John 1:19-34

Worship Guide

Sermon Notes

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible begins with this well-known verse. “In the beginning God”: in the beginning, before the beginning began, God was already there. “…created the heavens and the earth”: everything else had a beginning when the beginning began. Everything else was created by its Creator, God. “In the beginning was the Word.” Thus begins John’s gospel in a clear echo of Genesis 1. It continues, “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” There is a fundamental distinction between that which was there in the beginning and that which has a beginning, between Creator and creation, between Maker and made, between God and everything else. But John tells us more than Genesis; his Prologue elaborates, telling us more about who was there in the beginning.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. (John 1:1-2 

In the opening verses of the Prologue John carefully distinguishes the two realms: the “was” and the “became,” that which has no beginning and that which began. In the beginning there already was something, or rather someone, indeed two persons. Before the beginning began, before there was time and space, before there was when and where, God and the Word were present. That’s all there was: God and the Word fully present to one another, with the Word being in the same category as God, uncreated, without beginning. Joel covered this when he took us through the opening verses of John’s Prologue (1:1-5) two weeks ago. Last week Brian took us through the middle section (1:6-13).

Today we come to the final section of the Prologue (1:14-18), where we learn more about this relationship between God and the Word.

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. (John 1:14-18)

1. THE ONE AND ONLY

“The Word was with God,” we read in verse 2. In verses 14 and 18 this relationship between God and the Word is elaborated: “the only Son from the Father” and “the only God, who is at the Father’s side.” Two new terms are introduced: “Father” and “only.” ESV (English Standard Version) confusingly applies “only” to God in v. 18. In both verses I prefer the NIV (New International Version) rendering: “the one and only Son” (14), “the one and only Son, who is himself God” (18). NASB has “the only begotten” in both verses. Last summer I had a conversation with someone here who was concerned that “only-begotten” had been taken out of the Bible. This can be disconcerting, because it affects what is probably the most famous verse in all Scripture: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 KJV–as I first learnt it). But it is now recognized that “only-begotten” arose from a misunderstanding of the word, which really means “only one of its kind.” This is why I’m using the NIV’s “one and only.” Elsewhere in Scripture it is used of children, of an only child: in the NT of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12), and Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:42); in the OT of Jephthah’s daughter (Judg 11:34), and supremely of Isaac whom God asked Abraham to offer up (Gen 22:2, 12, 16): “Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac.”

In our created world sons and daughters are begotten. They are part of the world of change: a father begets a begotten son or daughter who