The Light of Christ

Jesus claimed to be the light of the world, not a light but the light that title declares that the Bible is the only authentic source of 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, welcome to Renewing Your Mind for Monday and this week were highlighting a series of messages from several speakers on the theme of the light of the world today will hear from Pastor Mark Johnston was minister of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Wales in the UK when you're with us this week as we look at this exclusive truth of Christ. We want to focus our thoughts and the prologue to John's gospel John chapter 1 with his best in verses four and five. Let me read the first five verses in them skip down to verse 14.

As we prepare to hear what's going to setting before us in this passage. In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God's on the words. It was God's 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 lights of man. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it on 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, and so raise God's holy words. I don't know what you but I find conference titles titles that are chosen to advertise conferences and to encourage people to come to conferences I find intriguing and what goes through the minds of those who choose these title somebody seeking to achieve by them. Sometimes they seem as being so sufficiently bland and brought to give the speaker scope to fit something" be vaguely appropriate or sufficiently bland and broad say reach a wide range of people he might be potential attendees.

Think of the title for this conference. The light of the world is perhaps somewhat bland and brought up in the climate that we live in. In these days on the kind of culture that has engulfed us in these days the title for this conference is incredibly provocative.

So much so I was mildly relieved to find that in coming to Westminster Central Hall. They were confronted by a barrage of tickets and placard waving people who said how dare you choose a title like that.

It was a light in the midst of the many lights or if it was simply light of the world.

We can live without, but for you to dare to put the definite article in front of light of the world is an art range on we will not abide it because you see that title declares that the Bible is the only authentic source of 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 course that claim is brought into even sharper focus in the theme of this first address that speaks of Christ as the lights 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 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 pointedly in John's prologue and becomes a recurring motif that runs all the way through his gospel, not one but several occasions. Jesus declares I uniquely and exclusively in the light of the world. John's intent from the onset is to demonstrate that Jesus can only truly be the Christ the Savior sent from God's if he is armed. Indeed, because he is the incarnate son of God, he uniquely has the capacity on the FRC to deliver on that promise, I will save to the uttermost old who call on me because of who I am because there is no one like me and never will be jealous to explore how this is so in the first place is because of who Jesus Christ is eternally baby is eternally the gospel of John begins with words that are deliberately designed to stop readers in their tracks. In the beginning was the words on the word was with God on the words was dogs clearly deliberately chosen to echo Genesis chapter 1 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 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 is 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 fines. He begins to answer the question almost immediately by introducing us to the person of the word, we might expect him to begin to refer to the words by the pronoun. It an impersonal pronoun because the word under normal rules of grammar is and it but he attaches the personal pronoun him to the words identifying her as a person, the word that John uses for the word was the Greek words Lagos and even the Greek transliteration of immediately conjures up the idea of logic of reason of purpose and so on, but it conveys according to the Calvin daddy of speech, all the way through and Calvin's, three speaks about the speech, the speech he opens up in terms of the one who reveals and explains the mind of God. If God is incomprehensible if God is beyond the reach of finite and add to that fallen human mindset who can begin to know who God is what God is like and Calvin says it's only if someone makes him known.

If someone reveals him in need of 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 the John points to the role of the Lagos simulator identifies us as the sun not just in history but from eternity and from within the Godhead itself and on his role is all about making God in all his fullness known and not something that John repeatedly highlights notably at the end of the prologue. No one is ever seen God, but God the one and only, who is at the father's side, he has made him known. He was not the father's side simply from the point of creation. He has always been that the father signed so he uniquely is able to make God known as the speech, the revealer and explain her of the internal and the infinite's God of all the universe second crucial detail. The John highlights here in terms of the eternal Lagos is the fact that he is called in himself, those who you've explored John Calvin stayed the institutes of the Christian religion will know that he he invents a word about the sun, the eternal son in the sense in any speaks of him as being pro se office. He is God in himself is not some subordinates or some derivative deity, but he is true. Dogs we see that in a subtle but significant use of both tense and syntax and what John has to say at this point. He says in the beginning was the words not from the beginning he already was at the beginning and end is reinforced by the word order in the in that statement. Even though we've rendered more naturally in our English the word was God. He reverses the order. Gault was the words putting the accent on the gardener's of the eternal son. He wants us to understand, he wants us to grasp that this divine Lagos, to whom we are being introduced is the eternal guards. The sun surprised reveals God because he is guards God is nonsense. Some agent or some angel to reveal and explain him as he had done up to this point, he is sent angels from heaven he had sent prophets raised up from among men, and on he had used them by his Spirit to reveal and explain up to appointments, the glory and the majesty of who he is and what is like, but now comes the climactic moments in the history of redemption. When God sends forth the words from himself. The one who is called in himself to reveal the wonder of 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 in communicating to us.

That is a factor when he says that the word was with God. He uses another Greek words cross which says the word was towards guards. Of course, immediately were beginning to realize it in a way prompts that Old Testament believers could only guess that because they saw hints and glimpses but but find it so hard to even imagine what the Bible was pointing to. That is 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 the word that is used for dogs is a plural word is used with singular verbs and on, here is the New Testament age dorms is the history of redemption unfolds to its climactic moment in terms of God's self revelation to the world on his embracing of his people. Here is God saying that within the Godhead there is a true Warden is the son is eternally being towards the father and towards the spirit speaking of course of that. That's glorious interpersonal communion that is ever existed within the Godhead's within the holy Trinity under speaks to us of not some divine monad some isolated cold and clinical deity. But, quite rightly, is the same apostle would say in his later epistle towards the end of the Bible called is love, and the only way that you can make sense of that is if love has an object in the fact that the sun is eternally towards the father and the spirit some fun mutually within the relationships of the Godhead there 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 is 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 what is John begin in this way by taking us back into the depths of eternity. He wants us to realize that we can never fully understand the Christ of history without glimpsing something of the mystery of his eternal preexistence is a bit like getting to know someone who perhaps we think we know. But the more we get to know them. The more we realize 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 goal than meets the eye, the New Testament era dorms. The sun is revealed and suddenly people begin to realize there's more to this God of Israel than could ever meet the eye.

I will be spending eternity delving into the wonder and the richness of who he really is and what is really like is 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 lines because of who he is eternally. But don't take it further runs.

He wants us to understand something of his role in history as he introduces the word John transition seamlessly from what he has been throughout eternity to his role in history from what pertained prior to that moment of creation that we spoke of under that first heading to 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 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 them known. I would one day be revealed in history.

It is the words was at work in the beginning and the word who is the network ever since John is already set about the Lagos in eternity only serves to magnify his involvement in history and with our race that we realize more than ever this year incredible nurse of the fact 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 words and his role in how it came to be.

Again, several things that are worth highlighting all of which serve to underscore what Calvin is saying about the importance of persuading us of certain thing that giving us good reason to be assured of Jesus as being a safe place, a safe person 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 three. All things were made through him and without him not anything made that was made. The apostles basically unpacking Genesis 1 verse one in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth by 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 is never divided in the work that is performed, are never separated. They are involved in different ways but with common purpose and on here John is telling us high. The words, the eternal son was specifically involved was not 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 where clicking the divine fingers and all would've 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 realize that it goes further, the God who spoke the world into existence by the word, sustains the world and its existence by the work. Think of a great statement by Moses that we so often associate with our daily proficient man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and he is actually speaking there but about the need for us to read our Bibles every day which is true that we ought he saying that is through the providential word of God. The God is the unseen conductor of the symphony of the universe and as a conductor on a podium misdirecting an orchestra with a nod with the word with a whisper with the movement so gaunt by his word sustains all things visible and invisible, echoed again. Hebrews 1 verse three identified specifically with the incarnate son is the one who upholds all things by his powerful words follows on from this is John goes on to show that this must also relate to his re-creation retakes the lives of ruined sinners just like you and me hundreds by his words that he calls us to himself is by his word that we are pressed into his shape is by his word that we are continually being transformed 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 R switch of the home of righteousness.

But he is also the life and the lights of all humanity, all humanity. In him was life and the life was the lines of man thoughts into the light of his people who trusted him. But the lives of all people throughout all agents.

God has not left our race in utter darkness.

John has something universal in view 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 aggressively when Paul goes to speak to the academics in Mars Hill in acts chapter 17 in Athens and on he engages them 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 dads buddy he quotes their own ports and looks these academics in the I do not your your own poet say that we are the offspring of the government's that we, understand ourselves in isolation that there's something of the divine, stamped upon us, or us, would put it. Later on that.

There's a sense of God woven into the soul to the heart of every single human being is through the agency of the Lagos in creation and especially in the fact that when it came to the creation of the first man Adam that he with his wife Dave 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 microcosm above the created order in eternity that we are to be little created mirror images of gaunt, finitely reflecting guards in his infinity John saying 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 thoroughly John's desire is to declare the high point in the sun's role in history. Look at verse 14 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. They took our flesh became into our world. He moved into our neighborhood and in so doing, the lights that shone through his humanity is perfect humanity is much as his divine nature brought people than that. Ever since face-to-face with the majesty of gaunt, 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.

The Lord make his face to do what to shine upon the will be gracious unto you and give you peace on earth that is incarnated in Jesus Christ, son of Mary; Savior with a message titled the light of Christ that is pastor Bart Johnston glad you joined us today for Renewing Your Mind this week were wearing highlights of regular ministries first London conference. Our theme was the light of the world were making all of the sessions from this conference available to you as a digital download. Just contact us with a donation of any amount and will also send you a book considered to be one of the great classics of the Christian faith is excerpted from John Calvin's institutes of the Christian religion and its titled a little book on the Christian life. It's in my opinion one of those books that every Christian should read to receive both of these resources just go online to Renewing Your Mind.org or call us at 800-435-4343 and in advance let me thank you for your generous gift. As I mentioned earlier, our speaker today was Mark Johnston, who spent 10 years planting churches in Northern Ireland is also pastor in the US and England. He's currently the pastor of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Cardiff, Wales. The message we heard today is part of a seven part digital download that were offering can requested along with a little book on the Christian life. When you contact us with your gift of any amount or phone number is 800-435-4343 and the web address is Renewing Your Mind.org when Jesus claims to be the light of the world. He's claiming to be the source of truth. In fact, in John chapter 12.

He says that the words he spoke came from the father. She received the words that he stole from the father. He gave those words to the apostles and their words in turn became the content of the New Testament will hear tomorrow from Alastair back with a message titled, not one jot or to reopen to join us Tuesday for Renewing Your Mind