Divinity of Jesus - Week 1
- Apr 12
- 9 min read
Now, before we even get into the text, let me ask you something. When you hear the name Jesus - what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Depending on where you grew up, what you were taught, or what you have seen Christians do over the years, your answer could be all over the place.
Some of you grew up in church and Jesus has always been Lord. Some of you are here and Jesus is more of a historical figure - a good man, a teacher, someone to admire from a distance. And some of you are somewhere in between - which is honestly where a lot of people live. They like Jesus. They just are not sure what to do with all the bigger claims about Him.
Here is the thing. John's Gospel does not let you sit in the middle. From the very first sentence, John is making a case. And the case is this: Jesus is not just a great man. He is God in the flesh.
All right. So, John. Quick background. Fisherman. Part of the inner circle with Peter and James. Probably the youngest of the disciples - some scholars think he was just a teenager when Jesus called him. And here is the thing about John - he outlived everybody. By the time he writes this Gospel, Peter is gone. James is gone. Paul is even gone. John is the last man standing.
And you know what happens when you are the last one left? You think about things differently. You are not just remembering events anymore. You are remembering what they meant.
One more thing. John never names himself in this Gospel. He calls himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved." That is not arrogance. That is a man whose identity got completely rewired. He was not John the fisherman anymore. He was not even John the apostle. He was the one Jesus loved. And everything he writes flows from that.
So let's get started…
1. Jesus Is Eternal God (vv. 1-3)
John 1:1-3
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.
If you have hung out in the Bible even a little bit, those first four words should stop you cold. "In the beginning was..." That is the exact same phrasing that opens Genesis. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." John is not being subtle. He is pointing right back to creation and saying - the Word was already there.
And then he stacks it up. The Word was with God. The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. John does not want you to miss it. He is establishing the foundation of everything we are going to look at in this series: Jesus was not created. He was not a good person who got promoted. He has always existed. He is eternal. He is God.
The Word - used three times right here - in Greek, Logos - was a concept people in that culture already had some framework for. Philosophers talked about the Logos as the reason behind everything, the logic of the universe.
[Illustration: The Greeks looked at the world - the way seasons change, the way math works, the way everything seems to have order - and they said, "There must be some kind of intelligence behind all of this." They called that intelligence the Logos. It was their way of saying the universe is not random. Something is holding it together. And John walks into that conversation and says - that is not an idea. That is a Person. And He is coming.]
Jesus did not begin at Bethlehem. Bethlehem is where He arrived. He has always been.
Christmas is not the beginning of Jesus. It is the arrival of Jesus. He did not start in a manger. He stepped into one.
Look at verse 3. All things were made through Him. Not some things. All things. Which means before any molecule, any star, any particle of anything - Jesus. That is not a teacher. That is not a prophet. That is God.
Now, there is an important distinction worth landing on here. We talk about eternal life - no beginning and no end. That is Jesus. Then there is everlasting life - it has a beginning but no end. That is what we receive when we come to faith.
He is eternal because He has always existed. And He is everlasting because He took on flesh - a beginning - and then rose from the dead, never to die again.
Application:
Trust Jesus not as a teacher only, but as Lord. Not someone to learn from at a comfortable distance - a Person to follow. Not a philosophy to admire. A God to know.
If Jesus is just a teacher, you get to decide which lessons to keep. But if Jesus is eternal God, you do not audit Him - you surrender to Him.
2. Jesus Is the Light Who Brings Life (vv. 4-13)
John 1:4-9
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. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
Life and light. Two of the most important words in this Gospel. John uses them over and over because they are at the heart of what Jesus came to do.
"In Him was life." Not that He teaches about life. Not that He points to life. Life itself is in Him. Now, when John says "life" here, he is not talking about what we usually mean when we use that word. We think of life as a pulse. Breathing. Brain activity. The stuff a doctor checks for.
But the Greek word here is zoe. And zoe is different. There is another Greek word - bios - and that is where we get the word biology. Bios is biological life. The kind of life that starts at birth and ends at death. The kind of life you can measure in years.
Zoe is something else entirely. Zoe is the life of God Himself. It is eternal life - not just life that lasts forever, but life of a completely different quality. It is the kind of life that does not depend on a heartbeat because it existed before hearts were ever made.
That is why Jesus will say later in this same Gospel, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He does not say, "I know the way to life" or "I can show you life." He says I am life. If you are looking for the real thing - the kind of life that death cannot touch - the search ends with a Person.
And then this image of light shining in darkness. The darkness has not overcome it. The Greek word there can also mean the darkness has not understood it, has not grasped it. Darkness does not know what to do with light. It just leaves.
Remember this one: You ever walk into a completely dark room and flip the light switch? Darkness does not fight back. It does not argue. It just goes. That is what Jesus entering the world looked like. The light showed up and darkness had no answer for it.
Application:
Some of you know exactly what this feels like. You have been carrying something in the dark for a long time. Shame. Fear. A secret you have never told anyone. And the moment you finally brought it into the light - confessed it, named it, handed it to someone you trust - it lost its grip on you. That is what Jesus does. He does not negotiate with darkness. He displaces it.
Jesus is the light. Light always extinguishes darkness. It does not dim it - it displaces it.
John 1:10-13
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 of God.
Verses 10 and 11 are some of the saddest verses in the Bible to me. The One who made the world came into it, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own people - the very ones who had been waiting for a Messiah for centuries - and they turned Him away.
The God they had been praying for showed up. And they did not recognize Him. That should make us slow down and ask - would we?
But then verse 12. "But to all who did receive Him." That word receive is active. It is a choice.
[Illustration: Receiving is not passive. It is not like getting a package left on your porch while you are at work. It is more like someone handing you something valuable, looking you in the eye, and waiting for you to take it. You have to reach out. You have to grab hold.]
And John says anyone who receives Him, who believes in His name, gets an extraordinary gift: the right to become children of God. Not good people. Not religious people. Not people who have figured it all out. Receivers. Believers. That is the invitation.
God did not send Jesus so that good people could get better. He sent Jesus so that lost people could come home.
3. Jesus Reveals God's Glory in the Flesh (vv. 14-18)
John 1:14-18
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. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 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.
And here it is. The centerpiece. The verse the whole Gospel hangs on. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
That word dwelt - in Greek it is eskenosen. It means tabernacled. Pitched a tent among us. For those who knew the Old Testament, that word immediately connects to the Tabernacle - the place where God's presence lived among Israel in the wilderness.
John is saying the same thing happened again, but better. God's glory did not land in a tent. It showed up in a person.
And He was full of grace and truth. Not grace or truth. Both. Full of both. Together.
In our culture we tend to pick one. You are either the grace person - everything is okay, come as you are, no judgment. Or you are the truth person - here are the standards, shape up. Jesus was both. Fully. Simultaneously. The grace person without truth never helps anyone grow. The truth person without grace drives people away. Jesus holds them together perfectly. And He is the only one who ever has.
[Illustration: Think about the woman caught in adultery. The truth people wanted to stone her. That is what the law demanded. But Jesus shows up and does both. He does not pretend what she did was fine. But He does not crush her with it either. He says, "Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more." That is grace and truth in the same breath. That is what no one else can do.]
That word "made him known" in verse 18 - in Greek it is the root of our word exegete. Jesus did not just talk about God. He explained Him. He unpacked Him. He put skin on what God looks like.
You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus. When Jesus healed the sick, that is what God thinks about suffering. When Jesus ate with the broken and the outcast, that is what God thinks about sinners. When Jesus wept, that is how God feels about our grief.
Jesus is God with skin on. Every time you look at Jesus in the Gospels, you are seeing the Father.
If you have ever wondered what God thinks about you - stop guessing. Look at how Jesus treated people. That is your answer.
APPLICATION
Think about it this week. Are you the grace person or the truth person? Do you go back and forth between both? What would it look like to be both grace and truth at the same time? Ask the Lord Jesus to teach you.
GOSPEL CONNECTION
John opens his Gospel the same way Genesis opens the Bible. In the beginning. And just like in Genesis, the story that follows is about the collision between light and darkness.
In Genesis, God spoke creation into existence. In John, that same Word becomes a man - not to observe our darkness from a safe distance, but to step into it. To live in it. And ultimately to carry it to a cross.
Verse 14 says He was full of grace and truth. The cross is where those two meet most powerfully. The truth of what sin deserves met the grace of a God who paid it Himself. The eternal Word stepped down from heaven to give us everlasting access to the Father.
Not a religion. Not a set of rules. A Person. Receive Him. Believe in His name. Claim your right. And become what you were always meant to be - a child of God.