Let’s face it. There is a good deal about the gospel of Jesus that much of the world finds hard to believe. For instance, some legitimately ask how it is that the death on one Jewish man on a Roman cross can pay the penalty for all the sins of mankind. And then there is the stumbling block of the resurrection. Sure, the tomb was empty, many agree, but it seems it’s often easier to believe the theories that Jesus was resuscitated after He had only fainted or that someone stole the body than to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. What about the virgin birth or the incredible miracles that Jesus performed? Certainly none of us have seen anything like that in our lifetimes.
In his book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer makes a compelling argument that ultimately all these doubts can somehow be traced back to our views on the incarnation. He writes:
It is from disbelief, or at least inadequate belief, about the Incarnation that difficulties at other points in the gospel story usually spring. But once the Incarnation is grasped as a reality, these other difficulties dissolve.
I’m grateful to Packer’s insight, because I’m convinced that not only is what he writes very true, but that he has helped me to understand my own personal apprehensions about Christmas. As followers of Jesus, we often complain about the commercialization of Christmas and how the world misses the meaning of Christmas. But I’m not sure we’ve done a whole lot better in the church. Even in the church, Christmas becomes this sanitized tale of Mary and Joseph riding into Bethlehem on a donkey, and the birth of a cute little baby in a manger, complete with singing angels, shepherds and three wise men riding their camels into Bethlehem to worship that baby.
The first danger is that so many elements in that story come from legends and tradition and not from the Bible. And we’ve sanitized our version of the accounts so that we don’t have to deal with the rigors of the 60 mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem or the stench of the animals that Mary and Joseph would have had to deal with as Jesus was born. But the even greater danger is that we’ve lost sight of the wonder and the significance of the incarnation.
So for the next seven weeks leading up to Christmas, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the incarnation through the eyes of John. John’s account of the birth of Jesus is totally unlike those we find in Matthew and Luke, because John chooses to focus not just on the events themselves, but on the meaning behind the events.
Before looking at each element of the incarnation, we’ll begin this morning by reading the entire passage that we’ll be using for these seven weeks.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1-5, 14 (NIV)
The “logos”
The first thing that we immediately notice about this passage is that John never refers to “Jesus” or to the “Christ”. In fact, John doesn’t refer to Jesus by his name until verse 17 in Chapter 1 of his gospel. Instead, he calls Jesus the “logos”, or as it is translated in most English Bibles, the “Word”. Why would he do that? There are two major reasons that John used the term “logos” here:
1. It is the incarnation that results in the “logos” becoming Jesus
Prior to the birth of Jesus an angel appeared before Joseph and instructed him that the child that was about to be born to Mary be given the name Jesus:
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
Matthew 1:21 (NIV)
From our English translations we often get the idea that the name “Jesus” is unique. However in Hebrew, his given name of Yeshua, which means “God saves”, was actually quite common. In Hebrew, it is exactly the same as the name Joshua, which is common both in our Old Testament and in extra-Biblical literature.
But until that very moment that the Son of God was born and became flesh, he didn’t have a human name because he didn’t need one. So John uses the term “logos” to describe Jesus, the second part of the triune God, as He existed eternally in heaven prior to the incarnation.
Even the structure of John’s gospel reflects this truth. The first thirteen verses of his gospel occur before the incarnation of Jesus and they all lead up to a description in His incarnation in verse 14. And in that entire section, the Son of God, who has not yet taken on a human body, is always referred to as the “logos”. But after that point, when Jesus takes on flesh and lives on this earth, John then refers to Him as Jesus, Christ, or Lord. So Jesus doesn’t actually become Jesus until the incarnation.
2. The use of the word “logos” revealed something about the nature of Jesus to both Jews and Greeks
You’ll notice that up until this point, I haven’t really defined the word “logos”. As I mentioned, in almost all of our English translations, it is translated “Word”. But in Greek, the word “logos” has a wide range of meanings. It can refer to a word uttered by a person that embodies a concept or idea. Thus the traditional rendering as “word” in our Bibles. But “logos” can also refer to reasoning, reckoning, a theory, or a rule of law or conduct. Our English word “logic” and the suffix “ology” which means “the study of” comes from the Greek word “logos”. In fact, this Greek word has such an extensive range of meanings that the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament devotes ten pages to the topic.
The use of the word “logos” by John is pure genius on his part, obviously under the influence of the Holy Spirit. By using that term, John is able to reveal critical aspects of the nature of Jesus to both Jews and Greeks. Let’s look at each group briefly.
• Jews – the “logos” of God = anything that came from God and contacted man
The first place that we see this is in creation. The entire process of creation begins with the word of God:
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Genesis 1:3 (NIV)
And the purpose of that creative process was to fashion man and a place for him to live. And from that point forward every time that God spoke it was a revelation of His purposes, His will and His power as it was directed toward man.
In fact over time, the Jews came to associate the word of God with God Himself. As we discussed in our New Testament survey a few weeks ago, Jewish Targums were essentially Aramaic paraphrases of Hebrew Scriptures. In several of these that would have certainly been known John, the writers have actually substituted the phrase “the Word of God” for both “YHWH”, which is usually translated “Lord” in our English Bibles, and for the phrase “the angel of the Lord”.
So when John uses the term “logos”, his Jewish readers would have immediately connected that term with God Himself and with the idea of something that came from God in order to make contact with man. And both of those ideas very accurately reflect the incarnation of Jesus. He was both God and God’s means of coming down to earth to make contact with man.
These concepts are clearly reflected in the opening words of the book of Hebrews, which was written to Jewish Christians:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
Hebrews 1:1, 2 (NIV)
The “logos”, the Son of God and the second person of the triune God, embodies all that the Old Testament concept of the Word of God ever meant.
• Greeks – the “logos” of God = mediating principle between God and the world
Many of the Greek philosophers like Heraclides, and the Stoics believed that God’s mind and will existed somewhere and that it gave man the ability to reason, act and respond intelligently, and to have some kind of power. This “force” was strictly impersonal, more of a philosophical power. And the Greeks gave that impersonal force a name. They called it the “logos.”
Philo, a first century Jewish philosopher tried to reconcile this Greek cosmology with the Jewish understanding of the creation as the active work of God, which came about, as we have seen through God’s spoken word. So Philo define the “logos” as an identifiable entity which mediated between God and the world and who became the means of God’s divine revelation.
So to the Greeks, John is saying that Jesus is the embodiment of the power of God, the mind of God and the reason of God that they thought of whenever they used the term “logos”. Again we see that concept clearly reflected in the Scriptures:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15 (NIV)
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…
Hebrews 1:3 (NIV)
Merely by using the term “logos”, John is able to effectively show both the Jews and the Greeks how the incarnate Son of God, Jesus, is the embodiment of all their ideas about the nature of God and that Jesus is indeed God.
Over the next seven weeks, beginning this morning, we’re going to look at seven attributes of the nature of the “logos” that prove beyond any doubt that He is indeed God. Since we’ve spent so much time already on the background of why John uses the word “logos”, we’ll begin by briefly looking at the first attribute this morning.
The “logos” eternal
As John begins his gospel, he, very intentionally I’m convinced, echoes the beginning of the entire Bible with these words:
In the beginning was the Word…
There is not doubt in my mind that John wanted his readers to think back to the opening words of the Bible:
In the beginning God…
Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
And just to make sure that we don’t miss the point, he repeats the same idea in verse 2:
He was with God in the beginning.
• The “logos” is without beginning or end
If the “logos” was “in the beginning”, then it follows that He could not have had a beginning Himself. John emphasizes that truth with his grammar. When he writes “in the beginning was the Word”, the word “was’ is in what’s called the imperfect tense of the verb “to be”. What that conveys is that the “logos” had no origin but rather a continuous existence.
As He prayed in the garden, shortly before His death on the cross, Jesus confirmed that principle as He prayed to his Father:
And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
John 17:5 (NIV)
Jesus, like His heavenly Father, existed before the world began. Therefore, He is without beginning. But not only does He have no beginning, He also has no end. That’s why the writer of Hebrews could proclaim:
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8 (NIV)
The same Jesus who has no beginning will exist forever. Therefore He has no end.
• The “logos” existed before creation – therefore he is uncreated
Since it is true that the “logos” existed before creation, then it must also be true that he is uncreated. One of the verses we looked at earlier certainly confirms that fact:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15 (NIV)
Since Jesus is the firstborn over all creation, then He cannot be created Himself.
In a rather long conversation with a group of Pharisees that is recorded in John 8, we find these words of Jesus near the end of that exchange:
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
John 8:58 (NIV)
Not only was Jesus claiming that He existed before the creation, He was also clearly equating Himself with God by using the words “I am”. That is why the Pharisees tried to stone Him to death right then and there.
• The only one who is without beginning or end and uncreated is God – therefore the “logos” is God
There is absolutely no doubt that John is confirming the deity of the “logos” at the beginning of his gospel. As we’ll see in future weeks, every attribute of the “logos” that John describes is also an attribute of God. Because the “logos” is eternal – He has no beginning or end and he is uncreated – and only God is eternal, then it follows that the “logos” must in fact be God.
Up until this point, most of what I’ve shared with you is some extremely important information that will hopefully help all of us to be more confident in our faith. But I want to make sure that these seven weeks are not merely some intellectual exercise for all of us. So each week I want to spend some time dealing with what implications each of these seven attributes have for us as followers of Jesus.
THE “LOGOS” ETERNAL - IMPLICATIONS FOR US
As followers of Jesus, God uses our lives here on this earth for the purpose of making us more and more like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ:
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:29 (NIV)
Although all seven attributes of the “logos’ that we will look at in this series reflect the deity of God and we obviously cannot become gods, I think that each of these attributes can be applied to our lives in a way that will help us to become more like Jesus. This morning let’s look at two implications of the eternal nature of the “logos”.
1. We need to invest in the eternal, not the temporal
The fact that the “logos” is eternal ought to have a profound influence on how we use our time, resources and energy while we’re on this earth. Even though none of us are eternal since we are all created beings who have a beginning, we do all face an eternity in the future. Depending on how we respond to Jesus, we will either spend eternity in His presence, serving and worshiping Him or we spend that eternity separated from Him in a place of eternal torment.
And no matter how long we spend here on this earth, it is but a drop in the bucket compared to that future eternity. That is why Jesus commanded His followers to invest what He has given to each one in those things that will have eternal value. Probably most of us are familiar with these words from the Sermon on the Mount:
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21 (NIV)
All the material things that we have here on this earth will vanish some day. We certainly can’t take them with us. As someone once observed, you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. But the fact that Jesus is eternal ought to be a motivation for us to invest in those things that have eternal value – the souls of people which will last for eternity.
I know that Dana and I, and maybe some of you, share the sense that we may be very well be facing some drastic changes in our lives in the very near future. It seems quite likely that it’s going to become much more difficult to live as a fully devoted follower of Jesus. And in the face of that very real possibility, there is a heightened sense of urgency about our responsibility to shepherd this flock here. As a result some of those things which we’ve really enjoyed in the past, but which have consumed much of our time, no longer have the same pull that they once did.
Where are you spending your time, talent and treasure? Are you using it to accumulate things or to make life here in this temporary world easier or more pleasurable? Or are you investing in the eternal in order to serve a God who is eternal?
2. Jesus is the only one who is worthy of our trust
As humans, we often put our trust in all kinds of people and things. But since none of them are eternal, we eventually find that these all of these eventually pass away.
How many of you have placed your trust in other people, only to be greatly disappointed? Maybe you’ve placed your trust in a husband or wife and then one day they betrayed that trust in some way. And when that happened, it devastated your life.
Or maybe you’ve placed your trust in your finances. And then one day, the Baptist Foundation collapsed or the stock market took a nosedive. And if your trust was in your finances, it robbed you of your security and your joy.
Or maybe your trust has been in your job. You looked to that job as the basis for your security, only to have the company you work for go out of business or to be laid off due to a slowdown in the economy. And now you’re lost.
Because Jesus is eternal, He is the only one or the only thing that is worthy of our trust. So just hours before He went to the cross, He knew that His crucifixion was going to devastate His followers. But because He was eternal, Jesus could comfort them with these words.
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”
John 14:1 (NIV)
In effect, Jesus was saying to them, “In just a few hours the Roman soldiers are going to put me to death on a cross. But don’t be worried. That death will only be temporary. Because I am eternal, I’ll be back. And even when I leave you to return to heaven, you can count on me because I’m going to prepare a place for you where you’ll get to spend eternity with me.”
What are you trusting in this morning? Your family, your friends, your pastor, your money, your job, your possessions? All those people and things will pass away one day. Or are you trusting in the “logos” who is eternal?
