Each year as I'm planning out the messages for
the months ahead, I come to this slot of time
before Christmas. And I ask myself a question
that sort of goes like these adapted words from
one of our hymns. What more can I say than to
them I have said regarding Christmas? And yet
as I find myself reading through the texts of
Christmas and thinking over the theme, Each year
it seems the Lord brings some truth to my heart
that refreshes me, that I want to share with
you. That is true with the theme for these four
weeks of Christmas in 1992, as we talk about
the glory of Christmas. The Christmas narrative,
of course, includes many glorious events. We
have, for example, the appearance of Gabriel
to both Mary and Joseph, with the announcement
to each of them of the virgin conception of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And then there are the heavenly
messengers that appear to shepherds interrupting
their evening chores with the news of the birth
of the Christ in Bethlehem nearby. What glory
is involved in these angelic appearances and
announcements. And then there is that special
heavenly body, that unique star which directed
the Magi from the East to Palestine and eventually
to Bethlehem to seek and to worship the King
born for the Jews. There is glory in that. But
the greatest glory of Christmas is a glory that
is hidden from human eyes. It was not the glory
of Gabriel as he appeared to Mary and Joseph.
It was not the glory of the angels as they came
to the fields of the shepherds. It was not the
glory of that star that directed the wise men.
No, the greatest glory was the glory that was
within the babe born in the manger. God hid the
greatest glory of Christmas. within human flesh.
This is not the first time that God hid His glory
from human eyes. You recall that when the tabernacle
was constructed in the Old Testament, God ordered
them to build that tent of the meeting in a certain
way, and there was this innermost compartment
that was called the Holy of Holies, into which
no one was allowed except the High Priest, and
He only once a year. And it was within that place,
the Holy of Holies, that God hid His glory, the
Shekinah glory, His presence. This series that
we're going to study will seek to describe and
to disclose some aspects of the glory of Jesus
Christ. I invite you to turn with me this morning
as we begin to the seventeenth chapter of the
Gospel of John. Our study is going to be focused
on John in these upcoming weeks, and we begin
today with verse 5 of chapter 17. And now, Father,
glorify me in your presence with the glory I
had with you before the world began. The glory
of Jesus Christ is revealed in his pre -existence.
That is the doctrinal truth that I want you to
grasp afresh this morning. The glory of Jesus
Christ is revealed in his pre -existence. The
Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world,
the Lord Jesus, is eternal. and as eternal God
he existed before the universe. This is not some
small peripheral truth. This is a foundational
truth to our faith. It is essential to the doctrine
of the deity of Christ. If he is God, then he
must be without boundary with regards to time.
In other words, he must be eternal. And if he
is eternal, then he must be God. The Lord Jesus
Christ existed before time began. There are four
truths about the glory of his pre -existence
that I want us to look at this morning. First
of all, the glory of his pre -existence reveals
his eternal relation. Secondly, the glory of
his pre -existence was manifested in his work
of creation. Thirdly, the glory of his pre -existence
was unaltered by the incarnation. And finally,
the glory of his pre -existence was enhanced
by salvation. Let's think about those four truths
before we go our way on this Lord's Day. First,
the glory of Christ's pre -existence reveals
his eternal relation. Notice in this verse the
Lord Jesus is praying to God the Father and he
says to him, and now Father, glorify me in your
presence with the glory I had with you before
the world began. By the world he means this ordered
universe, not just the globe on which we live.
Jesus Christ claims here to have been with the
Father before the universe was created. This
is not the first time, of course, that John presents
this truth. Go back to the very first chapter
with me and review again this first verse of
the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the
Word And the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The word or the logos, as the Greek
term is, means a thought or a concept. And then
its expression, it being revealed, the logos.
It had a meaning to the Hebrews, it had a meaning
to the Greeks. But John sanctifies the term and
gives it a biblical spiritual meaning when he
says that Jesus Christ can be called the Logos.
What he is saying is that in Jesus Christ we
have the full mind of God. Everything that God
is, is in Jesus Christ. And he is the expression
of all that God is. That's what the term word
means. It's not impersonal, it's personal as
verse 14 makes perfectly clear. It is the person
of Jesus Christ who is the word. And there are
three facts about the word that we see in verse
1. First it says that he was in the beginning.
The emphasis is upon, in the beginning, he was.
Here we have a statement like that of Genesis
1 .1. In fact, it's allusion and allusion to
that verse. John is referring here to the inception
or the genesis of the universe. And what he says
is, when that took place, That inception of all
things the beginning the Genesis the word was
The John puts that in a tense in the Greek that
means the word already was in existence The word
already has been When the Genesis took place
says John Tenney says, the expression does not
refer to a particular moment of time but assumes
a timeless eternity. In other words, when the
clock began to tick on the universe, when matter
was brought into existence, and we'll talk about
that in a moment, at that time the Word already
had been. He's not a part of creation. He's not,
as some false teachers try to tell us, the first
thing that God created. As God Himself, He already
had been in timeless existence when Genesis 1
-1 took place. The second fact that we see about
the Word is that He was with God. Now, the preposition
here, with, can mean a lot of things in English.
It can also mean a lot of things in the language
in which John wrote. The literal meaning of it
is to be face -to -face or to be toward. It's
describing here in this preposition a relationship
between the two parties. It is the most intimate
kind of relationship. to face relationship. It's
not merely two who are walking together and with
each other, but they are with each other. And
what it says is that the word Jesus Christ was
an intimate communion with God when Genesis 1
-1 took place. It didn't begin then. It already
had been from timeless eternity. Not only was
he in intimate communion with God, but notice
that he is in distinction from God. That seems
to be a contradiction, doesn't it? How can it
be that the Word was with God and the Word was
God at the same time? Well, the answer to that
is found in the mystery of the triunity of the
Godhead. That God is one and yet God eternally
exists in three persons, God the Father, God
the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and they are
distinct, separate, individual, and yet all of
the same essence, the same substance, they are
all God, all deity, one God. And so it can be
said that the Word was an intimate communion
with God that is equal with God and that the
Word was God. And John says here literally, and
God was the Word. He's really emphasizing the
fact that the Word was deity himself. He is not
identical with the Father, but he is of the same
essence as the Father, of the same nature as
the Father. So what do we see here? Well, the
glory of Christ's pre -existence shows to us
His eternal relation. As God the Son, He was
eternally related to God the Father and God the
Holy Spirit, equal of the same substance with
them, and yet distinct from God the Father and
God the Spirit. the glory of His eternal relationship
to the Trinity. The second truth that we want
to see is that the glory of His pre -existence
was manifested in the work of creation. John
summarizes verse 1 and verse 2, but goes on in
verse 3 to say, Through Him, the Word, all things
were made. And without him nothing was made that
has been made. By the way, notice here that all
things were made. All things don't come out of
matter, which is eternal, which is a fundamental
doctrine of evolution. It is also a part of the
Big Bang Theory, that matter has always existed.
The Bible says that all things were made. That
there was a time when they were not. They didn't
exist. And then they were made. They came into
existence. They became. And this happened not
through a process, but through an event that
took place. And what we learn in this verse is
regarding the glory of Christ's pre -existence
that he participated in creation. The glory of
his pre -existence is that he is the creator.
We hear this. And sometimes it gets to be customary
and usual. Just think with me a moment about
what we're talking about. Just take for example
one star in all of the universe that we call
the Sun. If the Sun that shines out there, not
on Minnesota, at least it seems that way in the
last month, but that Sun that shines up there
in the heavens, if it were a hollow ball, You
could fit inside of that hollow ball 1 ,200 ,000
planet Earths and have room left over for 4 ,300
,000 moons to stuff in around the corners. That's
just the Sun. The nearest star to us is called
Alpha Centauri. And that nearest star is five
times bigger than our sun. Beltikis, which is
one of the visible stars in the constellation
called Orion the Hunter, that one star visible
in that one constellation is 248 times bigger
than our sun. And Arcturus, is 10 times bigger
than Delta Geese. In other words, it's 2 ,480
times bigger than our Sun, which takes over a
million Earths and over four million moons to
fill. Now we're just talking about the size of
some of these heavenly bodies. By the way, Arcturus
and Orion, as well as some of the other constellations
are mentioned in the Bible, Job 9, Job 38. God
points to them, and he says, you want to see
my glory? Look at this. Light travels at 186
,000 miles a second. That's faster than most
preachers drive. 186 ,000 miles a second. Do
you know that it would take you a second and
a half to get to the moon, if you could do it?
A second and a half to get all the way to the
moon. Now let's suppose you wanted to go a little
further and go to Mercury. It would take you
four and a half minutes only. Or that you wanted
to go to Jupiter. You could be there in 35 minutes
at the speed of light. Or if you wanted to go
all the way to Saturn and see those rings, it
would take you 60 minutes, just an hour, at the
speed of light to get there. Now we haven't gone
out of our solar system yet. So let's do that.
Let's go beyond our own solar system to go to
the nearest star, to this star that's called
Alpha Centauri. How long would it take us to
get there to examine this heavenly body that
is five times bigger than our sun? At the speed
of light, it will take you four years and four
months to get to the nearest star outside of
our own solar system. if you were real ambitious,
and you said, I'd like to get beyond our galaxy
and go beyond the Milky Way. It has a nice ring
to it, doesn't it? Milky Way. The next solar
system, or next galaxy out there, Snickers, right?
Let's suppose you wanted to get beyond the Milky
Way, and that's just this one galaxy in which
we are a little pinpoint. How long would it take
you to get to the edge of the galaxy that we
live in? At the speed of light now, and remember
the speed of light you can be to the moon in
a second and a half. You want to get to the edge
of our galaxy, it will take you a hundred thousand
years at the speed of light. That's just our
Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way galaxy is made
up of a hundred billion stars at least. That
takes Carl Sagan to really say that. So I'll
try to say it like he does. Out there in the
universe, there are billions of galaxies. Some
smaller, some bigger than our Milky Way. Now,
the glory of Jesus Christ's pre -existence is
manifested in the fact that He created all of
that. It says here, through Him all things were
made. It doesn't just mean all things in a big
lump. It means all things individually and particularly.
That's the word. That's the meaning of it. He
is the agent of creation. The scriptures say
that through Him all things were made. On your
own some time, look up 1 Corinthians 8, 6, or
Colossians 1, 16 and 17. But turn with me now
to Hebrews chapter 1, just for a moment, because
I want you to see that not only did he bring
all of this into existence, not only does he
keep it all together, But it all will find its
destiny in Him as its creator. Now if we had
time to point out the context, you would see
in Hebrews 1, it's talking about Jesus Christ.
And God says about Him and to Him, quoting here
now from Psalms, beginning in verse 10, Now,
here's God the Father speaking to God the Son.
He says, In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the
foundations of the earth, and the heavens are
the work of your hands. They will perish, but
you remain. They will all wear out like a garment,
like a pair of socks. They're just going to wear
out. You will roll them up like a robe, like
a garment they will be changed, but you remain
the same and your years will never end." He points
again to the eternal Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he says that the glory of his eternity,
of his pre -existence, was manifested in his
work of creation. The third truth I want us to
see is that the glory of Christ's pre -existence
was unaltered by his incarnation. Going back
again to the Gospel of John, the first chapter,
we come to a verse that will be our key verse
for next week. But we want to point to it this
morning as we say the Word became flesh and made
His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory,
the glory as of the one and only who came from
the Father full of grace and truth. The glory
of Jesus Christ in His pre -existence was unaltered
when He came in human flesh. It was hidden. His
glory was hidden in that flesh, but it was not
diminished. It was not altered by his union with
humanity. His glory remained intact during his
earthly ministry. And John tells us that at that
wedding feast of Cana, Jesus began to show forth
his glory. That is, He began to give man a peek
at what was inside of him and who he really was
by the miracle of changing the water into wine.
And so he stood before his enemies in John chapter
8 and verse 58 and he said to them, before Abraham
was, what? I am. He's pointing back 1800 years.
Almost as much time had passed from Abraham's
day to Jesus as from Jesus' day to ours. And
he says to these people who were denying who
he was, God himself, before Abraham was, 1800
years ago, I am. Many of you know that when he
said, I am, and had a particular meaning to the
Jews because God revealed himself to Moses by
that special name there at the burning bush.
Moses said, who will I say has sent me? God said,
tell them that I am has sent you. It's the name
for God. Jesus is claiming here that before Abraham
even was born, he was in existence continually
as God. In John chapter 3 and verse 13, he says,
No one has ever gone into heaven except the one
who came from heaven, the Son of Man. We don't
have time to look at the context there. I simply
point out to you that Jesus says the Son of Man
came from heaven. That's his origin. Micah, speaking
hundreds of years before he was born in Bethlehem,
named Bethlehem as the birthplace of Messiah
and said that out of Bethlehem would come forth
he whose goings forth had been from days of eternity.
That is his actions His deeds had been from eternity
and he would come forth from Bethlehem. What
was he saying? He's saying that the babe to be
born in the manger existed before Bethlehem,
before the world, from days of eternity. The
glory of Jesus Christ was unaltered in his incarnation.
It was hidden. It was covered by human flesh,
sinless human flesh, united forever with sinless
human nature, but the glory was unaltered. It
was still there, undiminished. Now the final
truth I want us to see this morning is one that
relates very directly to you and me because it
says the glory of his pre -existence was enhanced
by salvation. I'm not saying that somehow he
is more glorious. But His glory is seen to a
greater extent. It's been drawn out to be more
visible by salvation. We need to go back to John
chapter 17 before we close. I've read verse 5
for you. I want to go on now to verse 22 and
verse 24. Jesus continues praying to the Father
and He says, that they may be one as we are.
Oh, I wish I had time to talk about that. Verse
24, Father, I want those you have given me to
be with me where I am and to see my glory, the
glory you have given me because you loved me
before the creation of the world. So Jesus prays,
Father, glorify me with the glory that I had
before. On this night before he goes to the cross,
Jesus recalls with longing the glory that he
enjoyed before coming into the world, the visible
glory. He says, Father, glorify me with what
I experienced alongside of you in your presence
before I came into the world. So great was the
joy, so supreme the delight between the Father
and the Son before creation, that the impression
of it on his consciousness as he came into the
world was never lost. And he longed for the resumption
of that glory. It included serene enjoyment of
the Father's presence. unmixed with suffering,
as William Hendrickson says. So we can begin
to see how incomprehensible and how infinite
his condescension in coming to Bethlehem, his
saving sacrifice was purposed by God to accomplish
redemption for his people. Here we have Jesus
Christ praying as though the cross were already
behind him. even though it's a few hours in front
of him. And already he's anticipating his return
to glory, and he's anticipating bringing along
with him the redeemed. Was Jesus being selfish
when he was praying that he might be glorified?
Not at all. He is God, and all that God does
indeed is for his own glory. There is no greater
good for us than what is for the glory of God.
God is glorified in His works. He delights in
His works. And His work includes salvation for
His people. And His purpose is that His people
will share His glory. Jesus here is anticipating
the joy of being with the Father again. in the
company of the saved, so that the two can never
be separated again. Who for the joy set before
Him? writes the author of Hebrews. He endured
the cross. Who for the joy set before Him? What
is that joy? Being back with the Father and bringing
with Him the redeemed. Jesus Christ is the eternal
Son of God. As the eternal Son, He gives life
to all of those who trust in Him. He gives eternal
life to those who will trust in Him, the very
life of God Himself. And we see here that He
prays that all of those to whom He's given life
and who have been given to him by God will one
day be with him in glory." This is one of the
reasons that I believe in the security of the
Christian. Because Jesus has prayed for us that
belonging to him we might never be lost. Belonging
to Him, we might one day be with Him in glory.
And is God the Father going to deny the prayer
of His beloved Son? You see, God loves His children,
the redeemed, just as much as He loves His beloved
Son, just as much. And He will one day bring
His children home to glory. And we will be there
and we will see the glory of Jesus Christ, the
glory that he had before he came into the world.
We're going to see that with our glorified eyes
and participate in it. We will never share his
essential glory as God. We can't. We're created.
But we are privileged to share the glory that
He extends to us in reigning with Him, in being
united to Him, in having His eternal life as
our possession. I hope that's your possession
today. There was a man named Fullerton one time
who shared this testimony about his own struggle
spiritually. He said, one Sunday morning, I made
up my mind to be a Christian. I never doubted
that I would do so. I thought I must leave off
this evil thing and that wicked habit and do
only things that are good. I must read my Bible
more, pray more, repent and weep if possible.
So I began. On Sunday I prospered. On Monday
and Tuesday I almost succeeded. But on Wednesday
and Thursday I made some serious slips. Finally
on Friday I gave up in disgust. I began the same
process again the next Sunday. In my self -confidence,
I thought I knew now where I had gone wrong,
so I increased my devotions, prayed more, and
was careful to restrain my evil habits. Still,
I did not find peace. Then I heard the new minister
give his first address. He expounded on many
things, but I can remember only one sentence,
and that was the living Word of God to me, quote,
All you have to do to be saved is to take God's
gift and say thank you." Up to now I had been
trying to get the Lord to take my gift and to
make that offering worthy of His acceptance.
Now I saw that it was I who had to do the taking
and that Christ was the one I must receive. My
heart turned to Him in gratitude. I took the
gift. And I've been saying thank you ever since.
Have you taken the gift and said thank you? Let's
pray. My friend, if you've been trying like this
man to be a Christian, it's time to stop. You
can't make yourself a Christian. God is the one
who makes Christians. And he does that when we
take the gift and say thank you. Jesus came into
the world that he might go to the cross, pay
for your sins and take you back to heaven with
himself that you might see and experience his
glory. Will you today receive the gift? Will
you tell God thank you? as an act of faith, I
hope you will, right where you're seated. Right
at this moment, just in your heart, receive and
trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. Father God,
we thank you today for your Son, glorious in
His pre -existence. and we worship you through
him today because he revealed you to us and we
receive him with gratitude and we anticipate
with great joy that day when we will be with
you and see his glory and share it by the grace
of God. Thank you. Amen.