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1211-18P 1 B. Jesus makes a striking statement to his disciples in John 14:7. He said, “If you had known SUBJECT: me, you would have known my Father also.” The F.C.F: disciples had been with Jesus for three years. They PROPOSITION: had seen his miraculous signs, they had heard his INTRODUCTION: teaching, and they asked him questions which he A. Before we embark on our study for this answered. And still Jesus could say that they had not evening, I want to draw out a final conclusion from yet known him. last time. As you may recall, we distinguished This is a prominent theme in John’s gospel, between the natural and supernatural, the phenomenal that even though the people may profess their faith in and noumenal, and highlighted the philosopher’s him in some way shape or form, still they do not dilemma was that there is no staircase to bridge the really know him. It is a challenge to us to dig in deep two. So we tend to consider this world the world of and to realize that we do not yet know him in his fact, and the upper story world as the world of faith. fullness. We have not yet fully come to terms with And, we said, the incarnation of Christ is the who he is. We do not yet truly believe that Jesus is key to both. When the Word became flesh and dwelt the Christ, the Son of God, and so to some extent we among us, the noumenal became phenomenal, the are not yet fully enjoying “life in his name.” supernatural intruded into the natural, the world of C. Last time we found that the Word became faith, which should never have been separated from flesh; the noumenal became phenomenal so that there fact in the first place, came crashing down into the is really only one truth. The Word entered his own so-called world of fact, so that faith was revealed as creation in our time and space as a matter of factual. historical record. He tabernacled among us: the true Now here’s the question for you: Why should glory of God filling the tabernacle of his body, God anyone be a Christian? drawing nearer to us. (People will give mercenary answers: “It’s D. Now we need to draw out further helpful, peace of mind, direction, salvation.” But the implications of what has happened when the Word primary reason we should become a Christian is was made flesh and tabernacled among us. And what because Christianity is true. It is objectively true. John says happened is “grace upon grace.” (16) What That’s what John is insisting when he says, “The do you suppose he means by “grace upon grace”? Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have (One form of grace came through Moses, and now seen his glory….” On the strength of the evidence, another form of grace has come in Christ.) we must embrace Christianity because it is It is obvious that John is now setting up a objectively true. In fact, if it is not true, I mean really deliberate contrast between Moses and Jesus. John true, objectively true, then you should not believe it. the Baptizer is also mentioned in this context as a You should find something else, whatever really is merism, a figure of speech in which the bookends true, and believe that instead, because if it is not true, include all the books in between. So mentioning it is not worth believing, and you are a fool to believe Moses and John in close proximity really points to it. the whole order of Old Testament prophets and their Remember how John concludes his book: “30 messages, from Moses to John. And in this deliberate Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of comparison, we will find that there truly is no the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 comparison, that Jesus is incomparably greater than but these are written so that you may believe that Moses. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by This is one reason why it’s clear that John believing you may have life in his name.” He is was writing to Jews and not to Gentiles. Gentiles asserting that these signs really occurred, not in the would not really care that Jesus was superior to realm of faith, but in the world of fact. And it is on Moses, while Jews would find it stunning and the strength of this evidence that we are to believe absorbing. And this is especially true of nonthat Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so to Palestinian Jews who were being excluded from the have life in his name. synagogue for their faith in Jesus. The synagogue We will pick this up again at the end. was only devoted to Moses. They had some grace, ____________________________________________________________________________________________ THE WORD AND MOSES (John 1:14-18) 1211-18P but not grace upon grace as we find in Jesus. Another reason why it’s clear that John was writing to Jews is because this text is nearly unintelligible apart from its obvious allusion to a prominent event in Moses’ life from Exodus 33 and 34. Let’s go there after we take care of one other matter. I want you to give me the key words from our text in John 1:14-18. What are some of the key terms or ideas which you find repeated? (looking for “glory,” “grace and truth,” and “seeing God.”) With those key terms in mind, let’s go to the background in Exodus 33: I. THE OLD TESTAMENT BACKGROUND. 2 name.” So Moses asks for one thing more. “18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” What was he asking of God? He wanted to see God in all his fullness. This larger, comprehensive, beatific vision, he thought, would be the only thing that could sustain him through this trying ordeal. He had met God at the burning bush. He regularly met with God as he sat in a tent, veiled from God’s presence. But now he asked for no veil, but to see God in all his glory, face to face. So notice this is about “glory.” And God agreed, with one exception. “19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” God would pronounce his covenant name, the Lord. He would reveal his goodness and his sovereignty to show mercy on whom he will show mercy. “20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Notice this second theme of seeing God and not seeing God. “21 And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” Skip down to 34:5. “5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness….” It does not come across as clearly in English, but these two characteristics of God, steadfast love and faithfulness, also have their counterparts in John’s prologue. “Steadfast love” is another word for “grace.” And the root idea of “faithfulness” is to be “true” or “truth.” So here at this meeting between Moses and God we have God’s nature described as “grace and truth.” A. This story follows on the heels of the golden calf incident. While Moses was meeting with God on Mt. Sinai receiving the Law, the people made and worshiped a golden calf as their god, violating the covenant. They wanted a god they could see. So in 33:1-6, God declares that he will no longer go with his people for fear that they will rebel again, and he will destroy them. The people are alarmed at this, but even more Moses who pleads with God to renew the broken covenant and once again go with them. We pick it up in 33:12: “12 ¶ Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” He says, “Teach me your ways so that we will not offend you and you can go with us.” God promises to go with them once again. “14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” But Moses wants to be very sure. “15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and II. THE MEANING. your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other A. What this means is that Jesus is people on the face of the earth?” And God agrees to incomparably superior to Moses for three reasons: his request. 17 And the LORD said to Moses, “This 1. First, Moses met with God, but Jesus was very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you the one he was meeting with. God declared his name have found favor in my sight, and I know you by and his glory, namely that he was “full of grace and ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 1211-18P truth.” And John tells us that Jesus was likewise “full of grace and truth. Moses only met with God; Jesus was God. 2. Moses brought the grace of the Law; Jesus brought the superior grace of grace and truth. John writes in verse 16: “And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” What does that mean? Literally it is grace in place of grace. So grace upon grace is a good translation in the sense of one kind of grace being laid upon another kind of grace. What two kinds of grace are we talking about? John tells us in verse 17: “17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The Law of Moses was a kind of grace; now in Jesus Christ, a superior kind of grace has come. One is the grace of type and shadow, the other is the grace of reality and fullness. Not long ago, someone asked me how people were saved in the Old Testament. The answer is precisely the same way as in the New Testament. In the Old Covenant, the people believed God and obeyed his commands. If they sinned, God made a provision for their forgiveness. They were to bring a sacrifice, and the sacrifice would pay the penalty for their sins. So salvation was trusting God’s grace in the sacrifice. Now, in Jesus Christ, grace and truth have come. Jesus was that sacrifice to fully pay for our sins. So God’s law came through Moses, but Jesus has brought the reality, the fulfillment of that Law, “grace upon grace.” 3. Moses asked to see God’s glory (his face); Jesus is the face of God, which the apostles truly saw. “18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” So the experience of the Apostles was superior even to that of Moses. Moses only asked to see what they fully saw, but he was denied. B. Why did this matter? As we’ve said before, this would have had great importance for John’s first readers, non-Palestinian Jews who were being excommunicated from the synagogue. The Jews who rejected Jesus, supposedly for the sake of remaining true to Moses, and so excluded them, were rejecting the one who was superior to Moses in every way! 3 found the end of our quest. There is nothing more to look for. And we will see this unfold as we study through John’s message. When you’ve found the end of the quest, the thing to do is to stay there, no matter what. B. It matters also in our thinking about the Old Testament and the New Testament. From the very beginning, followers of Christ were faced with the dilemma, “Now that the Messiah has come, what are we to do with the Old Testament?” Can we ignore it, disregard it, discard it? Is there anything of value in it yet since now Christ has come? The answer is in what John tells us about the ministry of Jesus—it was “grace upon grace.” The Old Testament was a form of God’s grace and still hold’s lasting value to us as the first act in a two act play. There we see spiritual realities depicted in living color. We see what the kingdom is like, what holiness entails, what spiritual warfare is about, and how the Lamb of God was offered for our sins. C. And it matters with respect to truth. 1. We need to grow into this understanding that Bible truths are real truths, or our faith will be shaky and will likely collapse under pressure. A dear friend of mine lost her mother suddenly under very painful circumstances. My friend was a life-long church member, but she was suddenly plunged into a crisis of faith. Her question, “Why did God let this happen?” soon became “Is God really there?” Now what had caused this? Well, you see she had never grown beyond a metaphysical, noumenal, legend/myth/fable faith.” For her there was “real” truth, like her mother’s tragic death, and there was “Bible” truth, which she was not sure she trusted anymore. She needed to know that her “Bible” truth was “real” truth. 2. Secondly, we owe it to skeptics and unbelievers to show then that they cannot reject the faith so easily. They cannot simply dismiss God’s Word as myth, legend, fable or mere “Bible” truth. We owe it to them to show them that the Bible’s truth can stand the scrutiny. When the historicity of the New Testament is compared to that of other historical documents from the same time period, documents which are accepted by scholars without question, the New Testament has vastly superior evidence for its III. THE APPLICATION. authenticity. But now the question comes to us. Why does Let me give you one example. You may have this matter to us? heard the name of Plato, the Greek philosopher who A. It matters supremely, for in Jesus, we have lived about 400 years before Christ. Students in ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 1211-18P universities will read Plato’s writings in classes. Scholars don’t sit around debating whether Plato really lived, nor whether his writings are authentic. Yet the earliest copy of Plato’s works that still exists is from 900 A.D., over 1,200 years after Plato wrote. John wrote his Gospel some time before 100 A.D. The earliest portion of a copy of the Gospel of John is from 130 A.D., less than 50 years after John wrote. Nobody questions the authenticity of Plato’s writing. Why would anyone question the authenticity of John’s Gospel? There is vastly stronger documentary evidence for the New Testament than for any other ancient book. This is just one of the indications that Bible truths are real truths. 3. But the third reason why this is important is that John in his Gospel gives us seven signs that Jesus is the Christ. He asks us to believe, to put our faith in Jesus, to stake our lives and futures on the reality of these signs. And we need to be clear that these really happened, that there is within the Gospel of John itself convincing proof, sufficient to demonstrate to us that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” not simply as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact. If we are not convinced, we will always be hesitant. We will always hold back and hedge our bets. We will keep our options open and fear to serve the Lord with glad abandon. We will not fully “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” and so we will not fully “have life in his name.” 4 ____________________________________________________________________________________________