THE BOOK OF JOHN CHAPTER 1:6-14
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN THE EVANGELIST (2ND LESSON)

VERSES: Psalm 36:9; Luke 12; Malachi 3:1; John 17:11,21; 1st John 3:16

Verses 6-8 “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (John the Baptist, the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth). The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light (the truth-Giver who will give men intelligence/light and take them out of illusionary darkness into His Life – Psalm 36:9) …that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, (some had believed that John the baptizer was Messiah) but was sent to bear witness of that Light.” John the Apostle was speaking here of John the Baptist, as well as everywhere else in the Gospel where the name John is mentioned. John was Christ’s appointed forerunner according to the great calling foreseen in the Old Testament. (“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me…” Malachi 3:1a). It is therefore quite understandable that John the Baptist would so soon be mentioned after John the Apostle’s statement of Christ’s Deity, in that the Baptist was to be the appointed first witness to that Deity. Mark and Luke also introduce John the Baptist early on in their gospels. John the Baptist bore witness that he was not that Light leading to Life that was to come into the World, but that he was to bear witness of Him Who was the uncreated Light and giver of Life, now to be manifest.

John the Baptist, according to Christ’s own testimony, was that ‘burning’ (passionate) and shining (temporary) light of illumination to come first unto Israel; meaning that he was to direct Israelites hearts towards the promised Christ the King and His Kingdom. This is to say, the Lord’s ministry on the Earth was not to be to the unsaved pagan world, but to the “lost sheep of Israel”. (Matthew 10:6; 15:24) Israel was awakened by John the Baptist’s merciful and instructive message, and being moved by faith, they rejoiced in his light for a short season. (John 5:35) But Christ, bearing witness of Himself, as does the Father, was exceedingly more. He was the ever-illuminating Light for all men of the entire World. (John 8:12-19) The obedient First-Born Son’s inheritance was not only offered to the Nation of Israel, but to all the Nations. (Isaiah 49:6) The Light, initially received by any man across the Earth, brings new and eternal LIFE in rebirth of spirit and Divine NATURE that we might then walk in Light instead of darkness. (Romans 8, 2^nd Peter 1) All men are naturally born to Adam’s condemned nature, in the eternal state of darkness (Romans 5:12), and are ignorantly lost captives in satan’s World. Every man born of woman are slaves of sin. (John 8:12,23,44) And although dead, John the Baptist still gives his anointed witness of the true Light.

(VERSE 9) “The true light (that separates lies from truth, as it casts out spiritual darkness), which enlighteneth every man (who shall open his mind and heart to Him), was to come into the World (the statement ‘was to come into the World’ is not a reference to ‘every man’ that would come into the World, but to the true Light that was to come into the World, which was made known by Old Testament prophets that would assuredly come into the World through the lineage of Abraham. (Verse 9’s declaration ties back with that statement in Verse 4… “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”

And so John’s Gospel ties John the Baptist to that ‘Light’ as His forerunner by Malachi 3:1a… “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me…” then shortly thereafter the Light is to appear suddenly Malachi 3:1b “…and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”

What is ‘light’ to a man?… but a measure of Truth made known. We can’t get the full measure in this lifetime; light is granted only to a degree. His light is more than we can take in. It illuminates what is right and what is Truth. And what is darkness?… but Truth unknown. What is darkness but man’s continued vain and feeble attempt to attain soulical knowledge and longer life/living outside Jesus Christ, the ‘Tree of life’. ‘Death’ (an eternal separation from the “Life” only found in the Son of God) is their condemned condition following after their ‘father’; the author and ruler of the multifaceted World system designed to keep the lost soul in darkness and in slavery to sin, alienated from God.

The spiritually-blind un-regenerated man does not, upon conversion, receive enough light for clearness of vision, but is put into a disturbed state wherein he “sees men as trees walking.” (Mark 8:24, John 9:7) The Lord must put His hands upon us again and again and help us to look up. This spiritual infancy of obscurity between full darkness and full light is the state upon many that are regenerated. Those who have not continued on beyond the initial light of regeneration, and have not desired to move on in the light of Christ’s word of obedience unto a required worthiness for abundant glorious Light and Life, therefore remain in a slavish carnal soul ‘twilight’. Generally this is descriptive of a Christian with an inordinate interest in the multitude of affairs, pursuits, interests and pleasures of the World and its systems.

Satan does not lose his interest in a man when he is converted to God. On the contrary, it is after the light and new nature life is given that the acute conflict begins. (See Romans 7, and also Mark 4 where we have the example of satan coming immediately in after the seed was planted to stop the growth. The war only begins once we are born-again. At redemption, we have light and eternal life, but the further light and abundant life is what Satan and his forces try desperately to deter us from. He tempts us with the pleasures of this life, weighs us down with the cares of this life, or tries to deter us with persecution, and fear. He wants to cause God’s children to fall away because he fears those who are totally committed to God, who are seeking the fullness of light and life found in the gospel of glory. For these will be joint heirs with Christ and rule from the heavenlies in their stead.)

Christ is the giver of ALL degrees of light and life, both to the Angelic Beings and to Man. These degrees being: Man’s Physical soulical light and physical life of the Adamic kind; and then the spirit’s re-birth in Light and Life of the redemptive kind, and then also ongoing Light and Life of the overcoming kind, and upon dying, abundant Light and Life of the glorious first resurrection kind. He is the spark and flicker of light in the conscience of the unregenerate soul in contrast to its carnal reasoning, in anticipation of faith’s elucidation by the light discovered in the Law of Moses, and the further light of illumination of the New Testament Gospel. The New Testament test of prevailing illumination light in the regenerate who is overcoming, is faith energized by loving obedience to Jesus our Lord and King. (John 14:15, Galatians 5:6, 1^st Corinthians 13, 1^st John 3:16)

He “which enlighteneth every man”… any Jew or Gentile that will open their mind and heart to Him. It was ‘He’ the Savior/Messiah/Christ, that One incarnate, whom the Old Testament prophets spoke of. From the promise to Adam the first prophet (Genesis 3:15), of ‘He’ Who would come from a woman’s womb that would crush the head of satan (that fallen Cherub of deceiving ‘light’ 2^nd Corinthians 11:13-15), down through time to Malachi the last prophet of the Old Testament, and 400 years later it was ‘He’ that John the Baptist, the first prophet of the Gospel of the New Testament, finally heralded.

VERSES 10–11 “He… (we see here that John’s words are to be taken both symbolically and literally, in that which is declared above as the ‘Word’/ ‘logos’; the Light is now personified and described as a Person) …was (God the Son manifest by incarnation) …in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own (the Seed of Abraham; the Light came to its own Lampstand), and his own received him not.”

John the Apostle’s purposeful statements in these verses are declaring:

1. a) the Creator was Christ Jesus, and John is tying Him to the New Testament Gospel Message of new light and life
2. b) and establishing that these Truths/roots come from the Old Testament.
3. c) He was the Messiah to come and He was Abraham’s seed according to the flesh.

He was predicted in the Old Testament and He came as Scripture declared. He was the seed also of King David. He was circumcised on the 8^th Day. He celebrated the feasts and went up to Jerusalem’s Temple of God when only a young boy about His Father’s business. And went home to Nazareth and submitted to His parents for the next 18 years. When He was about 30, He went out and was baptized by His appointed forerunner; John the Baptist. He then presented Himself to Israel as their long awaited Messiah King. But He was rejected (they wanted to make Him king under their terms); making themselves even more at enmity with God, as was predicted. (Read Isaiah 6, and see also John 12:37…. “But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him.”)

VERSES 12-13 “But as many as received Him, to them gave He warrant to become the children… (in the Greek, it does not say ‘sons’; as they can only be a part of the family but not a first-born son with right to receive the greater inheritance. Only those who overcome have the right to become a first-born son.) …of God, even to them that believe on His name (as He changed their status; that is their right to become children of God and call Him Father, and changed their state: in that He gave them new life and nature…)… Who were born (again in spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit), not of blood (natural conception), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” So according to the Gospel of John, it is not by merely the ‘flesh’ (that is to say one’s heritage/lineage as the chosen people of God) that we become the ‘children’ of God (as ignorantly supposed by the vain Israelite) but by the Holy Spirit’s work of re-birth of our spirit by imparting to it the divine nature. No longer exclusively in the likeness of fallen Adam, but with the life of a new creature, born in infancy as a ‘child’ of God through the 2^nd Adam. This Truth of re-creation, that of the necessity of rebirth of spirit by faith, was always the standard of God for men (in particular Hebrews) to be His children since the fall of Adam. But now ‘in Christ’ the Second Adam, He sets all humans, Jews and Gentiles, on the same ground of opportunity. That being of ‘grace’s’ broader net, (which is cast by God for children) and is now to be realized in Jesus the Christ.

Here it is realized also that the Gospel of Christ has (temporarily) set stubborn Israel aside as “Lo Ami” (not my people) as they have lost their former standing as the main recipient of ‘grace’…being the one chosen people of God in answer to His Covenant promise with Abraham and his natural seed. In the Wisdom of God, there came forth the promised SEED of Abraham, (Genesis 12:7; 15:18) supernaturally conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary; that SEED through Whom God had determined before the foundation of the Cosmos to bring children forth through faith. These then are to be from everywhere on the face of the Earth, from every land, from every people.

The answers to the questions of higher critiques raised against Jesus are here set forth. John declares He is the eternal Son of God of the Triune God-Head, the Logos, the reason for all created things, the Creator, the God of Israel, and the Messiah rejected by His own. He is now the Redeemer and Giver of light and life to any individual who will thus believe on Him.

John the Apostle declares Christ as the Giver of a measured original light and life (not the fullness of light and life) to Adam as a child of God. A life and light that could have been forever perpetuated by partaking of the Tree of Life planted within the Garden. (Genesis 3:22) Genesis then records Adam’s fall into spiritual ‘death’ (loss of the spirit’s connection); meaning a determined measured loss of life within and then consequently physical death would follow later. Death being a consequence of their being banned from the Garden to ensure no possibility of their eating of the perpetuating (life-sustaining) power of the Tree of Life. Thereby the subsequent 2-part ‘death’ was passed on to all men; being the corrupted seed from Adam’s loins. (Romans 5:12) John the Apostle also declares that Christ then is the compassionate propitiation for the measured gift of ‘restored light and restored life’ unto adoption out from the ‘dead’/lost in satan’s World unto a child of God the Father. But the Gospel of Christ holds forth a fullness, a more abundance of light and life; the promised prize for faithfulness and fruitfulness; for the inheritance typed in the Old Testament. The fullness of the calling being typed in being the firstborn son, the first-fruits unto God, those worthies of the First Resurrection, the answer to the need for holy government in this World, all point to the same prize of the Bride of Christ; to be joint heirs and rulers with Christ in His coming Kingdom. Where in accordance with the calling unto ‘suffering’ unto selflessness, there is the Gospel promise that after this life there is yet a much greater first resurrection life and glorious light to those suffering, selfless, overcoming Christians. (Romans 8:17-19, Revelation chapters 1-3, Revelation 20:4-6)

Faith is the required characteristic of God’s ‘people’. And when the blinded Jews rejected the Son of God, God had determined to raise up a new ‘nation of people’ who having faith in the Gospel light of Jesus Christ His Son, would then become His children in supernatural re-birth by the Holy Spirit. After having given them rebirth, He always had in view their maturing spiritual growth (Hebrews 5:7-6:20), increasing in faith and love in further yielding and training to bring forth those fruits (which were lacking in Israel) to be worthy of ruling with the King in His Kingdom (that Jesus represented as His self and His Own) that His own fruitless kinsman received not. (Matthew 21:43) Therein it should be understood that He is both the Author and Subject of the Old Testament throughout, including that dispensation of Moses’ Law of justice. And He is now the New Testament Author and Subject of God’s Atonement in this dispensation of ‘grace and mercy.’

“Verse 14 is the climax of the first 13 verses. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt (tabernacled) among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” (Believe and you become a child of God, beloved, having the Spirit of God dwelling in you that you might now pray ‘Abba’ Father.’) Here is an amazing statement about a momentous moment in time: The Eternal Son of God, the One of the Godhead described as the Logos and Creator, became flesh and tabernacled with us in a body prepared/pitched by the Father. This brings into our view the Royal Tent of His dwelling pitched by men in the midst of the Tribes of Israel wherein His Glory dwelt. Contrast Exodus 40:34 (which is the first time God tabernacled with man) with Matthew 23:38–39 (which is when Jesus speaks of their house being left ‘desolate’ upon their rejection of Him.)

Jesus began to be (was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit) 4000 years after He created man. In a moment in time like no other before or ever again, the Son of God, Christ, unimaginably, was conceived in flesh by the Will of the Father in the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:30-35) He became the Son of Man. His name is Jesus. He was a man, and therefore was a ‘living soul’ with a spirit and a body like any other man. Breathing His own air which He created, walking on His own ground which He created, supported by substances He had made for man, Creator of the men He came to save.

The Son of God took upon Himself human nature, as Jesus the Son of Man, therefore having 2 natures, God and man, yet without the confusion or diluting of either. He, as the Son of God, did not give up His God-Head and change into flesh, but took manhood into God. The Son of God retained His perfect eternal Nature, all the while. Yet He as a Man had all the properties and abilities of mankind (in an un-fallen state, as like Adam before his fall, yet this 2nd Adam never did anything outside the will of the Father even though He had the capability to do His own will). So it was not by amalgamation or mixing or confusing did He take on flesh, but by bringing Mankind into ‘unity’ with God. (See John 17:11,21 which alludes to the relationship of oneness that the Son always had with the Father… “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”… “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” In a sense, God, through the Son, has brought man into His Godhead.)

John beheld Him as a Man filled with glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. (2nd Peter 1:16–17) The Transfiguration is regarded as the earnest of Christ’s second coming in glory. 1st Corinthians 6:2 is the transfiguration of the Bride and should be understood with Peter’s words: “it is good for us to be here”. [Luke 9:33] Christ will reign with His transfigured saints over men in the flesh. The state He was in at the Mount was a peep of the glory that we are being called unto.

He was not made or created like other ‘sons’, but uniquely one-of-a-kind to come forth from God, the only begotten in incarnation; with His Father’s glorious testimony at the Mount of Transfiguration of… “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” Those few words setting ‘Him’ supremely above Moses and the prophets (represented by Moses and Elijah). The “in whom I am well pleased” has to do with Jesus having yielded completely His Will as the Son of Man to God the Father’s Will of suffering in obedience. That answered to God’s offended Holiness with Justice for Adam’s and all mankind’s transgression. (Hebrews 5:7-9) God is pleased with our faithful obedience in the midst of suffering too. Every test, trial, and sorrow makes us more acute to what life is about and is a chance to allow His shakings to conform us into who He made us to be. The shakings are intended to awaken the fence-walkers and the apathetic nominal Christians who are merely part of a religious system in order to shake their paradigm to make them more acute to the hereafter. It is the mercies of Christ upon the Church. The shakings are chances to deny our flesh and be conformed into His image on a daily basis because His desire is to have joint heirs. Just as Christ overcame and learned obedience from the things He suffered, so should we. Suffering in godliness and walking in loving works of faith is what capacitates us for glorious life in the hereafter; to rule and reign with Christ as His bride in His Kingdom. In all of John’s writings, from His gospel, to 1st -3rd John, to the Book of Revelation, he speaks more than just about love and mercy; he focuses up on Christ’s eternal glory from before the world was created until now. His writings should inspire us to attain unto the promise of being transfigured into glory. This high calling is to be one of the foundational beliefs of a Christian illuminated in the light. So let us pray that we be found worthy. (Luke 21:36)