Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser, & Bienvenido Bones Bañez, Jr with Obviously a Bod...
John 1 vv 6 10
1. “As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah –
From you a King will emerge
Who will rule over Israel on my behalf,
One Whose origins are in the distant past …
He will give us peace …”
Micah 5:1 & 5
“Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart
(for you were in fact called as one body to this peace),
and be thankful.”
Colossians 3:15 NET
4. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
“A man came, sent from God, whose name was
John.”
5. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
“A man came, sent from God, whose name was
John.”
• A man came
6. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
“A man came, sent from God, whose name was
John.”
• A man came
• A God-send
7. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
“A man came, sent from God, whose name was
John.”
• A man came
• A God-send
• His name was John
8. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
– A witness, v. 7
“He came as a witness, to testify about the Light,
so that everyone might
believe through Him.”
9. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
– A witness, v. 7
• To testify
10. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
– A witness, v. 7
• To testify
• To testify to the Light
11. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
– A witness, v. 7
• To testify
• To testify to the Light
• To enable BELIEF
12. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
– John, v. 6
– A witness, v. 7
– NOT the light, v. 8
“He himself was not the light,
but he came to testify about the light.”
13. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
“The true light, who gives light to everyone, was
coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was created by
him, but the world did not recognize him.”
14. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light, ““The true light, who gives light to
everyone, was coming into the world …”
15. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light, ““The true light, who gives light to
everyone, was coming into the world …”
• True Light ῏Ην τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν
16. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light, ““The true light, who gives light to
everyone, was coming into the world …”
• True Light
• True Light that GIVES light
17. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light, ““The true light, who gives light to
everyone, was coming into the world …”
• True Light
• True Light that GIVES light
• By coming into the world
21. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light
– Unrecognised, “He was in the world, and the
world was created by him, but the world did not
recognize him.”
22. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light
– Unrecognised
• He came right close … unrecognised
23. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light
– Unrecognised
• He came right close … unrecognised
• As the Creator … unrecognised
24. John 1:6-10
• Introduction
• True witness, vv. 6-8
• True Light, vv. 9-10
– True Light
– Unrecognised
• He came right close … unrecognised
• As the Creator … unrecognised
• The world didn’t recognise it’s Creator and Light
John insists that the ultimate origins of the Messiah are as the pre-Incarnate Word Who was with God and Who WAS God.
But if ever we needed a reminder that we need to be down-to-earth Christians here it is …
The Gospel – the Good News of salvation – starts here:
We follow a Saviour Who solidly planted His own sandaled feet into the Palestinian dust.
Christian – keep your feet on the ground!
And the en-fleshing of the mission – giving substance to Incarnation – started with a man sent from God … John the Baptist:
A Man came“A man came …”The expression in the Greek here is telling.
Ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος,
ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ θεοῦ,
ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ἰωάννης·
John sets the scene for his take on the coming of Jesus by telling us three things about the one who was to be herald of the King’s coming.
He was a real person … a character they knew of called John.
John’s Gospel is going to be clear about this.
The person we’re dealing with here is an utterly exceptional … MAN.
He’s a man.
That’s the contrast John points to with the Light.
Nothing much is said here of John’s origins … Luke has that.
Nothing much is said here of John’s character … Luke has that too.
John takes for granted that the reader knows who John was, in every dimension that was valued by contemporaries … ‘who are you?’, ‘where do you live?’, ‘where are you from?’
John knows that his readership have GOT all that.
But they’ve also got issues of semi-divinities and half-god, half-man stuff …
Who was John the Baptist … don’t even need to call him ‘the Baptist’ … they well know this character, even if they need aspects of His significance to be clarified … this is the MAN who’s called John.
This man John came to the world as a God-send … he’s the man who had come because he was SENT.
In being commissioned like that, John is placed in the same category as men like Moses (Exodus 3:10-15) and the prophets (Isaiah 6:8, Jer. 1:4 ff.)
Now, as we said last time, very often the prologue is the Preface and the theme of the Baptist’s witness is picked up and expanded in vv. 19-34 and 3:27-30.
I’ve know idea why it is you last moved house, changed job, or even … emigrated?
Merrill C. Tenney: “The important thing about John the Baptist is that He was ‘sent’.
He is part of the package of the mission of Jesus … sent as the herald and the forerunner announcing and authenticating the advent of the King.
You need to recognise though that this sending occurs against a particular historical backdrop.
In the first place, it occurs against the backdrop of the 400 years of silence.
God rescued His people from the famine in the land by taking them down to Egypt, where Joseph (via a fairly rocky road) found favour with Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Joseph died.
The Pharaoh changed.
The Hebrews looked like a huge threat to the umpteenth Pharaoh down the line so he enslaved them and kept them too busy to sage a coup with building pyramids … not JUST building pyramids, but lots like that.
And then there was Moses – sent from God.
And then there was the Passover and the Exodus and wandering through the Wilderness because of lack of faith, rebellion and sin.
And then the Conquest of Canaan and the united monarchy … God’s faithfulness met with sin upon sin.
So thick became the sin, so rebellious the people that He warned them, and punished them; warned them, and punished them … restoring them time after time, winning them back repeatedly to Himself … only for them to turn away again.
Until finally God pulled back – just withdrew – left them to work it out for themselves.
For 400 years God was silent … and the oppression and the terror of His silence was more than His people could bear.
And after 400 years GOD SENT JOHN.
He took them straight back to basics, the last and summarising OT prophet, and preached a baptism of repentance from sins.
This is God’s latest and most supreme act of mercy, that after so long in silence on the naughty step, God reached out to His rebellious, wayward people again.In mercy, against their deserts, God sent John.But God isn’t going back to the old ‘call them back again and hope they get it right this time’ approach of the last several thousand years.
The point of John’s being sent, the point of this new prophet coming is to herald a new era that will solve the old cycle of sin and recovery once and for all and build an utterly new basis for the family of God.
He is identified clearly here to them … ‘John’.Not John the Baptist … ‘John’.
It WASN’T an unusual name!
It’s as if John the Apostle who is writing this Gospel had said: ‘you KNOW who I’m talking about – JOHN!’
Who?Luke 1:“5 During the reign of Herod king of Judea, there lived a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah, and he had a wife named Elizabeth, who was a descendant of Aaron. 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, following all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. 7 But they did not have a child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both very old.
8 Now while Zechariah was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty,9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the holy place of the Lord and burn incense. 10 Now the whole crowd of people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering. 11 An angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense, appeared to him. 12 And Zechariah, visibly shaken when he saw the angel, was seized with fear. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son; you will name him John. 14 Joy and gladness will come to you, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. 16 He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go as forerunner before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.”
18 Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old as well.” 19 The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20 And now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will be silent, unable to speak, until the day these things take place.”
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby, and she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name him Zechariah after his father. 60 But his mother replied, “No! He must be named John.”61 They said to her, “But none of your relatives bears this name.” 62 So they made signs to the baby’s father, inquiring what he wanted to name his son. 63 He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they were all amazed. 64 Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue released, and he spoke, blessing God.65 All their neighbours were filled with fear, and throughout the entire hill country of Judea all these things were talked about. 66 All who heard these things kept them in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the Lord’s hand was indeed with him.
A CONCRETE, KNOWN person – God breaking into here & now … that guy you know – HIM: JOHN!Crucial guy in the coming Kingdom of God.
So, John’s function gets clearly defined in this verse … in terms that aren’t employed for any other Old Testament prophet.
John came, he was SENT, as a WITNESS.
That word ‘witness’ is a very Johnannine word.
It is especially important in this Gospel which is a determined attempt to establish a clear case – by adequate testimony – for the claims of Jesus to be believed to be Son of God.
The Gospel starts with this and ends with it in chapter 20
The purpose of John’s testimony … though NOT of course its result … was that through him all men might believe.
John 1:35-37 provides one instance where John’s witness was not only effective but particularly fruitful in the outcome …
John’s ‘behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world’ two of his own followers left and went to follow Jesus.
There’s been a lot of speculation that John wrote his Gospel specifically to refute the idea that John the Baptist was God’s final prophet.
Certainly it is clear from Acts 19:1-7 at Ephesus that Paul came across people during the course of his preaching that were not aware of the Gospel nor the work of the Spirit but who had only known the baptism of John.
Well, John may have had something of that sort in mind … but generally he writes extremely positively of John the Baptiser.
It would be perfectly adequate surely to see the point of v. 8 as simply preparing the way for v. 9 … which makes the main point that John has in mind here.
Jesus here is the true light.
The TRUE light is the emphasis of this verse.
Αληθινος is the word that is used, and it means ‘real’ of ‘genuine’ or not a copy, not second hand.
Christ is not some proto-Gnostic demiurge, not some phenomenal as opposed to essential Light.
“Christ is the real light of humanity Who was about to enter the world.” Merill C Tenney
Any reader of the OT would know that the Law and also Wisdom give light … but (8:12) Jesus – the Word – Who came into the world is THE light, the true light, the ultimate disclosure of God to man.
Or “He was the true light, who gives light to everyone who comes into the world.” The participle ἐρχόμενον (ercomenon) may be either (1) neuter nominative, agreeing with τὸ φῶς , or (2) masculine accusative, agreeing with ἄνθρωπον. Option (1) results in a periphrastic imperfect with ἦν, ἦν τὸ φῶς… ἐρχόμενον, referring to the incarnation. Option (2) would have the participle modifying ἄνθρωπον and referring to the true light as enlightening “every man who comes into the world.” Option (2) has some rabbinic parallels: The phrase “all who come into the world” is a fairly common expression for “every man” (cf.Leviticus Rabbah 31.6). But (1) must be preferred here, because: (a) In the next verse the light is in the world; it is logical for v. 9 to speak of its entering the world; (b) in other passages Jesus is described as “coming into the world” (6:14, 9:39, 11:27, 16:28) and in 12:46 Jesus says: ἐγὼ φῶς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐλήλυθα; (c) use of a periphrastic participle with the imperfect tense is typical Johannine style: 1:28, 2:6, 3:23, 10:40, 11:1, 13:23, 18:18 and 25. In every one of these except 13:23 the finite verb is first and separated by one or more intervening words from the participle.
In v. 9 the world (κόσμος, kosmos) is mentioned for the first time.
This is another important theme word for John. Some have argued that the word ‘world’ is often positive in John … ‘God so loved the world …’
It is also sometimes neutral … simply a big place that can hold a lot of books in 21:24-25
But generally the word in John is overwhelmingly negative.
Generally, the world as a Johannine concept does not refer to the totality of creation (the universe), although there are exceptions at 11:9. 17:5, 24, 21:25, but to the world of human beings and human affairs.
Even in 1:10 the world created through the Logos is a world capable of knowing (or reprehensibly not knowing) its Creator.
Sometimes the world is further qualified as this world (ὁ κόσμος οὗτος) as in 8:23, 9:39, 11:9, 12:25, 31; 13:1, 16:11, 18:36.
This is not merely equivalent to the rabbinic phrase “this present age” (ὁ αἰών οὗτος) and contrasted with “the world to come.”
For John it is also contrasted to a world other than this one, already existing; this is the lower world, corresponding to which there is a world above (see especially 8:23, 18:36).
You need to look more closely – although God so loved the world He gave His only Son, the love is to be admired NOT because the world is so big but because the world as John describes it is so bad!
The true light has come into the darkness of this present evil age – this dark world.And if Jesus appears as the Saviour of the world, that says a great deal about Jesus but nothing positive at all about the world.
However, please notice the way John phrases this …
ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν,
καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο,
καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω
Jesus appears not only as the Messiah by means of whom an eschatological future is anticipated (as in the synoptic gospels) but also as an envoy from the heavenly world to this world.
The world God created has gone so far in its rebellion against Him, so far down the road of worshipping created things rather than the Creator God Who is above all, forever praised, so far that when the Creator comes they don’t know what He looks like.
Can you imagine James Dyson walking into the Dyson factory, and only getting as far as the gate.
Sorry sir, do you have a security pass?
Do you have an appointment at all?
Does anyone here know you who will vouch for you at all?
Jesus came right close up to His creation, you could look into the pupils of His eyes, but He went completely unrecognised.
John shows us – repeatedly – Jesus doing things that we know as ‘the signs of the Messiah’ … John is very much about sayings and signs that authenticate Jesus as God the Son with the purpose that those reading should believe.But repeatedly you come away thinking that what Jesus has done is to exercise on His very own initiative the power that belongs only to God.
He makes water into wine.
He commands the healing of a man whose sin He says He has forgiven.
He heals the Son of the official from Cana in Galilee by His Word of command … not even a house visit!
He heals the sick man by the Pool of Bethsaida, deliberately doing so without any use of the usual means there.
And on, and on, and on it goes.Exercising the authority of God.
Acting like the eternal Creator.Being despised and rejected like the man of sorrows Isaiah predicted.
NET has ‘recognise’The word is ἔγνωto learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of perceive, feel 1a) to become known 2) to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of 2a) to understand 2b) to know 3) Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman 4) to become acquainted with, to know …
The WORLD … humanity organised in rebellion against God … just didn’t recognise its Creator and Light.
All this – before their very eyes – and the dark world still didn’t recognise the light shining in it.
Some closed their eyes so as not to see it.
Some focused all their attention on the torch not the Light that issued from it.
Some simply don’t recognise light as being light.Whichever way it is … people don’t recognise the Light that’s so evident in Christ, the Creator, Who created Light and still gives it.
They don’t believe the testimony.
They don’t recognise the Light that’s there in Christ in and of Himself.They don’t recognise that what Christ gives is Light.
SO many see torch, but not Light.