The Unreceived Gift

He came to His own,

and His own did not receive Him.

John 1:11

Since John foreshadows the end of the story, I don't think it will do us any harm to skip there for a moment either. The saddest part of the greatest story ever told is that those who were meant to hear it and believe instead rejected it.

One in four babies born in the world are born in China, even with population control laws in place. Another fourth of the world's children are born in India, where there is no population control. But to neither of these two prolific and ancient civilizations was Jesus born. Christianity has often been touted as the White Man's religion, but Jesus wasn't born to European parents. It has been called a Western religion, but Jesus wasn't born in a Western Civilization. Jesus was a Jew, born to Jewish parents in the Jewish nation and raised as a Jew in a Jewish culture. He wasn't schooled by Eastern mystics or Egyptian sages or Western pagans. He was schooled as a Jew by Jews to grow up and be a Jew. Jesus came to the Jews.

It wasn't by accident that the Savior of the world had humble beginnings in a nation that seemed to be nothing more than the crossroads of greater civilizations. When God became flesh, taking on the form of a man, He did so as Jewish man. It wasn't an arbitrary choice, it wasn't happenstance or coincidental. It was deliberate and very intentional. For it was through the Jewish race that God has always revealed Himself to the world. Even though the ancient progenitors of all mankind could not be called Jews by any stretch of the word, there was a direct ancestry of holy men from which the Jewish people descended--Adam, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Shem, Eber, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, became the father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Twelve Tribes of Israel became a nation of three-million in Egypt, and it was through them that God brought His law to earth, carved in stone just for them. It was to Israel that God entrusted the mysteries of life, liberty, and the pursuit of true happiness--the joy of knowing and serving the Lord. It was to the Jews that He promised a deliverer; it was to Abraham, the father of the Jews, to whom the Lord promised blessing beyond imagination and descendants beyond number, and through whom the Lord promised He would bless all the nations of the earth.

So in fulfillment of His many great and precious promises to His Chosen People, when God became flesh, he came in Jewish flesh, a Jewish man come to save the Jews. He gave His life and ministry to help the Jews, to aid the Jews, the save the Jews. Some received Him. Some believed Him. But the saddest part of the greatest story ever told is that in the end, Jesus came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. They rejected Him as a nation, rejected Him as their Messiah, rejected Him as their king. And though that was a bad decision for them, it was a good decision for me. Because they did not receive Him, He was given in turn to the nations who were lost without God, lost without Him. And they received Him, and as many as did became the sons of God.

Knowable, but Unknown

He was in the world,

and the world was made through Him,

and the world did not know Him.

John 1:10

This passage just keeps getting richer for me; the more I look at it, the deeper each simple statement about Jesus becomes. Take this verse for instance.

Once more John emphasizes Jesus' role in creation--the world was made through Him. Jesus caused the universe--in the Greek, the cosmos--to come into existence. He was the spoken Word of God that brought it all to pass. He brought the world forth on a universal stage and caused all things to happen according to His Divine will, plan and purpose. In six days He finished the work, and on the seventh day he rested from the labors. Jesus made it all!

Then Jesus came into the world that He had made. The creator of the universe, eternally existent before anything was, stepped into His creation and made Himself known. Recently I heard someone comparing the human perspective of the created universe to the Divine perspective. From where we stand, the universe is enormous, unfathomable, unmeasurable. Just about the time look as far as we can through our giant telescopes, we invent a better telescope that shows us a universe still without end. And yet from God's standpoint, perhaps He sometimes says, "The universe? The universe? Now where did I put the universe?" The created cosmos may be big (and big is such a small term to describe the infinite wonders of creation), but our God is bigger still. In spite of that, He was still able to enter His creation as He willed and do as He willed.

Do you remember the old song:

How big is God?

How great and wide His vast domain.

To try to tell, these lips can only start.

He's big enough to rule the might universe

Yet small enough to live within my heart!

The Creator of all that is entered His Creation as part of it, but when He did, His Creation did not know Him. He knew His creations, but they did not know Him. He perceived everything in the cosmos and understood it, but the cosmos did not perceive His presence, nor understand Him. The world at large did not become acquainted with Him, though He became acquainted with them and all their sorrows. He knew them, but they did not know them. To put it a different way, even though they saw Him and heard Him and experienced Him in a close-up and personal way, they were never intimately knowledgeable about the heart of the One who came to them.

What a shame, what a sadness, what a tragedy. The Creator came into the world He had made, and the world did not know him. But He came so that they might know Him, and in knowing Him believe unto eternal life!

The First Witness

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

This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light

that all through him might believe.

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

That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

John 1:6-9

Each of the Gospel accounts, in their own unique way, connects John the Baptist with the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and with good reason. John the Baptist was the first witness for Jesus Christ. He was a man with a mission, sent to precede the Messiah with an urgent call for people to repent. There were special prophecies spoken over him before he was even conceived, spoken over him at his birth. Prophets of old made statements that were fulfilled in the man, John.

John could rightly be called the first apostle, as that is what is said of him in the original language. He was a man given orders from God, one both sent and driven by God. I believe there is the implication in the Greek that it also means he was ordered by God to go to an appointed place at an appointed time, which is why we know absolutely nothing about John the Baptist from the day of his birth until he appears on a wilderness stage along the Jordan River with his loud cry for repentance and commitment. He had no purpose in life but to bear witness to the Light, and until he had something to talk about, he had no reason to be in the public eye. But when Jesus was ready to enter the ministry, John was ready to witness it.

John was a man sent from God, and he had one purpose in life--he came to bear witness of the Light, that through him all who heard him might believe. He came to bear witness...Do you know what a witness does? The witness of a crime points there finger in a police line-up or in a courtroom and says, "That's the man." The witness of an event gives a detailed and accurate account of what they heard, saw and experienced first hand. The witness of a document signs their name and says, "I affirm that this document is faithful and true." John was sent from God to be a witness, and what an example he gave us!

One of the things I've always found most interesting about the Biblical concept of witness is the Greek word behind it: marturio. Though in the lexicons it is simply one who bears witness or gives testimony, the Greek word lends itself directly to another English word with an even more impacting application--martyr. A martyr is one who lays down their life for their belief or their message. Jesus commissioned His disciples to be witnesses, and said that the Holy Ghost would give them the power to do it. Every one of those men save John the Beloved Apostle, starting with John the Baptist, gave their lives as martyrs for the cause of Jesus Christ. They gave their lives in service to the message of repentance and salvation. They gave their all for Jesus! Perhaps most importantly of all, we need to understand that being a witness for Him is more than telling someone about Him. We must first die for Him, that we might live, and continually die everyday on the cross with Him, that He might live through us.

John came to bear witness of the Light, the true Light that gives Light to every person born on this planet, and John also understood that he himself was not that light. He had that Light shining upon Him, and He stood as a representative of the Light, but his life was limited. There are many things which give limited amounts of light--the flame of a candle or a lamp, the fire on a hearth, a spark from a stone, an electric lightbulb. But these all are limited in their extent and in their endurance. Eventually, a lightbulb burns out and a flame exhausts its fuel supply and goes out. None of these are true light, they only bear a resemblance.

Jesus is the true light, the real nature corresponding to the name of Light. He is the genuine article, the real deal, not a semblance but the reality of Light. He has no limitations, and He has no end. His Light will never be extinguished, and He shines everywhere! He shines His Light into the hearts and upon the lives of every person born, and to those who receive Him as Savior and Lord He gives His Light to guide them forever!

In Him Was Life

In Him was life,

and the life was the light of men.

And the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 1:4-5

In just five short verse, John has given us so much theology about the identity of Jesus Christ. He was the Word who was with God, who was God, who was in the beginning with God. All things that were made were made through Him, by Him, and for Him--and without Him nothing was made. He was life, and He was light! Wow, this Jesus that we serve is something wonderful!

In Him, the Gospel says, was life. He was the source of life. The giver and sustainer of life. So much of his identity, especially in John's record, is tied to life. Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Way the Truth and the Life. At the tomb of Lazarus He called Himself the Resurrection and the Life. He is life, and the life that He gives is the light of men.

Did you know we cannot survive without light? Turn off the sunlight, and we die. Going back to the beginning, which we have done with John repeatedly, we find that the first thing God said was, "Let there be light," and there was light. It was the first thing He created in Genesis. But if you read on in the creation account, you find that God did not create a sun, moon, or stars for four more days. How could there be light without a celestial body to shed it? Consider Revelation 21:23--the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.

Jesus Himself, eternally existent with God in the beginning, was the light that lit this planet for four days without a sun! Life and light begin with Him!

The light shines in the darkness; I mean, that's what it does. Try to define darkness, and really the only way to describe it is that darkness is the absence of light. There are many levels of light intensity, but there is only one degree of darkness. If it's dark, you can't see at all, but add one particle of light and suddenly things are visible. Shine a lot of light, and darkness turns into shadows and shades of gray. Shine enough light, and darkness dissipates completely. Jesus Christ is that kind of light. He shines a sovereign light into spiritual darkness and darkness has to flee.

In that spiritual sense, you must come to the light to understand the light. Just seeing the light of Christ shine gives you neither knowledge nor understanding. There were those who witnessed firsthand the things Jesus did, and still they did not know to believe. Still they doubted and questioned and wavered and refused to believe. The darkness did not comprehend the light. Many times our response to the light is, "Why does it have to shine so bright? Can't we dim the light just a little bit?" But He shines as light ever bright unto the perfect day! But there is in the language of the Bible the understanding that not only does the darkness not understand or comprehend the light, it cannot overcome the light.

Darkness is not the presence of anything that makes it dark; it is the absence of light. Darkness cannot combat the light, nor can it overcome or repress the light. It is always the light that wins out over the darkness every time it shines. Jesus is that kind of light!

Creative Power

All things were made through Him,

and without Him nothing was made that was made.

John 1:3

John has a way with words. It all seems so simple, and yet it's so deep. Jesus was the Word. He was in the beginning. He was with God. He was God. He was in the beginning with God. And through Him God made everything.

Everything that exists, everything that has ever existed or ever will exist, does so by the power of the spoken Word of God. Jesus was the breath and the sound and the voice of God. Jesus was the Word going forth from the presence of God to accomplish the Father's sovereign plan. We see it happening, witnessing from the darkness that first creative event when God simply was, when His Spirit hovered over the face of the deep. And then God said...

We know what He said. But John tells us in His Gospel that it was more than just speaking. When God uttered the command from His presence, the Word went forth, second person in the trinity in action because God spoke His will and His mind. The Word turned on the lights. The Word separated the ocean from the sky. The Word brought dry land out of the deep and caused it to produce plant life. The Word brought fish and birds from the sea, brought animals from the land. The Word brought forth man from the dust and breathed into Him the breath of life. All those things which God created He did so through the power of the Spoken Word.

Psalm 33:6 says that by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

Proverbs 8 personifies Wisdom as the creative agent of God, which is again the Spoken Word of God. Wisdom is the very mind, will and intention of God. Wisdom is the heart of God. Wisdom is that which framed the worlds and sustains them.

Paul writes in Colossians 1 that by the Spoken Word of God all things were created in heaven and on earth, both visible and invisible, even thrones, dominions, principalities and powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Get a hold of that! Jesus is the Spoken Word of God, the Verbal Inspiration of God, the Creative Power of God in voice. By Him all things were created. Through Him all things were created. And for Him all things were created. This planet was not the random collection of space dust thrown together by a swirling mess following the big bang; life here was not a random collision of proteins to form the first amino acids, which are key to DNA, the building blocks of all life; humanity is not some kind of cosmic evolutionary byproduct. God made us by Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. We were put here to look like Him and to be like Him. And David says we are fearfully and wonderfully made!

The Word

In the beginning

was the Word,

and the Word was with God

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

John 1:1-2

When the Apostle John put pen to paper for his telling of the story, he goes back to the beginning as well. Only he reaches back into the mists of eternity and starts at the very beginning...the same beginning Moses recorded 1500 years earlier, the same beginning spoken of in oral traditions around patriarchal campfires for 2500 years before that. He starts with the commencement and initiation of all things, at the very first.

Genesis has already established that at the very beginning, God was already there. In fact, that one simple statement is the foundational basis for everything the Scriptures have to offer us--in the beginning God. No explanation, no reasoning. Just that. In the beginning God. John shows us that the Gospel message, the good news about salvation, started before start. In the beginning was the Word.

Much has been made over the fact that Jesus was called the Word in John, or rather the logos. John will use the term over and over again in referring to Jesus Christ, the very embodiment of God, God made flesh, the fullness of the Godhead in human bodily form. Nothing that I can say about logos is a mystery or a revelation; any lexicon would tell you the same.

In Greek philosophy, logos was used "to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe."

Logos was a word spoken by a living voice, a word which embodies a conception or idea.

Logos was the sayings of God, the moral precepts of God, the decree and mandate of God.

Logos is prophecy, it is declaration with power, it is continuous dialogue and instruction, it is proclamation, it is testimony, it is narrative.

Logos is the subject, that which is spoken of.

Logos is the mind, reason, and will of God.

And just in case anyone missed his point, John says: The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Jesus was with God at the very beginning; when you read the Genesis account you find the reference to God creating, to the Spirit moving, and to the Word bringing things about. God said, and it was. That spoken command to be was Jesus. Though the word "trinity" never appears in the Bible, we understand from the very beginning of both the Old Testament and the New Testament that God was eternally existent in the triunity of God, Word, and Spirit, or Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Jesus was with God, Jesus was God; He always was God, and He was always with God. They are one, and yet different. They are two, and yet the same. What a wonderful, beautiful, mysterious concept!

One more thing might be said of Christ at the beginning. John says it here, In the beginning was the Word. In Revelation, John records the words of Jesus saying, I am the beginning and the end. Not only was John telling us when Jesus was in the opening line of his Gospel; he was also telling us who Jesus was--Jesus was the beginning.

The Beginning

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark 1:1

Every story has a beginning.

The greatest story ever told has it's beginnings, its roots and origins, in eternity past, for it is the story of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God eternally existent in three persons--Father, Son and Holy Ghost. For eon upon eon and so on with neither beginning nor end forever, He Was, He Is, and He Is To Come. But on a night 2012 years ago, the Holy Ghost moved upon and overshadowed a Jewish virgin, through His sovereign power conceiving in her womb the Father's Only Begotten Son. And that's where this story begins.

The story itself is good news to the world. At a time when things are so bad, or at the very least uncertain, in our world, there is still good news, and only one source for that good news. It is found in this which we call Gospel. When disorder, depression, disease, divorce, and death seem to be the overriding factors in our society, there is good news. When war and terrorism and violence among men is all we hear, there is good news. When lust and greed and envy and sloth and gluttony and wrath and pride are the celebrated virtues of the day, encouraged and fulfilled in whatever way seems best to us, there is good news. When sin abounds and the love of many has grown cold, there is good news.

And the good news is this--that Jesus came to save us!

At the heart of this story is the principal character, the one about whom the story is and around whom the story revolves. He is Jesus, whose name means God is Salvation. From His inception within the eternal Godhead to His conception in the womb of a virgin, from His birth in humble surroundings to His death with the base and His burial with the rich, and from His victory over death and hell by His resurrection from the dead to His promised return to rule and to reign, He is salvation for all who will believe and receive this good news!

He is also the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. He is the one chosen to redeem us from our sins, slain before the foundation of the world was ever laid, always destined from time immemorial to be the Savior of All. He is the Anointed Prophet, for He came proclaiming the Word of God. He is the Anointed Priest, for He ever lives to make intercession for us at the right hand of the throne of God. He is the Anointed King of Kings, and He shall reign forever and ever! He was conceived under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and later commissioned by the coming of the Holy Ghost upon Him, and He read the words that said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me and has anointed Me!"

Not only is He Jesus Christ, the Anointed Savior, but He is also the Son of God. He was one with God from the beginning of eternity, but at the beginning of His earthly mission, He willingly took off the glory of the Godhead and came in the form of a humble servant, weak in the flesh, but still the Son. Though we are all called sons of God, He was the only begotten, the only one ever conceived simply by the power of the Word of God and the Will of God. He came from the Father, yet He was always one with the Father. He came to do the will of the Father, and fulfilled it completely before He returned to the presence of the Father. And one day He will return and gather us to Himself that He may present us to the Father as sons also, sons not by birth but by choice, His choosing and ours.

This is the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.