and verse 4. Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking? This is when He's taken prisoner there in Gethsemane. They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said to them, I am and He, again, is mistakenly added here. So how does this really lead or how should it have read when we understand what Jesus is saying? Again, same verses. Jesus says, Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am, that I am Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, you will die in your sins.

No wonder they wanted to stone Him. John 8, 28. Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up and crucify the Son of Man, then you will know that I am Yahweh, your God, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I speak these things.

John 13, 19. Now I tell you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am, that I am Yahweh, that I am your God.

And last, John 18, verse 4. And again, there are other examples of this. I'm just covering these four where it's the most clear. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking? They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said to them, I am God. Take me and kill me if you want, but you are killing your God. That's what is being said in these verses here.

In each of these cases, Jesus was claiming to be God, to be Yahweh, the eternal, eternally existing one, the one, the very being whom the Jews worshiped as their creator.

This is why they wanted to kill Him, to stone Him to death for blasphemy.

So in conclusion, who was and is Jesus Christ? He is the Word, the spokesman who was with God and was God. He is the Creator who made all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible.

He is the head of His body, the church. He is the firstborn from the dead. He is the Son of God.

He is the One in whom there is life. He is the light sent from God. He is the firstborn among many brethren. He is God in the flesh. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Israelites.

He is the Great I Am, the eternal, self-existent One. And all of these are only part of what the Scriptures reveal about who Jesus was and who Jesus is. He has many other things, as we'll see as we continue through the Gospels. And that is why His Apostle, His disciple Thomas, explained of Him when Jesus appeared to Him after His resurrection from the dead, My Lord and My God.