All Man All Amazing (eBook)

Part 1-
All God

There are many who have been deemed, have themselves espoused, or better yet have tried, to be God over the course of history. Whether the Egyptian pharaohs of old,5 the Caesars of Rome6 or even Jim Jones,7 these claims of deity have certainly left us wanting. Is Jesus any different?

In the Beginning

Have you ever heard the expression, “I have been doing this since you were in diapers?” While new up-and-comers have vied for the position of “God,” Jesus is the one who has steadily held on to this title, and it does not appear he is at all in danger of losing it. Indeed, his reign has spanned civilizations, empires and regimes, even dating back to the earliest on record.8

Jesus has been around since the beginning. Which beginning you may ask?

Is it the beginning of Western culture?

Much before.

Is it, then, the beginning of the Church?

Way earlier.

Is it simply the beginning of organized religion?

Not even close.

Jesus has been around since our beginning. This is what John the apostle seemed to think anyway.

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14)

The apostle John walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, ate with Jesus and was a witness to the amazing life he lived. Impressed by just how amazing this life was, he was compelled to employ his pen to convey this to others. In doing so, he makes plain his purpose for writing:

30Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

John writes in order for his readers to walk away with a clear sense of Jesus’ identity, namely that he is the Messiah (a divine king), the Son of God. He tells of his unparalleled wisdom, miracles and love, which is the greatest ever known (John 15:13). John concedes to not covering nearly all of the things Jesus did. In fact, he suggests that all the authors in the world could not exhaust the details of Jesus’ life if they were to write about him (John 21:25) – including this one.

Realizing this, he carefully selects material in order to achieve his goal, wasting no time establishing Jesus’ divine nature. He begins by saying, “In the beginning . . .” John leaves no room for suggestion when it comes to the person of Jesus. The Son of God is not a newcomer, nor did he one day suddenly come to exist. Based on what John writes at the onset of his gospel, though, he is the reason why everything else did.

The first description we see of Jesus in John’s gospel is, “the Word.” In Koine Greek, the original language of John and the other New Testament writers, this denotes “a word, being the expression of a thought; a saying. [This] is preeminently used of Christ (Jn 1:1), expressing the thoughts of the Father through the Spirit.”9 When we accept that God exists in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – we understand how the Word was both “with God” and “was God” in the beginning.

As things were being created, the thoughts of the Father were expressed by the Word and through the Spirit. The book of Genesis echoes these sentiments in its opening remarks:

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)

If you continue reading in Genesis 1, you will see God did a lot of speaking as he was establishing the heavens and the earth. Truly, without the Word, “nothing was made that has been made.” God’s first recorded words resulted in light coming into being. John highlights the significance of this when he says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” (John 1:4). As essential as water is to life, light is just as essential.10 In the beginning, the Spirit of God may have been hovering over the waters but God saw fit for light to be the hallmark of his creative process. Moreover, as an expression of the very thought of light from the Father, Jesus carries light within himself; he is truly able to grant life in his name. He is the light that overcomes darkness.

If you’re like me, there are times when you walk into a room and do not want to turn on the light. At the top of my list is during the middle of the night when a baby, who should be sleeping, wakes up for any number of reasons. I try to do everything I can to maintain the aura of sleep, for both our sakes. This, however, gets a little tricky when needing to change a diaper.

Though turning on a light in a room inherently makes things easier, having a switch on the wall means it is optional. Similarly, when Jesus stepped into history, not everyone was to receive him. To highlight the great need for the light of Christ, a forerunner was selected: John the Baptist.

6There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. (John 1:6-8)

John the Baptist was a man sent by God. This was so acknowledged in his day that his contemporaries actually thought he was the Messiah (John 1:20). In order for the readers of his gospel to not make this same mistake, John the apostle clarifies that “He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light” (John 1:8). Indeed, the world’s most famous baptizer was a means to a divine end, thus pointing people to the light that was coming into the world. Both Johns, then, share the same goal: being witnesses to the light that all might believe.

I like to think of John the Baptist’s ministry as a good movie trailer. Each of us at some point in time has gone to see a movie, in large part because of the trailer. You may have even been in the theater to see a different film, when one of the previews caught your eye. While I will admit that the trailer is sometimes better than the actual film, this is hardly the case with John and Jesus.

There was such a buzz generated by John. For the first time in a long time God was speaking to his chosen people, the Jews. Though they were excited by the presence of this peculiar prophet, listening to his entire message revealed he was only the trailer, not the actual film. He says, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me’” (John 1:15). Just like a movie has to be shot first for the trailer to be created, John the Baptist is clear to point out that Jesus existed before him. This is not a reference to birth order, as Luke’s gospel tells us John was born prior to Jesus (see Luke, chapters one and two). What our baptizer friend is saying is that Jesus is the Preeminent One, who existed prior to him and the rest of humanity.

Despite the efforts of John the Baptist, there were those who would not receive the light. Even though Jesus’ light produced life in the beginning, and still does so until this day, he was not recognized. There were those, however, who did receive him.

What, though, did it mean for Jesus to be received?

Those who received Jesus acknowledged that in him the Word had become flesh and made his dwelling among them. That’s right, for the first time in history the claims of a man saying he was God were actually true. There was a living, breathing God in their midst whose glory they beheld. This was a glory that surpassed the temple, the Law of Moses and, yes, John the Baptist – all a really big deal to any first century Jew. This Jesus, who was himself God and in closest relationship with the Father, was making the true God known by his flesh and bone presence among the people of his day.

Let’s not just take the apostle John’s word for it, though.

Notorious

Perhaps one of the greatest evidences for the authenticity of Christianity is the testimony of Paul.

We know him as the...