Clough John Lesson 4

The Word and Religious Prophets – John 1:6-8

We’ll continue our study of the prologue of the Gospel of John. One of the feedback cards said what is the second question that John 1:3-5 answers? We’ll answer that card as we review and prepare for the new portion of the text. The first 18 verses of this Gospel form the prologue or the introduction. The introduction is the introduction to the Word of God, the Logos, a word that is never used again in the Gospel, yet the word that describes everything that is spoken of in the Gospels. John 1:1-2 we said describe the relationship of the Logos to God; John’s three terms for the Trinity, instead of Father, Son and Spirit, John preferred the term God, Logos, and Pneuma, or Spirit: God, Word, Spirit, those three terms. Those are the Johannine terms for the Trinity.

The first two verses define very carefully that the Word is God Himself, and that whenever God reveals Himself in any way, at any point, by any method, God the Son is the center of that revelation. Just as in our illustration of the Trinity, whenever you experience time you do not experience it in the future, you do not experience it in the past, you can only experience it in the present. So therefore the Son has the title Logos because it’s thought, it’s reason, it’s the location where we come into union with God in a tense of salvation. So the Word is God.

Furthermore, John uses deliberately loaded with philosophic content, the Logos, the object of the search of philosophers throughout the ancient world and even in our generation. But John makes the astounding claim that the object of philosophic search is not an object at all, it’s a subject, it’s a person, and you cannot search a person out like you can a principle or a formula. The only way you can come to know a person is be on good speaking personal relationship with that person. Therefore John the search for truth is entirely different than the search for truth in the classical world. For John the search for truth is a search for a deeper personal relationship with Christ. That’s the search of truth and everything else flows out of that. So we find that truth and the search for it in the Bible and divine viewpoint is not going to class to obtain a few principles. The search for truth is not attendance at a school to gain a degree. The search for truth for John is a spiritual thing; it involves our conscience, not just our intellect. And with our conscience and our intellect both together we come to know Christ.

And then verses 3-5 we said was the relationship of the Word and the world, or the world and creation. The first two verses, the Word and the Creator; the second section, verses 3-5, is the Word and the creation. We found there that the Word, John insisted, was not part of the world at all. John insisted that the Oriental mysticism, whether you speak of nirvana, ki, or anything else is just a deification of something inside you. You can’t sit in a yogi pose and contemplate your navel and hope to encounter the Logos; the Logos isn’t there, the Logos is outside of both you and the universe, and the Logos is the Creator and you can only get to know Him on His terms.

We said, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men,” and in that he makes a certain astounding claim that just going back to Genesis’ imagery John says look, here we have man, life is not in man, life is given to man from outside of himself. When the universe was pictured in Genesis 1:2 it was chaotic and formless, and the author records God said “Let there be light,” and there was light; light came into the universe from God; light was not inherently inside the universe, it was inside God first, and from being inside God, there it was given into the world.

And the same with life. The word barah, the word to create, God created life, and life was not there originally because as far as God is concerned and the Word of God the two words, “existence” and “life” are not synonyms. The word “existed” in Genesis 1:2 but the world was not “living” in Genesis 1:2. There was nothing living in Genesis 1 until God created the animals and God created man, then there was life, but only then. So what’s the difference between life and mere existence? Existence is easy but what is life? According to Scripture life is the responsible relationship to the Creator. We said this is life, this is when we have opportunities for moral choices, for or against our Creator and we bear the eternal results of those choices. So life is a period in which we have choice; we don’t just exist like the rocks. Life, Biblically, is impossible if evolution is correct; if what is taught in every classroom in the land is true then the Bible is false; you cannot accept large scale mega evolution and cosmic evolution and believe in [can’t understand word, sounds like: The at] creation. And if you don’t accept [same word: The at [?] creation you can’t possibly have this view of life, that life is “in Him,” because if you accept evolution life isn’t “in Him,” life is in the world, not in Him, because for you life has originated out of the world and not out of Christ.

So he says the life was in Him, and we might draw a circle indication Jesus Christ and “in Him” is life, and the life is given to man; and that life that is given to man, not that man becomes God, the life is given to him, this life is given to man from outside of himself and the life that is given to man from outside of himself becomes the light; it says “the light of men.” What is the light? The light is something that men need to see their way, and so the life is the light of men because that’s the time when we have spiritual perception because remember John has loaded the word life with not just physical life, not just life the other side of the grave, after resurrection, but for John life, eternal life could begin here and now if you personally trust in Christ. At that point you have the same kind of life you will have forever and ever and ever, there’ll be nothing changed; once that life is given it will never be removed.

So he says that life, the eternal life, that life is the light that you need, and without that life you can’t see your way. You have physical eyes that see, but you can’t really see, you can’t see where the critical choices are and you goof up and foul up because you have no criteria of decision apart from eternal life. And that eternal life doesn’t come from within, it comes from outside; it comes by grace and only as that light is given can we interpret reality correctly. People without eternal life can’t see correctly, they misinterpret every event of their life. There’s not one event that’s correctly interpreted by the man who has no life; he can talk about the weather, he can talk about his business, he can talk about something else but it’s always on a trivial plain. Those of you who have been born again, who have received eternal life, the point that you became Christian, and have grown and allowed the life to expand its sphere in your soul, you have already come to be aware of the fact of the trouble that you have in communicating with those who are not regenerate. You can sit down with a conversation, you might as well talk to a man blind about the color of the room, and you would bring up incidents of history and its boring; you bring up other topics and they’re not interested, and the topics they’re interested in you’re not interested in. So you feel the tension in the communication; that’s fine because that just shows you the light and the darkness are in collision.

But John assures us in verse 5 that the light keeps on shining in darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it. History is irreversible, Christ’s victory will go on and on and on. So we answered two questions in verses 3-5 last time; the first question that men always ask: is there a single source of truth behind all religions. There is a single source of truth but it’s not visible in all religions. The single source of truth is the Logos, the light of men, and whatever pieces of truth there exists in other systems, those pieces only exist because in common grace men have accidentally stumbled upon them in their search for spiritual life, so there is only one source of truth and that is the Logos, there’s nothing behind the Logos and thus it is in this Gospel and not the other Gospels that Christ is said to be “the way, the truth, and the life, and no man,” “…NO man comes unto the Father except by Him.”

The second question we asked was: what is man’s nature that leads him to seek God? He is aware that he must see history in order to do something about what he ought to do; that’s why. All men have an innate crying out for the light; no man because of his creation is satisfied in darkness; he has an urge to see, to see outside of himself and to see what the decisions are, to get perspective on his life, an eternal perspective on his life. And because of that, that’s why men will either worship at the feet of Jesus Christ or they will erect an idol and kiss its feet, but they will have a God, either the true God or a false god, no man is without a God. The atheist has own god, all men have a god, because man’s nature dictates that he must have God.

Now there are some applications that we can make at the end of verse 5, applications that apply to our Christian life, applications that happy to evangelism. One of the applications is, and John makes this very, very clear in this language, is there is nothing further back than Christ. There is no deeper truth, there is no truth hidden that you have to dig behind Christ and really see what the real, real reality is behind Him. He is the reality, He’s the furthest back there is. And saying it this way means that there is no need for extra religious insights from Bahá'u'lláh or Mary Baker Eddy or anyone else; the Scriptures are sufficient, and they’re sufficient not because we are so great, because we didn’t generate the Scriptures. God generated the Scriptures, and if somebody is tempted someday to call you arrogant because you come out with a claim that the Scriptures are all self-sufficient and all other systems are insufficient, you might enlighten them to the fact that that claim the Scriptures made and they were making it 19 centuries before you came along. So you can’t be blamed for that claim. If they’re going to blame someone for the claim then blame Jesus Christ directly because He’s the first one who made it.

The claim is there’s only one way. We actually hold this to this in science, we hold to it in math, we hold to it in chemistry, that there’s an answer to a problem and it’s not something else, and something else, there’s a specific answer. Now all of a sudden people hit grease when they come to the area of religion. Now the same principle that applied in chemistry, physics and math and all other areas of life suddenly becomes invalid in the area of religion. Now it’s wrong to say that 2 + 2 is 4 when we talk about religious things. In religious things 2 + 2 can be any number as long as you’re sincere. For some strange reason addition loses its rules when we come into the area of spiritual life.

And then we can make other applications; when it says that “in Him was life and the life was the light of men,” we know that no matter how confident the unbeliever may appear to us, and what kind of façade that he has no man anywhere can be fulfilled apart from Christ. That goes for your friends, it goes for your enemies; it goes for the people you know, it goes for the people you don’t know; it goes for the people in your family, it goes for the people wherever you work, wherever you study. There is never a man, there will never be a man or a woman anywhere at any time who will ever be fulfilled apart from Christ. Christ is the light of all men; without the light they stumble. We also can apply another optimism from verse 5, that no matter how Satan may thrash around in history with his plots and his counterplots the light will always shine. The light can never be extinguished by the darkness. It’s irreversibly shining. God has spoken, “Let there be light” and there is light, and the darkness shall not overcome it. So history will not grind on down into hell with Satanic victory; it will grind on to a judgment in both heaven and hell with Christ’s victory.

Now John 1:1-2 dealt with the relationship to the Creator; verses 3-5 the relationship with the creation, now John 1:6-8 deal with the problem of Christ and religious teachers. What about the religious teachers and the Word? What about the Buddha’s and what about the Prophets? John takes the most talked about religious leader in his day, a man who was talked about as much as Christ was, apparently in Ephesus, for if we turn to Acts 18:25 we’ll notice something there. Ephesus was a city, here’s the Black Sea, here’s the Mediterranean Sea, and Ephesus is located there in Asia Minor. Ephesus was the place where apparently John the Apostle, in his latter days, retired. This was before Caesar gave him a vacation on the island of Patmos, all expenses paid. But in Acts 18:25 we find something peculiar happening in the city of Ephesus. It says, [24] “a certain Jew, name Appollos,” was there, and he “came to Ephesus. [25] This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and, being fervent in the spirit, he spoke and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.”

So we have a prominent spokesman, a prominent teacher, teaching at Ephesus about John. This is not John the Apostle, this is John the Baptizer. And then in Acts 19:1 Paul comes to this same place, at Ephesus, it says that he came to Ephesus and he found certain disciples, and [2] “He said to them, Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? And they said unto him, We never even heard there was such a thing as the Holy Spirit. [3] And he said unto them, Unto what, then, were you baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.” So again at Ephesus, again the same problem, a peculiar sect seems to be there, centering on the person of John the Baptizer. So therefore it doesn’t require too much imagination to realize that if John the Apostle retired to Ephesus when he was writing the Gospel of John, then he would have to deal with the problem of John the Baptizer.

Who was John the Baptizer, really? Well, in Luke 3, already there had been rumors that John was the Messiah. John was the forerunner of Christ, but according to Luke 3:15, even while he was yet living, there were those who pondered this man and they wondered in their hearts, though probably not outwardly, whether he really was the Christ; [15] “And as people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts concerning John, whether he was the Messiah or not.” Now we know from extra-Biblical history that there was a sect that later on came to believe that John the Baptizer was the Christ. And there was a division and a split between the followers of John and the followers of Jesus, and this apparent growth of the cult was already beginning in John’s day in the city of Ephesus.

So now if we turn to the Gospel of John we can understand why very quickly John must deal with Jesus as the Logos versus the religious teachers, and not all religious teachers but one in particular, the one that was most discussed in the city of Ephesus, John the Baptizer. Thus John 1:6-8 deal with the relationship of the Logos to the religious teachers. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. [7] The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. [8] He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”

There are a series of contrasts in verses 6, 7 and 8 with the Logos of verses 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; the contrast is in vocabulary, the contrast is in verb tense, the contrast is in the actual nouns themselves that are used. And the contrast begins with the word that’s translated in your King James, “There was a man sent from God.” In the original Greek it is not, “There was a man” at all. The Greek word looks like this, ginomai, and it’s the word to come into existence. There’s another Greek word that could be used, eimi, or ane as it’s used in John 1:1 and John 1:2 and that means to be. Now it’s interesting that when he speaks of John the Baptist in verse 6 he says this man came into existence. Why does he use that? It contrasts with verse 1, “In the beginning the Logos always was,” but John came into existence at a point in time, and he makes a careful distinction between the deity of Jesus Christ being eternal and John being temporal and finite and limited. So he says “there came into existence.”

This is a favorite ploy of John the Apostle, because if you turn to John 8:58, the famous verse, he says the same thing about Abraham. All religious teachers, not just John the Baptizer but even the father of the Jewish race, Abraham, it was always the same, time and time again that these religious teachers were not “in the beginning” but they came into existence. In John 8:58 the exact terminology is used once again. “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham ginomai,” before Abraham came into existence, “I am,” and He uses the word to be for His own existence. So therefore Christ makes a claim to deity and quickly and sharply and crisply separates himself from Abraham. Abraham was great, and Abraham was your father and Abraham was my father pertaining to My humanity but before Abraham came to be, “I am,” I exist, the same play on the same two verbs.

So when we come back to John 1 we understand, it’s significant verse 6 begins with the verb it does. It’s put in there to emphasize that no matter what the religious teacher, whether it be the Jews that looked back to Abraham, the Jews that claimed that John the Baptist was the Messiah, or in our own day people who would make other people less than Christ equal to Christ. No, they came to be, only Christ Himself always was.

“There came to be a man,” says John in verse 6, and this emphasizes the contrast with verse 1, “and the Word was God,” but John was a man. So the contrast is heightened between the Creator and the creature. There was a man, not God, a man, and he was “sent from God.” Now the problem of the religious teacher we can conveniently dismiss as well, that pertained to the Jews and Abraham, that pertained to the Jews and John the Baptist. Now so. If you turn to 1 Corinthians 1 we find this has always been a problem and always will be throughout the Church Age, that people cannot seem to distinguish between the person who comes into existence, the man, and the Light that always was in existence, the Light that was God the Son.

So in 1 Corinthians 1:12-17 in the city of Corinth there was a similar problem. Like today the Christians were prone in that day to gather around their favorite teacher. While this isn’t bad in itself it can become bad when it leads to this kind of a mess. “Now this I say, that every one of you says, I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Cephas;” then you have the deeply spiritual crowd that says “I am of Christ.” In verse 13, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” That’s his answer, distinguish, he says, even between me an apostle and the Christ of whom I bear witness. This sharp distinction must always be kept, regardless of the teacher, regardless of his priority, you must never make the teacher of the Word, to whom you may look up to very much because it was the teacher who brought you to Christ, or it was that person who turned you on to the Word, or it was that person who straightened you out, you must always be careful never to equate that person as a Christ substitute because if you do you’ve broken down the middle wall of partition, this one which ought never to be broken down.

Turn back to John 1:6 and understand why verse 6 speaks to us and warns us of a principle that just as the people of John’s had a problem with teachers they kind of deified, so we have the same problem. “There was a man,” “There came to be a man sent from God, whose name was John.” Interesting here, the verb “to send” is passive voice, the man was sent. Every other place in the Gospel when Jesus said the Father sends Me, He never says I am sent; He always uses the active voice, and here the passive voice contrasts with the active voice for the rest of the times in the life of Christ. “The man was sent,” emphasizes the fact that he’s finite; emphasizes the fact that he must be acted upon. So we have “he has been sent,” it’s perfect, perfect tense, passive voice.

“There came to be a man who has been sent from God, and his name was John.” Here’s one of the evidences that John the Apostle was the author of this book because everywhere else that John lists a name that is ambiguous he always stops the text for about half a verse and then fills us in with data to say now you know this person, this person isn’t this person, let me clarify that; and so he would refer to a whole… something about that person, make sure you weren’t confused as to which person he was discussing. Let’s look at two places where he does this.

John 11:2 with Mary, there were a lot of Mary’s in the Gospel and so when you used the word Mary you had to be sure which Mary you meant. In John 11:2 when he speaks of Mary he clarifies which Mary, this is typical of John, we could go to many other places but let’s just look at two names, a woman’s name and then a man’s name, to see how John usually handles the problem. “(It was that May who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)” That Mary, he says. So when he uses the word Mary he qualifies the term and describes to us which Mary is meant.

John 12:4, he uses the word Judas, and there were several Judases in the New Testament, not just one, several. And here when John comes to an ambiguous male name he again qualifies it, he says, “Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son,” that one, not the other Judas but the Judas that was the son of Simon. That’s how John usually approaches ambiguous names.

Now the question, why in John 1:6 does he not clarify which John he’s talking about. There were several Johns in the New Testament and two in particular; the Apostle, the traditional author of this Gospel, and his prior namesake, John the Baptizer. Now if John the Apostle hadn’t written this document, and he was a man who took all these pains to distinguish ambiguous names, why didn’t he distinguish this one? Why didn’t he say something like this: There was a man sent from God whose name was John, that is, the one who baptized in the River Jordan. Why doesn’t he qualify the term “John?” There can only be one explanation; the readers of this document knew its writer, and they knew he wasn’t talking about himself, he’s talking about somebody else. The readers of this document well knew its author, and they’d say yes, John the Apostle, the old man John, wrote this, the one who’s still living and this John is not ambiguous at all but he’s dead, he’s been beheaded, and so it’s not necessary to qualify it, that is if John the Apostle is the author of the document. And Church tradition has always argued, the Scripture itself hints at this, and we accept it, that John is the author of the fourth Gospel.

Now John 1:7, he goes on further, using again the way or a favorite technique he has in the syntax, “The same one,” he doesn’t say “he,” he says “the same one,” outos, “the same one.” Now why does he use that word instead of “he,” wouldn’t it have been simpler to just say in verse 7, “he came for a witness.” Why does he say “the same one, he came for a witness.” He did this once before, remember in verse 2, he talked about the Logos, “the Logos was with God, the Logos was God, [2] The same was in the beginning with God.” Now when John uses that structure which he uses again and again in his Gospel, it’s an attempt to build by steps our knowledge. In other words, he’ll lay out the foundation and say here is this fact, this fact, this fact, this fact and this fact about the person. Now he says I want to tell you another fact about him, and to make sure that you link all these facts with a new one that I’m going to tell you, I say this one, the one whom I just described, he… and then he’ll lift him up to the next step of knowledge and say now that same one, he also did this. It’s just a favorite technique of this writer.

So he says, John 1:7, “That same one who came to be” and verse 6 is emphasis upon his humanity and not upon his deity, “That same one came for a witness.” “…came for a witness.” It doesn’t say came as a witness, it says he came “for a witness.” The emphasis then is not on the person who is the witness but on the act of witnessing. John came not to be a witness, he came to make a witness. So it is not the personality that is involved, it is the principle of the witness that is involved, and that’s a lesson, that in Christian testimony we always make the principle to which we give witness the issue and not our personality. “The same came for a witness,” and this is doubly important because in verse 7 we are dealing with one of the most [can’t understand word] personalities in the New Testament, a man who simulated or was very, very similar to Elijah in the Old Testament. He was a man who was socially repugnant to his generation. He could not get along with the cultured high society of Jerusalem; John was, we would call him “gross” in the sense that he be crude, very crude at times, and for this reason John was not invited into the high circles that Jesus was. Jesus had a different approach and Jesus would be invited parties; John could give a damn about the party. John was that kind of a person. John would rather be out in the Jordan with the bugs and the sand and everything else, because that way he could be alone and get rid of the religious creeps. He couldn’t stand the religious creeps and so therefore the only place you could go and get away from the creeps was to go to the Jordan River.

That was John, a totally different personality than Jesus. Jesus could put up with the creeps; John couldn’t. Two different personalities but the same message and the emphasis throughout this Gospel is always on that point, John’s personality is contrasted with Jesus. In fact, this is done in all four Gospels. And that’s vital lesson to modern Christians because Christians tend to get a fixation on a certain personality and then they equate the filling of the Holy Spirit with that personality and then if there’s somebody else with an entirely different personality they can’t even communicate, no message, nothing, they can’t accept any ting that comes out of the mouth because that person has a totally different personality from somebody else. We see this here, while I’m in Israel Bill will be teaching and you watch the difference in attitude that people will have. And because he has a different approach than I have people will make a big issue out of it; it always happens, always will. I hope those of you who are learning the principles from the Word of God will understand that is not to be made an issue.

“The same,” this man, “came” not as a witness but “for a witness, to bear witness of the Light,” now if you’ll notice the rest of verse 7 there’s a purpose clause here. He came “to bear witness of the Light, in order that all men through him might believe.” “In order that all men through him might believe.” That’s technically, you could have two translations. You could have “that all men through him would believe,” or you could have “might believe.” In the Greek you can’t tell, this is just the limitations of language, but there ought not to be any ambiguity if you know your doctrine.

Which is the correct interpretation, that all men would believe or that all men might believe? Obviously it can’t be that all men would believe because all men obviously didn’t believe and if all men didn’t believe and John was sent from God to make all men believe and they didn’t, then God’s purposes have been frustrated in history and that’s Arminian theology; God intended to do something and oops, He goofed, it didn’t come to pass. That Christ died for the sins of the whole world intending fully that every man be saved; now all men aren’t saved, some wind up for all eternity in hell, oops, God’s plan is [can’t understand word]. That’s Arminian theology.

Now that can’t be so that’s why it’s translated “John was sent as a witness that all might believe,” that all men could believe if they wanted to believe. Now what does that teach, what does that little “might” teach? It teaches that whatever this witnessing that is going on in verse 7, whatever is involved in the witnessing, renders the hearers totally responsible; that after this witnessing has been performed, whatever it is, after the witnessing has been performed the individual cannot plead ignorant; the individual cannot plead misunderstanding. The witness has been so clear that they could believe if they wanted to; all barriers, all excuses have been removed. That is the Biblical ideal of evangelism in witnessing, that the responsibility has been placed totally and completely on the person to whom the witness has been given. Now they can never claim before God’s throne that I didn’t know, I didn’t understand the issue. Oh yes you did, you had a witness and there’s no excuse why you cannot believe.

In other words, we could define this witnessing as the removal of all excuses to faith; that’s the testimony and the witness that John was sent to; a witness that would be so clear that his hearers that came down from Jerusalem to Jordan wouldn’t go back up to the city again and say well, I’m not really sure I can buy that. They might not be sure they can buy that but God says oh yes you can, because John has been such a good witness to Me that you could believe if you wanted to believe. And that’s the purpose of the “might believe” in verse 7. John removed, by his witness, all barriers to faith and that’s a challenge, by way of application, to us. Test your witnessing and ask yourself, after you’ve finished witnessing to such and such a person, is the person in a position of spiritual liability. If he isn’t, you’ve failed in your witnessing. Is the person liable now because of clarification of issues, you have given him evidences of the faith, you have given him reasons to believe as well as content to believe. Now there’s no further excuse, total liability after witnessing. And that means that we have to be careful in our witnessing, that we don’t introduce false issues such as let’s go to so and so’s church, that’s not the gospel. The gospel is not to invite people to Lubbock Bible Church; the gospel is not invite people to hear so and so, the gospel is to trust in the evidences surrounding the person of Jesus Christ.

But then this verse goes on and makes another statement, “The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.” “…through him,” dia plus the genitive in the Greek, the agency, “through him.” Why does it say this? Why is it so necessary that men believe on Jesus through John? Why couldn’t it have been that men just believed on Jesus? But why was it necessary to put “through John.” Why did John hold an office that would be so important that when people came to Christ they’d say yes Messiah, I come to believe You because of John the Baptist? Why was that necessary? Because of the role of the nabiim; John was a prophet. In the Hebrew the word is nabi, or plural nabiim. And the nabiim were always the king makers. Remember David, David was anointed with the oil out of the horn of Samuel; Samuel was sent to anoint the king and to present the king to the nation. Samuel anointed David, then David had to prove himself.

Notice the process; David’s a young man, Samuel shows up in the house of Jesse and he asks for his sons, and he picks out David Ben Jesse, David, son of Jesse, and then he anoints him and says you are to be king over Israel. But David doesn’t become king over Israel; David sits, goes back to the sheepcote, David spends years on the way to becoming king of Israel. The anointing takes place in 1 Samuel 16, David becomes king in 2 Kings 4. Why the big gap of time between the time of the anointing and the time of the coronation? Because in addition to anointing the man who was anointed by the prophet had to prove himself before the nation. You see, when the prophet, the nabiim, acted, they looked on from God’s viewpoint. Here’s the individual out here, we anoint him; that means God who does not look on the outward appearance but looks on the heart has chosen this man. Very fine, the problem is that the king would have to lead people, and people will not follow a leader whom they cannot trust. And people cannot trust a leader in whom they have no confidence, and how do you gain confidence? By watching a man perform. And so from 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Kings 4 David performed, and he demonstrates that he is a man of faith. That’s the story of that whole section of your Bible. You ask what’s the big theme of 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, what’s the theme of the Psalms that David writes? The theme is that David is proving and vindicating his anointing. He’s meshach, he’s messiah, he’s anointed but he’s also vindicating by empirical data that he is truly worthy of the people to follow him.

Now here, when we come to John, John holds to Jesus the same relationship as Samuel holds to David, and that is that John the Baptist is the king-maker. It must be John who anoints; Jesus just can’t walk in and claim to be Christ. Jesus is not of the tribe of Levi, he can’t go in the temple, never could go in the temple, in the holy of holies, all the time he lived. Jesus was of the wrong tribe. He was of the tribe of Judah, he wasn’t of the tribe of Levi and because of that he was not qualified to be a priest, from the Jewish point of view. Jesus wasn’t qualified to do a lot of things and He wasn’t qualified to claim kingship without some prophet anointing Him. Jesus had to clear the way… for example, at his baptism, that’s his anointing. Remember he said that all things righteous be done. What is He saying? Let the SOP, the standing operating procedure of the Messiah function in this case; I must be anointed; who is my anointer? John.

So that’s why in verse 7, “This same man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men thorough him might believe,” that is through John’s anointing, through John’s testimonial that this man that he found that came down to the Jordan River bank one day, that man, he’s the Messiah, and I’ve given public notice of this by baptizing Him, “that all men,” what verse 7 is saying is that that itself was sufficient for Israel. Had the nation been spiritually in tune there would have been a revival immediately. The day, the hour that Jesus walked down into the Jordan and was baptized, that was a signal to the entire nation. I am a prophet, said John, accept my testimony, this Jesus is a carpenter from the northern area, He is the Messiah, and then all men ought to have believed in Jesus. We’re going to see how this ties very much into the rest of John 1 because all men did not believe, but there were some, and the one person who was standing on the bank when Jesus walked down and the man who observed John the Baptist anoint Jesus, and the man who after he watched the anointing of Jesus said to himself, I believe, I believe this man, He is our Christ, and he walked after him. Do you know who he was? The author of this book; John the Apostle was one of those who believed on Jesus through him, through John the Baptist.

John 1:8, “He,” that is John the Baptist, again keeping in mind that John is citing as an old man this rising cult of people that followed John, distort him and make him into the Messiah, he warns the people in verse 8 no, John never was the Light. [Tape turns] And here those of you who know Greek notice it’s the imperfect tense, not the aorist, it’s not the ginomai, it’s the verb to be. This man never, never, never, never was at any time the Light. Don’t be confused he says, he “was sent to bear witness of that Light,” but never, never was he the Light itself.

So in John 1:6-8 you couldn’t have a clearer testimonial to the separation between the Light and the lamp. But notice in verses 6-8 we’ve encountered a verb that we’re going to encounter more often in this Gospel than any other of the Gospels in the New Testament. The word, “to witness.” The word is still used in our own 20^th century, to witness. Now you may come here with various ideas on how to witness. You may have preconceived notions as to what witnessing means. Some of you may have come out of a religious background where to you witnessing means coming up to somebody and buttonholing them; “are you saved!” If someone had walked up to me while I was in high school or in college before I accepted Christ and you asked me if I was saved, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about at all, I’d be looking around for the bank, save what, what do you mean, I’m saved, the only savings I know is in the savings bank. That’s not to be gross, that’s just that that was the limit of my vocabulary. And that’s all I knew, and it wouldn’t have communicated. Fortunately the person who led me to the Lord didn’t use such an idiotic approach. But there are a lot of stupid things that pass for witnessing.

We are going to, in conclusion of verses 6-8, study the word “to witness” and what really is involved biblically. This Gospel is centered on witnessing. There are seven witnessings that occur in this Gospel; seven agents of witnessing. I’m going to list all of these seven agencies of witnessing and I want you, as we go through these seven agencies of witnessing so ask yourself, what is common to every one of these witnesses. Let’s go through the seven, see what they do, and then after we get through the seven ask ourselves what happened, what are all these seven agencies of witnessing doing? They all do the same thing. And also they all are not doing something that is very prevalent in evangelism today. There’s going to be something all seven of these do and there’s going to be something all seven, none of them do.

The first witness in John, the first agency of witnessing, is found in John 5:37. The first agency of witnessing is the Father, God the Father. Jesus is discussing with the crowd and he says, “And the Father Himself, who has sent Me, has borne witness of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape.” We’ll explain that last part of verse 37 when we get here, right now we’re just looking at the first sentence of verse 37, “The Father Himself, who has sent Me, has borne witness of me.” That is a reference to the witnessing that the Father gave in Matthew 3:17 at the baptism of John, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That was the witness to the Father. So the first witnessing agency that we see in the New Testament is God the Father, speaking those words, “This is My Son.”

And then the Son Himself is His own witness, John 8:14, the second witnesser. As we study this Gospel also remember the legal context; this man is passionately concerned to show the evidence for the Christian faith; seven distinct sources of evidence, the Father, and now the Son. We have to read this slowly and think about it for a minute or we miss the point. “Jesus answered, and said unto them, Though I bear record [witness] of myself, yet my record [witness] is true; for I know from where I came, and where I go; but you cannot tell from where I come, and where I go.” Now that doesn’t sound too clear here. He says, “though I bear record of Myself,” so obviously Jesus is claiming that somehow in His birth He is bearing testimony of Himself. And then He goes on to explain why it is that He’s bearing witness, why you can accept His witnessing to his own character. Obviously if Jesus were just a man and He said I am whom I claim to be, that wouldn’t be a valid witness. So Jesus doesn’t say that’s what He’s doing. He adds something here and He says. “though I bear record of Myself, My record is true for I know where I come, and where I go, and you can’t tell.” That’s why My record is valid.

What does that mean? It means that Jesus is saying I possess supernatural knowledge and you all know it, and therefore, since I possess knowledge greater than the knowledge that you possess, when I bear witness of Myself, My witness counts. My witness is credible because I have demonstrated My omniscience on many occasions; you have been here, you understand. I have made the claim that I know where I came from and where I’m going. I have made prophecies about My life, prophecies that you can’t make about yours and I have given you sufficient evidence to show you that I have superior supernatural knowledge, and because I’ve made that claim now My testimony to Myself is true. So the second witnessing agency in this Gospel is God the Son and it’s valid because of who the Son is; He’s not just a man, He’s God.

The third witnessing agency in the Gospel of John is found in John 15:26 and John 16:13 together. In John 15:26 Jesus said, “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me.” John 16:143, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. [14] And He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive o Mine, and shall show it unto you.” Now what is the witness of the Spirit. The witness of the Father was on the banks of the Jordan, “This is My beloved Son.” The witness of the Son was I have shown you these many things that you observe, I say I am who I claim to be, you accept that testimony. The third witness is the Holy Spirit. Now how does the Holy Spirit witness, how are we going to say what these verses are saying? What are they all pointing to? The New Testament. This is a prediction, in John 16:13-14, not of perfect guidance for every Christian in Church history. Every ignoramus that has ever gone down the pipe has claimed verse 13, “the Spirit will guide me,” when verses 13-14 have nothing to do with personal guidance. They are a prediction of the generation of the New Testament document; after Jesus leaves He says the Spirit will guide you, you all, the apostles, into truth. And that is the generation of the New Testament. So the third witnesser is the Holy Spirit by making the New Testament.

The fourth witnesser, John 5:36, Jesus says, “I have a greater witness than that of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish, the same works that I do, they witness of Me,” the miracles. So the fourth witness to Jesus Christ in this Gospel are the very miracles that He does.

The fifth witnessing agency in this Gospel is John 5:39, Jesus in the same conversation lists another witnessing agency. “Search the Scriptures;” these are the Old Testament Scriptures, not the New Testament, the Old Testament. “Search the Old Testament; for in them you think you have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me.” So the fifth witnessing agency is the Old Testament canon.

The sixth witnessing agency is John the Baptist; we’ll see more of that in John 1 and what he did.

And then finally the seventh witnessing agency are the people who have met Jesus Christ in a way they’ll never forget again. Turn to John 4:39, “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him because of the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that I ever did.” That woman at the well came back to the town thoroughly amazed, and she recounted a claim that Jesus made and a manifestation of His character where He could predict everything that she was going to do, everything that she had done, and it so amazed her she couldn’t help it; for a telephone tell a woman, Jesus told a woman and a city trusted in Him. And so the testimony of the woman is typical of the whole class of witnessing agencies, the peoples whose lives are changed by confronting Christ.

Further along this line look at John 12:17, again the same word to witness. I’m taking you to passages that use the same Greek word to witness. “The people, therefore, that were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him up from the dead, they bore record [witness.]” What do you suppose they bore record of? The raising of Lazarus out of the grave, that’s what they bore record of, just like the woman when she walked up to the city, she didn’t just describe Jesus, what He looked like, she said what Jesus had done. He had done something supernatural and she bore witness to that. So these people at Lazarus’ grave bore witness of this.

Now, let’s look at these seven witnessing agencies: God the Father talks at the River Jordan. God the Son makes the claim out of a demonstrated character of omniscience. The third witnesser is the Holy Spirit who brings into existence the New Testament document. The fourth witnessing agency is the miracles that Jesus did. The fifth is the Old Testament by its predictions and typology. The sixth is John the Baptist and what he does, he points to Christ and says that one, that one, He is the Messiah, and he does so by his office as a nabiim, as a prophet. And finally the seventh, these individuals that can never get over having met Jesus Christ and what He did.

Now isn’t it peculiar that we find something absent in all these seven agencies that seems to flourish today in the field of evangelism. Not one of these witnessing agencies ever describe their inner feelings. Now one; there is no subjectivism in this witness. There is nobody talking about how they feel when they meet Jesus, there is nobody talking about the titillating feeling they had when they said the word “Jesus” forty-five times. Nobody is bearing witness about their tongue flapping at both ends.

There is none of the subjectivism ever, in any of these situations. But on the contrary there is something that is common to all seven of these. All seven speak of verbal empirical data, data that can be seen, data that can be talked about, every one of them. The woman went to the city and she talked about Christ and what He did. These people that walked away from Lazarus’ grave went out and they talked about what He did; there was something He did there that was described in human language; His message could be verbalized; His message could be checked. Those people that said hey, you raised Lazarus, oh, I don’t believe you; go talk to Lazarus. They were always making claims that could be checked. When Jesus did His miracles He had witnesses that bore witness to the miracle.

So what is the common denominator of Biblical witnessing? It is presenting the evidences for the faith; evidences that remove the block. Remember what it said, “John came to bear witness that all men might believe,” what do all men need before they can possibly believe? The need the claim and they need the evidence; if you present those two things you have rendered them spiritually liable for their soul for eternity because with that data they could believe if they wanted to believe.

Now today we don’t have those seven witnessing agencies. If you look at the list of the seven witnessing agencies and ask yourself, what have we got today? You can summarize it by saying what we have today is the Scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament. God isn’t speaking today, God the Son can’t be talked to in the way He could be during the incarnation. The Holy Spirit has brought forth the New Testament document so He’s still witnessing. Christ is no longer doing miracles in a direct sense, though you could argue that in His name miracles can be done. The Old Testament is still valid; John the Baptist’s testimony is valid because it’s recorded in Scripture. And the testimony of individuals is valid because that’s recorded in Scripture.

So we come back to our own generation; what is the source of basically our data? The Scripture. You say, then what do we use to prove the Scripture? What is the evidences that we can put forward. Suppose someone says I don’t accept the Scripture. Then we have to show what the Scripture is, and so Biblical witnessing emphasizes first the content of Scripture, what does the Scripture say. So you have to know doctrine to understand what the Scriptures say, which means you cannot… cannot witness two hours after you trust in Christ if you haven’t had a clear conversion. Now some can because they know the content of the Gospel; but you must know first the content of the Scripture and then to show the credibility of Scripture you have to be able to relate the Scriptures claims to things around in every day experience.

What would be some examples? Relate the Scriptures to prophecies that have verified in history. We’re not technically proving the faith, we are throwing out evidences that the Scriptures are indeed what they claim to be. And that if you take the Scripture and we talk about evidences of fulfilled prophecy, that’s one thing. We can also point to the fact that if we use the Scriptures we can explain history today; we can explain the rise and fall of the Third Reich in terms of the Abrahamic Covenant. We can explain certain things that are happening in the field of economics as the working out of the cause/effect of God’s laws of the first divine institution. We can explain the broken homes and the divorces on the basis of God’s laws, the divine institutions. In other words, what we’re saying is that you show the Scriptures are true by applying the Scriptures all across the field and showing people that only as the Scriptures are applied do you have any light. It goes back to the light; what is the witness to? The witness is to the light, the Scriptures give us the light. What is light for? What do you use light for? To see where you’re going. And so how do you show that you’ve got a light? By showing you know where you’re going; by showing that you don’t stumble here and you don’t stumble there, you go down the path.

And so therefore you show the light of the Scriptures by showing the Scriptures give you the explanations and the only explanations for history, for life, for suffering, for all these areas. That’s how you show the Scriptures credibility. And then you ask your opponent, or the person doing the questioning, what is your explanation of suffering? What’s your explanation of death? What’s your explanation for these things? Are you stumbling in the dark? Why not have one view that pulls it all together in one piece; it’s the Scripture, and the Scriptures testify and there are a [can’t understand words] in this way, to themselves, that they are the light. And that’s the witness, and John says if we will bear witness and stop being a witness and start witnessing about and being obsessed with the content of Scripture and its application to all areas, then we will have rendered all men morally and spiritually liable for their souls because they have been faced with sufficient evidence so they no longer can claim ignorance and can claim excuses.