• Come to the waters
of the Jordan
and step back.
In early August, when 400,000 residents in greater Toledo, Ohio’s fourth
largest city, were ordered not to drink their water due to contamination, the
governor of Ohio
told the public, “What’s more important than water? Water’s about life. We know
it’s difficult. We know it’s frustrating.” Actually, water is even more crucial
to key teachings of the Gospel and to spiritual life itself:
1.
Water shows: What is God like?
2.
Water shows: Who is Jesus Christ?
3.
Water shows: What must I do now?
4.
Water shows: How should I live my life?
Today we explore the second essential revealed by water.
• Water reveals the true Savior (John 1:33).
In the last online segment, from
Luke chapter 3 we beheld a scene at the Jordan River:
John the Baptizer with water was there. Many people were there getting baptized
with water. And Jesus was there, standing in the water, looking up to the
heavens and praying – Jesus who was born of Mary and therefore human; and conceived
in Mary by the Holy Spirit and therefore the Holy One, the Son of God. In the
form of a dove, the Holy Spirit descended from the heavens and rested on Jesus.
There was a voice from the heavens saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I
am well pleased.”
There is one more critical
detail told by the fourth evangelist, John the Apostle [1]. This is the detail:
John the Baptizer, who was preparing the way for the coming of the Lord (YWHH),
was told by God: this is how you will be able to identify the Coming One, the
Son of God, the one who will baptize people – not with water but with the Holy
Spirit. You will know who he is by seeing the Holy Spirit come on him. As John
was also standing in those waters, he saw the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove
descend and remain on Jesus. John might have said to himself something like
this, “Wow. It’s him. Now I know. My mission is life is about to be fulfilled.
The Lord (YWHW), for whom I have been preparing people, has come.”
The very next day two of the
disciples of John the Baptizer were with John as Jesus came by. Without
hesitation John yelled, “Look, there’s the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin
of the world…. I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John
1:29, 32). What took place in the waters had identified the true Savior – the
Son of God who is living among us as a man is also a sacrificial Lamb: the Lamb
of God who can actually deal with our fundamental spiritual problems.
At this point objectors from other religions and from
atheism stand up and exclaim, “No, it can’t be. Sure, Jesus was a good man, did
some good in the world, taught some pearls of wisdom, and left us with an
example to follow. But God in the flesh? Come on, now.” A Jewish man stated the
objection in the form of a joke:
When a Jewish atheist heard that
the best school in town happened to be Catholic, he enrolled his son. Things
were going very well until one day the boy came home and said he had learned
all about the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost. His father, barely able to
control his rage, seized his son by the shoulders and said: “David, this is
very important, so listen carefully. There is only one God—and we don’t believe
in Him!” [2]
But at least give the Gospel a fair-minded hearing. John the
Baptist, Jesus, and the disciples of Jesus were all first-century Jews living
in Roman Palestine. They all affirmed the Shema (“Hear”): “Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord is one . . .” (Deut 6:4, affirmed by Jesus in Mark
12:28-34). And, as thought leaders, they were concerned both about ultimate
Reality and about our reality, the human condition.
It must be noted that the Apostle John was among those early
disciples who followed Jesus. He was there from the start and he wrote the Gospel According to John in which he
stated, “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and
who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true” (John
21:24). After being with Jesus and seeing everything that happened, he became
certain of a larger picture. Let’s listen to him take the bare elements of John
the Baptizer’s testimony – “Son of God” and “Lamb of God” – and then tell the
Grand Narrative (grand recit) that allows
the stories of our lives (petites
histoires) to make sense.
• First, the true
Savior is the Eternal Word who became flesh.
The Apostle John, an eye-witness to the events, begins the
Grand Narrative as follows (John 1:1-4, 14):
In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that
was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of human beings…. And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of
the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Word. Who did
John the Baptizer see and hear in the waters of the Jordan? Who did the John the
Apostle see, hear, room with, and travel with for three years in Roman
Palestine? They saw and heard a being called the Word. While reading those
opening words of the Gospel, what might a first century reader think when
confronted with the first sentence? A pagan schooled in Greek philosophy might
think of “Word” (Greek, Logos) as
reason.
Heraclitus of Ephesus (flourished 504-501 BC) searched for
unity in diversity and identified logos
(reason) as “the universal law immanent in all things, binding all things into
a unity and determining the constant change in the universe according to
universal law.” Zeno (ca. 300 BC), a pantheist, and his disciples the Stoics believed
that logos spermatikos (seminal
reason) – an all-pervading cosmic fiery vapor – generated the universe and
determined and kept in order the particulars of the universe. [3]
But such Logos speculation among the philosophers is quickly
dispelled by John the Apostle. He makes several important points. First, the
Word is a person, not an impersonal law or an impersonal force: “he was
in the beginning with God and all things were made through him” (John 1:2-3).
Second, the Word existed “in the beginning” (John 1:1). “In the beginning”
harks back to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.” The words “in the beginning” (Greek, en arche) in the Gospel are
identical to the Greek translation (Septuagint) of the Hebrew Genesis 1:1 text.
That is, before there was any created matter and beings, God created the
heavens and the earth. And before there was any created matter and beings, there
existed the Word, a personal entity. In the next two verses John emphasizes
this distinction between creator and creation. “All things” – the entity of the
cosmos and everything in it – “were made” (literally “became,” that is, came
into being) through him (the Word) and without him (the Word) nothing was made
(come into being) that was made (came into being). There is the deity on the
one hand and “all things” (matter, energy, time, created beings) on the other
hand.
Third, the elements found in the creation story of Genesis
(“he made,” “life,” “light”) are all characteristics of the Word (John 1:3-4).
Do you wish to seek your Creator? Find the Word and thereby discover the source
of all things. Do you want life? Find the Word and obtain it. Do you want light
(purity, knowledge, joy)? Find the Word and receive it.
Fourth, the Word was with God (1:1). There are two
personalities existing before any created matter and beings: God and the Word.
Fifth, the Word was God (1:1). The original Greek has a way of saying “the Word
was a god” [Greek, ho logos ēn theos], but John does not use that wording.
Instead John says, “the Word was God” [Greek, theos ēn ho logos]. [4] Thus,
there is one God, but more than one person within the divine fullness. John
chapters 14-16 show that there is a third divine person, the Holy Spirit. Jesus
told the disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper
to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him,
for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).
Finally, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and
we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth…. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side,
he has made him known” (John 1:14,17-18).
When John the Apostle says that the Word “dwelt,” those who
customarily heard the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek translation would notice that
“dwelt” [skēnoō] is the verb form of the noun “tent” [skēnē] found in the
Pentateuch (the written Torah, the Five Books of Moses). The tent is the
dwelling place of God, the localization of God’s presence on earth made visible
by glory:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
“On the first day of the first month you shall erect the tabernacle of the tent
[skēnē] of meeting. And you shall put in it [and around it various sacred
items]…. This Moses did; according to all that the Lord commanded him, so he
did…. Then the cloud covered the tent [skēnē] of meeting, and the glory of the
Lord filled the tabernacle [Greek translation: the tent [skēnē] was filled with
the glory of the Lord]. And Moses was not able to enter the tent [skēnē] of
meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle [Greek: the tent [skēnē] of meeting] (Ex 40:1-3, 1, 34-35).
The Word became flesh.
When the Word became flesh (a human being, Jesus Christ), he dwelt as God’s
tent among us. The flesh of Jesus Christ became the new localization of God’s
presence on earth. Furthermore, God’s law (instruction) through Moses did have
grace and truth, but that grace and truth was in partialness and contained objects
that foreshadowed a reality. The fullness – the comprehensiveness and the full
substance – of grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. In Exodus 3:14 God
had told Moses, a mere man, “I am who I am” And he [God] said, ‘Say this to the
people of Israel,
“I am has sent me to you.” ’ ” The fourth evangelist identifies the “I am” of
the Lord God with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Before Abraham came into
being, I am” (8:58, the Greek “I am” being identical to the “I am” in the Greek
translation of Exodus 3:14a).
The fourth evangelist also relates seven “I am” sayings of
Jesus with an image echoing the Hebrew Bible passages where they are used for
God: “I am the Bread of Life”, “the Bread which came down from heaven” (6:35,41,48,51;
see Ex 16; Num 11:6-9; Ps 78:24; Isa 55:1-3; Neh 9:15), the “Light of the
World” (8:12; see Ex 13:21-22; Isa 42:6-7; Ps 97:4); “the Door (or Gate) for
the sheep” (10:7,9 paralleling the one
and only gate to the tabernacle where God’s presence is, Ex 27:16), the “Good Shepherd”
(10:11, see Ezek 34:1-41; Gen 48:15; 49:24; Ps 23:1-4; 80:1; 100:3-4; Mic 7:14),
the “Resurrection and the Life” (11:25, see Dan 12:2; Ps 56:13); the “Way, the
Truth, and the Life” (14:6, for “way” see Ex 33:13; Ps 25:4; 27:11; 86:11;
119:59; Isa 40:3; 62:10; for “truth” see 1 Kgs 17:4; Ps 25:5; 43:3; 86:11;
119:160; Isa 45:19), and the “True Vine” (15:1, see Isa 5:1-7; Ps 80:9-17; Jer
2:21; Ezek 17:5-10).
Finally, the passage declares that no one has seen God at
any time (John 1:18a). Yet, according to the earliest manuscripts of this
verse, the only-begotten (an expression meaning “unique”) God has made
known the invisible God (John 1:18b). John the Apostle was there from the
beginning of the public manifestation of Jesus Christ. His voice is an
authentic voice. “We have seen his (the only-begotten God’s) glory” (John
1:14b). As an eye-witness he has personally looked upon, gazed at, viewed with
attention this Word who became flesh. To sum it up, there is fullness in the
one God: there is God the invisible Father and then there is the Word, who is
at the Father’s side and who has made him known.
Do you wish to know God, my friend? The fullness of divine
revelation has come. The Word who is the Creator is also the Revealer. He has
come and John has seen, heard, and touched him. In another Johannine text,
Revelation 3:10, Jesus Christ – the Word – calls out to anyone who will listen,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the
door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” There is fellowship
awaiting us – pictured as dining with the living God, — the Creator, Sustainer,
Revealer, and Savior. Come in, sit down, and by prayer and Scripture reading, converse
and commune.
• Second, the true
Savior is the sacrificial Lamb who deals with the root problem of the human
condition, sin.
When John the Baptizer saw Jesus, without any hesitation
John not only identified Jesus as the “Son of God,” but John also yelled,
“Look, there’s the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John
1:29). Ability to come to the rescue is not the same as rescuing. Does the Word
who became the localization of the presence of God in this world, Jesus Christ –
does the Word now stop and merely stand apart from humanity? The Apostle John’s
Gospel and First Epistle emphatically say, “No!”
To understand the expression, “Lamb of God,” we must again go
back to the Law of Moses. For the annual Passover, a lamb was sacrificed and
eaten as the people remembered their redemption from being slaves in the land of Egypt (Ex 12:1-14). Originally, the blood
of the lamb was spread on the doorposts and lintel of a house and meant that
God would spare the firstborn of that house from his just punishment of death
for rebellion against him. In ancient Israel, lambs were also used in
worship:
If he [a worshipper] brings a lamb
as his offering for a sin offering, he shall bring a female without blemish and
lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it for a sin offering in
the place where they kill the burnt offering. Then the priest shall take some of
the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the
altar of burnt offering and pour out all the rest of its blood at the base of
the altar. . . . And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which
he has committed, and he shall be forgiven (Leviticus 4:32–35).
Shed blood, punishment, killing of the lamb, smearing the
blood, atonement. But why? Let me approach the answer by way of an analogy. Although
much has been done in the last three centuries to eliminate physical slavery,
it still exists in our day. Two leaders of a small antislavery movement in their
country were asked why they risk their lives and liberty to fight against slavery
and human trafficking. They replied:
Because we are haunted by the
horror that we have witnessed – the unimaginable treatment that children are
subjected to, the picture of old women being forced into prostitutions, and
mothers with young babies having sex with one man while another holds her baby
in front of her. [5]
Despite the repulsiveness of physical slavery, there is an
even more critically important kind of slavery – the slavery of human beings to
their own sinfulness. In the first Passover the blood of the sacrificial lamb
spared people from God’s punishment for transgression. In Leviticus chapter 4,
the blood of the lamb and the lamb itself are an offering for sin. In the
analysis of the human condition by Jesus Christ, transgression and sin have (1)
an enslaving power and (2) a polluting quality. First, in John chapter 8, Jesus
is at the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem
and has been addressing crowds and encountering religious authorities, He said
to those who believed him,
“If you abide in my word, you are
truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you
free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been
enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus
answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a
slave to sin” (John 8:31-34).
Whether we have social and political freedom or we have been
cruelly subjected to human slavery and human trafficking, we are all slaves to
sin – to a principle at work in us that causes us to rebel against our Creator,
to be selfish in our dealings with our fellow human beings, to have evil
thoughts, evil emotions, and evil desires, and to commit evil actions.
Second, what makes a human being unclean, unholy, and
impure? Hear the analysis of Jesus:
What comes out of a person is what
defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,
sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within, and they defile a person (Mark 7:20-23).
It’s part of the human condition to have addictions and
defilements caused by sin. Try as we may, we really can’t clean ourselves up.
We have a problem that is part of our nature. We need help. Where can we turn?
The Apostle John answers in his First Epistle:
If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word
is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you
may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 1:8 – 2:2).
Although English translations vary as to how to translate
the word “propitiation” in 1 John 2:2 (propitiation, expiation, or atoning
sacrifice), John the Apostle makes the general meaning clear. He identifies
God’s attitude toward human beings as one of condemnation and of wrath, “Whoever
believes in him (Jesus Christ, the Son of God) is not condemned, but whoever
does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name
of the only Son of God…. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever
does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him
(John 3:18,36).
As sinners, we are at odds with God and, therefore, we are
under his condemnation and wrath. As such, we will never experience eternal
life with God who is life. We somehow need our bondage to be broken, our debt
to be paid, our burden to be removed, our condemnation to be changed to a right
relationship with God, and God’s wrath to be assuaged and turned to a
satisfaction of divine justice. In short, we need a release from the slavery of
sin and its consequences. What we need is propitiation and that is what Jesus
Christ did. On the cross he became the Passover Lamb of God who made things
right with God the Father by (1) taking away our condemnation before the
justice of God and (2) taking away the wrath of God who has holy revulsion
against our sinfulness and our sins.
This is good news, but what must we do with it? Simply this:
right now, without delay, confess your sins before God. Believe in Jesus Christ
as the Eternal Word, the Son of God, and the Lamb of God. Acknowledge him as
the propitiation for your sins. Accept him as your personal advocate with God
the Father. Receive his two great gifts: forgiveness of the guilt of sin and
cleansing from the defiling and enslaving qualities of sin. Do it now.
[1] For a summary of evidence
that John the Apostle is the author of the Fourth Gospel, see Daniel B.
Wallace, “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Argument, Outline.” https://bible.org/seriespage/gospel-john-introduction-argument-outline.
Regardless of how one identifies the author, the author identifies himself as
“the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20,24) and as an eyewitness to the
events. This “disciple Jesus loved” was in the upper room when Jesus told his
disciples, “And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from
the beginning” (John 15:27). In the Gospel According to John, we are reading eyewitness
testimony of the facts about and significance of Jesus Christ.
[2] Herb Silverman, “Religion
Dispatches,” December 12, 2013
http://religiondispatches.org/there-is-only-one-god-and-we-dont-believe-in-him/
[3] Frederick
Copleston, Greece
and Rome: Pre-Socratics to Plotinus Vol. 1
of A History of Philosophy, 9 vols., New York: Image, 1946, p
23 & 43. Cited by
http://fidei-defensor.blogspot.com/2006/08/johannine-logos.html
[4] For a full discussion of
“the Word was God, not a god” see “IV. Erroneous Translations” in Bruce M.
Metzger, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesus Christ: A Biblical and Theological
Appraisal,” Theology Today 10/1 (April 1953), pp 65-85. http://www.bible-researcher.com/metzger.jw.html
[5] Natricia Duncan, “Human
trafficking,” The Guardian, March 14,
2014.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/mar/14/human-trafficking-slavery-india
