New Men for the Messiah

Today we’re beginning 21 weeks in John.

The chapter begins with an emphasis on the cosmic Christ.

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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

1:9-10, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.”

And then in vs. 14 we see that all of this cosmic power is compressed into one creature, one man – Jesus of Nazareth.

The way John writes about the incarnation reminds me of that quote from Alladin, “unlimited cosmic powers, itty bitty living space.”

Or as Queen Lucy put it in The Last Battle, “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”

Now in the material world, a bunch of energy compressed into a small space is often an explosion waiting to happen.

And in some sense that’s what would happen…

What started out with a baby in a manger wound up converting over half the Roman empire by the third century. Today around 2.6 billion people claim to be Christian. That number is expected to be north of 3 billion by 2050.

So maybe the term “explosion” is appropriate.

Look at John 20:30

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” – John 20:30

So there you have the purpose of the book. “That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

We will deal with that more in a moment. I actually wanted to draw your attention to the first line, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples…”

Now turn to John 21:25

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25

Is that literally true? If someone were to have written down everything Jesus ever did – would that library really overflow the world itself?

Jonathan Edwards thought that the word “did” ought to be translated as accomplished. He said in that way, John’s statement is literal.

If here, by the “things that Jesus did,” be not only meant the actions of Christ, but the things done or accomplished by those actions, we may suppose it to be literally true, that if they were written every one, the world itself is not large enough to “contain the books that should be written.” There are other things that belong to what Christ did, besides merely the external action that was immediately visible to the eye, or the words that might be heard by the ear, which we must suppose are included in what the Evangelist means by the “things that he did.”

The apostle John in this history mentions some of them, but to mention all would be to write a declaration of all the glorious wise purposes and designs of God’s wisdom and grace, and the love of Christ, and all that belongs to that manifold wisdom of God, and those unsearchable riches of wisdom and knowledge in the work of redemption that we read of in the Scripture, which, if they should be all written, ’tis probable the universe would not contain the books.

The point being, the creator of the world – becoming a creature – unlimited cosmic power // itty bitty living space – that was ground zero for a kind of world altering explosion.

Krakatoa

Four times as much force as the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever detonated.
People 3000 miles away heard the explosion – which witnesses first assumed was a canon being fired. (due to the speed of sound, they heard it 4 hours after the actual blast)
The eruption is estimated to have reached 180 dB – the loudest sound in history.
The acoustic shockwave traveled around the entire world three times.
It killed around 40,000 people
Created multiple tsunamis with 100 foot waves
The ash started a volcanic winter in the Northern Hemisphere
California had record rainfall.
The sky was darker than normal for years afterward
Vibrantly red sunsets for the same period
The jet stream was discovered due to Krakatoa. People were able to visibly identify it due to the movement of the ash.
White moonbeams shining through the clouds emerged blue and sometimes green. People also saw lavender suns
In 2004, an astronomer proposed the idea that the red sky shown in Edvard Munch's 1893 painting The Scream is an accurate depiction of the sky over Norway after the eruption. (10 years after the eruption)

So that’s the effect of a considerable amount of compressed energy exploding into the world. In vs. 12, we see the main thing Jesus has accomplished:

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

This is the main idea of the gospel. Every other aspect of the gospel is, in some way secondary to this. The whole point of Christ’s coming was to do this – to bring many sons and daughters to glory.

In his classic book Knowing God, JI Packer states:

Everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption in Christ….If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much they make of being God’s child, and having God as our Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls their worship, prayers, and whole outlook on life, they do not understand Christianity very well at all (J. I. Packer, Knowing God).

You’ll notice that Packer is using the word adoption to describe all of this. Which of course is a word that the bible uses repeatedly. But that word isn’t used in our text. Instead we have the word born.

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

That’s an important distinction to note. The word adoption does a good job of describing many of the glories of conversion. Adoption indicates transfer from one family to another. Adoption indicates a legal status. It indicates God’s free choice to make a people out of those who were not a people. But the one thing the word adoption doesn’t communicate very well is a fundamental change of nature. To describe that aspect, the bible uses the word born.

We see that in vs. 13 and we see it repeated again in chapter three.

Verse 3: Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

And again in verse 7, Jesus tells Nicodemus – “you must be born again.”

The word adoption covers many of the glories of the gospel. But it cannot, by itself, include one central aspect of conversion – the actual change of nature which occurs in a person who has been saved.

That’s a very significant detail. In fact, it might be the central detail. Making new men and women – a new kind of man and woman – that’s the central work of the incarnation.

“God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.” – Lewis, Mere Christianity

That’s why the world is so different now than it was prior to the coming of Christ. A new kind of person is walking around. And these people are filled with the divine life of God himself.
That is what John meant in chapter 20:30 – “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

That’s what having life in his name means – being made into a new creation – having the life of God in the soul of man.

In John 7, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” – John 7:37-38

And that’s what God has done. He has created a people who love him.

In the 17th century, a young scottish minister named Henry Scougal heard that one of his friends had lost the faith and become disillusioned with Christian living. So Scougal wrote him a letter – which was later published as a small book entitled “The Life of God in the Soul of Man.”

That title is what we’re talking about. That is the fallout of the massive Christ entering the world. He has made it possible for men and women to have the life of God at work in their souls. The letter has been rewritten in modern english. Listen to Scougal’s description of the Christian life.

Again, religion can be thought of as a way of life, because it is an internal, free, and self-motivated force. Those who have made progress in it are not just driven by external pressures, threatened by consequences, or bribed by rewards; they are strongly drawn to what is good and take pleasure in doing it. The love that a devout person has for God and goodness is not just because of a command telling them to do so, but because of a new nature that guides and encourages them. They don't just offer their devotion as a way to appease divine justice or to quiet their conscience; rather, these religious practices are the result of the divine life, the natural activities of a reborn soul.

He prays, gives thanks, and repents not only because it is expected of him, but because he is aware of his needs, the divine goodness, and the foolishness and suffering that comes with a sinful life. His charity is not forced, nor is his giving coerced; his love makes him willing to give, and even if there were no external obligation, his heart would still be generous.

That is what Lewis is getting at when he says, “God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.”

Galatians 5

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Human beings move from mostly living in column A to mostly living in column B.

A new kind of human is in the world.
He is a partaker of the divine nature.
He is indwelt with the spirit of God.
He is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
He loves God.
He forgives those who sin against him.
He is generous.
He is patient.
He blesses his enemies.
He loves his wife with sacrificial love.
He raises his children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
He offers his work to his employer as unto the Lord.
He invests his time and energy into positive things.
He is a man of prayer.
He meditates on God’s word.
He honors his father and mother.
His belief in objective reality makes him capable of doing science.
His belief in objective morality makes him capable of establishing and keeping just laws.
He is able to admonish the idle. Help the weak. Encourage the faint hearted. And be patient with them all.
He starts to get serious freedom over the various vampires of vice that bleed people dry.
Sexual sin
Careless speech
Various addictions
Bad company
He has some kind of divine discernment. He is able to see through the lies of sin and Satan.
He sees Jesus as both savior and model for his behavior.
He has eternal assurance that no matter how hard this life may be, he will one day be in the presence of God who has countless pleasures in store for him.

And all of this is delivered to us in a way that prevents boasting. Look back at John 1:12-13,

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

We didn’t get here by our own efforts or even by the efforts of our families. We got here by the will of God alone.

One commentator puts it…

We shall have cause again in the course of the gospel to observe John’s recognition of the complexity and mystery of a salvation which is both ‘willed by man, and worked by God’ (Schlatter). While both sides of the equation are asserted here (as they are throughout the gospel), the stress falls at this point on the sovereign action of God. Christians become such by being born of God (13). This birth is to be radically distinguished from human birth, with its human initiatives. All these are irrelevant in the case of spiritual rebirth; it is not something we can take into our own hands. We are born of God.

So God has given Christians a new nature. They are a new kind of person created by the coming of Christ. And yet, he’s also made it impossible to boast in this new nature – as if we had done it ourselves.

This new nature comes with tremendous privileges…

You are given the Holy Spirit – Gal 4:6
You have access to the Heavenly Father – Heb 4:16
You are an heir with Christ and will inherit all of his riches – Rom 8:17
You have God’s ongoing sympathy and compassion – Malachi 3:17
“They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.”
You have his protection – 2 Thess 3:3, “The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.”
You have his provision – Matt 6:31-34
You have his discipline – Heb 12:6-7
You have his promise – he will never leave you nor forsake you – Psalm 94:14
You have a kind of freedom the unregenerate do not – Galatians 4:6

This is the main reason Christ has come into the world. This is the main theme of John.