SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/11/2015
9:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 The
Nature of the Incarnation
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 1:14
Message of the verse: “14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt
among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father,
full of grace and truth.”
I
have mentioned that I listen to John MacArthur’s sermons on the book of John
along with reading his commentary, along with reading Warren Wiersbe’s
commentary on the gospel of John in order to try and understand more fully what
it is that John is writing. I believe
that John MacArthur began at the church he still pastors in 1969 and the first
gospel that he taught was the gospel of John and so some of the lessons that I
listen to are from that time, however it took him until around 2011 to finish
all of his preaching on the New Testament and once he was finished he sometime
after that began to preach through the gospel of John once again so it is those
that I am listening to and in some cases watching on my computer screen. The
commentary on the gospel of John was written in 2006 so with all that said you
can understand the background of where I get my material to put onto these
Spiritual Diaries. Now in today’s SD I
want to pick up on the 14th verse of chapter one and focus in on the
words “and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father,
full of grace and truth.” Now sure we
will get to the very last part but will try.
When I was listening to MacArthur’s sermon from a couple of years ago on
this section I felt that I had to quote quite extensively from it, and I have
to mention that some of it will be some things we have gone over, but consider
that verse fourteen is one of the most important verses in the Christian faith,
and therefore in the entire Bible a little review seems to be in order. When I was listening to this sermon MacArthur
brings up a wonderful definition of the word “glory” something that has been a
bit confusing to me for some time and so I wanted to quote that part of the
sermon, but when I began to go over it I found some things that, even in some
cases is review, I felt very important to look at and so with all this said we
will look at these important quotes.
“In the opening prologue he makes
his thesis statement. And the statement in the opening prologue is that
Jesus is God in human flesh. That He is the Creator of the universe who has
become a part of His creation. He is pure, eternal being who has become a man.
That is John’s message, that Jesus is not a created man; He is God in human
flesh. And that, dear friends, that is the most essential doctrine in
the Christian faith. That is it. And that is why there have been and continue
to be so many heresies concerning Jesus Christ, concerning the essence, or the
nature, or the person of Jesus Christ. This is the important doctrine in
the Christian faith. It must be known; it must be believed for someone to
escape hell and enter heaven, that Jesus is God.
“Summed
up in four words at the beginning of verse 14, “The Word became flesh.” “The
Word became flesh.” That is the central truth of Christianity. That is the
theme of John’s gospel. And that is the required conviction for anyone who will
escape hell, to understand that “the Word became flesh.’
“Now
I think it would be safe to say that John was legitimately obsessed with this great foundational doctrine.
And again I urge you,
whenever anybody talks about religion and gets to Jesus, you want to focus
right down on what Jesus they are talking about. Are they talking about the One
who is the eternal God? The One who is the Creator, who existed
infinitely forever? Or are they talking about some other Jesus? John is obsessed
with this.
“In the last century, the last decade, rather, of the
first century—in the nineties—he wrote his gospel and he also wrote three
epistles. And just to show you what was so much on his heart, turn to 1 John
for a moment, 1 John. John launches his
epistle, and he’s writing this epistle to believers to identify for them the
marks of true salvation. And listen how he starts. He starts very much like he
started his gospel. “What was from the beginning,” that’s Christ, who when the
beginning began already existed because He’s eternal. “What was from the
beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have
looked at and touched with our hands, namely the Word of Life—and the life was
manifested.” There is very parallel language. The eternal Word, life itself,
manifested itself in the world, John said, and we saw it with our own eyes. And
we looked at it, and we heard, and we touched Him with our hands. “We’ve seen,”
he says in verse 2, we testify, we proclaim to you the eternal life—you could
capitalize that, The Eternal Life, meaning the Son of God—“which was with the
Father and was manifested to us—and we’ve seen and we heard and we proclaim to
you.” He can’t get over this. John is absolutely blown away by the fact that he
has heard, he has seen, he has looked deeply into the face of, and he has
touched the Creator of the universe in a human form. I think this would be
something to obsess about. That’s where John is. And what we have seen and
heard and touched, we declare to you “so,” verse 3, “you may have fellowship
with us,” so that you may come into the kingdom, believing in Him, and “our
fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these are things
we write, so that your joy may be made complete,” because complete joy can only
be found in knowing Him.
“In chapter 2 of 1 John, down in verse 22, he says,
“Who is the liar...Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the
Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father; the one who confesses the Son
has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the
beginning. If what you heard from the beginning [from the apostles, from us]
abides in you, you will abide in the Son and in the Father.” Again he goes back
that if you tamper with who Christ is, you will alienate yourself from
God—very, very serious to John.
“Chapter 4, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit.”
Don’t believe every claim, every teacher, every spirit behind every teacher.
Test the spirits, see whether they’re from God because there’s so many false
prophets in the world. How do you know when someone’s a false prophet? “By this
you know the Spirit of God [that is behind the true Spirit]: every spirit that
confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Those who
affirm the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, they’re from God. “Every spirit
that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of antichrist,
of which you have heard that it is coming, and now already in the world.”
“John is absolutely crystal clear that one’s view
of Jesus Christ is determinative, determinative. Down in verse 12, same
chapter: “No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides
in us, His love is perfected...and it’s by this we know that we abide in Him
and He in us, because He’s given us His Spirit. We have seen and testified that
the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses
that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”
“If you tamper with the deity of Jesus Christ, you
are not in the kingdom of God. Chapter 5, he’s not finished. Verse 1, “Whoever
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” That simple. “Whoever
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” Verse 4, “Whoever is born of
God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world—our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God?” And finally, down in verse 20, “We know that the
Son of God is come,” “we know that the Son of God is come.” We’ve seen Him,
heard Him, touched Him, “and is given to us understanding so that we may know
Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This
is the true God and eternal life.”
“In the second letter, after the first epistle,
verse 7, he says: “Many deceivers are gone out into the world...who do not acknowledge
Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and antichrist.” Verse
9, “Anyone who goes beyond doesn’t abide in the teaching of Christ, doesn’t
have God; the one who abides in this teaching...has the Father and the Son.” So
“if anybody comes to you and doesn’t have that teaching, don’t let him in your
house, don’t give him a greeting,” because you would be a partaker in his evil
deed. It’s all about Christ and who Christ is.
“The deity of Christ is not diminished by His humanity, nor is His humanity overpowered by His deity. And maybe I can illustrate that by saying this: when you see Christ in heaven, He will be exactly the same God/Man that He was when He walked on earth—in the post-resurrection form of the body that the disciples spent forty days with. He is the same Christ. He doesn’t become a floating fog in heaven, as some of these silly people say who take fake trips to heaven and then make up things. He is exactly who He is. He will be who He was on earth—fully man, fully God in the same way He walked on earth.
“And let me take it a step further. His humanity is
not the humanity of Adam before his fall. He does not have a pre-Fall humanity.
Some people think that, yes, He’s fully man; but He’s fully man in the sense of
Adam was before the Fall. That is not true. He is fully man in the sense that
Adam was after the Fall. How do you know that? Because He lived and grew and
died, and that is a factor of fallen condition. Furthermore, if He was not in
the form of man after the Fall, He would have no ability to understand our
weaknesses and our infirmities and be tempted in all points as we are tempted,
and come out as a merciful, sympathetic High Priest. So He is truly human in
the sense that we are human in the post-Fall realm. With one exception: no sin.
He is without sin—holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, without sin
forever. Second Corinthians 5, He knew no sin.
“So this One, John says, this God/Man, “the Word became flesh.” And then He says, “And dwelt among us,” “dwelt among us” (skenoo means to pitch your tent). He brought His tent to us and He settled down in our world. For thirty-three years He lived in our world—took on the form of a man; came and became one of us, Hebrews 2, Philippians 2; grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and man. You can’t deny that. That’s 1 John. I just read it to you (4:2 and 3). If you deny that Jesus came in the flesh, that the Son of God was an actual man, then that’s heresy and you don’t know God. God in human form dwelt with us.
“How did we know He was God? John gives us three
very important statements and they’re tied to three words—clear evidence that
this is God. First word, glory; second word, grace; third word, God. And we’ll
just look at this briefly. I know you’re familiar with it.”
Now as I mentioned this first part is all a bit of
review and now we will get to the part of MacArthur’s sermon that talks about
His Glory, that is the Glory of Jesus Christ and how John has actually seen His
glory as he testifies in verse 14.
“Back to verse 14, first point: the incarnate
Christ displays divine glory. The incarnate Christ displays divine glory. John
says in verse 14, “And we saw His glory.” “We saw His glory.” And it was glory
that belongs to the monogenes of the Father, and it was full of grace
and truth. We saw His glory.
“What is glory? What does that mean? You have to go
back to the Old Testament to pick up on that, really. God’s glory is intrinsic
to His nature; it is who He is. It is the sum of His attributes. Take all the
attributes of God and you can list them; all of the attributes of God in
perfect complex are His glory, His intrinsic innate glory—all of His
attributes. But then there is also His manifest glory. And He manifests His glory
symbolically and in reality. Let me tell you what I mean.
“Moses in Exodus 33 says, “Show me Your glory. I
want to see Your glory.” And the Lord says, in effect, “Okay, I’ll show you My
glory, but I have to warn you, I can’t show it all to you because no man could
see My face and live” (Exodus 33:20). “So the Lord said, ‘There’s a place by
Me, and you can stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory
is passing by, I’ll put you in the cleft of the rock and I’ll cover you with My
hand until I pass by.” And what you’re going to see is the edges of My glory
shining across the cover. You can see the fringes of My glory, because if you
saw My full glory, you’d be incinerated in a millisecond.
“What is this kind of glory? What is this? This is
God’s nature, God’s essence that the eternal complex of all that He is—the
all-glorious God manifest in blazing light, manifest in blazing light. I think
that’s something of what Adam and Eve saw when they walked and talked with God
in the garden, because God is invisible, called repeatedly the invisible God.
So what did they see? They walked with the Shekinah. They walked with
the presence of God manifest in light to some degree. And maybe they were able
to absorb more of His glory since they were unfallen, and once they fell they
had to be kicked out because they could no longer look at His glory or
fellowship with Him. Moses says, “Show me Your glory,” and God says, “I’ll let
you see the afterglow; I’ll let you see the back part; I’ll let you see the
edges or you’d be incinerated in a millisecond. That’s the powerful majesty and
glory of God that would destroy us because we’re sinners.
“And then the glory is defined. Moses said, “Show
me Your glory,” and He said, “Okay”—God did—verse 19, “I’ll make all My goodness
pass before you. I’ll proclaim the name of the Lord, and the name of the Lord
is all that He is. Before you I’ll proclaim My attributes; I’ll be gracious to
you; I’ll show compassion on you. And then down in verse 6 of the next chapter,
“The Lord descends,” in verse 5, “and then the Lord passes in front of him and
His light passes in front of Him,” this glowing light, and the Lord begins to
describe His glory.
“Verse 6, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate,
gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps
lovingkindness for thousands, forgives iniquity, transgression, sin,” etc. The
glory of God is the complex of all of His attributes and sometimes it was
manifested in blazing light.
“Later on when the children of Israel were walking
in the wilderness, you remember God led them by a fiery flame at night, and
when the tabernacle was built in Exodus 40, the glory of God came down to the
tabernacle. When the temple was built, 1 Kings 8:11, the glory of God came down
to the temple. So God’s glory is His attributes, but manifestly seen frequently
in the Old Testament as light.
“In the future, Matthew 24, Matthew 25, Jesus
returns and it says in both those chapters, chapter 24, verses 29 and 30,
chapter 25, verse 31 that He will come in great glory and the shekinah
will be back. Revelation says people will call on the rocks and the mountains
to hide them from the face of the glory, the sky will go dark, the moon and sun
will not give its light, and into the blackness will come this blazing shekinah
presence of Jesus Christ.
“Again, the manifestation of the attributes of God
in light. So that had happened in the past and in the future will happen again
in the meantime—the glory comes to earth in Jesus. Okay? And on one occasion
Matthew—Luke also records it—they went up to the mount, Peter, James and John,
remember? And the Lord pulled back His flesh and what did they see? They saw
His glory, and it was so blinding they fell like dead men under the sheer shock
and force of this blazing light, even though it was veiled to some degree so
they didn’t burn up.
“And Peter writes, “When we were in the holy
mountain, we saw His glory”...“we saw His glory.” Let’s go back now. When John
says, “We beheld His glory,” “we beheld His glory,” he can mean that they
beheld the light, the shekinah, the blazing light, because John was up
there on that mount. He certainly could mean that. And this is written long
after that happened, so he would remember that experience as well as Peter did.
“But it’s more than that. When John says, “We
beheld His glory,” he’s not only talking about the representation of that glory
in light, he’s talking about the reality of those attributes which were
manifest throughout the ministry in the life of Christ. John could say it this
way: “We saw His love; we saw His mercy; we saw His wisdom; we saw His
knowledge; we saw His power; we saw His justice; we saw His holiness; we saw
His compassion; we saw His omnipotence; we saw His omniscience; we saw His
anger; we saw His wrath; we saw His kindness; we saw His patience; we saw it
all. We saw all those things that the Lord listed back in Exodus 33 and 34, and
we saw the light, and we saw the light. We saw His glory. We don’t question
that this is God, right? We saw the manifest light that symbolizes His glory,
and we saw the attributes that make up His glory—we saw it all, we saw it all.
We saw a visible representation of His glory, and we saw the invisible
representation of that glory in His life.
“We’re going to find out in John 2 when we go to a
wedding together that Jesus did a miracle there and verse 11 says of John 2,
“This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His
glory.” “Manifested His glory.” He didn’t pull His flesh back like He did in
the Transfiguration, but He manifested the glory of His power by creating wine
out of nothing. So John says, “Look, we saw His glory; yes, on the holy mount,
visible glory. But yes, we saw that invisible glory, the operation of His
attributes.”
“So when you ask John if Jesus is God, the God/Man,
God in human flesh, John will tell you yes—yes He is because we saw His glory.”
I realize that this is a very long quotation, but a
very, very important quotation to be sure and so I am glad to have a better
understanding of it and also am happy to be able to share it with those who
will read it.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am in
awe of the better understand of what the glory of Jesus Christ is all about,
and thankful for being able to better understand it.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To continue to grow and learn about my Savior.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Amelek prevailed” (Exodus 17:11).
Today’s Bible question: “What happens when that which is perfect is come?” (Hint-Love Chapter)
Answer in our next SD.
12/11/2015 9:47 AM
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