Gospel of John [16:12-15]. The Doctrine of the HS, part 60 - The World. Joh 1:1-14; Col 1:13-18; 2Pe 1:4.

Title: Gospel of John [16:12-15]. The Doctrine of the HS, part 60 - The World. JOH 1:1-14; COL 1:13-18; 2PE 1:4.

 

 

Christ says that the moment you put yourself in His hands you are in for a complete journey to be conformed to His image. Nothing less, or other, than that.

 

We may be content to be ordinary people, but He is determined to carry out a different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility: it is laziness and cowardice.

 

This is why we should not be surprised if we find that we are in for one heck of a ride that is not in any way like an ordinary life. There is an extraordinary purpose to the Person and work of Christ as well as all the doctrines that comprise His revealed mind. As we study the details we should not lose sight of the purpose.

 

Satan raises our attention to the details of God's program in the hope that we lose sight of His whole purpose, so that we may pick and chose some favorites and so then be drawn away from the others.

 

It is not wrong to look at the details, but as we delve into them we are to never lose sight of the whole or the singularity of the whole purpose of God.

 

2CO 11:3-4

But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity [singleness or unaffectedness] and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

 

The failure or divergence away from simplicity or singularity is their acceptance of "another" Jesus, spirit, and gospel. The same occurred in the Garden of Eden where they accepted another way than God's.

 

There are things in this world that are like God because He created them, but they are not Him just as a self portrait is not the actual artist. The portrait is not alive. The greatness of space and the greatness of God are not the same greatness. The vastness of space is like the omnipresence of God in same sort of way that a picture of a person is a resemblance, but not the person. It is not alive.

 

Man is made in the image of God, but he is not God, fallen or not fallen. Fallen man has life, the most complex and sophisticated of all living things, but he has not got spiritual life. We use the same word "life" for both, but they are not the same sort of thing.

 

God created man - different from Himself, but in His image.

God begat Christ - same as Him; the Son of God.

 

LUK 22:70

And they all said, "Are You the Son of God, then?" And He said to them, "Yes, I am."

 

"We can only rightly understand the term "the only begotten" when used of the Son, in the sense of unoriginated relationship. "The begetting is not an event of time, however remote, but a fact irrespective of time. The Christ did not become, but necessarily and eternally is the Son. He, a Person, possesses every attribute of pure Godhood. This necessitates eternity, absolute being; in this respect He is not 'after' the Father" [Vine's Expository Dictionary]

 

His humanity had a birth to which we would say that the body had a beginning in appearance to the world, but wrought in Mary by God the Holy Spirit, unique to Him, we cannot conclude that His physical body is of a beginning as ours are.

 

LUK 1:35

And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.

 

The human race do not possess words that will adequately describe this since it is not of our world. It is like describing volume [3 dimensions] to a two dimensional world.

 

There is no start or beginning to Him, yet He is pure humanity. We have absolutely no reference to this and so it is inscrutable to us. Eternity, in Christ, came into time as light shined in darkness.

 

JOH 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

JOH 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.

 

JOH 1:3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

 

JOH 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

 

JOH 1:5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

 

JOH 1:6 There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John.

 

JOH 1:7 He came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.

 

JOH 1:8 He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light.

 

JOH 1:9 There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

 

JOH 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

 

JOH 1:11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

 

JOH 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,

 

JOH 1:13 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

JOH 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

So though mankind is in His image and things in the world are like Him, but not Him, Jesus Christ came into the world as Him and so brings Him.

 

He is not Adam though Adam is like Him in several ways. He did not come to restore us to the Garden of Eden. Man has been for all history trying to restore a perfect environment, and even if he could, though he can't, it would not be a begotten world but only a the same created world in a nicer version [fallen world 2.0]. Christ is not of this world. He said repeatedly that He came from above. Above is the dimension that we in three dimensions cannot know anything about without Him. By His work He redeemed everyone for that dimension and for those who have believed upon Him, He sent His Spirit to regenerate them and to teach them, lead them, and empower them in the divine dimension, which is the heavenlies, the spiritual, and the kingdom of God.

 

The new creature is a whole new being that is not of this world and the kingdom that he belongs to is of the same kind.

 

A perverted view respecting the relation of Christ to deity and to creation had infiltrated Colossae. Paul clarifies this in this passage. In His dual nature, Christ has the role of mediator between God and creation as God and man. 

 

COL 1:13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

 

COL 1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

 

COL 1:15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.

 

"image" - eivkw,n[eikon] = image, representation, or manifestation. Christ is the exact manifestation of the Father and so is eternal God in the flesh.

 

JOH 14:9

He who has seen Me has seen the Father;

 

He is not an image as a painting is an image of someone, but rather is the exact manifestation of God that omnipotence was able to bring to the world in the form of true humanity. This has no reference in the natural mind and so the doctrine of the hypostatic union has been perverted by natural thinking men since the reality of Christ was first contemplated.

 

"firstborn" - prwto,tokoj[prototokos] = first begotten, preeminent, priority to all creation and sovereignty over all creation. Existing before all things and creating all things - He is not created.

 

Since He is uncreated He is eternal and so eternal God. He cannot be created and also be the Creator of all things.

 

He is the divine logos.

 

JOH 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 came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

 

COL 1:16 For by Him all things were created [aorist tense], both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities [elect and fallen angels] —  all things have been created [perfect tense] by Him and for Him.

 

"by Him" is the locative and so should be "in Him all things were created." All things came to be within the sphere of His personality and are dependent upon Him.

 

COL 1:17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

 

"before all things" - eternal preexistence. "hold together" - consists together. Christ gives the unity and cohesiveness to the universe as an expression of His mind.

 

A personal pronoun [not necessary in Greek] is used here for emphasis. Gravity, electromagnetism, and nuclear forces which hold everything together and moving in their perfect places continues as an expression of His mind, as you and I might hold a phrase or a sum in our minds. While He lay in the manger at one hour old He was holding together galaxies and all the atoms in them. Therefore it would only take an expression of His mind to blow them all apart.

 

COL 1:18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything.

 

Again, the personal pronoun is used for emphasis. The emphasis of the eternal Creator of the universe who has come in the flesh is now emphasized in relationship to every member of the Church. The Creator who holds the universe together, comprising its every part, is also holding the Church together.