John 1: 6-14 January 28, 2021
6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to
testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into
being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people
did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of
the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14And 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.
These are the saved, those whose names are written in the
Book of Life (see Revelations for more), who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior
and Friend, however we want to refer to a christian 'believer'. John makes it a two-step process for the human, and
then a response from the divine. First,
Jesus is received, then his name is believed in. From there, they receive power to become
children of God. To receive Jesus, that
is hearing about him, from early church-going days, or in the culture (which is
not my first choice for a true rendering of who Jesus is), or somewhere. There is a point of contact, one that may be good,
bad, or indifferent on the part of the human.
On Jesus’ part, it is always in the light.
So, to those who received him and then believed in his
name, that is a huge appeal to hindsight.
The story of the gospel is going to lay out what it means to believe in
Jesus, in what he did for us. At this
point, it says ‘believed in his name’.
There are two observations I would make.
The first is that John has not yet named Jesus. He won’t till like verse 17. I have named him and used his name throughout
because I am not trying to foreshadow, but understand. But there is a wider biblical connection to
the name of Jesus.
I am terrible at memory verses. Always have been. I accept the guilt and shame of all those who
would tell me I need to know more. I have
a better memory for content then for chapter and verse. But one of the passages that I do know,
chapter and verse, are Philippians 2: 5-11 (although I usually start in
Philippians 3, then flip back). These
are verses 9-11: 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and
gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
There is a theological stream in the bible around the name
of God and, in turn, the name of Jesus.
When I say a theological stream, I mean a series of connected pieces in
the bible that we can bring together when thinking about God. Moses at the burning bush, he asked the name
of God and he got the response “I am what I am”, although that has been
translated a few different ways. The
Hebrew rendering of the Name of God throughout the Old Testament is marked so
that it will be pronounced “Adonai”, which means Lord, because God’s name is
too holy for the lips of humanity.
I do not know enough about this theological stream around
the name of God to say more than it is a Bible thing and it is one of
significance. It is a subject that I want
to look into more. I am not going to
right now because that is not what I am seeking to do with John. This blog is me drawing together the elements
of the faith I have been raised in as I read the Gospel. But one of the objectives has been met, to
identify what makes me want to know more.
So, those who believed in his name, he gave power to
become children of God. So, the rule of
oppositions. The children of God as opposed
to what? To recall some King James language,
‘children of perdition’. There is a
duality in the Christian faith, those who are saved from their sins and those
who are not. Those who are saved, part
of the order of salvation is adoption, to become children of God. This seems to be a promotion over our simple
created status. But, on the other side,
are those not saved, punished for their sins.
Perdition is a two dollar word that here is a synonym for hell, or the
Bad Place.
So, from our point of view, this is the way of becoming a
Christian. We receive Jesus, we believe
in Jesus, Jesus in turn gives us power to become Children of God. I say the human point of view, because there
is a divine point of view that we have touched on and can look at when it comes
more centrally to our gospel reading. We
received, we believed, we were adopted.
And I am going to stop there. Yes, the sentence runs through the next verse,
but these sentences are so filled with meaning, and I want to make these posts
of some kind of tolerable length.
Besides which, sentences in English do not correspond directly with the
original Greek. But that, neighbors, is
a sidebar.
Sidebar: So the structure of the English language is
governed by word order and punctuation to bring meaning to what is said and
what is written. There are rules for how
we do language that are gathered under the title of “Grammar”. Greek, not so much. Punctuation does not exist. Word order is not the thing that it is for
us. Rather, the grammar is built upon
suffixes, the ends of words, that change depending on what they mean. So, in English we might say things like “I
pray” or “You pray”. The meaning in
Greek is given by the word for prayer and then a change in the ending. When pronouns become a sticking point in the English
translation, the Greek is generally better, with their suffixes, in tracking
what is about whom.
Clarification:
King James language…the King James translation
of the bible was the first, almost universally, accepted English translation of
the bible, under the reign of, you guessed it, King James. It comes from the same time period where Shakespeare
was writing his plays. While Shakespeare
wrote in the everyday speech of his time, we have come to venerate the plays so
much that Shakespearean English has taken on something of a highbrow nature
when it is spoken today (especially when we throw around ‘thee’ and ‘thou’). Nerding once again, Iron Man to Thor in
Avengers 1, “Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?” The King James version of the bible has the
same kind of language. I read where
Shakespeare was theorized as having actually translated the Bible into English as
well as doing all the play writing.
There are more conservative portions of the Christian church where the
KJV, the King James Version, is THE version of Scripture. Kids who go to private Christian schools
where they learn from the KJV have been observed to have excellent understanding
of Shakespeare when they have gone to public colleges.
Lots of stuff today…Pastor
Pete
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