David: [upbeat music] Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are continuing our walk through the Book of John, the Gospel of John. We did a introduction episode last time where we kind of floated very high above looking at the who and the how and the why and the what, I think, [laughs] of John's gospel. But today we get to do more maybe what we really enjoy doing and settle down in a few verses and walk through them, show how the whole story of the Bible is coming together in the person and work of Jesus. And we're doing that in John 1, one of the most famous passages in the Bible, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Here we go, Christine. Are you ready?
Christine: Yes.
David: Yeah. [laughs]
Christine: As ready as I'll ever be.
David: Yeah. Well, as we step into this, we set up a lot of categories about how to think about John as a person, as a follower of Jesus, as an author, as a thinker. We talked about him as the same guy who wrote Revelation, the same one who is steeped in Old Testament imagery and loves patterns and motifs and loves to stack them all on top of each other so that he can say something really simply, but then it connects to everything, and it's unplumbable at that point, and it just becomes absolutely beautiful. And so as we look at the opening of John, I think when we look at Matthew and Luke and how they open their gospels, we get genealogies. We get birth narratives. Mark starts his, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God," and he's off and running with John the Baptist. John takes a different approach. What is that approach, and why do you [laughs] think he takes it? To throw you a hard question right out of the gate.
Christine: The right answer to that is I don't know.
David: Mm.
Christine: I really don't know. I see connections between how John begins his gospel with the, the other two that you mentioned with genealogies because John also begins at the beginning. But he focuses on Jesus's genealogy prior to His birth, His incarnation, and has stuff to say about that, and that's His eternal beginning, begotten of the Father.
David: Yeah, it is interesting that the genealogy record that Matthew starts, I think even the way Mark begins his gospel, John's actually not doing something completely idiosyncratic here, some- not something completely unique. Other gospel authors when bringing up Jesus' genealogy use the first line of Genesis to introduce it. The beginning.
Christine: That's right, yeah.
David: And they're-
Christine: It's a good place to start
David: ... it's a good place to start. Uh, what's that song? The, the beginning, a very good place to start. And so John's not unique in that idea. But as we said, he knew and was familiar with the other gospel accounts, and he's like, "Let me tell you another true and valid version of the genealogy of Jesus." And so he doesn't start with Adam. He doesn't start with... What's Matthew's, who's Matthew start with? Why am I-
Christine: Abraham.
David: Abraham. [laughs] Um, he doesn't start with Abraham. He doesn't start, doesn't end in Adam-
Christine: Mm-hmm
David: ... uh, like Luke does, right?
Christine: Which Adam is the son of God. Like, he-
David: Oh, yeah, right
Christine: ... he traces Adam all the way back to, yeah, the Enosh son, son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
David: Yeah.
Christine: So he is very e- we talked about explicit claims to deity, as it were.
David: In the Synoptics.
Christine: Yes.
David: Yeah.
Christine: Which they're all over the place. But he is saying with his backwards genealogy that, "Hey, Adam was the son of God. Let me show you how Jesus is-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... even more so."
David: And so John does something similar here. He builds on, expands, riffs on, deepens, comes alongside these genealogies-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... with, "In the beginning," eliciting Genesis 1, "was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Christine: Yes, and we know from Genesis that God created all things by His word.
David: Yes.
Christine: And John echoes that same logic here, pun not intended, that the Word was with God in the beginning, and through Him all things were made. Which is, again, a claim to the Word being God-
David: Right
Christine: ... which the Word here is Jesus, but if through Jesus all things were made and nothing was made that has been made without Him, then He is uncreated by that logic. And so-
David: Oh
Christine: ... Jesus is God.
David: I actually have never seen that, to talk about the uncreatedness of Jesus, but that's a really clear, logical statement.
Christine: He stacks it onto, "The word was God," and then, "Let me say it again." [laughs]
David: Oh, that's, okay.
Christine: "Everything that was created was created through Him."
David: Let me try to say this back to you 'cause this is new for me.
Christine: Okay.
David: So let me see if I'm understanding 'cause I'm like, oh, that's clearly what John [laughs] is saying. He's, he's saying everything was made through Jesus. Nothing that is created was not created by Jesus, therefore, logically, if Jesus was created, that statement would not be true because there would be a created thing that He did not create.
Christine: Correct.
David: So therefore, Jesus must precede all things and be God Himself because He created all things.
Christine: He is uncreated.
David: He is uncreated. That is really cool. That is s- [laughs] such good logic and writing. I love that. Okay, that's fascinating. I love that. In the beginning, we'll start with creation, and we need to unpack that a little bit, and then we're gonna have to go do a deep dive on the Word.
Christine: Okay.
David: Because that has sparked so many beautiful and diverse conversations, and we're not trying to correct any of them but just trying to add a biblical lens to, to them.
Christine: Trying to sit with John.
David: With John, yeah. And so in the beginning, John begins his gospel with Eden.With new creation. And a lot of the themes that run throughout his prologue echo that. You've got, there's darkness in the world, but the darkness has not overcome it, and the light comes into the world. This is creation language. You know, let there be light. Light comes into the world and carves out space in Eden for God and man and creation and flourishing to inhabit. And God brings order to the chaos and waste and void of the world through His Son in the power of the Spirit that's hovering over the waters, which is another big theme for John. And so there's all these creation motifs in John's prologue. You've got darkness, like the darkness that was over the chaos and void of the world at the beginning. Light comes into it, and through the Word, like God spoke, "Let there be light," and new creation arises. And in that, a human is created in this space. Adam is created in this space, and he is made in the image of God, and he is given the task to take the light and life and order and creation of God to the world.
Christine: And Adam is born of water and the Spirit?
David: Whoa. Unpack that. What do you mean?
Christine: Well, in Genesis 2, we see how God forms Adam. He forms him from the dust of the ground, and that is right after dew settles on the ground, or dew comes up to water.
David: Mm.
Christine: So God takes this moist clay and breathes the breath of life. And so this combined creature of dust and water and the spirit becomes the first image of the living God.
David: That's all.
Christine: The first created image of the living God.
David: That's really cool. And he's born from above, [laughs] you know, to use another John idea. Again, this is what happens when you read John, things just crash in-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... on each other-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... and stack up as you're reading.
Christine: Yeah. So you said that there's light in creation, and that light comes in at the beginning as sort of this first ordering of the chaos below. And you're saying John is echoing that or saying that again with how he's showing Jesus' presence in the world and how maybe even saying doubly that Jesus was there in the beginning, that Genesis talks about ordering and creating because everything through Him was created. And just as He brought light, which at this point is just light, it's not attached to any heavenly body yet, but He sends light into the world. That's the first distinguisher from light and darkness. And you're saying John is playing with those same categories here when he's teeing us up for the Word coming into the world.
David: That's right. And His coming into the world, that He becomes flesh and dwells among us, it's, He's highlighting this incarnation of the God who created all things. And the reason why that's so important is because as we look back and we reflect on Genesis and the story that begins the world, we see that man is given the image of God, the dominion of God, the, uh, the tasks to co-rule with God, and even part of the creation to work alongside and create the flourishing and ordering of the world and bringing light to darkness like that God does. But we fail that creation mandate, and we fail to spread the dominion of the proper king over the world, and instead fall under an inferior power and start spreading darkness and chaos instead of order, and brokenness and death instead of life, and all of these things that Jesus, throughout John's gospel, is going to remake and reclaim.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: And He does that as the new Adam, as the new human. And it's, it's extremely important for John that God becomes flesh and dwells among us, not only because of a billion things we could say [laughs] about that amazing reality, but because that is, as we said in the in- introduction episode, that is John's soteriology. That is his theory of salvation-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... is that the reason why we can have life in us is because life itself has become us. And so God heals creation whenever He becomes part of it.
Christine: Yes.
David: And He heals humanity whenever He is made into its image.
Christine: Yes. So that kind of talks about or is connected to verse four, right? "In him was life, and that life was the light of men."
David: Yes.
Christine: So He is the light that gives men wisdom, and He is the life that gives men animation-
David: Mm-hmm
Christine: ... or life.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And He comes as a second Adam to recreate and heal that fallen humanity that, as you mentioned, resisted His rule and-
David: That's right
Christine: ... followed darkness instead.
David: Yeah. And we can think about this. There's lots of ways when we talk about Jesus as a new Adam or Jesus as the ultimate human [laughs] that we can think about that, and we can think about it rightly in a lot of ways. We can think about it as, like, federal headship. But I think what we're talking about here is a reconstitution, and that Jesus comes and is the true Adam in the world. And what He does, if you, if you watch Jesus minister and live and work in John, He is being the true Adam, and He's spreading life and healing and order to the world around Him. And the, it's, like, almost like the waters of Eden that were there and were meant to water the, the world and heal it and, and make it fertile, burst forth out of Jesus as He goes around creating and spreading Eden. And so the life of God comes to the world of humans to remake creationTo be the habitable place of God once again.
Christine: It's kind of like the embodiment of God, the embodiment of Eden coming and inviting people back in-
David: That's right
Christine: ... to that garden that we lost.
David: And not only inviting, but reclaiming.
Christine: Yes.
David: Right? Actually heal-
Christine: Healing. Uh-huh.
David: Yeah, and filling.
Christine: Healing and saving, I think, is the same-
David: A lot of times-
Christine: ... word and
David: ... they, they can be the same word.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Yep.
Christine: It overlaps and-
David: Yeah, you can have the, uh, the sotere kind of word, but you- there's also catharizo, you know-
Christine: Mm-hmm
David: ... to, to heal, I think.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Um-
Christine: I was thinking it's sozo?
David: Yeah, sozo.
Christine: But, yeah.
David: To save.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: And sometimes the word when someone is being healed, they're saved.
Christine: They're saved, yeah.
David: Yeah, that's right. And so when Jesus comes and He's saving the world, He is healing it. And-
Christine: Restoring
David: ... and by, by bringing it into Himself.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: Like, I like how the, the church fathers talk about Jesus' incarnation. It's i- and I think it's Athanasius' Creed. It's not that He is made into the human image, but that He takes the human image into Himself.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: And that He's p- and, and like, and Paul will even talk about this, that He's uniting all things in Himself. And so outside of God, there is no life. Outside of God, there is no health. Outside of God, there is no light. It's only whenever anything is joined to God that it can be good, and whole, and life-giving. And so when Jesus enters the world as a human, [laughs] as part of the created order, He who was not created becomes in the image of His creation. He's bringing all things, like atoms and the material world, and Adams, A-D-A-M-S, [laughs] and A-T-O-M-S, into Himself to remake them. How is He remaking them? By being part of them.
Christine: Yes, because everything He touches is life and light.
David: That's right.
Christine: In a way.
David: If it's in Him-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... it has life.
Christine: Yes.
David: Which is what He talks about at the end of John in the vine metaphor-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... where He's like, "I'm the vine. You're the branches. Stay connected to me and you'll have life."
Christine: Yes.
David: Like, this is the whole idea. And what do you know? It's Eden imagery again.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And so [laughs]
Christine: It's also Israel imagery, which is-
David: Also Israel
Christine: ... Eden imagery.
David: That's right.
Christine: Yeah. John just stacks it all.
David: He does.
Christine: So.
David: And so when th- this, we don't, we could talk about, this could be the whole episode, is just talking about how Jesus is the new creation.
Christine: Yeah.
David: But the, the thing that we want to name is when John is looking back at Eden and in the beginning, he's seeing the intention of God to create a world that i- is a reflection of who He is, where heaven and Earth can overlap, and He can be with those He loves and creates. But there's been a severing of that as we have rebelled against Him-
Christine: Mm-hmm
David: ... and gone under rival powers, and gone under death, and gone under chaos. And when Jesus is incarnated, when Jesus takes on flesh and dwells among us, He brings humanity and the created order back into Himself, reconciling Himself to all things and all things to Himself. And I feel like that's a part of the gospel that we tend to miss, [laughs] uh-
Christine: Mm
David: ... especially at, uh, i- in my upbringing as, like, a Western Evangelical, that the incarnation is something we celebrate at Christmas, but has nothing to do with Good Friday-
Christine: Mm
David: ... or Easter.
Christine: Wow.
David: And it-
Christine: The incarnation is how we're saved.
David: Exactly.
Christine: Yeah.
David: But-
Christine: And He says that to-
David: Yes
Christine: ... well, a version of that to, I'm jumping out of the prologue, but that's how He reveals Himself to Nathaniel.
David: Mm.
Christine: Is he, remember that ladder that you were reading about or meditating on or whatever?
David: Jacob's ladder?
Christine: Jacob's ladder. The son of, you'll see the son of m- or angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. That is another way of saying, "I am where heaven and Earth meet."
David: That's right.
Christine: "I join Earth to heaven, heaven to Earth."
David: That's right.
Christine: So Jesus is, this, this is your language. Like, Jesus is God and man sharing one space.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And-
David: And if, and if the-
Christine: ... it's beautiful
David: ... goal of any of the Biblical narrative is the restoration of men to God, I am the, the means of that restoration because I am the God man.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And so Jesus' incarnation heals the brokenness [laughs] that, that has severed heaven and Earth.
Christine: Yes. He joins all men to Himself.
David: And then He's, fills us to remake us, to then make us new Edens, to then send us out as new Adams. There's a whole lot more we could talk about.
Christine: A ton, yeah.
David: But we have to move on because we are three wo- words into the prologue. [laughs] In the beginning was the Word, the logos, uh, the, the Greek there that probably any Bible nerd would probably know [laughs] 'cause this is one of the most famous parts of the Bible. The Word here, I've heard this talked about in lots of different ways. You know, I've, I've heard, really helpfully, some things talking about, oh, how was the logos understood in a Greek culture and in the philosophers and things like that.
Christine: Oh, the ancient wisdom.
David: That's right.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And we're not gonna spend time talking about that, but I'm not saying that's not on the line [laughs] for John's Greek-speaking, Greek-saturated audience in Asia Minor, [laughs] like, or wherever they are. But if he wrote this in Ephesus or was there, it's like he's definitely interacting with Greeks. So that's definitely there. But what I have found most helpful is that the Word of God that is tied to the one through whom God made the world is a, an extremely Old Testament Hebrew Bible concept, and it doesn't come out of nowhere. [laughs]
Christine: No.
David: And it's not o-
Christine: It's all over the Bible
David: ... and, right, and it's not, but it's, and it's not only the one who said, "Let there be light." Like, that's not the only place it shows up.
Christine: No, it's the Word who comes to people.
David: Right.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Okay, so but this was pretty new to me as of, I don't know, a year or two, and so it blew my mind. And so when we see in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the Hebrew reader would've known exactly who John was talking about. Not what.
Christine: Yes.
David: Who.
Christine: It's this divine figure outside of Yahweh who also is Yahweh.
David: Yes.
Christine: Yes
David: And so we actually meet this person of the Word of God over 100 times in the Old Testament.
Christine: Over 100.
David: Yes.
Christine: I did not know it was that high.
David: Yes.
Christine: That's a high count.
David: It's very high, and it's, and, and we- you see it in, in a very familiar phrase. If you've read your, your Old Testament a few times, you'll, you'll be like, "Oh, I've heard that phrase a bunch." Sometimes it's not translated.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: Sometimes it'll just go, uh, the Word came to, or the Lord came to, but over 100 times, it's the Word of the Lord came to blank. And the encounters with that Word of the Lord who comes are not purely auditory. [laughs] It's not, which is how I always pictured it. It was the Word of the Lord came to Isaiah, and sound waves are hitting my ear and vibrating, you know, either my spiritual ear or my physical one-
Christine: Well-
David: ... and I heard God say, right?
Christine: Yeah, but that's interesting 'cause that's not what it says.
David: It's not what it says.
Christine: It's not, "I heard God say thus."
David: It's not.
Christine: It's, "The Word came to me."
David: That's right. So let's look at a few examples here. So, uh, Genesis 15:1, "The Word of Yahweh came to Abraham in a vision."
Christine: In a vision.
David: [laughs]
Christine: So the Word is visible.
David: The Word is visible. So that blew my mind. When I first saw that, it absolutely shattered me. And so the Word of the Lord is not a, a voice.
Christine: It's not a-
David: It is a person.
Christine: Yes. It's visible.
David: A hypostasis of Yahweh. [laughs] It is, it is the per- it is the s- the second person of the Trinity.
Christine: You're gonna scare people with your Greek words. [laughs]
David: I'm sorry. We're in John. Y- you know, it's just because John was always basically your textbook in every Greek class because it's the easiest Greek. [laughs]
Christine: Yes. The Greek level that I reached, which was low, was-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... we were in John and almost only in John.
David: And then you try to read Hebrews, and you're like, "I don't know any of these words."
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: Yeah. And so the Word of the Lord visits people, comes to people, reveals himself to people. So that's Genesis 15:1. 1 Kings 18:1, "After many days, the Word of Yahweh came to Elijah in the third year." There, there's this, there's this time bound. It's coming to people. Isaiah 38:4, "The Word of the Lord came to Isaiah." And if you go read these occurrences, yes, you sometimes get long block quotes because the Word of the Lord speaks like any person would speak. Like, that's what [laughs] Yahweh does a lot of times when he comes to people. But there are also experiences that accompany the coming of the Word of the Lord, not just verbalizations.
Christine: It would go without saying that a person called Word speaks.
David: That would go without saying.
Christine: But for that Word to come and in visions is, it further modifies who this Word is.
David: That's right.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Yeah. The, so the Word has always been a visible, or at least, uh, it's, uh, it's a- He is able to be visible in the Old Testament, and so this isn't a new concept for John's readers. When they read, "In the beginning was the Word," they're like, "I know that visible person who came to the prophets, and he's now coming in the flesh." So that's fascinating. So as we think about Jesus being the person of the Word who visited people in the Old Testament, that John's now introducing and saying, "The Word is now becoming flesh," what is all that doing for your, your mind?
Christine: So it sounds like John is showing the continuity that the Word is coming, and what you're saying John is adding to that is that now with the Word becoming flesh, people are not only seeing the Word come to them, but they're actually gonna be able to touch him.
David: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a radical escalation, for sure.
Christine: Okay. Yeah.
David: It's also, the Word comes to humans-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... all throughout the Old Testament, but the Word has never been human, [laughs] y- you know, in that way.
Christine: That's true.
David: Right?
Christine: Yeah.
David: And he becomes incarnate here. He becomes his own. [laughs]
Christine: Yeah.
David: And he brings humanity into himself. And the Word-- And, and another cool thing here to think about is the Word has always been about the business of new creation. Ever since, "Let there be light," the Word of God has been, at an operational level, aimed at Edenic activities. And so when the Word of the Lord comes to Abraham or Elijah or Isaiah or a number of all of the prophets, he is guiding them and moving through them and directing them toward repentance, toward reconciliation, toward proper action, toward kingdom-building, toward temple-building, toward-
Christine: Mm
David: ... all kinds of things, trying to make humanity in his image again.
Christine: Mm.
David: Like, to restore his image in, in, in humanity, in Israel. And so now the Word of the Lord, that's what he's always been doing, and now he actually brings humanity into himself in order to do what his visitations were always operating toward. So it's just cool how he's like, "I'll, I'll fulfill it."
Christine: Yeah, and-
David: The Word of the Lord fulfills the Word of the Lord. [laughs]
Christine: Yeah, and how, I guess, I didn't think about repentance that way before, that it's not just-- 'cause I think of repentance as an action or a response-
David: Yes
Christine: ... that is active. Like, oh, I have to turn around and go do this thing. But what it sounds like you're saying is repentance is also receiving-
David: Yes
Christine: ... the Word of God-
David: That's right
Christine: ... into yourself and thereby joining yourself to life-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... that is being come. That-
David: It's, it's definitely a turning away.
Christine: It certainly is. It's not ju-
David: Right.
Christine: But it's just that. That's wh- that was the new thing-
David: That's right
Christine: ... that I was hearing.
David: No, it's true.
Christine: That to receive God's Word, which we talk about that as obedience and things like that.
David: Mm-hmm.
Christine: But yeah.
David: Yeah, to receive the Word of the Lord is to turn toward it and, and let him take you into himself.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And to receive the Word that has come to you and be joined with him.
Christine: Yeah.
David: It is a reception and a response.
Christine: [laughs]
David: That's really beautiful. I mean, there's so much we could say about all of these categories.The other thing I, I wanna bring up as we're exploring all the themes that John's pulling on here is this Word who is the creator and is God himself and through whom all things were made gets revisited in a different analogy or metaphor, which doesn't make it any less true, in wisdom literature.
Christine: Yes.
David: Yes.
Christine: 'Cause in Proverbs, wisdom is that other almost divine figure or divine means of creating the world, right?
David: That's right, yeah. So in Proverbs, and in a few others that we'll look at, this person who existed before everything and partnered with God in creation and through whom all things were made is not called the Word, but he's called wisdom.
Christine: Yeah. Proverbs 8, I think.
David: Yeah, Proverbs 8:22, and this is, "Wisdom said, quote, 'Yahweh possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of all his acts of old.'" Proverbs 8:27 through 30, "When he established the heavens, I was there. When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always." And so these are just ways that the wisdom authors understood how the fabric of the universe operated. They knew that God created the world through a wise word, and this wise word was a person, and there was this beautiful collaboration, Trinitarian we would call it, Trinitarian collaboration, unity operating with the Father, and now we know the Son, to bring about creation. And this wisdom is what the authors of wisdom literature ask you to take into yourself in order to be made right with God.
Christine: Because if the Word is the means of creation, then receiving the Word is receiving creation.
David: That's right.
Christine: Or you're being recreated through the reception of the Word.
David: Exactly. So there's multiple things happening here that are really interesting. One is something I think we've talked about before when we've talked about wisdom, is God made the world with wisdom, and it says that. If you go read chapter 8, it says that all the time. He makes the world with wisdom, which doesn't just mean that was a tool in his belt, but that it is the fabric of reality, that the-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... fabric of reality is God's wisdom.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: And so to be wise is to go with the grain of the universe, to operate within the world the way God designed it to be, or another way to say that is to be human as God intended you to be human.
Christine: And live according to his word.
David: That's right, to live according to his word. That's why all these ideas stack up for a Hebrew mind. The other way to think about it is if God created the world through wisdom, wisdom is life.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And to be wise is to have life, which Proverbs says a lot. And to make wise things extends your life and, and gives you a long life and a good life, and the good life is in the wise. Why? Because it is integrating yourself with the source of life, which is wisdom, which is the Word.
Christine: Wow.
David: And so when the Word and wisdom become flesh and says, "Let me take humanity into myself, and if you want life, come and join yourself to me," he's saying, "This wisdom with which I made the world, and with which you will then be recreated into the proper way to be human, is only found in me."
Christine: You're making my head explode.
David: Oh, sorry. [laughs]
Christine: Oh, that just... That puts such a different... That casts such a different light on the fall of humanity-
David: Mm
Christine: ... which was also the word of the wisest creature given or spoken to a woman. And I, wisest creature, emphasis creature.
David: Yes.
Christine: And the wo-
David: Yeah, and this is being drawn from-
Christine: This-
David: ... straight from Genesis 3.
Christine: This is Ge-
David: The serpent was craftier than any other creature that the Lord has made. That word crafty is the same word for wisdom.
Christine: Yes.
David: Keep going.
Christine: And, yeah, and the woman saw this visible embodiment of wisdom, this way to more wisdom, and she saw that this was profitable for making one wise, going with the grain of the universe.
David: That's right.
Christine: Life. Oh, let me inge- like, this visible thing that is gonna make me wise, and I can ingest that into myself. I can receive it, and I will become wiser. My eyes will be open, and I'll be like God. I'll live even more with the grain of the universe. That is such a powerful lie coming from a creature, and it wasn't... It just makes that deception so much more poignant, and-
David: Yes, it does, and it makes Jesus's claims and offer all the more appropriate.
Christine: Yes, 'cause he also is on a new tree of life, and he says, "Take of me. I am the life that you are to ingest." And it's the cross and the tree of knowledge next to each other, and Jesus says, "Yes, do not lose your appetite for wisdom, but search for it in me."
David: Yeah. One is a lie, the other is life.
Christine: Is truth and life.
David: Oh.
Christine: Yeah.
David: That's amazing.
Christine: So my head's exploding.
David: I had not made that. I, I had not made the, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil connection with all this. That is so fascinating. Well, there you go. This is what John will do to you. You just [laughs] sit in one metaphor for a second and one theme, and then it just flywheels out into 100 other things. So, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word [laughs] was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overtake it." Let's talk about light and darkness for a little bit. It's a theme in John.
Christine: It is
David: Not only in his gospel, comes very full force in his letters like First John. Light and darkness. Bring us back to Genesis. You're, [laughs] you, you've thought about this. Just explain light and darkness in Genesis to us.
Christine: Well, in Genesis we see God create the world and He speaks light first. He says, "Let there be light." And He calls the light good and then separates the light from the darkness. And while there's a lot of uncreation that happens later in the Bible, like the mountains go back into the sea once they came, but two things that never come back together is light and darkness.
David: Hmm.
Christine: Those are always separate. And so we see this boundary between light and dark, and this cycling, because there's evening and there's morning, and light and dark alternate each other. So I don't know how many things are put into that, what darkness is, but we see that it's not light at the exclusion of darkness-
David: Hmm
Christine: ... in Genesis. We see light and we see darkness, and there's evening and there's morning, and then later we see different rulers or, like, heavenly bodies get assigned to rule in the darkness as light. And so we see light ruling in darkness-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... and over darkness, and darkness not ruling over light.
David: Yes.
Christine: And I think that's where-
David: I think-
Christine: ... John is surfacing.
David: I think it is.
Christine: Okay.
David: And it's interesting to think about because if we read Genesis 1 with purely post-modern scientific eyes, we're like, "And on that day, God made the great balls of gas in the sky." Sure. Yeah, they exist. [laughs] But that is not how the original audience would've heard that phrase. They-
Christine: That's not the reality they're talking about.
David: That's right. They would've, they would've understood these heavenly bodies, which is the word, to, yes, be visible stars in the sky that I can see, but they would've understood them to be heavenly rulers, spiritual authorities and powers that have been given assigned tasks and government and dominion over certain parts of the created order, including stars.
Christine: Yes, and it's not entirely foreign to us because we are governed by the sun and the moon, the two great lights in, you know, in the sky at different times of day. And even our hours are around daylight and night. And so we order our lives based off of the daylight, in the day. That's just a natural-
David: Right
Christine: ... human and creature thing to do.
David: Yeah.
Christine: So just to bring it home a little bit, like, if someone's up all night, we're like, "That's weird. Why aren't you sleeping?"
David: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Christine: Especially with young children. [laughs]
David: [laughs]
Christine: It's like, "You should be sleeping right now. Why aren't you?"
David: Yeah.
Christine: You know. So we order... Like, I'm just trying to say it's not unusual to say, "Yeah, the sun and the moon order my life as well."
David: That's right. That's true. But then that heavenly rule that is given to the celestial bodies is mirrored then on Earth-
Christine: Yes
David: ... in the earthly rule given to humans made in God's image.
Christine: Yes, 'cause humans overlap heaven and Earth, but that might be digressing from light and dark a little.
David: Well, it is, it is, but it is very John, right? [laughs] Like, because humans were meant to be the place where heaven and Earth overlapped. They were literally formed out of the Earth, but filled with the breath of God. They were born from below and from above. They came up from the ground and were animated by the spirit of God from above, which is another John thing, if you would-
Christine: You're sounding like John 'cause you're saying the same thing different ways [laughs] over and over again. John.
David: Yeah, I know. And I'm, I've been reading John for two weeks. What else am I gonna do? [laughs] And so this is what humans were... This was their telos, this was their purpose, this was their goal, was to continue to be formed in the word and wisdom of God and so become like Him, eat from the tree of life, and dwell with Him, and spread His kingdom forever. They were meant to be like the stars in the sky.
Christine: Yeah, they were meant to rule-
David: They're meant to rule
Christine: ... the Earth.
David: The Earth.
Christine: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
David: We instead were ruled by the serpent who offered us wisdom, but that hope is not lost. When God comes to Abraham or Abram in Genesis 12, He makes him a promise later that his descendants will be like the stars in the sky, and there's two promises with that. One is they're, they'll be very numerous. There'll be so many of them, the father of many nations. But even with the idea of being the father of many nations, nations have rulers. The, then, be, to be the father of them is to rule them, and so that then kind of makes you start thinking about, oh, the Edenic mandate again, to go and rule the world and to have dominion and be like God to them. Well, then, that also means that to be like the stars in the sky, he doesn't mean you'll be like their number purely, but you will be like them in their glory and in their responsibility, that you're meant to become like God again and rule like God again. And that is what the people of God, as they interact with God through the different ways that God gives them to interact with Him in the temple and in the promised land and all these different things, that they're meant to be formed into his image to then go and rule the nations. This was their goal.
Christine: Yeah, and that is accomplished by receiving God's word.
David: Yes.
Christine: Yeah. It's a promise that Abraham receives. [laughs]
David: That's right.
Christine: And he believes God as incredulous as it would be for someone who is old and has no children to suddenly be the father of many nations, and as incredulous as it, it would be for a dust-bound, Earth-born creature to be a heavenly ruler. Abraham is still like, "Okay, God, my limitations don't apply to you. You can do what you want. Let's see." And despite... And we see the story unfold despite every kind of obstacle that human beings in their fallenness and marring of the divine image in themThe divine still comes-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... and becomes an image like them.
David: And so when John brings up light and darkness here, he's pulling on this whole biblical thread, and he's, he's showing that the light has come into the world, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: But there's still this separation that-
Christine: Yes
David: ... it has existed from the beginning-
Christine: Yes
David: ... that light and dark are still the two things that have not [chuckles] come back together-
Christine: Yes
David: ... and don't collapse one into the other. But what's also strange is that the light has come to His own, and His own is not, have not received Him.
Christine: Yeah, and that's different from the Genesis narrative then-
David: It is
Christine: ... because it's always, "And it was so. And it was so." The Word is the sovereign in all creation, and everything obeys His will. But what John is talking about is kind of reflecting on human history, too, that nevertheless, we have a problem because, because the Word has not been received, and therefore, there's death in the world, and darkness is ruling or opposing. Uh, maybe not ruling, but darkness is opposing the light but has nevertheless not been able to comprehend or overcome the light.
David: That's right. Yeah, verse 10, "He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who have received Him, who believed in His name," which we talked about as participating in His life, "He gave power to become children of God," to be born again, like new Adams, new creations, and made like sons of God, like Jesus-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man but of God.
Christine: Yes. So he talks about what do these, how do these children of God come into being? It's not the normal way 'cause you might be thinking of, you know, the children of Abraham, which remember how there's nuance there because those were all a miracle, and it wasn't some authority that was human that gave Abraham those children. This is all God's work, and so they are born of God.
David: What I was thinking about was that the way that they become children of God is by receiving Him, but to those who have received Him [laughs]
Christine: Yes
David: ... who believe in His name, you have to take life into yourself.
Christine: Yes. It's a different way to become human?
David: That's right.
Christine: Or, yeah.
David: Yeah. We have to... Yeah. The, the darkness has life come over it, just like the, the chaos and void in creation, the dark waters, and we were that, but we can receive the light and have it-
Christine: Mm-hmm
David: ... come into us and bring new creation. So every new follower of Jesus has a Genesis 1 Eden moment [chuckles] where they were the darkness, they were the void, they were the deep, but then the Word comes to them and says, "Let there be light." And they receive Him, and they are remade, and they become new Edens, new places for the light and life of Jesus to spread.
Christine: That's good.
David: So it's just beautiful.
Christine: Very good. Yeah.
David: And that is kind of the idea of the new humanity that Jesus is creating throughout His whole story. When, when God brings humanity into Himself, or I should say, when God brings creation into Himself, He creates a new world, a new creation, but then those who receive Him participate in this new humanity, this new, the, they, they are the new Eden people [laughs]
Christine: Yes
David: ... in God's newly made world.
Christine: So what you're saying is that in the Word coming to the world, there is a new creation at hand, and with those who receive Him, there is a new humanity.
David: That's right.
Christine: So it's kind of a re-recr- well, yeah. Recreation is [chuckles] becoming redundant at this point, but we're doing something new with the Genesis story, with the Word coming into the world.
David: Yes. And this is where John the Baptist comes in and-
Christine: Okay. I was gonna-
David: ... gets really helpful.
Christine: I was wondering how he came into this story.
David: Yes.
Christine: 'Cause I'm tracking with what the Logos is doing-
David: Right
Christine: ... and coming, and people receive Him, so who is-
David: So what's in- yeah. What's interesting here-
Christine: ... John?
David: ... is as I was reading it, it feels so disjointed. It's almost like the prologue gets interrupted 'cause you have these beautiful, famous lines about the, "The Word was God," and He, He made everything. "What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John." And you're like-
Christine: [laughs]
David: ... "Huh?" And it, and it's not like, "Oh, okay, end of prologue. Let's start talking about John the Baptist," 'cause right after this, it's back to, "He was in the world, yet the wor- and all the world came into being through Him, yet they did not know Him." And John-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... is just like-
Christine: So John is part of the prologue for a very, very good reason, but what is that reason? [laughs]
David: Yeah. [laughs] I'll try my best. The reality is in the same way that when a Hebrew reader would see, "The Word of God, who was with God and was God," would not find this as a new idea. They'd be like, "Oh, I know the Word of God who came-
Christine: Mm-hmm
David: ... to the prophets and spoke to them and guided them into new creation." In the same way, the idea that there would be the, a visitation of God to His people in order to take the barren wasteland of their exile and death and life and recreate it with new gushing waters and a new Eden and a new people that would resurrect out of dryness and into life and into flourishing was a humongous expectation of the people of God. And they'd been waiting for this new creation moment that would be accompanied by the day of the Lord, the day of God's visitation. But all of that was, we were promised by Isaiah, Malachi, that it would be, uh, predicated upon by a messenger, by one who would prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, in the dry places, and would say, "Make straight your paths. He's coming." And when He comes, water bursts forth, new Eden breaks out, and we're told that this person would come in the spirit of Elijah.And that's exactly who John the Baptist is. He comes in the spirit of Elijah. He has the same wardrobe as Elijah, [laughs] the sa- some of the same diet as Elijah, and he is the one who is here to prepare the way of the Lord. So the reason why John is highlighted here right after all this new creation Eden stuff is to knock on the consciences of all of the Hebrew readers to say, "You know that new creation you were waiting for? It has come, and we know that not only because the Word has become flesh, but because the one who announced His coming has made the announcement."
Christine: So that just makes John sound like every other prophet or the culmination of the prophets-
David: Yes
Christine: ... which fits with the Word coming to God's people 'cause it always came through a prophet.
David: That's right.
Christine: So that, that makes sense, the role John is playing here, because if the Word of God is coming, if the day of the Lord is coming, a prophet is going to announce that. A-
David: That's right
Christine: ... the Word will come to a prophet, and that prophet will relay what he heard from the Lord. So that makes sense that, okay, if this new creation stuff is coming, Isaiah did as much.
David: Mm.
Christine: The, you know, the other prophets did as much. If new creation is breaking in to darkness, see Moses going to Egypt, the visible sign of that will be a prophet-
David: Yes
Christine: ... declaring and preparing God's people to meet Him and to be ready for God's appearing.
David: That's right, and it, and it is these visitations of Yahweh, these cataclysmic visitations of Yahweh, that are always predicated upon by the Word of the Lord coming to a prophet and preparing for that visitation. And so think about the destruction of the temple. How many prophets-
Christine: Lots of prophets came for that
David: ... lots of prophets had visitations from the Word of the Lord and were trying to prepare people for the day of the Lord's visitation.
Christine: Yes. Repent.
David: And they're like, "Repent. Get ready. He's coming." And they did that job, and the Lord came, and He destroyed the temple and brought His people into exile. Well, now we're waiting for another prophet to bring us out of exile, to bring us out of the wilderness, to bring us into all the promises and Eden that lay before the people of God. And we are... And we're told that we don't have to wait for any prophet, but a specific prophet, a prophet who would come in the spirit of Elijah.
Christine: Yeah. Yeah, and this prophet, John, will be unique as, like, kind of the build-up of all the prophets because the other prophets would say, "Hear the Word of the Lord," and John will say, "Behold."
David: [laughs]
Christine: "Look at the Word of the Lord."
David: So good. [laughs] Yeah.
Christine: So he's kind of the final prophet to not just relay what, what God has spoken, but to actually point with his finger.
David: Yeah.
Christine: He's a prophet who not only sees God, but can show Him to others around him. [laughs]
David: What's fascinating about that, too, is the double-edged sword of that revelation is that he points and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Here He is." And yet people don't receive Him-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... which is a very prophet thing. [laughs]
Christine: It's very-
David: It's a very prophet thing
Christine: ... very much a prophet thing.
David: That-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... so many times the prophets of Israel declare the Word of the Lord to people-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... and they, it only further hardens their hearts-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... and they don't receive it.
Christine: Yeah, and Jesus says that not just in John, but in all the Gospels, I think. If not all of them, then most of them. But, you know, a prophet can't be received in his hometown, and God always takes that personally 'cause it's not the prophet himself as a person that the people have issue with. It's what comes out of his mouth. It's, it's the fact that he is standing in for God and speaking God's words to them that they are rejecting, not the prophet, even though they persecute the prophet, but they are rejecting-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... God, and so.
David: So that's a bit about on John the Baptist. Does that help?
Christine: Yes, yes.
David: Okay.
Christine: Seeing him as a prophet who is kind of this harbinger of God's coming and therefore new creation, therefore the day of the Lord-
David: Right
Christine: ... that's, that places him very neatly in-
David: It i- Yes
Christine: ... as his-
David: And not only in-
Christine: ... role and calling
David: ... in role and type as a prophet, but also as an ultimate role and type.
Christine: Yes.
David: See Isaiah 40. See Malachi 4.
Christine: Yes, yes. We are waiting for this. He is a prophet prophets pointed to.
David: That's right. [laughs]
Christine: And he is also the prophet that will actually point to a visible image of the Word-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... to people-
David: There we go
Christine: ... and to baptize him.
David: Okay. Last, maybe last, I don't know. I'll say last, and then there'll be three more. But we, we need to talk about one of the most beautiful verses in the entire Bible, John 1:14. "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." So this-
Christine: I won't live long enough to unpack-
David: No
Christine: ... that, and I know I'm gonna live forever.
David: [laughs] And yet-
Christine: So
David: ... you still won't unpack it all.
Christine: I will not unpack it.
David: So we've talked a lot about the Word. This is God Himself through whom all things were made, and He has joined Himself to humanity. But there's another step John takes here when saying that He lived among us. Because as... And maybe, maybe a lot of you listening to this already know, but this is the, the same word, and maybe it's even in some translations, as tabernacled among us, that He became the new tabernacle.
Christine: Yes, which that was a condescension of God in Exodus-
David: Mm
Christine: ... in Exodus 40 because all of His people were living in tents. "And you know what? I am gonna come and dwell just like you. I'm gonna put on a tent. I'm gonna live in a tent just like you and live among you, and I will be your God, and you will be my people." And-
David: So humble
Christine: That is what Jesus does. That is what the Word does. He puts on the humble tent of human mortal flesh and dwells among us like one of us.
David: Yeah. And what's amazing about that is as we join the flywheel of John touching all of these themes that we've talked about here, one thing we haven't talked about yet as with regards to creation and Eden is the fact that Eden was a temple.
Christine: Yeah.
David: It, and the tabernacle was a proto-temple.
Christine: Yes.
David: And also a new Eden. And so we just have to unpack all this-
Christine: Yes
David: ... um, and, and, and try to show what John's doing. So the Garden of Eden, I think we've talked about this so many times on the show, but the Garden of Eden is a temple. It's built like a temple. In the ancient mind, gods lived on mountains and-
Christine: In gardens
David: ... and in gardens. And Eden is a m- garden on a mountain. And not only that, God is in it and moves around in it, and it is His abode. And yet He uniquely forms His people out of that or out of the earth He creates and puts them in His temple with Him. That is very unique. But what's amazing about it, and I'm touching things that are beyond the scope of John, but it's just cool that, you know, oftentimes temples, oftentimes, all the time, temples have idols. They have images. And God forms His temple and makes man the image of-
Christine: Yes
David: ... Himself and puts him in His temple. And He's like, "This is who I want to represent my image," [laughs] which is baffling.
Christine: Yes. "What you do to this human, you do to me-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... because he is my image." Yeah.
David: And so you have this Eden garden mountain temple with the image of God in it, in humanity, and the purpose w- was for humanity to be God to the world and to take His goodness and life out from there. And so one of the images you get out of many is in this created space, there are four rivers flowing out of Eden, and they're watering the whole earth. And this is a very common idea in temple imagery in the, in the Near East, that water gushes out of the abode of the gods and goes and brings life to dead places. And yet as Adam and Eve leave the Temple Mount and go into the wilderness, it's more brambles and death and dryness than gushing waters of new creation and life. So you have this, like, stark contrast [laughs] between the temple that we were meant to live in with God and the gushing waters of new life that we were meant to flow through us compared to the empty wilderness [laughs] of death that we live in now after the fall.
Christine: Yeah. And you were mentioning man as being God's image. That's also priestly language. Or the fact that they have to bring God's blessings out into the world, that is, that's what priests do.
David: That's right.
Christine: They bring God's life, God's fellowship to the people, and are conduits of that fellowship two ways. And so I see God's intent for man is to dwell together with Him and like with like, and for that to spread, for that life to spread and fill, fill the valleys of death like water fills valleys and-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... and with the rivers rushing down. So there's this outflow of life that's intended for God's and His people.
David: Exactly. And that's what we've lost.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: That's what's broken. That is what was severed. And so when Jesus, and when John says w- that Jesus is the Word that has become flesh and tabernacles among us, and we've seen His glory. [laughs] Like, the glory of God dwells in the temple is the idea, and now the glory of God is dwelling in the temple of another, of a human being-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... which is the God man, Jesus. And He, when He does that, He comes and He heals the image of m- of God in man and the position of man with God in-
Christine: Yes
David: ... the temple, and He remakes him as both king, have dominion, and priest, take my blessing to the world, and brings all of that crashing back together in creating a new humanity.
Christine: Yes. So what I hear with we have seen His glory language with what you just said and what we've talked about with John is that it reminds me, also it's spoken gospel, so it reminds me of Exodus 34, and when Moses beholds the glory of God and does kind of what you said. He brings a tabernacle blueprint down the mountain, and he brings an Eden plan down the mountain for God to dwell with His people. And his time with God and seeing His glory means that he also shares that divine light for a time, and the people don't receive him. [laughs] They're like, "Please cover that, uh, that divine light. We can't gaze on that." And so there is the glory of God seen in the face of a prophet, a human image of God that is veiled-
David: Mm
Christine: ... for a time, even though that prophet was bringing God's life, God's Eden, God's dwelling to be with man. And so with this John being the harbinger of the Word tabernacling among us, the Word becoming flesh, we see God doing that. And for people to see His glory, the glory of the one and only [laughs] is we are seeing God-
David: Mm
Christine: ... like with our naked eye. That is not safe. [laughs] How-
David: Right
Christine: ... how can we do that? [laughs]
David: It's, it's amazing to think about the Exodus 34 connection and how what Moses knew in partJohn is proclaiming in full that Moses beheld the glory of God and became like the glory of God, radiating it in human form-
Christine: Yes
David: ... for a time.
Christine: Yes. And that's not to say he became God-
David: Right
Christine: ... but he shared the glory of God.
David: That's right.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And, and now when Jesus comes in John's gospel, he is doing that work. He's trying to share his glory, and he wants us to see his glory and partake in his glory, share his life, partake in his life, share his presence with the Father, with us. He's like, "I've become a temple of Go- like, or, you know, I've made man a temple of God. Now I want to make you, oh man, a temple of God." And he's just sharing and sharing and sharing throughout. And there is a shadow that we see of this in the, the Moses story that-
Christine: A shadow
David: ... [laughs] I know. I couldn't help myself. That he saw God's glory and, and, and participated in it, and now that shadow has come full force.
Christine: Yes, and even at the fulfillment of Moses' own words, 'cause he says in Deuteronomy, you know, "God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people. Listen to him." And so even Moses is kind of foretelling [laughs] this moment that God will come, and a prophet will come.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And in this case, the prophet is Jesus, because John will say later, like, "I am not the prophet." And they're asking there, "Are you the prophet Moses foretold?" And he's saying, "Nope, I'm not that prophet." [laughs]
David: Yeah.
Christine: "I'm, I'm the voice of one calling in the desert." But that prophet that Moses foretold, that will be like God to you and will be the glory of God among you, you must listen to him.
David: Mm-hmm.
Christine: He'll also be one of, one of you guys-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... is very much like what John's describing in 1:14 here.
David: As we think about beholding the glory of God in human flesh, the last verse of the prologue is just beautiful [laughs] to that regard. It says this in verse 18, "No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known."
Christine: That is very, very deep.
David: No one has ever seen God. God is spirit. He's-
Christine: No one has ever seen the Father.
David: Yeah. The, oh, sorry.
Christine: There's a sense-
David: Yes, thank you
Christine: ... in which created eyes cannot behold the uncreated.
David: That's right.
Christine: Point blank. Like, there's, in a sense, God is always and will always be invisible to us.
David: Mm-hmm.
Christine: We cannot see the uncreated. However, we can see God because Jesus reveals-
David: Mm
Christine: ... God to us.
David: And this is where it's real fun to think about because you have, going back to Exodus 34, you have, "You can't see my glory." Well, he sees something.
Christine: He does.
David: And then he goes into a tent and talks with God face to face as one friend talks to another. Moses saw something. The word of the Lord comes to Abraham in a vision. Abraham saw something.
Christine: Yes.
David: There are visible encounters with God.
Christine: Yeah.
David: The real Yahweh-
Christine: Yes
David: ... God.
Christine: Jacob wrestles with him-
David: That's right
Christine: ... and gets away. [laughs]
David: Right.
Christine: And Abraham eats with him.
David: Yes.
Christine: Yes, and talks with him.
David: And, and so God is, the Father i- is invisible. He, no one has seen the Father. But when the Father makes himself visible, we see the Son.
Christine: Yes, 'cause the Son is the image-
David: Image
Christine: ... of the invisible God. And even later in the gospel, you know, John will relay how Philip says, "Show us the Father, and golly, that'll be enough for us." I inserted golly. But Jesus says, "Don't you know me?"
David: Yeah.
Christine: "If you've seen me, you have seen the Father." And so there's nothing more we could ask. And in fact, now if you were to say, "Let's draw God," which you could not do that before, not in John's time-
David: Right
Christine: ... or, you know, in, with the Hebrew Bible. There is no image of God.
David: That's right.
Christine: There's nothing depicted between the cherubim where God's seat is. God is invisible. We cannot see Him. However, now we can draw a picture of God because we can draw Jesus.
David: Yeah.
Christine: God looks like a human. [laughs]
David: It's amazing. We, we know what He looks like now, and we can still be a little like Philip and say, "Oh, I, I really wanna see the Father." And Jesus is like, "You've, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father." I, I love the meditation. I think I've said it before on the podcast, but I love the meditation that Israel was not allowed to build idols for a myriad of reasons, but one of which is because God himself would make the ultimate image for his invisible person.
Christine: Yes. And also he made them. We talked about that in Genesis. Like, the image of God on Earth is a human being.
David: That's right.
Christine: Even without the incarnation, it's immensely fitting and glorifying of humanity that God would become one, that no other creature can claim that. God did not become a seraph.
David: Right.
Christine: God did not don the powers and body of an angel or an animal or a rock. God put on human flesh.
David: Yeah.
Christine: So He is one of us in, in a way. He is our brother. He is, yeah, He's one of us [laughs] which just, even that alone just exalts fallen humanity higher than anything I can think of.
David: Yeah.
Christine: It's incredibly humbling and beautiful the way He joins Himself-
David: And I-
Christine: ... life joins Himself to human flesh.
David: And I, there it is. And I think that loops back around to where we started [laughs] as if we're gonna take one thing away from all of this gazing at the Son, S-U-N, S-O-N.
Christine: [laughs]
David: We want to take away this idea that John is trying to stress the fact that Jesus has healed the human condition and the entire created world by joining Himself to it, by bringing it into Himself. Because yes, we, we, humans, made in God's image, but that imageWe do not carry with his life in us, with-- like, we've, we've almost lost the breath part, right? [laughs] And so he's like, "You have to be born from below and above, and yes, y-you're human. I formed you in my image, but I need to put my spirit in you."
Christine: Yeah. "You need to become my child. You need to receive me."
David: Yeah.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And so that is what John is going to continue to explore that he has set up here in these first 18 verses, that Jesus is on a new creation mission by becoming new creation, by becoming a new humanity, by being the temple that gushes forth life, that remakes the world, by bringing light into darkness, and by bringing all things into himself. And these are the themes you're gonna just run into again and again and again throughout John as you see-
Christine: Yes
David: ... new creation, as you see sevens and eights, as you see water, as you see husband and wife imagery, which is a joining together, bringing o-one life into another. You're going to see all of these images stacked up onto each other, and a- the, the more attuned we come to that, not only the more beautiful the Gospel of John will become as a testament to Jesus, but the more beautiful the reality of the Christian life will become, which is the Christian life is meant to be one of communion and union and abiding with Jesus, like taking him into yourself and letting him take yourself into him. And that is what Jesus has always prayed and is praying, that we would be one with him and the Father and the Spirit, and that he would bring us into his own Trinitarian union in some baffling, honoring, glory way that John is taking great pains to reveal that truth to us.
Christine: It's really beautiful, and yeah, and I don't understand it. I can't understand it, but I wanna be a part of it.
David: So there we go, John 1:1-18.
Christine: Wow.
David: I'm very excited about our next conversation. We are going to talk about signs, because there are famously seven signs, eight including the resurrection of Jesus, in John's gospel, and the way John uses the word signs is really cool.
Christine: Yeah, we did not expect how big-
David: [laughs]
Christine: ... that was until just a few days ago when-
David: No, real excited-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... to talk about it, even just for our own exploration. [laughs]
Christine: Yeah.
David: So we'll do that. If you have any questions about the Gospel of John or anything we've said on the podcast so far, or you want to share what you're seeing in the Gospel of John, you wanna speak the gospel out of John, you can do so now. And we're really excited to share that, that you can go to speakpipe.com/spokengospel and upload a question or a comment or a reaction. And we'll listen to those and play some on the podcast and be able to answer them. So please go to speakpipe.com/spokengospel and upload your question, and we would love to be able to, to dialogue with you on the podcast. Uh, thank you all so much for listening. We're real excited to be in John with you. Please join us next time, and until then, peace be with you, join the new humanity, abide in Christ. We'll see you next time.
Christine: [outro music] Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [outro music]
