The Uniqueness of Christ

Transcript

GR 335
10/21/1979
The Uniqueness of Christ
JOHN 1:14-18
Gil Rugh

We’re going to be looking at verses 14-18 today and this is a section which draws to conclusion the prologue the gospel of John. Remember the prologue which covers the first 18 verses is that section where John gives us a condensed presentation of what he will develop through the rest of the book, focusing on the person and work of Christ. Who He is, what He has done, and we will see this unfolded throughout the rest of the book. We have looked through the first 13 verses which started out by emphasizing the deity of Jesus Christ. The fact that He is the creator of all things, that He is the source of light and life. All life, particularly spiritual life and light— the ability to perceive and know and understand truth concerning God.

We saw the witness of John the Baptist in verses 6-8. We’ll see John brought to our attention again in verse 15 in our study today. And then when we begin the main section of the gospel of John with verse 19, we will begin with the discussion of John the Baptist. He is a very key figure because it is John who introduces Christ as the Messiah to the nation Israel. So his ministry and introduction is another evidence and testimony to the fact that this is indeed the Messiah that the Old Testament has been talking about. It’s an amazing section, verses 9-13 where we’re told that this one who created the world came into the world, and the world did not know Him. So here is the one who has created all things and now He has come to His creation, but He is unrecognized. They do not know Him for who He really is. Verse 11 tells us,
"He came to His own..." The things that belong to Him, the things that He had created for Himself. In fact, He came to His own people, the Jews. That nation that He had selected out of all the peoples on the earth to belong to Him in a special way; and yet the last part of verse 11 we're told that those who were His own did not receive Him. But it doesn’t end there. Even though it’s true to say the bulk of humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, rejected Jesus Christ at His coining, verse 12 reminds us that there were those who did believe in Him. "For as many as received Him, to them He gave the right (or authority) to become the children of God, even to the ones who were believing in His name." So there were those who recognized Him for who He was, the Messiah the Son of God. They received Him as the one sent from God. And they were the ones who were given the authority, the right, the privilege to be God’s children. Another way of saying that is that they believed in Him, in His name, who He was and what He was doing.

Verse 13 clarifies this concerning these individuals. These were those not of a particular physical lineage, not who came into this position by virtue of certain human determinations, but by the sovereign determining work of God. They were not born of blood's physical descent. The Jews prided themselves in this. They thought that because they were the descendants of Abraham, they were assured of special blessing from God. Verse 13 settles that. It has nothing to do with your physical line or lineage or human determination, the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God. The sovereign grace of God resulted in some receiving Jesus Christ and becoming the children of God.

Now as we come to verse 14, there is a connection with verse 14 that you might not pick up immediately. Verse 14 begins with the conjunction ’and’. "And the Word became flesh." The most direct connection is back to verse 1. So in a sense, verses 2-13 are a parenthetical. But in verse 1 we read "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." And verse 14, "And the Word became flesh." So picking up that discussion of the Word directly, about the Word. He was in the beginning, He was with God, He was God, He became flesh. So verse 14 gives a striking statement about the one that He is talking about. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
And you get full appreciation of verse 14 when you connect it with verse 1. The
Word is the one who was in the beginning. He is the one who was in the beginning. He is eternal. He is the one who was with God for all eternity. He dwelt in an intimate, personal relationship with God the Father. He, in fact, was Himself God. Now this one, this Word, became flesh. What we’re saying here is that this eternal God Himself became a man. A change in the verb here— we had the verb ’was’ in verse 1. We noted it was an imperfect tense, denoting continual existence in the past, something of His eternality. But when you come to verse 14, the verb is ’became.’ The Word 'became or came to be’ flesh. This is not something that He always was, but at a point in time, the eternal God became a man. And that's what is conveyed in the word ’flesh’ here. Could have said ’man.’ There is a group that would develop later on into the group called the gnostics, dosetics. A word that means 'to seem’ and they talked about the fact that Jesus Christ really wasn't a man, really wasn't flesh, it just seemed like He was. In effect, they denied the humanity of Christ. Now we're pressed into a difficult situation. We’re talking here about what we call the theanthropic union. Two words - theos, God; anthropos, man. The God-man union. And it goes beyond full comprehension. The eternal God is now going to be man. He does not cease to be God, but now He is man as well as God. And there are a whole variety of matters in this area that I do not grasp or comprehend. So often the way we try to resolve the problem is that we throw out the humanity of Christ as the dosetics did. I don't believe He had a real humanity, He was just God. The more popular way of handling it today is to try to discard the deity of Jesus Christ. I accept His humanity, but I really don't believe He was deity. Well, verse 1 of John makes clear He was deity. Verse 14 of John makes clear He was humanity. The eternal God, the Word, became flesh, and dwelt among us. He became a man and now He resided among us, in our midst is what John is writing about. And He goes on to make another statement. "And we beheld His glory." I think the fact that He dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, these two ideas go together. That verb 'to dwell'—He dwelt among us. It's the Greek word for 'tent or tabernacle.' So you could translate this literally, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us" or dwelt among us in a tent is the idea. Now it can denote something of the transitory pattern here that Christ lived among them only for a time. I don't think that’s the point that John is making, because of his next statement—"And we beheld His glory.” Now, think Jewish for a moment. You have an Old Testament background— for some of you who are Jewish, you can think Jewish easier than the rest of us— but if you were Jewish coming out of an Old Testament background and you talked about Tabernacle, and you talked about glory, your mind runs to the situation in the days of Moses and following when God came down into the tent or the tabernacle and His glory was displayed.

Go back to the book of Exodus, chapter 33. There are a number of cases we could look at but we'll just pick out this one section in Exodus 33. Exodus 33:7, "Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting" or the tabernacle of meeting. The reason was he would go there to meet with God. In this tent or in this tabernacle. "And he called it the tent of meeting. And it came about that everyone who sought the Lord would go outside the tent of meeting which was outside the camp. And it came about that whenever Moses went out to the tent that all the people would arise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent and gaze after Moses until he had entered the tent. And it came about whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, the Lord would speak with Moses." The cloud denoting the presence and glory of God. So the tabernacle or tent was the place where Moses went to meet with God. The place where God's glory was manifested, His presence was indicated. Now this is the background for the statement in John chapter 1 where God now dwells in our midst in a tent in the flesh. God tabernacled among us, the very presence and glory of God is in our midst. So that now if you want to meet with God, you come to this tabernacle. Any person who wants to meet with God, comes to Jesus Christ. That is where God meets man. Just as He did it in Exodus 33 at the tent or tabernacle, now He was doing it in the person of Jesus Christ.

This is where the glory of God was tabernacled. So Moses went and talked with God face to face. It does not mean he saw God because later on in the same chapter he’s going to ask God if he could see Him. But it denotes the intimacy of the contact that Moses had with God.

So back in John chapter 1 you have a clear presentation of the deity of Christ. Some people don't see the deity of Christ here. The deity of Christ is everywhere through the Scripture. Here it doesn’t say ’The Word was God’ like it does in verse 1, but it ascribes to Him the characteristics of deity coming out of the Old Testament, the glory of God being tabernacled among men. And that’s what happens with Jesus Christ, so that all now who would meet with God, meet with God in the person of Jesus Christ.

”We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This glory is described as a special glory. It’s the glory of the only begotten of God. The only one begotten from the Father. Now. This word ’only begotten’ has caused some difficulty. We’ve just talked about the deity of Christ. It’s stressed in verse 1. It’s brought to our attention again in verse 14 with the glory tabernacling among men. And now we say He is the only begotten from the Father. Does not that word imply that He had a beginning? He was begotten. So if He was begotten, He is the only one begotten of God, therefore He is not eternal. He had a beginning. Well, we get into a problem here that comes out of our English concept of this word. We read it here and it says ’only begotten’ and we say therefore, He was begotten at a point in time and He is the only one who was begotten in that way.

Well, in order to know what the word means, we go to the dictionary the Lexicon. Just like in English we want to know what a word means, we go to a couple of the major English dictionaries. And they say this is what the word means. Well, then we know what it means and how to use it. Now if a person uses a word and you say the Webster’s dictionary and the Oxford dictionary and x and x and x dictionary all say that the word means this and they say ’I don’t care. This is what it means to me.’ You’d say I really can't communicate with this person because he wants to give it his own meaning.

The word used here—let me read to you what Greek Lexicons define it as. Lydell and Scott. It’s probably the major Greek Lexicon, the final authority as far as Greek Lexicons are concerned. They say that the word 'monoganas'— translated 'only begotten' here, means 'uniqueness, the only member of a kin or kind; hence generally only single.' You note. Unique, the only one of its kind. Moulton & Milligan, that is a lexicon that gives you the meaning of Greek words that were used in extra-biblical sources like the Papayri, in writings apart from the Bible. And Moulton & Milligan say of this word, "Literally one of a kind, only, unique, not only begotten" which would be another Greek word which they give. And then they say when it's applied to Christ in John, the emphasis is on the thought of the only Son of God. "He has no equal and is fully able to reveal the Father." The meaning of the word is uniqueness. In fact, begotten is not even a good translation because there is different Greek word for begotten as Moulton & Milligan noted. The only born Son. But the stress or meaning of the word is unique. It doesn't necessarily mean the only one who was generated. The idea is on uniqueness.

Look over in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Hebrews 11. This word is used 5 times by John, 4 times in his gospel and once in his epistle. It's used several times in other writings—Hebrews being one of them. Note Hebrews 11:17, "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten." Now, if you're familiar with Abraham there's a problem here. If you mean that this was the only one begotten by Abraham because Isaac is not the only one begotten in that sense of Abraham. He's not even the first one. Ishmael was the first one begotten of Abraham. And after Isaac, Abraham had a number of children by his second wife Keturah. You can read about those along about Genesis 25. So if it means the only one generated, the only one begotten by Abraham, there's a problem here. But it doesn't. Isaac isn't the only begotten or generated by Abraham, but Isaac is the unique one. He is the only one of his kind. Because out of all the children that Abraham fathered, Isaac is the only one who can fulfill the promises that God gave to him. He is unique. He's the only one of his kind. He's special. That's the meaning of the word 'only begotten.'

So back in John chapter 1 when I read about the only begotten from God, that does not carry any concept of having a beginning, of being born or generated like we think of it. It means he is unique, he is special. He is the only one like him. It contrasts with verse 12 where we had those who believed in Christ and became the children of God. And all of us who have come to believe that Jesus Christ died for us personally have become sons of God, but none of us are sons like Jesus Christ is a Son. He has been a Son from all eternity. He is a Son partaking of the essence of God Himself. He Himself is deity. No one else is a Son like Jesus Christ. He is a Son. And He is unique. He's the only one of His kind.

There's another word related to this—John doesn't use it. But I want to just make a few comments on it while we're on this subject because it's a closely related word. It's the word 'first born'. The word is used several times in the Scripture. John uses it in the opening chapter of Revelation but doesn't use it in his gospel. And its meaning is very similar to only begotten. Look over in Colossians chapter 1 quickly where it is used.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 15. And here we read that Christ "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." And some who deny the deity of Christ try to say that this means that He was born before the rest of creation. Again, the problem comes with conveying a concept into the English word that we ought not to. Firstborn, the idea in the word is preeminence, or often uniqueness. Those of you who have studied Greek, you read in Standard Greek Lexicon, they will note it as very similar in meaning to monoganase or only begotten. He has preeminence. He is before all creation. Now this use again comes out of the Old Testament.

Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 21, talking about the firstborn. We’re going to look at verse 17. There’s a problem discussed here—a man might have 2 wives in the situation here in Deuteronomy. One he really lives and the other is just so-so. And his firstborn son is by the wife he doesn’t like so well, and then he has another son by the second wife, the wife he really likes. He wants to make the second son the one who gets the preeminence, that’s the context. But verse 17 he's not allowed to do that. ”He shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; to him belongs the right of the firstborn." This concept of the firstborn and his prerogatives, his preeminence, his rights becomes the dominant idea in the word. But it doesn't always refer to the one who is born first. It doesn’t always refer to the one who has a birth per se.

Couple of examples. Go back to Genesis 48. Genesis 48. The situation here is Joseph. Joseph is bringing his children to his father for blessing— Father Jacob or Israel. And Jacob is going to bless them. As this blessing is passed on from this grandfather, the right hand would be placed upon the head of the eldest son because he would be getting the primary blessing, and the left hand on the younger. The problem is that Joseph’s father places his right hand on the head of the son who is younger and his left hand on the older, and Joseph is disturbed. Verse 17. He thought maybe his dad, being so old, didn’t see right. "When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on Ephraim’s head, it displeased him; and he grasped his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. And Joseph said to his father, ’Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Place your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused and said, ’I know, my son, I know; he also shall become a people and he also shall be great. However, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.'"

You note what happens. The blessing of the firstborn is given to the younger. So the concept of preeminence, of special blessing, is removed from the concept of birth. So you maintain the idea of the firstborn, but you give it to the second born. So the idea of preeminence is there but the concept of being born first or second does not enter in any longer in this situation.

Look over in Exodus chapter 4. Exodus 4:22, "Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ’Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn.’” Here the word firstborn is used of a nation, so you can see it doesn’t have any idea of a child being born first. The children of Israel weren't the first people. There were multitudes of people before Israel came into existence. If you study the backgrounds of the Old Testament, you’ll find there were major nations in existence before Israel came into existence. God says 'They're My firstborn.’ You see, the idea of birth had nothing to do with it here. The concept that is conveyed is preeminence. 'Israel is special to Me. They are preeminent among all peoples on the earth. They are unique. They are My firstborn.' The Egyptians could understand the concept of the firstborn, his preeminence, the special place that he has. God in effect is saying to Egypt, ’You have the child that is special to me, you'd better be careful.'

One other passage. Psalm 89:27, talking about the king here that God will appoint to reign. This is one of the Psalms we call a Messianic Psalm because it has to do with Messiah. Pick up with verse 27, "I also shall make him firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” You note how He explains that—the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. I will make him to be the one who is preeminent. This is the explanation that is given.

So when you come over to the New Testament and the word 'firstborn' is used in these contexts of Christ, that's the meaning. People who deny the deity of Christ on the basis of 'only begotten' and 'firstborn' are not doing it out of superior knowledge but out of superior ignorance. They really don’t understand the use of the words in the Bible or out of the Bible. Those of you who study Greek, Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. VI has an excellent discussion of the word ’prototacaus' which is the word firstborn. It develops basically the meaning of the word that we have talked about here.

Come back to the gospel of John, chapter 1. So He is the only begotten from the Father, He is unique. Now verse 15—we’ll pick up ’full of grace and truth' in connection with verse 16. Look at verse 15 for a moment. John the Baptist comes on the scene and bears testimony concerning him. Again, the Baptists testimony is significant because he is the appointed forerunner of the Messiah, held in honor by much of Israel. Remember the Pharisees and religious leaders were afraid to speak a derogatory word about John the Baptist for fear the people would stone them because they held John is such esteem as a prophet.

"This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’" John's testimony. The One who comes after me has a higher rank than I. He has come to be before me. So the one coming after me has come to be before me, for He was before me. It gets to be a little strange, but you remember that John is six months older than Jesus Christ. So the one coming after me, born after me, has come to be before me. He supersedes me in preeminence, in importance because in reality He existed before me. He’s the one who has existed from all eternity. So John's testimony to the uniqueness, the greatness and eternality of Jesus Christ—he recognized it.
This is the one who is from all eternity. Now the Jews can appreciate this. Someone who was after you as they viewed it, the older was always superior. The Father always ruled the household or the grandfather or the great-grandfather. But John says ’No, He's greater than I because He really did exist before me.’ So his statement on His greatness and on His uniqueness as John the writer has just mentioned in verse 14.

Now in verse 16, the connection is really back to verse 14. Verse 15 is another parenthesis. Here is the testimony of John the Baptist to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ to His special glory. But verse 16 begins, "For of His fullness we have all received..." That ties us back to verse 14. The end of verse 14, "...full of grace and truth." Verse 16, "For of His fullness..." picking up the word fullness and the word grace, "...we have all received." His fullness, full of grace and truth, talking here about the fact that He is the source of all grace and truth. All grace and truth comes through Him. He is the source and vehicle for grace and truth. He is full of it in the same way that light and life are found in Him and come through and from Him, so grace and truth find their source and existence in and through Jesus Christ. Grace referring to the gracious, kind way that God deals with humanity. Not dealing with us according to our sins but according to mercy. Grace meaning basically that which is undeserved. Now you note. "He is full of grace and truth" and it’s of His fullness that we have received. It’s a way of saying that if anyone is to have grace is going to get it in and from Jesus Christ.

So the person who rejects Jesus Christ, who doesn't receive Him, does not believe in Him cuts himself off from grace. In other words, cuts himself off from being dealt with by God under mercy. The person who does not come to Jesus Christ as the source and vehicle of grace will be dealt with by God according to his sin. He will be condemned. There will be no mercy. Because grace is found in Jesus Christ and in Christ alone. Those who become the recipients of grace become the recipients of grace through Christ. Now that’s important. There are many religions in the world today. There are many people who worship in a variety of ways, but they are all under condemnation because grace is found only in the person of Jesus Christ. Anyone who is going to be dealt with under grace is going to have to do it through Christ. Grace and truth come through Him. And truth, final ultimate truth, as Francis Schaeffer has termed it, true truth because so much of what people today call truth is not truth. The final, ultimate reality has its source and existence in Jesus Christ.

Look over in the book of Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. The same concept is presented as we have in John chapter 1. Colossians 1:18, a concept that we just talked about where Christ is the firstborn from the dead that He might have preeminence or first place in everything. The concept we just talked about. But note verse 19, MFor it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him." You note that. All the fullness, full of grace and truth. Of His fullness we’ve all received. It was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.

Look over in chapter 2, verse 9 of Colossians. "For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form." Same thing as John 1:14. "The Word became flesh" or you could say ’All the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.’ He didn’t cease to be God to become man, but He added humanity to His deity. Now note the next verse, verse 10. "...and in Him you have been made complete." You lose something in the play of words the way this is translated. The word translated ’made complete’ is the word fullness. ’In Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and you have been made full in Him.’ That’s what he says. Your fullness is derived from His fullness. Your completeness is derived from His fullness or completeness.

So back in John 1, when we talk about ’He was full of grace and truth and of His fullness we all received’—the fullness of deity, grace and truth. God’s unmerited favor bestowed upon man, the merciful way He deals with us in providing forgiveness of sins in the person of Christ. Truth, ultimate final reality is found in Christ. This is a fantastic statement! Another way of saying that those who do not come to Christ have no ultimate standard of reality, of right and wrong of truth. Only in Christ who is the vehicle of revelation from God.
And apart from revelation from God there is no standard of truth. What is true? What God has said! What God has done! He is the standard.

We can see this—we recently had a trial in the city of Lincoln, which many people are upset about. And they’re upset with the jurors, strangely enough. But you know, there was nothing they could do about the outcome of this situation because they're put in a situation where truth is nonexistent and asked to make a decision. And I dare say you or I could have done no differently. Now disturbed about the outcome—but the outcome is not the result of what a jury has done. The outcome is the result of a system that has rejected revelation from God and has no standard to know what is right and wrong. This is just one obvious example of it. If you've read the newspapers and news magazines over the past year—amazing the hopeless the world is in. The news magazines writing about the judicial system, about the whole area of making decisions and how hopelessly confused it is but they have no hope of coming up with a solution because they reject truth. Whenever you reject truth, how can you make judgments? There is no standard. Now ultimate, final truth is found in Jesus Christ and the revelation that comes through Him. And apart from that there is no hope. The world lives in a fanciful, fantasy world, pretending there was truth, but denying the reality of it. And we wonder why there’s confusion. We wonder why there’s disarray. Because of deterioration in that realm.

He is grace and truth. Now note verse 17. We received, at the end of verse 16, grace upon grace—just stressing the fact that God has piled grace upon grace. You know He forgave me all my sins, every sin I had committed up to the point that I believed in Him. That was grace. And then I’ve been struggling to make it on my own ever since! I hope you recognize that as heresy! That’s not the way it is. He forgave me of every sin that I had committed up to that point and He’s forgiven me of every sin every day since. I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, I John 2 tells me. It’s grace upon grace. And He continues to deal with me not according to my sin but according to His love and mercy. According to what He has made and is making me in Jesus Christ. Just grace heaped upon grace, out of the fullness of the grace of Jesus Christ we have all received.

"The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." Contrast here—the Law was given through Moses. Moses was the vehicle through which God's Law was communicated. That's all Moses could be. A vehicle to communicate the Law which brought condemnation to man, not because there was anything wrong with the Law but because man was unable to keep it. But grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. They came to be through Christ. Now we're not saying there wasn't any grace in the Old Testament. Old Testament saints were saved by grace just like you and I. But Old Testament saints could not have been saved were it not for the grace manifested through Jesus Christ. So the realization of grace, the coming to be of grace and truth is through Christ. And Abraham was saved on the basis of the fact that God's Son, Jesus Christ, tabernacled among men and ultimately gave His life for men. So there was grace in the Old Testament, and truth; but it all centers in the fact that God's Son would come as the full revelation and provider and means of the grace of God. Grace and truth came to be through Christ. So you see that stress. You cannot expect God to be loving and God to be gracious to those who reject Jesus Christ because that's where grace is found. Now there is common grace, God's provision, by the very fact that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. But the entering in to the grace that results in the forgiveness of sins is only for those who believe in Jesus Christ. The realization of the truth of the grace of God, truth concerning God and man and all subsequent reality is for those who come to believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son who died for them. So grace and truth came to be, literally, through Jesus Christ.

Concluding statement before he's ready to launch into the book. Fantastic theology. Verses 14-18 of John contain so much theology packed into a little space. "No man has seen God at any time...." A clear statement talking about God the Father. You talk to those who deny the deity of Jesus Christ, you try to take them to John 1:18 and say 'No man has seen God at any time*1 and men saw Jesus Christ, therefore Jesus Christ is not God.’ Great logic, but terrible theology. It isn’t biblical. We’re talking here about God the Father. And incidentally, as we mentioned when we studied verse 1, there is no article with God here—"No man has seen God at any time" talking about the true God,
God the Father. The one Jesus talked about in John 4 as being spirit. God being a spirit. So how do you get to know about God? I've never seen Him? Well, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has exegeted Him, explained Him." Only begotten God...an unusual expression. You have a note in your margin that some later manuscripts read 'Son' but the overwhelming majority of the older manuscripts have the word 'God' here. Almost Greek commentators favor the use of the word God here. Now it doesn't change the meaning because as John uses 'Son' it ties to His deity as well. But it seems there is an emphasis here on His deity in a clear way, calling Him God. The only begotten God—now that sounds strange. But it's not strange when you think of what the word 'begotten' means—unique, only one of its kind. He is the only person of the Godhead who became a man. He is the only person of the Godhead to become a man. The Father didn't become a man—He has no humanity. The Spirit didn't become a man—He has no humanity. But God the Son is man as well as God. He is totally unique. So He is the unique God. Now not as a distinct God but as part of the Godhead, being the Son. He is the only begotten God, or if you prefer, the Son. Concept is still the same as we've picked it up. He is the one who is in the bosom of the Father. Put here denoting the continuance of that position. The one being—present participle—in the bosom of the Father. Denotes the intimacy and closeness of relationship. We still use the word in that kind of context today, denoting closeness and intimacy. John the Apostle, as we get to the end of this book, will be the one who reclined at the Last Supper in the bosom of Jesus. The bosom of Abraham, in Luke 16, denoting the place of intimacy. Important here. He is the unique God, the revealer of the Godhead. He is the one who has this intimate relationship with the Father. He is the one who has explained Him. We get our English word 'exegesis' from the word here translated explained. He exegeted Him. He has revealed to us what He really is. He has interpreted Him to us. He has explained Him to us. The full revelation making known of what God is through Jesus Christ. So no man has seen God the Father at any time. How am I going to know what God is like? Jesus Christ is the one who has made Him known. He is the one who has explained Him, has declared Him, has revealed Him. So you know what that says? Anyone who is going to know what God is really like has to know Him through Jesus Christ. So the people who reject Jesus Christ, do not believe in Him, yet want to tell you what God is like. And all they have done is created a fanciful God of their imagination. It doesn't matter whether they carve it on a totem pole, set it on a fireplace, or keep it in their mind—it's just a god that they have conjured up because Jesus Christ is the one who reveals the true God, what God is really like. And it's in Him that the grace and truth of God are found and experienced by men.

These are tremendous statements that John makes. God has become a man and tabernacled among us, manifesting the glory of God. Not all the glory, not the fullest glory that is possible—like that which happened on the Mt. of Transfiguration, that was just an isolated experience for the disciples including John, but there was the revelation through the miracles that the gospel of John chapter 2 says was a manifestation of the glory of God. God has been present among us, manifesting glory. John the Baptist testified to Him. This is the one through whom grace and truth came into being. This is the one who has the most intimate relationship with God the Father. He is the one who has made Him known to us. Know what that says? It's possible for humanity to know about God, but only in one place— in the person of Jesus Christ. So the most important thing that a man ever does, a woman ever does, is come to recognize and believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son who came and died on a cross to pay the penalty for their sin so they might have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Let's pray together.