Mark Johnston: The Light of Christ

we want to focus our thoughts in the prologue to John's Gospel John chapter one looking especially at verses four and five let me read the first five verses and then skip down to verse 14 as we prepare to hear what God is setting before us in this passage 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 anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it 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 amen so reads God's holy word I don't know about you but I find conference titles titles that are chosen to advertise conferences and to encourage people to come to conferences I find them intriguing and what goes through the minds of those who choose these titles and what are they seeking to achieve by them sometimes they seem as being sufficiently bland and broad to give the speaker's scope to fit something in that will be vaguely appropriate or sufficiently bland and broad to reach to a wide range of people who might be potential attendees and you might think that the title for this conference the light of the world is perhaps somewhat bland and broad but in the climate that we live in in these days and the kind of culture that has engulfed us in these days the title for this conference is incredibly provocative indeed so much so I was mildly relieved to find that coming to Westminster central Hall we weren't confronted by a barrage of pickets and placard waving people who said how dare you choose a title like that if it was a light in the midst of the many lights or if it was simply light of the world we can live with that but for you to dare to put the definite article in front of light of the world is an outrage and we will not abide it because you see that title declares that the Bible is the only authentic source of all that we need to know about life but the world about the universe and ultimately what we desperately need to know if we are to understand what it means to be safe and secure forever what the Bible calls salvation Redemption deliverance but of course that claim is brought into even sharper focus in the theme of this first address that speaks of Christ as the light of the world because that title for this first address tells us that the blazing white lights that breaks into the blaze of glorious colors the multicolored revelation that we find in Holy Scripture is the blazing lights of Jesus Christ whose multicolored wisdom is displayed for us and set before us in holy scripture all of this is brought out pointedly in John's prologue and becomes a recurring motif that runs all the way through his gospel on that one but several occasions Jesus declares I are uniquely and exclusively am the light of the world and in that sense this opening address provides an obvious doorway that will lead into all that follows for the remainder of our time together and that's true for several reasons in the first place because john's prologue and elsewhere in john's gospel z' we are confronted by the pervasiveness of darkness in our world and within our race it's the language that provides a a potent image everything that is wrong with our world generally and specifically everything that is wrong with us personally that to go out in the blackness of an unlit night no street lamps no no moon no stars and to feel engulfed in darkness becomes a potent image for the way in which we are engulfed not only in moral darkness an intellectual darkness but ultimately the way in which the souls of men women boys and girls are engulfed in spiritual darkness plunging them over the edge into despair so many times and it also shows how the very best attempts to make sense of the world and universe and everything throughout the history of our race have failed miserably I think it's somewhat ironic that the age to in which we currently find ourselves coming to an end was given the name the age of the Enlightenment it is effectively post enlightenment world we're living in just now but I won't remember as a teenager in English literature in school studying and the book by the play by Samuel Beckett's the Irish atheist existentialist playwright waiting for God oh and there was one line in that play that grips me because it told it said to me even as a 10-8 teenager this is a grandson of the Enlightenment come of age and what does he say speaking of the human race he says they give birth a stride an open grave the light gleams for an instant and then it is night that is the message that is the gospel of enlightenment philosophy the light gleams for an instant hanging over an open grave and then we are engulfed in darkness and despair that in itself should make us want to find out about this this promise of light that is find in the Lord Jesus Christ I think the greatest reason why we should turn to this this evening is given by John Calvin it is introduction to this gospel he says how can we rest our faith in Christ if the certainty of this gospel is not established faith is not a leap in the dark faith is underpinned by the certainty of the God who reveals himself in Scripture and ultimately it is son the Lord Jesus Christ and that's true not just for those who are on the outside looking in those who are not yet Christians looking for lights but for those of us who are Christians Peter tells us that we are to strive to make our calling and election sure we must be able to rest with confidence in our Stanley before God and in our defense of the faith once delivered to the Saints and that brings us very much to what makes John's gospel so distinctive among the Gospels even though it is the same gospel message there's one gospel but according to Matthew according to Mark according to Luke and according to John what makes John different is that at one level it comes across as a defense of the gospel complete with evidence witnesses and arguments to prove the case but in another sense it's a persuasive proclamation of the gospel the Synoptics are in some ways a record of the gospel but john is a proclamation of the gospel he seeks to persuade us using the very words of Christ himself preached while he was on this earth in conjunction with the miracles that bore testimony to these were that these were word of God's to call us to faith and to strengthen us in faith john's intent from the outset is to demonstrate that jesus can only truly be the christ to save yourself from god's if he is unde indeed because he is the Incarnate son of God he uniquely has the the capacity and the authority to deliver on that promise I will save to the uttermost all who call on me because cause of who I am and because there is no one like me and never will be so what is to explore how this is so in these verses four three key reasons in the first place it's because of who Jesus Christ is eternally who he is eternally the Gospel of John begins with words that are deliberately designed to stop readers in their tracks in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God clearly deliberately chosen to echo Genesis chapter one and verse one not just to bring us back to that moment when it all began but more significantly to bring us face to face with what lay behind that moment when it all began in other words this is it's not just a replay of the opening verse of the Bible it's an exposition of the larger context of that first verse in the Bible and immediately it exposes the big hole in the theory of the Big Bang because any self-respecting individual who cares to embrace that that belief that it was a big bang that commenced the existence of the cosmos and Broad's eventually into being planet earth and and all that is developed on this so they say is the very simple that a question Allah child could ask what bind what was there in the first place then how did it get there it begs the question intellectually as much as in any other sense to contemporary theories of origins really answer the questions that cry out from the depths of our hearts and as John begins his good news message in this way he makes us ask where the deepest roots of reality and of existence are to be found and he begins to answer the question almost immediately by introducing us to the person of the word we might expect him to think to begin to refer to the words by the pronoun it an impersonal program pronoun because a word under normal rules of grammar is an it but he attaches the personal pronoun him to the word identifying him as a person the word that John uses for the word was the Greek words logos and even they the Greek transliteration of it immediately conjures up the idea of logic of reason of purpose and so on but it conveys according to Calvin the idea of speech all the way through in Calvin's commentary speaks about the speech the speech and and he opens that up in terms of of the one who reveals and explains the mind of God if God is incomprehensible if got if God is beyond the reach of of finite and add to that fallen human minds then who can begin to know who God is what God is like and and and Calvin says it's only if someone makes him known if someone reveals him indeed if God Himself reveals him and here is one who is described as the word the speech by whom and through whom God is made known and God is explained also striking is that John points to the role of the law Gauss who he later identifies us as the son not just in history but from eternity and from within the Godhead itself and his role is all about making God in all his fullness known and that's something that John repeatedly highlights notably at the end of the prologue no one has ever seen God but God the one and only who is at the father's side he has made him known and he wasn't at the father's side simply from the point of creation he has always been at the father's side so he uniquely is able to make God known as the speech the revealer and explainer of the eternal and the infinite God of all the universe second crucial detail that John highlights here in terms of of the eternal logos is the fact that he is God in himself those are you've explored John Calvin's they the Institute's of the Christian religion will know that that he he invents a word about the son the eternal son in this sense and he speaks from speaks of him as being Auto Thais he is God in himself he's not some subordinate or some derivative deity but he is true God's fully God's we see that in a subtle but significant use of both tense and syntax in what John has to say at this point he says in the beginning was the words not not from the beginning he already was at the beginning and and it's reinforced by the the scent and the word order in the in that statement even though we render it more naturally in our English and the word was God he reverses the order God was the words putting the accent on the goddness of the eternal son he wants us to understand he wants us to grasp that that this divine law goes to whom we are being introduced is the eternal God the Son so Christ reveals God because he is God's God has not sent some agent or some angel to reveal and explain him as he had done up unto this point he had sent angels from heaven he had sent prophets raised up from among men and and he had used them by his spirit to reveal and explain up to a point the glory and the majesty of who he is and what he's like but now comes the climatic moments in the history of redemption when God sends forth the words from himself the one who is God in himself to reveal the wonder the splendor the majesty of the gods who wants to be known by his creatures third clue that we find here to begin to appreciate the weight of what John is setting before us and communicating to us is the fact that when he says that that's the the Word was with God he he uses another greek words pross which says the word was towards God and of course immediately were beginning to realize in a way perhaps that Old Testament believers could only guess up because they saw hints and glimpses but but find it so hard to even imagine what the Bible was pointing to that this God who reveals himself in Genesis chapter 1 is a God who is obviously a unity but at the same time there is diversity because they because the word that is used for God is a plural word but it's used with singular verbs and here as the New Testament age Dawn's as the history of redemption thought unfolds to its climactic moment in terms of God's self-revelation to the world and his embracing of his people here is God saying that within the Godhead there is a to wardeness the Sun has eternally been towards the Sun to the Father and towards the spirit and it's speaking of course of that that's glorious interpersonal communion that has ever existed within the godheads within the holy trinity and and it speaks to us have not some divine monad some isolated cold and clinical deity but quite rightly as the same apostle would say in his later epistle towards the end of the Bible God is love and the only way that you can make sense of that is if love has an object and the fact that the son is eternally towards the father and the spirit and and mutually within the relationships of the Godhead we are catching a glimpse of the the intimacy of this God who reveals himself in the pages of Holy Scripture and ultimately in the person of his incarnate son there's no hierarchy there is no self absorption of the individuals persons of the Godhead this is more than communion it is the son who is able to make known to us the richness the beauty and especially the love the love that God is why does John begin in this way by taking us back into the depths of eternity because he wants us to realize that we can never fully understand the Christ of history without glimpsing something of the mystery of his eternal pre-existence it's a bit like getting to know someone who perhaps we think we know but the more we get to know them the more we realized there's more to you than meets the eye and all the way through the Old Testament the people of God who had been getting to know this God he was revealing himself couldn't help but think to themselves there's more to this God than meets the eye the New Testament era Dawn's the son is revealed and suddenly people begin to realize there's more to this God of Israel than could ever meet the eye and we'll be spending eternity delving into the Wonder and the richness of who really is and what he's really like so there's the first thing that we are brought face-to-face with with the Lord Jesus Christ the Incarnate son and made to realize that he is the source of all lights because he is because of who he is eternally but John takes it further and he wants us to understand something of his role in history as he as he introduces the word John transitions seamlessly from what he has been throughout eternity to his role in history from what happened what pertains prior to that moment of creation that we spoke of under that first heading - what happened in that moment of creation and thereafter through history by the words you see from its inception and in its totality of the entire created order the words was at work the word was at work you see it all over the the opening chapter of Genesis and God said and God said you see it in the the wisdom statement about the presence of the wisdom of God in creation pointing again to the one who makes him known and would one day be revealed in history it is the word who was at work in the beginning and the word who has had been at work ever since what John has already said about the logos in eternity only serves to magnify his involvement in history and with our race that we realize more than ever the sheer incredible nassif act that this seemingly innocuous word in genesis that speaks of of god saying let there be is actually bringing us face to face with the eternal son the word and his role in how it came to be again several things that are worth highlighting all of which serve to underscore what's up Calvin is saying about the importance of persuading us of certainty that giving us good reason to be assured of Jesus as being a safe place a safe person into in whom to place our faith the first is the fact that the Lagos is presented as the divine agent of creation look at verse 3 all things were made through him and without him not anything made that was made the Apostle was basically unpacking Genesis 1 verse 1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth now he's filling in the details he's he's coloring in the specific nuances of what that statement means God as Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit each person having their own particular role in that creative work because the Trinity has never divided in the work that is performed they're never separated they're involved in different ways but with common purpose and here John is telling us how the word the eternal son was specifically involved why is that significant because even though God could have created the world and universe and everything that is by divine Fiat not even speaking a word or anything but just as it were clicking the divine fingers and all would have happened God saw fit Father Son and spirit to involve himself with each person contributing in their own particular way God created by the divine word he spoke the world into existence and of course as we begin to explore that through the rest of Scripture we we realized that that it is a it goes further the God who spoke the world into existence by the word sustains the world in its existence by the word think of that great statement by Moses that we so often associate with with our daily provision man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God he is actually speaking they're not about the need for us to read our Bibles every day which is true that we ought he's saying that is through the providential Word of God the God is the unseen conductor of the cynthy of the universe than as a conductor on a podium is directing an orchestra with a nod with a word with a whisper with a movement so God by his word sustains all things visible and invisible echoed again in Hebrews 1 verse 3 identified specifically with the Incarnate son as the one who upholds all things by his powerful words follows on from this as John goes on to show that this must also relate to his recreation where he takes the lives of ruined sinners just like you and me and it's by his words that he calls us to himself it's by his word that we are pressed into his shape it is by his word that we are continually being transformed and it is by his word that he will one day call us home into the beauty and the blessedness of the new heavens and the new earth which are the home of righteousness but he is also the life and the light of all humanity all humanity in him was life and the life was the light of men not simply the light of his people who trusted him but the light of all people throughout all ages God has not left our race in utter darkness John has something universal in view he's saying that even those who make no claim to be Christians are nevertheless connected to Christ by creation it was through his words that they came into existence that we all came into existence and interest in he when Paul goes to speak to the academics in Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17 in Athens and and he engages the in a fascinating way he preaches Christ without ever naming Christ but he leaves them in no doubt that he is speaking of Christ the man who God has raised from the dead but he he quotes their own poets and looks these academics and the I do not your your own poets say that we are the offspring of the gods-- that we cannot understand ourselves in isolation that there's something of the divine stamped upon us or as Calvin would put it later on there there's a sense of God woven into the souls of the heart of every single human being it's through the agency of the log-off sin creation and especially in the fact that when it came to the creation of the first man Adam that he with his wife Eve were made in the image and likeness of God they were distinct from every other species on the face of planet Earth because they had the stamp of God upon them that they were meant to be in microcosm in the created order on earth what God is in macrocosm above the created order in eternity that we are to be little created mirror images of God's finitely reflecting God's in his infinity and John is saying that light was shining the light that was shining before the Incarnation before Jesus took flesh and entered our world that light was already shining even in the darkness of fallen humanity but John's but thirdly John's SR is to declare the high point in the sons role in history look at verse 14 that's why we read that at the very end and the words 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 he took our flesh he came into our world he moved into our neighborhoods and in so doing the light that shone through his humanity his perfect humanity as much as his divine nature brought people then that ever since face to face with the majesty of God they pointed to the moment in time when the Sun of eternity took our nature became one with us in order to act for us that he might redeem us and bring us into a new realm the realm of glory but of Hope there'll be no greater persuasion of the Gospels truth and trustworthiness than the fact that the eternal son stepped into history made himself known unaccountable visibly tangibly for all to see that brings us to the last thing that we see hi hi oh the Lord Jesus Christ is the light in terms of his impact personally the breathtaking wonder of John's prologue Olivos like like awestruck Outsiders looking into something that feels completely alien to us it's it's hard to get your head around the first eighteen verses of this gospel but even those we so often say to people who are inquiring about the faith if you want to start somewhere go to John's gospel well you're in at the deep end in these 18 verses Minds get blown and these 18 verses and you feel like an outsider looking in but the Apostles purpose is to show that the opposite is the case far from being mere spectators to these eternal realities and these historical events everything he describes here impacts every person who has ever lived and who will ever live and the more we see and sense this the more we are persuaded not just that this is true but he is true and once more John uses a threefold argument to show how this is so first of all he tells us that the law goes shines into our darkness verse five the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it the light of this Creator Christ shines perpetually in and from every atom of his creation Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1 that these creative things that are visible and tangible reveal invisible things so that the very attributes of God's are sufficiently discernible in the created order and in our humanity but nobody is without excuse nobody can stand before God's on the day of judgment said you never told me you didn't even give me a hint he said I gave you more than a hint you just were not looking or taking it seriously more than that he is so stamped even on the worst of human creatures his own image that as we've said already every human being has got a sense of God deep within them is there's an entire conference in that statement but we'll leave that for another day second strand of reasoning John says that the logos calls us into his light he tells us that darkness has not overcome the light it has not extinguished the light you see the essence of natural lights is the fact that it always Trump's the darkness the darkness never wins I grew up in the country and well remembers a small boy walking on a on a country road on a very dark night and it was scary because there wasn't anything if I didn't already know the road and I could give me the sense walk it blind but what scared me most was I saw this pinprick of light coming to watering and it was moving there was a man with a cigarette in his mouth and the only thing that gave it away was a tiny orange glow the light conquered the darkness even on that pitch-black night here John is saying in the ultimate sense the lights of the eternal Sun shines so brightly that the darkness will never and has never extinguished it how much more so then as this God's eternal son uses the metaphor of darkness for everything that is evil and anti God he is telling us that even the evil that lurks within cannot extinguish the light that shines in from without that we cannot argue that's intrusive lights out of our lives no matter how hard we might try that light will also always shine but for a pastor a point of view I think it's a curious thing that that we have perhaps as ministers dealt with people who for a lifetime as long as we've known them they've resisted the gospel they've argued against our persuade efforts to persuade but you go to visit them on their deathbed and you ask them are you at peace they'll tell you no we're not those things you said those truths you set before us they'd they've not us they've troubled us right down to the very end the light still shines even in the face of the darkness of death calling us to the light himself to Jesus even in the life of the most antagonistic atheists you're the language that Paul uses in in Romans one verse verse eighteen he speaks about the the wrath of God being revealed against the ungodliness of man who do want who suppress the truth in their unrighteousness just the language of putting your hands around the throat of someone to strangle them and silence them it's the language of of putting your hand on someone's head to force them under water to hold them down while they're fighting and kicking and screaming and you feel every blow that they strike against you and for even they the most convinced atheist they if they're honest will tell you that they are fighting against the truth that God is shining into their hearts as well as into their mind as they try to overcome it but fail but John's third heir argument is the most personal and the most persuasive of them all because he tells us that it's Christ alone who determines our ultimate destiny its Christ alone who determines our ultimate destiny where we stand how we stand on that great and final day when we find ourselves before the judge of all the earth what happens to us after that point will depend only and entirely on where we stand with Jesus Christ and we don't have to wait until that day to discover the answer to that question because it's in this life that we discover where we stand with Jesus Christ whether we can depend upon him as our Savior and look to him as our hope or as the one that we have consciously and willfully rejected and despised we know today where we stand before the judge of all the earth because we simply have to ask ourselves is Christ my Savior my lords my elder brother my dearest friends or do I count him as my enemy who I want to keep from my life look at verses 10 to 13 John says he he was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him he came to his own and his own people did not receive him but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but born of God's the world was made made by him and when he the maker of the world came into the world he was not recognized he was not acknowledged he was not worshipped but worse than that he came to those who were his own those who had millennia of divine revelation those who had been exposed to theophanies of God's God's making himself known tangibly invisibly before he came in the person of his son the Lord Jesus Christ the people who should have known better and they did not receive him and he'd far from receive him when they had their way with him all they could scream at the Roman governor was crucify him crucify him away with him for those who refused to recognize or receive him they will meet him as their judge and they will face the awfulness of the words of banishment eternal banishment that he will speak but to all who did and do receive him to them he gave the right the privilege of being called the sons of God children of God of being welcomed into God's family of being able to approach the god of the ages and say Abba Father of knowing him intimately receiving the spirit of adoption the one by whom we were given a new instinct that only God Himself can give by the spirit by whom he cried like the birth cry like the cry of desperation when one of your children is lost and and who do they shout for they shout for you as their parents because that's where the deepest bond exists and that sign which often only is exposed when we are the severus pressure who do we instinctively cry to ask yourself do you cry for your friends do you cry for your family or do you cry out Oh Lord my god whom have I in heaven but you and earth has nothing I desire apart from you because that same spirit of adoption is the one who testifies with our spirit not only that he is ours but that we are his purchase at unspeakable cost through the blood of his precious son for those of you who know the benedictions of the Old Testament the great benediction of the Old Testament was the ironic blessing the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face to do what to shine upon you the Lord be gracious unto you and give you peace all of that is incarnated in Jesus Christ son of mary son of god savior of the world that's brave merciful god we bless and thank you for your grace to us through your son the lord jesus christ the one who is your speech who explains you who makes you known that through him we might not not simply know about you but we might know you intimately and personally because this is life eternal that they might know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent in his name we pray you

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

Views: 3,982

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: ligonier ministries, ligonier conference, ligcon, london, london conference, 2019 london conference, the light of the world, lights in the world, reformed theology, christian conference, reformation theology, english reformation, educational, christian, protestant, teaching ministry, mark johnston, christ is the light, the light of christ, the light of god, the way to god, christ is the only way, jesus is the only way, exclusivity of christ, philippians 2 15, john 1 4-5, ligonier

Id: 6RAkcQZ7i_0

Length: 42min 4sec (2524 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2019