Chapter 1. The Gospel of John
Chapter 1. I better reset this as I've been
preaching 39 minutes already. Wow. Okay. I'll start over. Well, we had
a good trip up to Michigan. Thankful for the safety God gave
us. Thankful for the good services
that we had. good attendance and reception
of the gospel and enjoyed fellowship with the folks up there. Had
a couple of meals with several of them and it was good to be
there but it's good to, it's better to be back. I'm thankful
to be back. We got back in just before midnight
last night and Thankful to God for the safety that he gave us
and for his blessings on the word. Thankful for these men
who stood before you and set forth the gospel of God's grace
on the Lord's day. All right, John chapter 1. Let's
look this evening at the fullness of the word, the fullness of
the Word. Let me begin by reading our text. And we'll start with the 14th
verse. And the Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. And then John says, And we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. If you leave out that parenthesis,
that parenthetical statement, it would read this way, and the
word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. Verse 15, John bare witness of
him, that is, John the Baptist. He bare witness of him, and he,
John, cried, saying, In other words, he was enthusiastic about
his message. He was excited about the message
he had to declare to the people, the one he could preach to the
people. And I'll tell you, it is exciting.
It is thrilling to speak to people about the great mediator, about
the one who's made of God to be our wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. It's absolutely soul-cheering
to set forth the Lord Jesus and his work of accomplished redemption. So it says, John, bear witness,
he cried, he cried, saying, this was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me. For he was before me. And of
His fullness have we all received. And I say to us this evening,
and I'll get back to this, but of His fullness have we all received. All of His people, all of those
who are redeemed by His blood, all of those who are washed,
all of those who are robed in His righteousness, of His fullness
have we all received. And grace for grace, grace because
of grace, for or because the law was given by Moses. But grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. And our last verse that we'll
study is verse 18. No man hath seen God at any time. After all, God's invisible. God's
omnipresent. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father. John says, declared him. He hath told him out. There was a time when God freely
spoke with and fellowshiped with man. The creator, that one who
was the very crown jewel of his creation, they walked together
in fellowship and in love and in agreement. You know, Amos
says, can two walk together except they be agreed? God and Adam, they walked together. God spoke to Adam. Adam spoke
to God. God fellowshiped with Adam. Adam
fellowship with God. They visited with each other,
one writer said, as a dear friend visits with another dear friend. But then sin came. Not only destroyed
the garden, but destroyed the fellowship, destroyed the union,
destroyed the opportunity that Adam had to speak freely with
God. And God could no longer speak
freely with Adam. Everything had been destroyed.
A great gulf opened between man and his Lord. The man became
absolutely, thoroughly evil, while his God remained infinitely
pure. God didn't change. God can't
change. Adam changed. And when that awful,
devastating thing happened to Adam, when he fell, we all fell. We all lost communion and fellowship
with the Lord. And had it not been for the amazing
goodness of God, All of us would have been banished from God's
presence. But the Lord, in infinite love and in mercy, He had resolved
that He would bridge the distance that had been opened up between
Him and man. He resolved that once again man
would dwell with himself and God would dwell with and commune
with the man. And so the Lord announced the
future victory of one that he identified as being the seed
of the woman. God said he's going to be victorious.
And we know the Lord Jesus Christ can't fail. He's God. Whatever He sets out to do, He's
always going to be successful. And then God, after announcing
the future triumph of the seed of the woman, God illustrated
what His Son would do. And He took animals and He stripped
them. He killed them and stripped them
of their skins. Then He took those Brother Bill
Pennington mentioned this to me the other night. He said,
you know, those skins would have still been bloody. God took those bloody skins,
wrapped them around our fallen parents. Oh, the mercy of God. Oh, the
goodness of God. Adam and Eve standing there shivering,
shaking, full of fear, the way's been cut off to God. And Adam,
he's such a fool. He seeks to save himself by his
own works. He sews together fig leaf aprons
to hide his shame from God Almighty who sees all things. And then
when God came calling in the cool of the day, Adam seeks to
hide himself, not in the Lord himself, but in the trees that
God had made. I'm going to hide from God behind
a tree. He won't see me now. That's absolutely foolish, isn't
it? That's what sin has done to us.
It has rendered us fools. We do some mighty stupid things,
don't we? And the stupidest of all is to
think that we can by our own works, by our own deeds, make
ourselves presentable to God. God said that won't do. That
won't do. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He has saved us.
And I can just see God stripping those fig leaf aprons off Adam
and Eve. And then they watched absolutely
horrified, I'm sure, as he sheds blood, as he kills victims for
them, innocent animals. They weren't guilty of this rebellion.
God killed them. You ought to die, Adam. You did
die spiritually. You're going to die physically.
and you ought to die forever. But I found something that will
die in your stead, and this symbolizes the seed of the woman, what he's
going to do for you one day. He's going to lay down his life
in order that your life will be spared. You're going to live
through the death of an innocent victim. You're Your guilt is
charged. No question about that. You're
the one who rebelled. You're the one who mocked God's
law. You're the one who dared to defy
God. You willingly ate of the fruit
that God said, don't you eat of it. But you ate anyway. And you got yourself and you
got all of your posterity in a mess that they can't get out
of. But Adam, I'm coming to your
rescue. And I'm going to save you by
my grace. And God was saying, I'm going to teach you and I'm
going to teach everybody who reads my word. This is the way,
this is the way I'm going to save sinners. That One who is
my Son, the seed of the woman, He's going to come. And He's
going to give His life a ransom for many. And by His death, I'll
remain just and holy and pure as I've always been. And I can
forgive you of all your sins in a just way. In a way that
honors my law. and you'll live forever. God
did that. God illustrated the gospel right
then. Now, many hundreds of years go
by, about 2,500. Certainly we know from Adam to
Abraham, 2,000 years. Then another 500 years or so,
God gave instructions concerning the building of the tabernacle.
He revealed himself to his chosen nation of Israel when they were
in the wilderness. He was pleased to dwell with
them in hype, in shadow, and in symbol. And he abode with
them right in the middle, right in the very heart of their camp. God said, build a tabernacle. And I want all the twelve tribes
of Israel to encircle that tabernacle. Every tent is going to face my
tent. That's what God said. Every tent
is going to face my tent. You'll all dwell in tents. And
God said, behold and be amazed, I'm going to dwell in a tent.
And amongst all those hundreds and hundreds of tents out there
in the wilderness, right in the middle, there's God's tent. called the tabernacle. And on
the outside, that tabernacle, God's talent, it didn't look
anything extraordinary. Looked like all the rest of them,
badger skins, kind of drab looking. But on the inside, oh, how glorious
it was. Oh, how beautiful. Oh, what exquisite
excellence was within the tabernacle. For you see, that tabernacle
in the wilderness, that pictured our Lord Jesus Christ dwelling
among men. And right here in our text, in
John chapter 1 and verse 14, the Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. He tabernacled among us. He tented
among us. God in the flesh. And you know
what? He looked just like any other
man. He did. He looked just like any other
man. There was nothing extraordinary looking about Him. In fact, Isaiah says, when we
beheld Him, there was no beauty about Him that we would desire
Him. He was God in a tent. God in
a tent. God tabernacling among men. But you go back to that tabernacle
in the wilderness. Those who were privileged to
go inside the holy place, they saw a beautiful thing. Beautiful
tapestry. They saw a table made of wood
covered with gold. They saw a golden candlestick. They saw an altar of incense,
gold covered wood. Not everybody saw that. Only
a few saw that. Only a few saw that. Just like
only a few saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And as it was when our Lord walked
on this earth, so it is today. Most people see nothing really
extraordinary about Jesus of Nazareth. They don't see His
glory. They don't see His excellence.
They don't see the wonders of who He is. Do you see His glory? John said, we beheld His glory. Oh, He's one tent among many
tents. That is to the outward eye. But to those who are given the
eye of faith, we see in Him the very glory of God Almighty. We see Him as the one who is
mighty to save sinners like you and me. Now Israel, the Israelites, they
couldn't go inside the holy place. In fact, the only one who could
go inside the holy of holies was the high priest, and he only
once a year. And within the holy of holies,
we know there was that Shekinah glory. Well, if they couldn't see the
Shekinah glory inside the Holy of Holies, what evidence was
there that God was dwelling with them? Well, during the daytime, coming
out of that Holy of Holies, like an umbrella, there was a pillar
of cloud that covered all of Israel. Man, they are out there
in the desert. They're out there in the wilderness.
Have you ever been to the beach on a hot summer day and you want
to get down there on the cool sand next to the water and you're
barefoot and you start going across that sand. Oh, that's
hot. You know what I'm talking about. Well, that's the Israelites
going across the sandy desert. But wait, it wasn't unbearably
hot to them because there's a great big umbrella over there. There's
the cloud, pillar of cloud by day. That's God. That's God's
presence. That's who protects us. He's
an umbrella over us. Listen, children of God. We have
an umbrella over us and lo and behold, it's God Himself. He
is Emmanuel, isn't He? God with us. And He's with us
every step of the way, and He is a pillar of cloud by day,
and a pillar of fire by night. Oh, He warmed the camp of Israel,
and He illuminated the camp of Israel. The Lord was there. That's His
tabernacle. That was His tabernacle. And
while the Israelites couldn't see the fullness of His glory,
They could see the evidence of that glory by the pillar of cloud
and the pillar of fire. So he was to them both light
and shade. They enjoyed his presence. And
I'm sure that's what the psalmist had in mind when he said, the
sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The glory then was a defense
to them and a comfort to them. And the Lord didn't deal with
any other nation in this way. Only one nation enjoyed His presence. And I'll tell you it was a chosen
nation. It was an elected nation. It
was a nation that God formed for Himself. He said, this people
have I formed for Myself. For Myself. He said, I will dwell
in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they
shall be my people. And that tabernacle in the wilderness,
we know it pictured our Lord Jesus Christ. And here in John
1.14, John the writer, John the apostle by the power of the Spirit,
he writes, and the Word was made flesh. That's the humanity of
our Savior. He was one tent among many tents. But oh, what a tent! For in that
tent dwells Him who is the everlasting God. Jesus Christ the same today,
yesterday, today, and forever. There is the humanity of our
Savior. And you'll notice this, it doesn't
say the Word was made man. Though that would be precious.
But it says the Word was made flesh. In other words, He took
on Him the very nature and substance of manhood. He did not merely
assume the name of humanity or the notion of humanity or the
appearance of humanity, but in reality, God dwelt with human
flesh. He joined himself to human flesh. He actually took into union with
himself a body so that he's the God-man. bone
of our bone and flesh of our flesh. And that brought him nearer to
us than when he resided within the curtains of the tabernacle,
occupying a tent in the midst of Israel. The word was made flesh. and
dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. He lived
in a tent of flesh. There is a passage in Revelation
21 that it blesses me every time I read this. And I just love
reading this in Revelation chapter 21. It comforts my poor heart. In Revelation chapter 21, verse
1, Now this is when time shall be
no more. The end has come. The great white
throne, our Lord has sat upon it in chapter 20. The wicked
have been cast out of His sight. The elect, those whose names
were written in the Lamb's book of life, have been gathered unto
Him. John writes here in Revelation
21 verse 1, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first
heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no
more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, and I saw it coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. This city is not
a land mass. This city is a people. It's a
people. This is God's elect. Here's a
bride. And John says she is prepared. She's adorned for her husband. She's adorned in the beauty of
her husband. She's robed in his righteousness.
God's eternal purpose has been fulfilled. God predestinated
that she be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And John
says, I looked and I beheld, here she comes. And God's predestinated
purpose has come to pass. And she is absolutely beautiful. It's like Ezekiel said in Ezekiel
chapter 16 of that infant. It became beautiful, God said,
through my comeliness. That's where our beauty is. Our
beauty is His comeliness. Don't ever forget that. It's
not our comeliness. Because there's no goodness in
us. There's no beauty in us. There's
nothing worthwhile in us. It's all Christ Jesus. It's all
His blood. It's all His righteousness. It's
all His exquisite excellence. And when we stand as a bride
adorned for her husband that day, He'll get all the glory. And He'll put us on display. We're the trophies of His grace. You say, won't I get some trophies?
You'll be a trophy. You'll be a trophy. A trophy
to His free and sovereign grace. A trophy to His redeeming blood. A trophy to His imputed righteousness. A trophy of Christ's. And He'll
put you on display. Boy, I tell you, we're going
to be beautiful in that day. And I'll tell you something else,
we're beautiful in this day to God. Isn't that right? We're
beautiful to Him right now. Because we stand in the beauties
of the Lord our righteousness. The Lord our righteousness. Look at verse 3. And I heard
a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God
is with me. and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with
them, and be their God. Oh, blessed day! No wonder that
John, at the end of this book, when the Lord Jesus said, Behold,
I come quickly! No wonder John speaks for all
of the redeemed of God, of all of the ages, and says, Even so
come, Lord Jesus. Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful
if He came back tonight? Lord, come back now. Come back
now. Come receive us unto Yourself. We'll give You the glory like
we've never given You the glory before. We'll do it perfectly
and wonderfully from our very souls. We'll give You the glory. Oh Lord, come back now. And I'll
tell you when He's going to come back. when the last of his lost
sheep have been brought into the fold of salvation. That's
what I believe. When the last lost one's been
found, that's when we're going to go home. And all of the saints
of God, those that have died, they're going to be raised first.
They're going to be changed. Mortality is going to put on
immortality. Corruption is going to put on
incorruption. And then we which are alive and
remain will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and
we'll be with Him and we'll be with Him forever. Wherefore,
comfort one another with those words. In this day of Tragedy
after tragedy, in this day of wickedness, of sin, in this day
of disease and troubles and trials. Oh, we need some comfort. Oh,
preacher, give me some comfort. I tell you, this will comfort
you. The Lord's with us now. He's the pillar of cloud over
our heads. He's the pillar of fire that
illuminates our minds and our hearts and our understandings.
And one of these days, we're going to be with Him forever.
The tabernacle of God is going to be with man. I can't hardly stand the thought. I just want to erupt in praise
to the Lord, don't you? Oh, how glorious it's going to be.
Go back to my text. Go back to the text. John chapter
1. So he says, we beheld His glory. This One who dwelt among us,
we beheld His glory. And He says there, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He's full of grace and truth
that will never run out. Our brother read to us about
the barrel of meal that ran out, the cruise of oil that never
ran out. Let me tell you something, the
Lord's grace and truth never runs out. His grace to you, His
forgiveness to you never runs out. How many times has God forgiven
you? How many times have you in your
heart said, oh God, there I go again. There I go again. I'm so selfish, jealousy, covetousness,
whatever it is. Lord, I'm just a sinner. And
the Lord says, I freely, fully, all forgive. He's always full
of grace towards us. Always. Have you ever come to
Him, you who are believers, you who trust the Lamb of God, you
who look to Him for everything, have you ever come to the Lord
for forgiving mercy and He turns you away? No. Because the blood
of Jesus Christ, God's Son, goes on cleansing us from all sin. Of His fullness have we received.
Have we received. Look at verse 15. He who is full
of grace and truth. This is one John bear witness
of. John preached Him. And John cried. He's the voice
crying in the wilderness. He's crying in the wilderness.
John declared Him. Faithful men of God bear witness
of Jesus Christ. We bear witness of His purpose.
And we bear witness of His person. And we bear witness of His performance. We bear witness of the purpose
of Jesus Christ. That Lamb of God who was slain
before the foundation of the world. His eternal purpose of
grace and salvation. And we declare His person. He's
the God-Man. And we declare His performance. He really did put away the sins
of His people. He really did bring in everlasting
righteousness by His obedience unto death, even the death of
the cross. John was commissioned to declare
Him. Then, watch this, John bear witness
of Him. He cried saying, this was He
of whom I speak. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me. For he was before me. He was
before me. He was before John in rank. He
was before John in dignity. He was before John in greatness.
And he was before John in time. You say, yeah, but wait, John
was born first. John was born six months before
the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, but John said, He was before
me. He was before me. Well, how can
that be? He's the eternal God, that's
how. He's the eternal God. He was before me. Look what he says. Verse 16,
And of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace. All fullness dwells in Him. There
is an infinite fullness in the Savior. And we receive of His fullness.
The fullness of God's love and mercy and grace. The fullness of everything that
we need for time and eternity. We've gone to Him today, haven't
we? We've drawn from His fullness today. And yet that full level,
it never goes down. I got in a car that Nancy drives
the other day, and I said, do you ever look at the gas gauge? It goes down. She said, well,
I just count on you to get in and fill it up. I said, well,
I'll go fill it up. Because we use up. We use up
gasoline. We use up the years that we have
in this world. We use everything up. But wait!
When we go to the Lord, you don't use up anything. Because after
you've been to Him for all your needs, your spiritual needs,
your temporal needs, your physical needs, when you go to Him for
your needs, there's still a fullness about. It's still a full. Still
on full. And we draw from Him time and
time again. We draw from Him. And He says,
I still have a fullness left. I have a fullness left. Of His
fullness we've received. Haven't you received from His
fullness? I know you have. And you're still receiving of
His fullness. And you'll always receive from
His fullness. And He'll still have fullness
yet. We receive of His fullness. Watch this. And grace for grace. Or grace because of grace. Because the word means, the word
for means because. You see, grace always leads to
grace. We receive from Him electing
grace because of predestinating grace. We receive from Him redeeming
grace because of electing grace. We receive from Him purchasing
grace because of electing grace. Grace
leads to grace. That's what grace always leads
to. It's more grace. Can you possibly overemphasize
the truth of God's grace? Can you preach grace too much?
It's grace for grace. It's grace because of grace.
All the way down the line, it's grace because of grace. It's
never grace because of works. He doesn't give you grace because
of works. He gives you grace because He's
gracious. It all originates with the Lord. I read a couple of Spurgeon sermons
today on this text. And he said, grace is always
flowing to God's people like waves of the ocean. There's no
end to them. You wade out in the ocean, here
comes a wave, there's another wave, there's another wave. It's
just there's no end, right? There's no end to the waves.
There's no end to His grace. For grace, for grace, for grace,
for grace. No wonder in the end, grace shall
lay the top stone to the whole thing and will shout, grace,
grace, grace has done it. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound. Newton said that saved a wretch
like me. I was lost, now I'm found. Blind, now I see. To what do
you attribute that? To what do you attribute that?
Grace. Grace. Grace for grace. Now we'll look at verse 17. For
the law was given by Moses. And we know that. Exodus chapter
20. The law was given by Moses. Read
the book of Deuteronomy. It means the second reading of
the law. The second reading of the law.
Who read it? Moses. And you get to the New
Testament and so often when you read the name of Moses, it really
stands for the law. The law. But grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. You know in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses was not allowed to lead
the children of Israel into the promised land. And we know it's
because that he smote the rock when the Lord said, speak to
the rock. He smote the rock first time in the book of Exodus. When
the Israelites were thirsty, he smote the rock and water came
out. That speaks of the substitutionary
death of our Lord Jesus when the rod of God's justice smote
him. And what flowed out? The water
of salvation. Get over into the book of Numbers,
Israel was thirsty again. And Moses, he just got all knotted
up and upset with them and mad at them. Preachers do that with
congregations every once in a while. And he just said, must I fetch
water from the rock from you rebels? Boy, he hauled off, hit that
rock twice. And the Lord said, you're going
to pay a terrible price for doing that. You're not going to be
able to lead the children of Israel into the promised land.
Let me tell you something. He couldn't lead the children
of Israel into the promised land because he represents the law.
The law can't lead you into the promised land. The law can't
take you to heaven. The law came by mode. The law
that's strict and unbending. The law that shows no mercy.
You know what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians? He said, the
law is our schoolmaster. A rough, rough schoolmaster to
drive us to Christ. And in the book of Deuteronomy,
you know what Moses did? He said, I want to introduce
somebody to all of y'all. This is Joshua. He's going to
take you into the promised land. You know what Joshua's name means?
Jehovah who saves. And Moses, as it were, the law,
as it were, hands us over to Christ. Moses handed the Israelites
over to Joshua and said, they're yours. And he said, now, I've
done my job. I'm going up on the mountain.
I'm out of here. And he went up on the mountain.
And God said, now you look out there over the promised land.
Moses, I'm going to give it to them. It's theirs. I promised it to them. Joshua
is going to lead them over. And Moses, you've come to the
end of the road. God killed him and buried him
in an unmarked grave. Who took him into the promised
land? Joshua. The law drives us to Jesus Christ,
as it were, hands us over to Christ. We have no way of saying,
oh, we're so guilty. The law pronounces us guilty.
The law strips us. The law shuts our mouths. We've
got nowhere to go but Christ. And when we go to Christ, the
law says, well, I'm done with you. I'm going up on the mountain. You don't have to worry about
me anymore. We're dead to the law. And the law is dead to us. Because Christ fulfilled the
law. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. Everybody who believes. The law
came by Moses, grace and truth by Jesus Christ. God our Savior. We've been turned
over to Him. And I'll tell you what, He'll
take us into the promised land. He'll take us right on into glory. And then quickly, verse 18, No
man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is
in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Here's our
Lord's deity. He's on the earth, but John said
He's in the bosom of the Father. Because He's God. He's God. And John said, He has declared
Him. He's told Him out. In other words, God is not a stranger to us.
Because somebody's told us about Him. The Word. The Word, He's
taught us who God is. The Word has made known God to
us. The Word's done that. He hath
declared Him. And we've received from the fullness
of the Word. And you go home tonight rejoicing
in Him. I tell you, we all just float
out of here tonight. With our feet just barely touching
the floor. Just soaring as it were on wings
of angels. When you think about the goodness
of God to us in Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen? Amen. Absolutely. Well, let's sing
a closing song. Number 231. Boy, here's a good
one to sing. Jesus saves. Jesus saves. Let's stand and sing 231.