John and the Word

Jesus Came Before John

John 1:15 John bore witness of Him and cried, saying, “This was He of whom I spoke, ‘He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”

The key is what we have already seen in John’s use of the word, “He tented among us.” John saw Jesus as the final appearance in history of a glory that had been seen before, that was present in the circumstance around the wilderness tabernacle.

John the Apostle is telling us that John the Baptist revealed to him that Jesus of Nazareth, this Stranger of Galilee, was a human tent in which was hidden a remarkable glory, the glory of God, full of grace and truth.

Jesus, Grace In Perfection

John 1:6 And of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

The covenant of law, then, is seen as a gracious gift from God, now replaced by a further gracious gift, the ‘grace and truth’ embodied in Jesus Christ—here named for the first time as the human being who is nothing other than the Word-made-flesh.

The Law makes demands. It is hard, cold, unyielding, without mercy. Moses did not originate it, but he gave it.
Moses may disappear, but the Law remains—cold, unyielding, demanding, without mercy.

Take away Jesus and you take away grace and truth. He is the channel of both.

God’s First Appearance

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.

Moses saw the afterglow of the divine. He saw the form of the LORD’ (Numbers 12:8). Isaiah saw the hem of the LORD’s garment that filled the temple. No one has ever seen ultimate reality, (God) the truth behind all things. No one can find ultimate truth—except in Jesus!

John Paves The Way For Jesus

John 1:23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah.

The religious leaders wanted to know what authority John had to preach; they questioned him extensively.

God had promised, through the prophet Malachi (4:5), that He would send the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

John’s reply is very clear, he said “I am none of these.”

John Baptizes

John 1:24 And those who were sent were of the Pharisees. 25 And they asked him, and said unto him,  “Why dost thou baptize then if thou art not that Christ, nor Elijah, neither that Prophet?”

Their interest is in what authorizes John’s baptismal practices. John baptized, and the authority on which he did that triggered the assumption in the minds of at least some Pharisees that John’s baptism was an end-time rite administered by an end-time figure with great authority.

John Discloses the Purpose of Jesus

John 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming unto him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world!”

Many at that time saw the Messiah as one who would come in terrible judgment and clean up the sin in Israel. In this light, what John the Baptist meant by ‘who takes away the sin of the world’ may have meant more than an expiatory (act of atoning for sin) sacrifice.

Jesus, The Son Of God

John 1:34 And I saw and bore record that this is the Son of God.

That is a claim to deity. Every Hebrew would understand that if you say of someone, “He is the son of something,” you are claiming that he is characterized by that very thing. By this phrase, John claims, ‘if Jesus is the Son of God,
then He is God Himself.’

That is a greater claim than to say that Jesus is Messiah. As the Messiah, Jesus is no longer on this planet. As the Messiah, two thousand years ago He ascended into the heavens; and He has been seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, waiting to come back again. He is not here, as the Messiah. We join with our Jewish friends in looking for the coming of the Messiah, because He is not yet here in that capacity. But as the Son of God, He is the One standing right in our midst.

John is declaring that Jesus is the fulfiller of all the promises of old, of all the predictions of the Old Testament.
He is the answer to all the unexplained sacrifices. He is the satisfier of the unfulfilled longings of men,
because He is the Son of God.

That is the good news for us today.