John 1:1–18, Your Eternal Story
Simply in Scripture
28–05–2022
If you ask my sincere opinion, the Bible is the most dramatic and most true of all books that we have. Not only is it remarkably beautiful in the story but also is it paradoxically revealing of the one truth that sets humanity free. Tonight, I would like to take you on a brief adventure into the story in the Bible. It is an eternal story and it is your story, as we shall find. I agree with Tennyson, ‘Truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors. Our story is in the gospel of John, ch. 1 and vs. 1–18. My teacher calls this book itself the Crown of Scripture, and I have found this is true. So, let’s take a dive in.
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ (vs 1) Thus began our story. It started by telling us that which was in the Beginning. It is the Word, and this Word was God even before all of what is now ongoing began. But a story that stops only at the beginning is not a complete story. Here is the story of the Beginning and the End. As the story unfolds, the Word is the light in every man (vs 9). As every story derives from this one eternal story, there is a twist. A twist that excites the story and arouses attention. Dwelling in the world yet not known to all in the world which he is light of, the Word was made flesh and dwelt within us. (vs 10, 14) So, the twist is that the Word in order to give life to all men became humanity. For life is in him, and for all to have life, he became all. Who is this Word? I present to you the very literal sense of vs. 14 and 18. For this is the resolution to the twist.
14: And the Word was made flesh and dwelt IN us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the Only One from the Father, full of grace and truth.
18: No one has seen God: the Only One who is God, who is at the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
Now, God and his glory are one and the same (John 17:5). So, when in the story, we are told that we have seen his glory, then later we are told that no one has seen God but the Only One who is God, we must instantly realise that this is but a paradoxical revelation of truth. Otherwise, it could not be that we have seen God’s glory while yet we haven’t seen God. This then is our eternal story, that the flesh which is called man and is worn by living beings is literally the garment which God himself wears to animate and give life to the experience called humanity.
O, I did not say this first. I would not say this last. You believe your Bible? So I ask you to ‘search the scriptures, for in them you believe that you have eternal life.’ When you search, you shall find this. ‘And YHWH (I AM) formed man… breathed into his nostrils the Spirit, and man became a living soul.’ AND ‘God is Spirit.’ AND ‘There is One Body and One Spirit.’ So, what did God commit? Self-abandonment to animate the state called Man. Man could be no living soul except the Spirit of God lives in and animates man, makes humanity a living experience. You are ASKED, ‘Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Spirit which is IN you, and you are not of your own?’ The honest man would answer, ‘No, I do not know.’ For it is a paradoxical truth, and only known by experience.
Then the story is your story. For ‘You made man a little lower than Elohim.’ (Psa. 8:5) Our translators could not understand it because it is not rational, logical knowledge. It is so dramatic, so shocking. Since they did not understand it, they put the word: angels. ‘You made man a little lower than the angels.’ But that is not it, for the word is Elohim. Therefore, ‘God has made man a little lower than God, and put all things under his dominion.’ So, what must God do to elevate this man that has been made lower? The purpose of God is to bring man to be himself, for he cannot share his glory. He will not share himself and be two when he is forever One. Well, God became mindful of Man so that Man may see the glory who is God’s Self, and who is revealed by the Only One. Therefore, ‘God appears, and God is light to those poor souls who dwell in night. But does a human form display to those who dwell in realms of day.’ ‘I am not bending my head when I said God is Man.’ For God is within Man, and when man turns within himself with the question, ‘Do I not know that my body is the temple where the Spirit dwells in me?’ He will only honestly be able to answer, ‘No, I do not know.’ Not until he experiences scripture, and becomes witness with the Bible that it is all literally true.
This story is your eternal story. You entered the world that you made, and forgetting the whole thing (which is the death), you wonder, ‘Who am I that God is mindful of me?’ But why would God be mindful of you if he does not love you? He loves you, and he gives the greatest gift he could find to you. He gave you ‘his glory’, the glory of ‘the Only One who is God’. Then one day, you will know it by experience. Until then, test the power that lies within you. It is very very simple, the simplest thing in the world. You don’t need anything, anyone’s permission to do it. It is all about believing. ‘With God all things are possible,’ AND ‘If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ So, he equates God with the believing man. Equal potential, and the only condition upon man is He must accept NOT the evidence of his sense but must accept the evidence of his unseen reality. So, man is God in the condition of believing. ‘The just shall live by faith,’ it’s that simple. You can test if you were the Word that was in the beginning or not.
How? Can you assume something to be true, even though your current objective world tells you otherwise? There’s no money in the bank, and you want money in the bank. Well, letting go of the evidence of your objective senses, can you simply assume that there is now money in the bank and imagine you saw the exact bank balance that you wish you had? Now, can you accept that imagining to be true? That is the only challenge, ‘If you CAN believe… it is possible unto you.’ You don’t need the bank manager’s permission, not the economy’s adjustment. You don’t need the government to change policies, only dare to assume you now have it. And if you believe in the reality of your unseen fact, it would become objectified in this world. Now, test it. Try it and see.
But the whole story is about you, for the Word dwells IN you. Christ IN me is the hope of Glory. ‘The Son of God within me is the expectation of God himself.’ Therefore, if you cannot accept it, that’s quite alright. Go back and search your scriptures. And when you do, do you realise that the story of Christ is eternally true? It was not true 2000 years ago, but eternally true? So, what would be going on IN you if Christ is truly in you? Or do you not know that your body is God’s dwelling place and he lives there as you, so that you are not of yourself but of God’s Self? You don’t know because, ‘The world was made by him, yet the world did not know him.’ It is a part of the eternal story that you forget it until he reveals it within you. Until then, I encourage you to put faith to the test, put yourself to the test and believe.
