I apologize if it seems a little chilly in here this morning.
I understand that one of our furnaces has gone out, and so it will take a little while
for our body heat to warm up the place, but that's the reason for it.
Furnaces never go out in the summertime.
Have you ever noticed that?
There must be some logical reason behind that, but I haven't figured it out yet.
I'd like you to open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 1 as we begin this morning,
and then we'll turn to John chapter 1.
Perhaps you read recently in the newspaper that a new scientific satellite was orbited
with the equipment on board to gather more evidence about the Big Bang Theory.
Did you read about that?
Of course, the Big Bang Theory is the theory currently in vogue among scientists as to
how the universe began.
There's a problem that they have with the theory, and that is the data being evaluated
by them is contradictory.
Some supports the theory, other data argues against it.
For example, if the theory is true, we are told the scientists would expect to see matter
scattered in a certain pattern, and yet as they examine the heavens, they find that it's
curiously clumped together, at least in certain instances.
That goes against the theory of the Big Bang beginning of the universe.
So there are problems with the theory.
Not to mention, of course, the basic problem that they still have to address, and that
is the problem of origin.
Where did the matter begin in the first place?
But actually the real problem faced by the scientific establishment is not inadequate
information, as helpful as this new satellite may be.
Rather the problem with the scientific establishment is an inadequate presupposition.
For their presupposition is that God does not exist.
The scientific establishment refuses to acknowledge the supernatural.
God doesn't fit into its formulas.
That is not an attack against true science, but rather it is a statement which many of
you recognize as exposing the bias of the scientific establishment against the existence
of God.
There's more at stake in all of this, really, than theories and formulas.
For what is at heart in this presupposition that there is no God is lifestyle.
The Bible says that men reject God not because they have no evidence that God exists, but
rather because they want to live their lives their own way without having to be concerned
about responsibility to a creator.
In Romans chapter 1, Paul says that much.
In the first part of verse 28 where he says, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge
God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind.
They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer.
That is the position of many, not all, but many in our scientific community.
Thank God for those scientists who believe in God and who evaluate the data in light
of that presupposition.
There are many in our world today who do not see fit any longer to acknowledge God.
If you look at that in the midst of Romans chapter 1, you find out it's all about lifestyle.
People wanting to live the way they want to live because, in fact, God has revealed himself
sufficiently that men might know that there is a God.
Verse 19, that which is known about God is evident within them.
That is even those who suppress the truth, verse 18.
Talking about the conscience, within them, conscience is a finger that points in the
direction of God.
For God made it evident to them.
Here is something external.
What is that?
That the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature
have been clearly seen, being understood through that which has been made, so that they are
without excuse.
The Bible says that we sinners are without excuse.
We may not see fit to acknowledge God, but nonetheless God is, and we are without excuse.
God is so desired to be known that he has revealed himself not only in the creation
and in conscience, but in the incarnation of his son.
That is the logos that we have been looking at in John chapter 1.
The work of the logos, or the word, is that of revelation.
Jesus came that we might know God.
Now I'd like you to turn back to John chapter 1, and we'll read now the text for this morning.
He was in the beginning with God, verse 2.
All things came into being by him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has
come into being.
Within 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.
There are three facts about the word which John gives us in the text that we've just
read.
The first fact is this.
At the logos, the word had the position to reveal God.
The word says in verse 2, he was in the beginning with God.
In some sense, verse 2 is a restatement of verse 1.
Dr. Edwin Bloom puts it this way.
The word has always been in a relationship with God the Father.
Christ did not at some point in time come into existence and begin a relationship with
the Father.
In eternity past, the Father, God, and the Son, the Word, have always been in a loving
communion with each other.
Both Father and Son are God, yet there are not two Gods.
We talked about that last week as we looked at verse 1 specifically.
There are three truths about the word which are underscored again in verse 2.
In fact, truth number 1 is this, that the word is eternal.
He was in the beginning, or as verse 1 says, in the beginning was the word.
The tense of the verb is that he always had been in the beginning.
The beginning is that which denotes what was before creation, that state of eternity that
existed before there was time and space and matter, before God began his work of Genesis
1.1.
Even before God began that creative work, the word was and always had been.
The word is eternal.
And then we learn that the word is distinctive, for he was in the beginning with God.
And again, that's the second statement of verse 1.
The word was and always had been with God.
The word is distinctive from God, we put in parenthesis, the Father.
We can also say distinctly from God, the Holy Spirit.
The word is not the Father, the word is not the Spirit.
But the word is God, just as the Father is God and the Spirit is God, the mystery of
the Trinity.
But there's a third truth that is restated in verse 2 that is clear in verse 1, and that
is the word is deity.
The word is God himself.
It's not that he is created by God, the word is God.
Only God himself knows the depth of his own nature and his thoughts.
Just as no one knows the depth of your nature or your thoughts, but you.
Not even that closest person in all the world, perhaps your husband or your wife, or your
dearest friend, your mother, your father.
No one knows the real you like you know you, because you are aware of your thoughts that
no one else sees.
You are aware of your nature, which is not exposed to other people.
Only God knows the depths of his nature and his thoughts, and therefore only God could
reveal the truth about himself to mankind.
And that is why God came in the person of the Son.
The logos, the thought, the expression of God's thought, the word came that he might
begin to reveal to us the truth of God that we could not discover on our own.
What is implicated here about the logos is clearly stated in 1 Corinthians chapter 2
telling the Holy Spirit and his work of inspiration in giving to us the Bible.
For it says in verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 2, who among men knows the thoughts of a man
except the spirit of the man which is in him?
Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God that
we might know the things freely given to us by God which things we also speak, says the
apostle Paul.
What is he saying here?
Well he is saying that the Holy Spirit enlightens him, gives him revelation, gives him truth
about God to speak to the Corinthians and to write to them.
The spirit of God was in him giving him that truth.
The spirit of God doesn't do that today.
He enlightens us, he illuminates us as to what the word says.
You see the spirit of God was writing through Paul.
He was revealing new truth about God through Paul.
He says it must be the spirit of God because only the spirit of God knows the depths of
God.
Well basically what John is saying, the same is true of the word.
The word was with God and because he was with God, because he was God, the word is able
to express to us the depths of God as he reveals God to us.
And so he had the position to reveal God.
He was God himself, not merely a prophet, not merely someone that God sent, not just
a good example for us, not a man upon whom divinity came at some point in his life, but
he was God himself.
And because he was God himself, he was in a position you see, to tell us about the depths
of God's thoughts and God's nature, and he does.
Now we see a second fact about the word, this one in verse 3.
He had the power to reveal God, not only the position, but the power.
All things came into being by him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has
come into being.
God created the universe through his word, that is, Logos.
Now the son of God, the Logos, did not act independent of the Father and of the Spirit.
They participated together in the creation.
There are places in the Bible where God the Father is spoken of as the Creator.
There are places that point to the Holy Spirit as working in creation, but the Scripture
makes it clear that it is the Son, or the Logos, or the Word, who was the agent by which
God created.
We saw last week in Genesis 1-3, and God said, God spoke, indicating a word, an expression,
Logos.
Let there be light, and there was light.
And so the Word of God, the Logos of God, is the means, is the agent by which he created.
Now this same truth is spoken in other places in the New Testament.
I only mention two of them to you quickly.
One of them is Colossians chapter 1, beginning in verse 16.
It might be good just to read that verse as a refresher.
Colossians chapter 1, and in verse 16, regarding again Jesus Christ, it says, For by him all
things were created.
What do you mean by all things, Paul?
Well, both in heaven and on earth.
Okay, what else?
Visible and invisible.
Anything more?
Well, yes.
Thrones, dominions, rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for
him.
In other words, it's his possession.
And he goes on to say in verse 17, and he is before all things.
Again his pre-existence mentioned.
And in him all things hold together.
What is it that captures the atom so that it does not explode?
What is that power that keeps it revolving and moving?
It is the power of the word of God, the logos, Jesus Christ.
For by him all things were made.
And for him everything exists.
And by his power all things hold together that God has created.
Well, that's some power, isn't it?
Hebrews chapter 1, verse 2 goes on to talk about this.
Again Hebrews chapter 11, the first verse or two speaks about it.
Revelation chapter 3 and verse 14, we find another reference where there it says, He
is the beginning of the creation of God.
That fits right in with what the Jehovah's Witnesses say, doesn't it?
That he's the beginning of the creation of God.
The only problem is the word beginning there, archaic, doesn't mean the first thing of
the creation, but it means he is the ruler of the creation.
He is the origin, he is the source of the creation.
That's what that word means, Revelation 3, verse 14.
My point is simply is this, that the word had the power to reveal God because he had
the power to create the old creation.
He brought to pass by his work the universe as we see it.
Could not this same one have the power also to reveal to us God?
Of course, and that's what he's done.
The truth about his power in creation is put both positively and negatively to put out
of mind any other kind of notion about the origin of the universe.
Notice he says all things came into being by him, that's positive.
By the way, when it says all things, the language here describes everything by itself.
It's not just the whole package, but it's everything inside the package.
It's every individual piece of the creation, that's what he means by all things.
Every single part of it is included in this statement that it came into being by him.
Notice that matter is not eternal.
Matter has not always existed, but it came into being in contrast to the word who always
was.
It became at some point.
The word has continuous existence, but all things began, it came into being.
The universe began in one event.
It did not begin through some kind of a process.
That's why the Big Bang Theory in certain respects seems rather attractive, because
scientists admit that with one act it was all there.
But because of their faulty presupposition that there is no God, the theory is flawed.
But in fact it was one act.
God spoken, it was there.
The universe came to pass.
Harold Tenney said, the action refers to an event rather than a process.
Negatively he puts it this way, apart from him nothing came into being.
There is not a single atom anywhere in the whole universe that owes its existence to
anything or anyone but Jesus Christ.
Nothing came into being apart from him that came into being.
So as the Logos, the Son was the agent of creation.
Just as he fully participated in bringing into being the physical universe, which reveals
something of the glory of God, so he has the power and the authority to reveal the fullness
of God's nature by his coming into the world.
The Logos has the position to reveal God because he is God.
He has the power to reveal God.
And thirdly, he has the property to reveal God.
The word property is used in many different ways.
One of those ways is that it means a characteristic quality, a trait or an attribute of someone
or something.
Most frequently we use it in the sense of the properties of a chemical compound.
It's used in science a great deal.
Properties.
Well what are the properties?
The characteristic qualities of the word.
Well John tells us in verses four and five that they are two.
Life and light.
In him was life, says John.
In him was, always had been, from eternity, life.
That word life means self-existence.
It means that his life is different than ours.
Because our life had a beginning.
Our life is a derived life.
Father and father are involved in giving us life.
We derive our existence from them.
But not so with the word.
In him always had been life.
Self-existent life.
He does not depend upon anything for his existence.
He is life itself.
It may be hard to get your mind around, but it's an important concept.
Jesus repeated this a number of times in various ways through the Gospel of John.
Do you remember where he illustrated it the most dramatically?
Only John tells us about the incident.
There at the grave of Lazarus in chapter 11, where just before he brought back to life
Lazarus, he made the statement, I am the resurrection and the what?
The life.
On the evening before his own passion, as he met with his disciples in the upper room,
he said to them, I am the way, the truth, and the what?
The life.
Self-existent life is the property of the logos.
That is a characteristic of logos.
Always has been life itself.
And as life, he has the right and the power to make alive.
He did so with Adam and Eve in the beginning of the creation.
And through them, by the miracle of conception, all of us derive our life from him.
He gave our multi-fold grandparents life.
He gave them life.
And gave them the power through conception to pass it on from generation to generation
to generation.
He has the power to give life, because he is life itself.
And John goes on to say, and the life, talking about the life of the word, was the light
of men.
And so we have a second property, or characteristic of the logos.
Not only is the logos life, but the logos is light.
The logos gives illumination to the minds of people to recognize the work of God in
the world.
That light is sorely needed because of the moral and spiritual darkness that exists in
the world.
Darkness that is characterized by evil, hatred, and deceit.
Christ's life brought goodness, love, and truth.
And as his life brought that into the world, the evil of the world was exposed.
The condition of man's heart could be seen.
The life was the light of men.
And John goes on to say, and the light shines.
Notice present tense there.
It's not a verb like the rest of those earlier in these verses.
The light is now shining, he says.
Where?
In the darkness.
The darkness of this world.
The world was plunged into darkness, wasn't it, back in Genesis chapter 3, where it records
the fall of Adam and Eve into sin.
The light went out at that point.
However, in that same context, God promised the seed of the woman would come and would
crush the head of the serpent, though the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed
of the woman.
That is what is called the proto-evangelium.
That is the first announcement of the gospel.
The good news that though man had fallen, God was going to redeem.
Though man by his disobedience had been separated from God, that God was going to restore and
reconcile.
And so right there when darkness first fell, there was a little pinhole of light that burst
through the darkness.
And every time that God gave an additional promise or prophecy or picture or type of
Christ throughout the Old Testament, the darkness was punctured once more by a pinhole of light.
Until finally, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son.
And suddenly the darkness that had been punctured with these pinholes of promises and prophecies,
suddenly that darkness was dispelled by the presence of the light itself, as though the
sun had suddenly risen upon a morally and spiritually darkened humanity.
And John says the light is now shining in the darkness.
Well, this is not like physical darkness, for when the light of the sun comes up in
the day, physical darkness flees, it's gone.
Moral darkness is different.
John says there is still darkness, but the light is shining.
And he goes on to say, the darkness did not comprehend it.
Now that word comprehend can be understood in a couple of different ways.
It can mean to seize something, to grasp it, so as to overcome it.
You might think of a wrestler who crouches ready to wrestle the opponent and moves suddenly
to grab ahold of the opponent, so as to throw him onto the mat and pin him, to seize, to
overcome.
Or it can mean to grasp with the mind.
It can mean to understand something, so as to grasp it, to appropriate it for oneself.
What this verse is saying may be a combination of both of them.
John says the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness was unable to understand
or to overcome it.
The verb certainly has the implication that there was a power struggle when the light
shined.
In fact, we might say that three headlines could summarize what is said here and what
is said throughout the Gospel of John.
Because John really likes this theme of light and darkness.
If you look through his Gospel, you see him coming back to that theme over and over and
over again.
Three headlines that summarize what is said here about light and darkness and also throughout
the whole Gospel.
Title number one, light invades darkness.
Now if you went ahead to read the story, you would read about the Word becoming flesh.
Or if you went to one of the other Gospels, you would read about Bethlehem and the birth
of a child, unlike any other child born, of a virgin.
Announced as the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord, Christ.
And you would read about his sinless life.
You would read about the miracles.
You would read about the words that he spoke.
Light invades darkness.
The darkness of Satan.
The darkness of the world system.
I want to talk about that tonight a little bit.
This idea of the struggle.
I'm going to develop that in a particular way and give you an illustration that comes
right out of our congregation that is a startling one.
Light invades darkness.
Did that plant a seed to get you to come back tonight?
Headline number two, darkness resists light.
That's the story that's implicated here and you see it so clearly, don't you?
Darkness resists light.
Jesus said, I am the bread of life.
You must eat me.
That is, you must appropriate me as you would eat bread so that you might have eternal life.
And the multitudes in their darkness said, what in the world is he talking about that
we must eat his flesh?
They did not comprehend the light.
He said, I and the Father are one.
Before Abraham was, I am.
And the darkness in the minds of the religious leaders said, blasphemy.
He's claiming to be God.
And the darkness did not comprehend the light.
It resisted it.
And finally that darkness built up its hostility to the light to the point that it put the
light on the cross to kill it.
Headline number three, light conquers darkness.
The resurrection.
Though the darkness poured its hostility upon the light, though it brought all of its power
against the light, ultimately it could not put out the light.
Light conquers darkness.
Is that not true in the physical realm?
I remember as a kid going after the cows who did not cooperate and come up for the milking
very often by themselves.
Going down to that timber when it was dark was a little frightening for a kid.
But on the east side of our barn, you remember that side, don't you?
The east side of our barn, as if that makes any difference, we had a 100 watt light bulb
and a very simple plain fixture.
And when I turned that light bulb on, I could walk a quarter of a mile away and further
into the darkness of that timber and still have light.
It wasn't much, but it was enough.
It was enough so that I could at least know a little bit of what was around me and where
I was and I could see.
Light conquers darkness.
It doesn't even take much of it.
It pierces darkness.
That's headline number three, light conquers darkness.
As the word brought life and light to the creation, didn't he?
Let there be light.
He breathed into Adam the breath of life and that dust became a living soul, a person.
Just as the Logos brought life and light at the creation, so he brought life and light
at the incarnation that we might know God.
What does this mean?
Well, let me tell you what it means.
It means in the first place that if you have understood and appropriated God's gift of
salvation, it is the grace of God that enables you to do so.
Because you see, our hearts, the heart of every one of us without exception, is darkened
by sin.
Our minds are darkened so that we will not of ourselves comprehend the light, the truth.
And so if we have come to understand and to appropriate the light that is in Jesus Christ,
it is the grace of God that has enabled us to do so, how grateful we ought to be for
that saving grace of God that has so liberated us.
And if today I'm talking to someone whose sense is being drawn to the light, you're
like I was.
You're far off in the darkness, but you see the light that is shining.
And though you're in darkness, it's affecting you, and you're seeing a little bit of what
is around you and what your life is like.
And you sense being drawn to that light, understand that that is the grace of God working in you
this morning.
And respond to that grace, and come to the light and appropriate the light for yourself.
Come to the fullness of the light that is shining in Jesus Christ and receive him by
faith.
Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
And so for one to be drawn to the light is the grace of God.
What does it mean?
It means that those who receive the light have the light in them and become themselves
light.
Look in John chapter 12 just very quickly.
John 12 verse 35, Jesus speaking says, for a little while longer the light is among you.
Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you.
He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.
While you have the light, believe in the light in order that you may become sons of light.
Those who receive the light have the light in them and become light in a darkened world.
The darkened culture in which we live will not naturally appreciate that light.
It will not.
That's why in John chapter 15 Jesus tells his disciples right up front, the world has
hated me because I have exposed its sin.
And the world will hate you for the same reason.
The world does not appreciate exposure.
The culture does not appreciate its evil being brought to the light.
But when you and I trust in Jesus Christ we become light.
We're sons of light.
And wherever we go there's the light of Christ.
And as we bring that illumination of Christ to our world there will be some by God's grace
who will be drawn toward it, but many more will reject it and may even express hostility
toward it as it did toward the light of the world, Jesus Christ.
But that's our job, that's why we're here.
And I plead with you this morning to allow nothing to compromise the light that is in
you if you're a Christian.
Allow nothing to become a bushel over your light.
But let that little light of yours shine.
Let it shine.
So that others may be drawn to Christ.
You and I are to make a difference in our culture, that's why God has put us here.
And we want to bridge into our culture.
Not seeking to be offensive, not wanting in any way to create hostility, but recognizing
it may come as a natural response of darkness to light.
But we want to bridge into our culture, to touch people where they are hurting, where
they are down, where they are deep into darkness, so that we can bring the light there and God
may use that testimony, that witness of you and me in that darkness to bring others to
Jesus.
That's what this means.
The word came that we might know God and the word is in you and in me today, making us
light that he might use our lives, that he might use our witness to bring others to the
knowledge of God.
Oh, let's be light.
And let's hold our light up high and all around and let it shine.
Let it shine.
Let's pray.
Oh Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, log us.
Thank you for coming into the world.
Coming into the world with your life and your light that we might know God.
Thank you for by your sovereign grace drawing us to that light so that we might become the
sons of light by believing.
Make us, I pray, effective as your lights in this world.
Or deliver us from compromise of life that would cause our light to be dimmed.
But may we burn more brightly even as the age grows more dark.
Use us to pierce the darkness and to make a difference for Jesus' sake.
In his name we pray, amen.