The Everlasting Supremacy of the Son

What’s There to be Thankful For?
The Everlasting Supremacy of the Son Part 1
John 1:1

Read John 1:1-14

I. Verse 1- In the Beginning was the Word

In the very first verse of John’s introduction we discover two potent ideas whose shock waves will be felt throughout the remainder of the gospel and will eventually nail Christ to the cross. These two ideas are cosmic in their proportions and I want to unpack them a little this morning because they are foundational to the Christian faith.

The first assertion has to do with beginnings and the second has to do with his use of the term logos, meaning Word. What they imply is nothing less than the fact that Jesus Christ is God!

a. Beginning
First, John makes this striking assertion about the person of Jesus: He says that Jesus was there in the beginning. In fact, he wasn’t just there in the beginning. The verb ‘was’ is the imperfect tense; it implies that Jesus already was being when the beginning occurred. The New Living Translation actually paraphrases it this way: “in the beginning the Word already existed…”

Eternality is not just an attribute for God it is also one of His names. Jesus is eternal, and to the Jewish mind, that makes him God. Everything else is created and had a beginning and end. Jesus did not!

That is what is so remarkable about the doctrine of Christ’s divinity- such a doctrine could not have been invented by the Apostles, because they were devout Jews. They were raised on the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God is one God.” And there is no other gods except for Yahweh.

No Jews conscience could ever allow him to deify a man. Yet it is clear that the Jewish Christians under the leadership of Christ’s own disciples understood, believed and propagated the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ often at the expense of their very lives. There is no ambiguity about this; nowhere in the New Testament is Christ’s divinity ever doubted.

The early Christians believed it, not because some church council formulated it, but because Jesus taught it. And he was not introducing some new doctrine- or a new religion that allowed for more then one god.

The revelation of Jesus is the clarification of the revelation of the nature of the Godhead. That revelation is no novelty, it began in Genesis 1:1. It is the revelation of a mystery that we may not fully comprehend now, but one which we may apprehend until we see him face to face. God is infinite, and our minds are finite.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away…. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Cor 13:9-12).
The London Baptist Confession states that only God can understand Himself. Likely because only an infinite mind can contain the knowledge of an infinite being.

Jesus was there! He had front row seats to the most spectacular event of history. But he did not simply have a passive role in it. Verse 3 says that everything that exists (apart from him) originated through Christ out of nothing. Look at how Paul describes Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20….

Hebrews 1:10 says that “he laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens were the work of his hands. They will parish, but he remains.” “He is without father and mother or genealogy having neither beginning of days nor end of life” (7:3).

Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is not some afterthought… plan B, which God invoked because Adam foiled plan A in the garden.

Jesus existed before time began because God chose us in him before the foundations of the earth (Eph 1:4). He “saved us and called us to a holy calling… in Christ before the ages began.” (2 Tim 1:9).

b. Word
Let’s look at John’s second idea: logos- meaning Word. John makes a twofold claim regarding the Word: 1) that he was with God; and 2) that he was God.

i. Logos
First, what does John mean by Logos? Many scholars believe that John was framing the nature of Christ in terms of Greek philosophy. In Greek philosophy, Plato taught that Logos was the unknown God from whom all things originated.

It is mistaken however, to assume that John borrowed from Greek thought. In fact, it was more likely Plato who learned and adapted his notion of Logos from the Hebrews while he traveled among the exiles in Egypt. Plato’s Logos is not Christ, because that Logos is a distant, transcendent deity who is void of any personality; whereas Jesus is a God who is personal, near, imminent- he entered the material world of men at his virgin birth.

John was a Jew, he drew upon the Jewish Old Testament for the origin of the revelation of Christ. Throughout the OT the Word is the power of God:
• The Word symbolized the presence of God in the Ark of the covenant (Dt 31:26);
• Rejecting it was equal to rejecting God (1 Sam 15:23);
• By the Word the heavens were made (Ps. 33:6)
• The Word receives praise (Ps 56:10);
• It purifies us and keeps us from sinning (Ps 119:9,11)
• It is exalted above all things and is equal to God’s holy name (Ps 138:2);
• The Word is eternal (Is 40:8);
• It goes out from God in power and does not return empty (Is 55:11);
• The Word is a fire in the heart (Jer 20:1);

Every word of the OT is God’s revelation of judgment and also of salvation.

ii. He was with God (see also v. 2)
Now that we have a better idea of what Logos means, let’s examine the claims that John makes about it. First, He was with God:

Throughout the New Testament, there is a Father/Son, an I/Thou, or an Object/subject relationship between the Father and the Son.

It would be easy to assume that Jesus was a mode or manifestation of God the Father. But scripture, not man made logic, reveals otherwise:

Warning his disciples not to harm children, Jesus makes this distinction between the location of His Father in relation to himself: "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost” (Matt 11:10-11). What it means is that the Son has come to earth to do the will of the Father but the Father is always in the view of angels in heaven.

In his incarnation, Jesus by nature of his humanity has been excluded from certain knowledge regarding the timing of his second coming. He says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13:32).

If the Father and the Son were not two persons the, it would have been redundant for Jesus to say that “…the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son” (Jn 5:22).

Not only that, but within the Godhead there appears to be multiple wills. For instance, Jesus said, “My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (Jn 5:30).

Jesus never prayed to himself, but he always prayed to His Father. When he raised Lazurus from the grave he prayed, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me” (Jn 11:41). He would have had to have been suffering from some form of multiple personality disorder if he were talking to himself that way.

I cannot say it strongly enough, we are not talking about two God’s. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). Nor are we talking about some god with multiple heads.

This has been the confession of the church and is certainly the confession of our church. The Baptist Faith and Message says, “The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.”

iii. God was the Word
Finally, at the end of verse 1, John writes, “God was the word.” Not only was the Word with God in the nature of a unique personality, but God was the Word.

About five hundred years before Jesus birth, the prophet Isaiah wrote, "Thus says Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.” (Is 44:4). Thirty years after Jesus’ death, the book of Revelation records Jesus saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last."

What a great assurance, we know that our salvation is secure because it is anchored in the immutable, all powerful, all knowing eternal God and not in some man-made religious system.

Sure, you won’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, but then, you won’t find the word “Bible” there either. Scripture clearly teaches that there is a distinction of persons in the Godhead and a unity of the substance of God. The best way to define God in response to the revelation of scripture is in the language of God’s three-oneness… His tri-unity… the trinity.

In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided (London Baptist Confession).



Conclusion

It’s Thanksgiving, what are we supposed to do with the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity?

Be thankful!
Thankful because:
• in the beginning the Word already was;
• the Word was with the Father, but according the the Father’s will he left him and though being over the Law, he submitted to it;
• the Word is God and his death and resurrection were a sufficient sacrifice to atone for our sins.

Thanksgiving means more to us then just a Turkey dinner and cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving means that our hope is secure in Christ since the foundations of the earth. And that the gospel which we now read, assures us that he has accomplished his eternal plan of salvation.