The Gospel of John

The Word was Made Flesh II

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 2- 70

Genre:

Track: 02

Dictation Name: RR197A2

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Oh Lord open Thou my lips and my mouth will show forth Thy praise. For Thou desirest not sacrifice or else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart oh God Thou will not despise. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we come into Thy presence mindful that because Thou art on the throne, though the heathen may rage, though the storm clouds surround us we will not fear for Thou art with us. The Lord of Hosts Thou art our refuge. And so our God we come into Thy presence to cast our every care upon Thee knowing that Thou carest for us. Do Thou undertake for us, hear the unspoken prayer of oru hearts, bless and prosper us in Christ, in His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture is the first chapter of John, verses four through fourteen. The first chapter of John, verses four through fourteen, continuing with the subject The Word Was Made Flesh.

“ In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

John tells us concerning the word in verse four: in Him was life and the life was the light of men. As the creator the word, the eternal God the Son is the creator and the source of life. In creating man God created mankind in His image which scripture defines for us in Colossians 3:10 we are told that is knowledge, Ephesians 4:24 righteousness and holiness, Romans 2:14-15 having the law of God written in our hearts, and Genesis 1:28 dominion. When men sin they sin against God their maker and against their own nature as an image bearer of God. While creation was through the word life is in the word because he is God. When men turn from Christ they turn from the light and the life. Life is the light in us because our life as God’s image, as His image bearers, requires us to exercise knowledge, righteousness, holiness, law keeping and dominion. And we sin against the word and life when we turn from these things. John is again echoing the Old Testament according to Genesis 1:3 God’s first creating word was ‘let there be light and there was light’. Psalm 33:9 declares:

“For with Thee is the fountain of light and with Thy light shall we see light.”

God having made us we now function apart from him and to deny Him is to love death. In verse five the focus shifts to man’s history. In verses one and two we have the word before creation, in verse three creation through the word is declared. Verse four man before the fall is described in terms of the word. In verse five we see man after the fall and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.

The darkness is sin, its consequence is death. Our Lord repeatedly declares Himself to be the light of the world. In John 8:12:

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

Then in John 9:5:

“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

In John 12:35:

“Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.”

John 12:46:

“I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.”

And one more in John 3:19:

“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Jesus Christ as the word incarnate reveals what men are to be in Him. We, if we walk in darkness apart from Him we become darkness but He is the Light of the world. Evil men hate the light and love darkness. Light and life are as closely connected as death and darkness, on the other hand, the darkness could not comprehend the word incarnate we are told. The Greek word translated as comprehended means apprehend and comprehend both. So that John who may be using it in both senses says that the world of darkness, fallen men, could neither understand the word nor seize or take possession of Him. They neither understood Him nor could they put Him out. By His resurrection Christ destroyed the power of sin and death, they could not take possession of Him nor destroy Him. He who created all things came to restore and reconstruct all things. The powers of darkness sought to prevent this and failed.

The world of darkness hates the light and seeks vainly to put it out but the light is now shining more and more because it cannot be put out. In verses six through eight John the Baptist is introduced, a little more is said a little later. These verses witnessed to the greatness of John, first, John was a man set from God. Second he was sent to bear witness to the light but he was not himself that light. This statement should wake us up to a significant fact: the greatness of John’s impact. Men ask John if he were the Christ, the gospels tell us. For us because of Christ John is overshadowed but we must recognize how great he loomed in his day. Third John’s purpose was that men believe in the coming Christ, it was the testimony of John that brought Jesus His first disciples. The purpose of John the Baptist that men might believe in Jesus Christ is the Apostle John’s purpose in this gospel. So the two Johns have a common purpose: to manifest Christ, to point to Him. John the Baptist and John the Disciple. The word believe in the Greek is a form of a verb which John uses ninety nine times. Its meaning, its translation in English falsifies John’s meaning. Many languages are limited at key points where Christian faith is concerned and translation becomes difficult. For us to believe means credence, agreeing that something is true. But we’re told the devils in hell believe that God is and fear Him but they are not converted. In the New Testament it means a trust which places our life on the line.

Some forty years or more ago to illustrate the meaning of faith on an isolated Indian Reservation I was with a fine old Indian, we were on wagon and horses pulling it and we came to the river. And I wondered if the ice in nearly fall could hold us. To go through and have the ice break would mean we would get wet, there was snow on the ground everywhere, it would be miles before we could get somewhere to a fire and we’d freeze, we’d die before that happened. The old Indian got off and looked at the ice and he said given the heavy freezes of late the ice would be thick enough to support us and the wagon and the load of wood we would be later be bringing down. I could have said I believe you but no I think I’ll cross some other way if there is another way to cross. But by agreeing to go with him I showed faith in his judgment, I put my life on the line. Now that’s what biblical believing means: putting your life on the line. Putting our lives in our Lord’s hands in total faith, stepping out on the ice. The Gospel of John summons us to place our lives totally in Christ’s hands, this is believing, this is faith. In John 1:1 we are told:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

And the word in the Greek is e-n. In John 1:6 we are told that there was a man sent from God and here again was is a form of the same verb, the same word used in John 1:3 to make a difference between the eternal word and creation. Then in John 5:25 or 5:35 rather Jesus calls John the Baptist a burning and a shining light but the word light is there literally lamp. Jesus alone is the light. John the Baptist’s ministry was that all men might believe so that in John the world mission of the Old Testament is again set forth.

In verses nine through eleven John again turns to the word the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Jesus is the true or original light. The source of all life, all men are created in God’s image, in trying to define and order their lives without the triune God they are denying their light and life and choosing death. This word or life came into the world, the creator came into creation to serve all men and nations, more than that we are told He came to His own, Israel, the world knew Him not and His own received Him not. Men blinded by the fall refused to see the light, our Lord knew this would be the case, His atonement was necessary for men’s salvation. The rejection of the word, the way, the truth and the life was the acceptance of death. Christ crucified arose from the death but His accusers were destroyed by the Jewish Roman War of 66-70 A.D., the bloodiest war in all of history. The rejection of Christ the light meant that men chose death and destruction. In verses twelve and thirteen we have a plain reference to the virgin birth:

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The birth of our Lord was not of blood, that is, a human act nor of the will of the flesh by men’s choice nor of the will of men by men’s determination but by God’s supernatural act. The rebirth of all believers is compared here by John to the virgin birth. There is now a new life in us and the source of this new life is supernatural. Our conversion is a miracle patterned after the virgin birth. Adam was born entirely by God’s miraculous act, Jesus the last Adam was a member of Adam’s race, of all of us, by His mother Mary. He was a man, very man of very man, but He was conceived by the Holy Ghost and in His parentage was then very God of very God. We too while not at all divine by being born again are reborn supernaturally by the work of the triune God in us so that we belong to two realms. Until heaven and our perfect sanctification we are still members of the old humanity of the first Adam but we are also members of the new humanity of Jesus Christ, the new human race for the new creation which in all its fullness will be ushered in at the end of history. Our growth in this new humanity is made possible because all who are Christ’s are given power to become the sons of God by adoption. Thus the Christian is not an impotent person but a person of power. In verse fourteen John sums up the glory of the incarnation:

“God the word was made flesh, he dwelt among us and His glory, the glory of God the Son was made manifest. In Him was the fullness of grace and truth, God the Son became man, the new man to be the head of a new creation. “

Because he is the fullness of grace and truth there can be no truth apart from Hi nor any grace from any other man, gods or religion. The word dwelt, dwelt among us, is literally tabernacles or tented. For a lifetime, thirty three years, God the Son was on earth. His stay was temporary but His incarnation is an eternal reality. John in telling us that Jesus is the glory has in mind the presence of God in the holy of holies. That presence is now made flesh in Jesus. The words ‘made flesh’ are literally ‘became flesh’ the word did not temporarily inhabit or possess a child, He became one, He is truly man and He is the Adam or head of God’s new human race. It is in Him and into this new humanity that we are born again. Turning again to what we considered last week Calvin’s rendering of word or logos as speech we can see the cultural implications of this translation. Speech means communication and community. We have today what is called a communication gap between generations classes and races. Because of the fallen man’s sin man is accursed in every area of life and thought. There is no true communication n hell because there is a total separation from the logos. Speech in the sense of any community of being, hell is a speechless place. God the Son is the logos, the word, speech, and apart from Him men move into the ultimate speechlessness and meaninglessness. In Christ we find our voice, we are truly ourselves. He is the life giving word, the logos, who makes us in Him enabled to become the expression of God’s creating purpose in and through us. Let us pray.

Our Father we thank Thee that in Christ we are not speechless but come into our own. We thank Thee our Father, use us all the days of our life to express Thy kingdom, Thy justice, Thy truth, Thy son. We thank Thee for all Thy mercies in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

[Question] My understanding is that part of what makes hell hell is the absence of God.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question] But if God is everywhere is this a mystery?]

[Rushdoony] That’s a good question because we are told that if I make my bed in hell behold Thou art there. God is present in hell because He is omnipresent but He is totally outside the people of hell. He has separated Himself totally from them. This is why more than a few who have dealt with hell see it as a place of the ultimate psychic deformity, because having totally rejected the Lord the image of God is a warped minimal perverted thing, it’s no longer a witness in us except a condemnation. So that they can no longer give expression to that image of God in them, it’s only a condemnation eternally. And in that sense they are speechless. And it is interesting that the only one apart from Calvin who has picked up on that was John Paul Sartre the existentialist who while not a believer although supposedly he sent for a priest on his deathbed which may be true, but at any right in his play No Exit he shows people in hell, a number of them in a room, no one ready to see if the door is locked or not, they won’t try the door, talking to each other but hearing no one in essence talking to themselves. They are speechless. It’s strange that an existentialist should have produced such a play. Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Hell is a place of total anarchy. I pointed out more than once that both the Hebrew word and the Greek word for hell have reference to a city dump where nothing is related to anything else, you go to a dump and there’s a lot of junk thrown there. No meaningful connections. But if you go into the world at large in this chapel for example everything has a meaningful relationship to everything else. In your home everything is a meaningful context but in hell that disappears. It’s like a dump, nothing related to anything else, no meaningful context. Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] That’s a good question. The early church was overwhelmingly Jewish. In fact by the end of the first century the guess made by historians in terms of what they know was that there was a half a million Christians. Overwhelmingly they were Jewish. The Jewish element continued in the church in that the mission to the Jews on the part of the church continued so that there are a number of the early popes who were Jewish. As late as the year 1000 when Hildebrand was the pope as Gregory the 7th he had a name, a family name, that seemed to indicate a Jewish background. That has not been fully established but the conversions into Christianity from Judaism continued for centuries in fair numbers. They are again resuming in great numbers. Now the nation and the church or temple or synagogue rejected him so that the official agencies we might say of church and state, of his own, rejected him. So that while great numbers were converted the majority rejected him. Yes? \

[Question] Going back to the subject of hell and what you commented on hell, Mark makes a statement where the worm dieth not, can you elaborate on what that means in relationship to what you said earlier on the comments on hell, and questions too.

[Rushdoony] What about the worm?

[Question] Mark made a statement, the book of Mark made a statement about hell where the worm dieth not, can you elaborate on that?

[Rushdoony] Yes it speaks of the fires of hell and the worm, in any city dump you will have decay and worms. And in antiquity they would often burn that which was burnable so there would be fire and there would be worms. So that both are symbols of decay, of degeneration, of something which is nothing become less than nothing. And that imagery is used with regard to hell to indicate in whatever sense it is there is a destruction in hell.

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] What?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] I don’t know how you could translate it, we’re not given the knowledge of what it actually and totally is but enough imagery is used to indicate that it is hell. Any other questions or comments?

Well if not let us conclude in prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee for Thy word, the incarnate word, the written word. Thou hast not left us in ignorance nor left us alone. Keep us mindful that we are very rich in Christ, that in Him we are indeed more than conquerors and that we have an eternal destiny and joy in Jesus Christ. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.