Video
“In The Beginning Pt. 2”
John 1:1-5
Pastor Ryan J. McKeen
01/26/25
Audio
Transcript
Turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter one. As you can see in your bulletin, this sermon is titled, In the Beginning, Part Two, because we’re really finishing the sermon from a couple weeks ago. We began a series in the Gospel of John in January, and now it’s the last Sunday of January, and we’re on verse three. So, but I’m quite sure that we can get through this passage this morning through verse five.
A couple of weeks ago, we started at verse one, and we saw that verses one through five of John chapter one, the beginning of this book, as we talked about, is really John’s thesis statement. It’s his, I’m going to tell you what I’m writing about. This is the whole argument condensed down to one paragraph. This is everything that John wants to tell us in a short form.
Now, he’s going to expand on these ideas, and there’s a lot more that we’ll see in the book, but if you could boil it down to one paragraph, this is it, verses 1 through 5. And so we need to treat this whole paragraph as one section of Scripture. And that’s what we’re doing here. Again, as we began last time with verses 1 and 2, that was our first point, and that was that Christ is preexistent, or that He always was, to put it in simpler terms. that there was no beginning to Christ.
Now while he was born of a virgin and there was a time where his in-flesh life began as the man, Christ Jesus, there was a beginning to that. But as far as the Son of God, Christ before taking on human flesh, he always was. There was no beginning. And as we talked about last time, this paragraph of Scripture, this condensed summary of the Gospel of John is so packed with meaning and significance in every single word. And we see some significant areas of what we need to believe about Christ, or our Christology, if you will, our doctrine of who Christ is. And that’s really what structures this text.
We saw again last time the pre-existence of Christ. That’s one doctrine of who Christ is. Then we’ll see in verse three here, the power of Christ. And then in verse four, we see the self-existence of Christ. So we saw the pre-existence, and then we’ll see the self-existence, that he has life in himself. And then lastly, as we come to the close of this passage in verse five, we will see the mission of Christ. And we’re gonna get through all that this morning. Again, we started last week with our first point, and that was in verses one and two, that the word always was.
He always was. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. Jesus Christ is eternally And as we talked about, he enjoys that face-to-face communion, that face-to-face relationship with God. That’s what that phrase, he was with God, really signifies. He’s face-to-face with Him. He came and He took on flesh so that He could save people from their sins. And He is Himself God. He always was the Word. He always had that face-to-face relationship, and He always has been God. All of that is contained in those first two verses that we covered last time.
And today, we’ll see the remainder of what John has to tell us right at the outset. So I’m going to read the first five verses of John chapter 1 again, John 1, 1 through 5. This is the word of the Lord. was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him. And apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
So we’ll pick up here in verse three to continue the study of this passage with the second point, which is the power of Christ. The power of Christ. And we see that in the power of creation. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.
So here, John tells us a profound truth, once again, with the clearest language. Jesus Christ, the Word, created everything that came into being. Everything that is, is because of Him. And then John emphasizes it by repeating it negatively. Positively, all things came into being through him. And in case you missed it, nothing’s come into being that’s come into being without him. Jesus Christ created everything. Every single thing that is came through him. You see this in other passages of Scripture.
Colossians chapter 1 speaks in this, speaks of Christ’s preeminence and in verse 16 of Colossians 1 it says, for in him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. There Paul. lists everything he can think of. So you get the idea that it’s everything, everything that is, is through him and for him. And we looked at Hebrews chapter one, when we were studying the first two verses of this passage, and in verse two there, in Hebrews one, it says, in these last days, he spoke to us through his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the worlds. Jesus Christ created all things. All things are created through him.
And this fact that John states as clear as he can, gives us two more proofs, two more pieces of evidence that prove to us that Jesus Christ is God. First, in order to be creator of all things, Everything that exists, you must be uncreated yourself. Everything that is comes from a single source, the Creator. And we know from Scripture that only God is named as uncreated. Only God is the one who is never mentioned as being created. And in fact, the way this is written here, there’s a contrast and an emphasis between what’s said about the Word in verse one that’s repeated, that the Word was. He was. That’s a state of being.
He always was. He always was the Word. He always was with God. And He always was God. He just was. There was no time where He wasn’t. There is no time where he came to be, he was. And then you get here to verse three, and it uses a different verb, came into being, or was created, or made. It’s a contrast there. The word never was created, it never came into being, it just was. And yet everything else was not. Everything else came into being. Unlike everything that exists, Jesus Christ is uncreated, which means that Jesus Christ is God.
And secondly, the second proof we have here is the weight of the rest of Scripture that tells us God is the one who created. And so if John is correct that the word Jesus Christ created, the logical conclusion is that Jesus Christ is in fact God. We see all over scripture, right from the very first verse of scripture, Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And how did he do that? He said, let there be, and so on and so forth. He created with his word. And John is saying, yes, the word through which all things were created, came in the flesh. That word, the one which was creating all things.
You see in Isaiah, I mentioned a few times, Isaiah chapter 40, verse 28. Do you not know, have you not heard, the everlasting God, the God who always was, Yahweh, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is unsearchable. God created the ends of the earth.
And in chapter 42, which I read to open our service this morning, verse 5. Thus says God, Yahweh, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. God is the creator. And he created all things through the word. Nothing came into being that has come into being without God creating it through the Word. And here John says, that Word is Jesus Christ. Jesus had the power to create the world and everything in it.
So Jesus’ power is the power of God, the power that only God has. And we know from Scripture that this world that He created, it’s not in the state that He created it in. This world is cursed by sin. Because of the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden, the curse came upon all creation. That’s why He came in the flesh. Jesus came to redeem his people and to redeem the world he created. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8 that the curse has affected all of the world. Romans 8:19-21, for the anxious longing of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility. not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. That is what we look forward to, the hope that all things will be restored when all of creation is set free, redeemed from the curse of sin.
And not only is Jesus the Word, the one who created everything, He is also the one who will redeem and restore everything. And it’s no coincidence that John goes straight from his discussion here in the first two verses about the relationship between the Word and God to the discussion of creation. The word, why did he use the word? Well, that’s the self-revelation of God. That’s how God reveals himself. That’s how he tells us who he is. Well, the self-revelation of God came to us first in creation. God first reveals himself by creating by his word. He said, let there be.
That’s God’s revelation, first and foremost, to mankind. But that self-revelation of God comes to us more fully and more clearly in his incarnate word, Jesus Christ. In the revelation of God’s plan to redeem his people, through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that’s why creation and salvation are so closely connected in the New Testament. They’re often mentioned together. Because God revealed himself in creation first, then he revealed himself in his son, who came to redeem that creation. And John says, all things came into being through him.
We see in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, Paul say the same thing. 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6 is Paul’s reframing of the Shema from Deuteronomy 6.4, where the nation of Israel was told, you need to believe this. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. We have one God, and Paul, due to the further revelation of the Word of God in the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, he reveals to us in 1 Corinthians 8.6, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one Lord. Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through Him. All things are from the Father, but they come by the Son.
And creation was an act of God. A unified act of all three persons of the Trinity. We just saw they’re from the Father, through the Son, and we know from Genesis chapter 1 verse 2 that the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. The entire Trinity created. And God created all things by the power of His Word. He spoke all things into existence. Jesus’ power is the power of the Creator, the power of God.
So we’ve seen the pre-existence of Christ, that’s what we started with. Now we’ve seen the power of Christ. And the third point in this text is the self-existence of Christ. The self-existence. We’ll talk about what that means here. But in verse 4 of John chapter 1, we see, was life. And the life was the light of men. In him was life. Now this means more than just that he was alive. Because in a sense, there’s life in all of us. If you’re sitting here breathing, you have life in you. But it means more than that here. In him was life. Christ, the word, is the embodiment of life. He embodies the glorious, eternal life and light of heaven.
Life is one of John’s favorite concepts, one of the favorite illustrations he uses to explain who Christ is in his gospel and in his letters. He uses this word life 36 times. And that word is only used 17 other times in the whole New Testament. So John likes this illustration. And typically in John, not always, but usually, it refers to this idea of eternal spiritual life with God. A gift of God through his son. Just to give you a kind of a survey of what John says in the Gospel of John about Jesus being the life.
In chapter 10, verse 10, he came that people might have life and have it more abundantly. In chapter 3, verse 16, a well-known verse, he died so that people would have everlasting life. Chapter 6 verse 51, he gave his flesh for the life of the world. And a few verses later in 53 and 54, only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood can have that life. Chapter 5 verse 40, only those who come to him have life. Chapter 10, again verse 18, he had power to lay his life down and to take it up again, and he did just that. And then verse 28, he gives life. When he gives life, people no longer perish. He gives life to Lazarus in chapter 11. And twice, in chapter 11 and chapter 14, he says that he is the life. Chapter 11, he says, I am the resurrection and the life. Chapter 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus is the life. What that means here, here in chapter 1 verse 4, is further explained to us in chapter 5 verse 26. Chapter 5 verse 26 where Jesus says, for just as the father has life in himself, even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself. So this life principle. This idea of spiritual life, eternal life. It comes from the Father and it is in the Son. And He gave to the Son to have life in Himself. Life is found in the Word, in Christ. And while John is explaining this to us in a clearer way, this is not a new idea. That life, eternal life, spiritual life for God’s people comes through the Word. That’s nothing new. This is the very thing that Moses explained to the Israelites before they went into the land. In Deuteronomy chapter 30.
Turn to Deuteronomy 30. Deuteronomy chapter 30 is Moses’ final sermon. before he leaves the Israelites, before he passes away. And starting in verse 15, he speaks to them about the importance of life and how they can attain this life, how they can have this life from God. Chapter 30, verse 15 of Deuteronomy.
Moses says, “‘See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and calamity, in that I am commanding you today to love Yahweh your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply and that Yahweh your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. If your heart turns away and you will not listen, but you are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death. and the curse. So, choose life in order that you may live, you and your seed. And this is the important part, by. So you choose life by loving Yahweh your God, by listening to his voice and holding fast to him. For this is your life. and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
How were the people of Israel to have this life? This life that’s a gift from God. This blessed life of being God’s people and living together with Yahweh, their God. How would they have it? by loving God and listening to his word and obeying it. Life was found by listening to the word of God. Life was found in his word. And John says, life is still found in the word of God. And the word became flesh. Jesus Christ is the Word of God in the flesh, and he has come. He came to be the light of men. John changes the metaphor here. He is the life, and the life was the light of men. John brings in another of his favorite concepts, another of his favorite ideas, and that is the light. One of John’s favorite contrasts is the light versus the darkness. We saw this as we studied John’s letters.
In 1 John 1, verse 5, probably the best explanation of what he means by the light, 1 John 1, 5, and this is the message we have heard from him, and declare to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. And here in John 1, John links the word Jesus Christ with the light. And John, again, will continue this theme through the gospel as well, as this is a summary statement of what is to come. We see throughout John 8, verse 12, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will never walk in darkness. but will have the light of life.” Jesus Christ is the light of the world. Chapter 12, Jesus says, I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. What are the first recorded words of God in the Bible? Let there be light. John says here that the Word is the source of light. And the light we have, whether we walk in it, whether we turn our backs to it and remain in darkness, that light comes from the Word. That light is the light of men.
So the life and the light cannot be separated. They are linked together. Just like how the word was with God, the word was God, the light is the life. That life was the light of men. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. This is the self-existence of the Word. He exists because He is. He doesn’t rely on anything to be what He is. Paul explains this in Athens in Acts chapter 17 when he’s explaining to them the God that they do not know, the unknown God. Paul explains exactly who this God is.
Acts 17:24-25, he says, the God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. He doesn’t need anything. You couldn’t give him anything if you wanted to, because he doesn’t need it. Instead, he gives all things. That is God. That is what makes God, God. He doesn’t need anything. He is self-existent. And here John says, that is the word. That is Christ.
It’s another clear evidence of Jesus’ deity, that he is God. So John’s trying to make a clear point for us over and over again in these first few verses. Jesus is God. And this truth of God’s and Christ’s self-existence, having life in themself, It’s a foundational truth for our Christian faith. Everything else in all creation, in the whole universe, is created. It has its source in God. God just is. He doesn’t rely on anybody or anything to be who he is. He is what he is and he does not change.
So one of the first steps to being a Christian is realizing there’s a difference between the creator and creation. God is God and nothing else and no one else is. It’s like the song we sang a few weeks ago, Christ Our Wisdom. There’s that line in that song, you are God and we are not. That’s what it means to be God. That’s what distinguishes him from his creation. He is self-existent. We depend upon him. And here John says, the one who is self-existent, the one we depend on, the one who has life in himself, is the word, Jesus Christ. Jesus is God. So we’ve seen the pre-existence of Christ, the power of Christ, And now the self-existence of Christ. And that brings us, lastly, to verse five. And all that John is building toward is the mission of Christ. The mission of Christ. We’ve seen what he is, and now we’re gonna see why. Why he came.
John 1:5, And the light shines into the darkness. And the darkness did not overtake it. John continues the use of the light metaphor here. And he tells us why the light is so important. Because it does what light always does. It shines into the darkness. It illuminates. It gives clarity and sight The darkness is the kingdom of this world. The kingdom of Satan. And the darkness is the state of all humanity without Christ. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, and all of their offspring would be born into sin, they would be born with a sin nature. They would be born in darkness. It’s as if in that moment, when Adam and Eve sinned and they, before, lived in perfect light with God, face-to-face communion with God, they made that choice and sinned and the lights went out. And they live in darkness. And everyone who comes after them lives in darkness.
As the Apostle Paul describes in Ephesians 2, Verses 1-3, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formally conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature Children of wrath, even as the rest. That’s the darkness. But John says, the light has come. And he shines into the darkness. And you need to notice something very important about what John says here. He says, it shines. Not it shined or it shone. It’s shining. It shines into the darkness. That’s present tense. It’s shining now. Jesus came once. for all, to die for sins once and for all, but his light still shines. It shines into this dark world.
It’s like I read in John 12:46, I have come, this is Jesus speaking, I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. That is his mission. He came to provide light so that his people would not remain in darkness. If you look down a few verses, in verse nine of chapter one, as we’ll get to in a few weeks here, there was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone. And as hard as the darkness tried, verse 5 says, the darkness could not or did not overtake it. That’s past tense. It currently shines because Satan failed. That’s over. It did not overtake it and the people who are in the darkness hate the light.
We’ll see in a couple chapters in chapter three, Jesus explaining how people hate the light. John 3:19 and 20, this is the judgment that the light has come into the world and men love the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds be exposed.” People love their sin. We love our sin. People love the darkness. No one loves Christ and no one comes to Christ unless the light shines upon them and enlightens them to see. And listen to the progression of the light throughout the gospel.
As this gospel goes on, there is a progression with this light. First, Jesus says there in chapter eight that I read, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. In chapter nine, verse five, while I’m in the world, I am the light of the world. Chapter 11, verses nine and 10, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. And then as he goes in his ministry, chapter 12, Jesus says, for a little while longer, the light is among you. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness will not overtake you. He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light.
Believe in the light. That is the mission of Christ. That is why he came. He came so that you would believe in him. He came so that you would see him and believe he is the son of God. He came so that you would believe that he took your sins upon himself. on the cross. And if you believe in him, he came for you. He came so that you would believe, and that by believing, you would have life in his name.
So if you have not yet trusted Christ as your Savior, You need to come to the light of the world today. Come out of your sin and darkness. Come to the light. And if you are already in the light, if you’re a Christian, and you trust in Christ as your Savior, the light shines into the world. So let your light shine. before men. Let the light of Christ in you be seen by those in the darkness. Tell others about Christ. The darkness cannot overtake it, so let your light shine.”
That is the thesis of John’s gospel. That is what he’s writing about. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines into the darkness. The darkness does not overtake Him. Believe in Him and have life in His name.
Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer. Our God and Father in heaven, we are humbled. brought to our knees by a passage of scripture like this, all that you’ve done for us, for your people, this plan that only you could have, the world that you created, that rebelled against you, that hated you, you sent your son to save. Lord, we thank you for Christ, for sending your son as a light into the world, for giving us the light to see who he is and to believe and have life in his name. Lord, give us opportunities. Give us the courage. Give us the wisdom to shine your light into the darkness. We praise you for who you are. We pray all of this in the name of your precious son, Jesus Christ. Amen.