Reality 101--The Ultimate Revelation Of God Series

Reality 101—The Ultimate Revelation of God

John 1:6-18

I had been a Christian only a few months when I felt compelled to witness to my father. In the midst of the discussion, I remember a question which he blurted out in frustration. He said, “Well, if God exists, why doesn’t He just blow a big hole in the ground or something?” In other words, why doesn’t God just do something so big and so grand that his existence would be so obvious to everyone that no one could deny it?

And I remember thinking to myself, well, that’s a good question. Why doesn’t God do something like that? Why doesn’t he ultimately reveal Himself to us once and for all in an absolutely unmistakable way? And if he has, why don’t we know about it. And if he has, what’s he got to say to us. What’s He got to offer. And how did do it?

And this is actually what the Gospel of John is all about. The Gospel of John is all about telling us that God has indeed done something so great and so grand that nobody should ever doubt that God not only exists, but he offers us the solution to the biggest problem we have—the fact that we all inevitably in inexorably die. And John also tells us exactly how and when God made this ultimate revelation of Himself—and it is remarkable, it is truly astounding. And it is truly good news.

And it is this: The Eternal Creator has ultimately revealed himself by becoming one incredible man, Jesus Christ, who demonstrated the truth about God---that He is gracious & willing to save us from our sins.

Now that is incredibly great news for us. Of all possible core realities behind this vast universe in which we find ourselves living, there could hardly be any better news than this. Because, isn’t it possible that God could be a devil of a being, someone like the Allah of the Muslims who promises only to reward people who sacrifice themselves in order to kill and destroy other human beings. Or isn’t it possible that God could be an impersonal principle, like the Hindu’s karma, that just simply governs the fate of human beings and is not even able to care about each individual’s struggles or ultimate fate. Or isn’t it possible that the Ultimate Being could be the God of the agnostic who doesn’t even care enough to reveal Himself to man, and leaves man in the darkness to flounder and fail and die in a very confusing and evil world?

The Apostle John at the outset of his Great Book tells us He knows better, and what He knows and Why He knows it. He has already told us that there is an Eternal Creator who has revealed Himself in Jesus, and that this Eternal Creator who is Jesus of Nazareth is the both the light and the eternal, holy life that mankind needs.

Now He is going to tell us how he knows, and why so many people don’t know that the true God is this kind of God, the very kind of God that we desire.

And the first reason he knows is because of another man, a contemporary of his, whose name is also John. We know him as John the Baptist. From the perspective of Biblical history, this man was the last of the Old Testament Prophets. Old Testament men who revealed what God had to say to the people of Israel. Old Testament prophets who consistently and persistently pointed their people toward the Ultimate Revelation of God—the coming of the Messiah. But this Old Testament prophet would be different from the rest of the Old Testament prophets—He was different in this respect—that He would be a contemporary of the Messiah Himself. That he wouldn’t point people to the Messiah from hundreds and thousands of years before the Messiah would come. But He would uniquely be the prophet who see, hear, even touch and point out the Messiah, the Ultimate Revelation of God, in the presence of the people who be part of Messiah’s Generation.

How did John the Apostle know the Ultimate Revelation of God was the God-man—Jesus of Nazareth. In part because the great prophet, John the Baptist, told him and everyone us that Jesus was the Messiah—the light and the life of mankind.

That’s our first point this morning. The Great Prophet John the Baptist pointed John’s generation to Jesus as the God-man.

John 1:6-9: The Apostle John simply says, “There came a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.”

Now the Apostle John has already told us that the Word, or Jesus, was the Light of the World. He’s already told us that Jesus is the very one who reveals the way to go to find eternal and perfect life. He’s told us that not only Is Jesus the light of life, but that Jesus is Himself the life that all men ought to seek. He is the life all men should seek both quantitatively and qualitatively. He is the life that is eternal. He is the life that is holy, beautiful, satisfying in terms of its quality. If we want those things, and we do, then Jesus is the way, and the truth and that very life that we would all want.