Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened. And the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. What was Jesus revealing about himself when he said this? We'll find out today on Truth for Life. Alastair Begg is teaching from the closing verses in John chapter 1.
With a reference first to Jacob's dream in Genesis chapter 28.
Now Then we are introduced to the the set up man. The warm-up act, John the Baptist. We can't take time with him. Fascinating character. He was the kind of fellow that ate at Whole Foods before there was a Whole Foods.
You've never seen him saying, Does anyone have a Snickers? You know, no, not John the Baptist. Not a chance. No, he was an interesting duck by any standards. And he was not the light.
But he came to bear witness to the light. as I was sitting thinking about this, even just yesterday in the earlier part of the day, it made me think of a book called Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz. It's the story, it's an old book now, I think, as I read it a long time ago. And I hope I'm not making this up because I didn't go to check, but I think Schultz wrote that book, Pour Your Heart Into, to tell the story of the development of Starbucks. But Schultz's job before he did that an an early job was as a salesman for Xerox.
And his job was not to go into the offices with the machinery and try and sell them. His job was to go into the office and try and sell the people in the office on the idea of another guy that was going to come next week with the machine to sell it to them. He was the Warmup Act. And that is exactly the role that John the Baptist plays. He's the set-up guy.
And so he points to Jesus, but as you will notice in the text, verse 10, Jesus is unrecognized. And in fact, the people that most would have been most likely to receive him. They actually rejected him. But He says there are exceptions. There are exceptions.
But those who believed in him He gave them the right to become the children of God. We'll learn more about that as we go on. But verse 14 is in some ways the fulcrum of this opening statement, and it is quite staggering. And the word, the word, became flesh. And dwelt among us.
Now, this is foundational Christianity. God, the Creator of the universe. became human and moved into the neighborhood. God, the creator of the universe. became human and moved into our time space capsule.
And says john We have seen something of his glory. And we have learned something of his grace. This was not about a list of rules and regulations. This coming of Jesus into the world was about grace. That is undeserved favor.
And it was about truth. The answer to the to the riddle of life. The answer to the longings of the human heart. Met in a person. met in the person whom we meet here.
And so he says. I have seen and bear witness That he is The Son of God. That takes you all the way to verse 34, which should be a great encouragement to you. There you have it. There's his summary statement.
There's John. And I have seen And I'm telling you. that I have borne witness that he is the Son of God.
So he is fulfilling his calling. He is pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Jesus will die for the sins of the world, he says. And he will do this in order to make us right with God. He says it on two separate occasions.
He is fulfilling his role as the said-up man, pointing away from himself, pointing to Jesus. You see, when we tell other people about Jesus, we're supposed to be telling other people about Jesus, not telling other people about ourselves. Because the reality is that what happened to us is not the same as what happened to the person sitting next to you. The way that you came to faith will not be the same way that your mother came to faith, or whatever it might be. You came to the same place.
So, what we want to do is tell people about Jesus. Who is Jesus? He's the creator of the universe. He stepped down into time. He's the Lamb of God.
He bears sins. He grants forgiveness to those who come to Him. There is life in His name. We're telling Him about Jesus. telling him about our own personal story.
It's not wrong to do that. But people can dismiss that.
Well, that never happened to me. That's what people would have said if that had been Paul's approach, simply to explain that he was struck blind and then this happened and then that happened.
Well, good on that, but that's not my story. I used to wish, since I became a Christian in my infancy, that it could have been different, that I could have been like a hell's angel and I fell off a bicycle and I would have an amazing story to tell. You know, you should have seen my tattoos, what a wreck I was, and so on. But I've got no story like that to tell. But I got a story to tell about Jesus.
And so do you if you're in Jesus.
Now, you'll notice then what happens in the transition. We're still in the second context part for those of you who've already started to move into the first stages of anesthesia. We're saying that the truly, truly statements have to be understood in light of the stated purpose of the gospel, and they have to be understood in light of what precedes the f statement in these first fifty verses. And the transition is they are seen Where Uh goodbye, John, if you like. And hello, Jesus.
Verse 43, the next day Jesus decided. Uh to go to Galilee. The day before that, verse thirty-five. When John was standing with two of his disciples, they were John's followers. He points away from himself to Jesus.
And the two disciples heard him say this. And they followed Jesus. Jesus says, What are you looking for? They said, Where are you staying? he said, Come, and you will see.
And so they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day for it was about the tenth hour, four o'clock in the afternoon. See, p when people invent things, they don't put in details like this. My friends used to tell me, that gospel stuff is all made up. The people put it in, they invented it. It didn't happen in real time.
They put it together 200 years later, tried to clean it up, and so on. Oh, really? Have you ever read it? Chances are not. Andrew What an amazing story.
I remember when Andrew Left. uh to go down to Uruguay. And in commissioning him to the charge we looked at this verse. And one of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew. And he first found his own brother Simon.
And he said to him, We have found The Messiah. And notice he brought him to Jesus. He found him. He told him. He brought him.
Now, let's just pause here for a moment and recognize this. Having just come back. from Europe coming and spent a long a lot of time in Italy. You move around these cathedrals and you understand the vastness of them all. The way that it inevitably lifts your eyes up into the heavens, you see the artwork.
Understand the depth of interest and commitment that is represented in all of that. But simultaneously, I found myself saying, How in the world did we get Here from here. How did we manage over this long period of time to institutionalize Christianity? in such a way That People are having to Peel back layers of history and layers of religiosity. to come to find out Jesus, when he says, Truly, truly.
And as I was sitting um pondering this, I had a line in my mind that I just remembered. And it was the line was this. Just a carpenter. and some fishermen.
Now depending on your vintage, you will know where that comes from. I couldn't remember it all, but I found it. It was a song written by John Wolver. Who was a longtime president of Dallas Theological Seminary? I don't think he was known for writing songs.
But one day he sat down and he wrote this song. And I want to read it to you just in case we miss the chance. It's not particularly good poetry, I don't think. But you get the punch. And this is what he wrote.
Love was when God became a man. Locked in time and space, without rank or place. Love was God, born of Jewish kin. Just a carpenter. with some fishermen.
Love was when Jesus walked in history. Lovingly he brought a new life that's free. Love was God. Nailed to bleed and die. to reach and love.
Such a one as I Love was when God became a man, down where I could see. Love that reached to me. Love was God dying for my sin. And so trapped was I My whole world caved in. Love was when.
Jesus rose to walk with me. Lovingly He brought a new life. A life that's free. Love was God. Only he would die.
to reach and love. One such as I.
Now in these encounters All of this is interwoven. These fellows begin to follow Jesus. First of all, on the say-so of John the Baptist. He is the finger pointing to Jesus. He says, Listen, if you see this.
Person, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And on the strength of that, says all. And some of you have good friends who've been saying this to you, and you may never have gone to check. Maybe today is a good day. On the strength of his say so, they then become the followers of Jesus.
And that whole paragraph you can study on your own, because we must get now to the closing section, where we have to understand fifty-one in the context of Nathaniel's meeting with Philip and with Jesus. Apologies to those of you who think we should have started here, but it's too late now. Verse 43. Verse 43, the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. How did that work out?
I hope you're not one of these people in the Bible study group that stops on this and wants to spend an hour explaining why you think he did this. It's such a futility. We don't know why he decided to go to Galilee. Perhaps he had in mind to meet Philip. We're not told.
We do know that he decided to go to Galilee. And he did find Philip. And notice again in passing, let me reinforce this: the pathway to Jesus in each of these cases is different. Andrew, Philip. Nathaniel?
Uh Simon? It's all different, different pathway, but it's all to the same Jesus. It's all through the discovery of the same truth. They're not coming up with their own ideas. No, they have a story to tell about how they ended up at the feet of Jesus, and all of us will eventually.
And so Jesus found Philip. Look at it there, verse 43. Jesus found Philip. And he said to him, Follow me.
Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Tying it in geographically. Philip found Nathaniel. and said to him We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus found Philip.
And Philip says to Nathanael, We have found Jesus. Yeah. Exactly. They would never have found Jesus. if Jesus hadn't found them.
We become the friends of Jesus as a result of the initiative of Jesus. That's what grace is. That's a seeking God. Love was when. Ste God stepped down into time.
Stepped down into time with the express purpose of putting together a people that are his very own. And it is the utterly undeserved privilege of all who are included in that company to be able to join together in praise and in adoration. Jesus essentially, if you like, went out of his way to add Philip to the team. We can spend a while talking about Philip. He's not the brightest bunch of the disciple band, you will remember.
If you check, you will see. He seems, I love Philip because he asked the question that I always wasn't brave enough to ask in the class. And so he's perfect for the ordinary student. He's perfect for that sort of baseline. Member.
He's super. And uh It's a reminder that Jesus is not in the business of just putting his entire team together with Simon Peters. But he includes Phillips and Philippus. as well.
So he is he who tells him about Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth. Nathaniel, who's a pretty straightforward kind of character as we see, pushes back on the idea of Nazareth. Why does he do this? Nazareth was a northern town. It was a racially mixed place.
It was. A religiously mixed place, and therefore it would be the last place that you would expect the Messiah of God to come out of. A Jewish purity demanded purity, demanded exceptionalism. And you're telling me that he is Jesus of Nazareth, of Nazareth? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But notice He doesn't argue the point. He doesn't argue the point. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Well, let's think about that for a minute. No.
What did he do? Come. And see. Come and see. That actually is Jesus' phrase.
When they said Where are you staying? Andrew. And Peter. And he said, Come and see. Don't let's complicate this, folks.
The privilege of the disciple. Is not to have all the answers to every intellectual question that our friends and accomplices can pose in relationship to the veracity of the Bible, to the implications of scientific rationalism and so on. No, our job is to say, well, I invite you just to come and see. Jesus will take care of it if you bring the person to Jesus. He's more than able.
Look at what he's done here already, and we're not even out of chapter one. No attempt to argue. And so Jesus sees Nathaniel, gives us an assessment of him. Strange assessment, isn't it? I think, and this is conjecture, it's not main, it's not plain, but I think there's some value in this thought that Jesus is saying.
This Is uh An Israelite Unlike Jacob. Unlike Jacob.
Now you say well You've got to read Genesis 27 before Genesis 28, because in Genesis 27, you know that Jacob was deceitful. Jesus is now about to make an allusion to Jacob's ladder.
So perhaps in his mind he says, you know, He's not a Jacob. He's a Nathaniel. I don't know. Maybe he was part of the group like Anna and Simeon in the temple. Maybe that's his background.
He's a straightforward person. He's not a sinless person. He's a sincere person. And when he says, Well, how do you know me? Jesus explains.
He's been aware of him. Even when he was under the fig tree. Again Bible study note. Don't start all that fig tree stuff.
Okay. The point is When you weren't thinking about me, I was thinking about you. When you didn't know me, I knew you. That's the staggering thought. How do you know me?
You see, when you read the Bible, you discover that the Bible knows you. You suddenly realize it's as if this book was written to me. Here I am. Uncovered. Invited.
Encouraged. Whatever it might be, how do you know me? He says, well, listen, since the fig tree comment Shook faith out of you. You realize he says, You are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel. He says there's more of that to come.
You, and he's plural incidentally. Truly, truly I say to you, plural. U, plural. will see heaven opened. And here we are at our verse.
So we'll regard this as just one of the Longer introductions for some time. You get out of get out of the way of things, you know, when you're when you're gone. What is Jesus saying here?
Well The original readers would have the advantage that doesn't immediately fall to us. I try to help us by reading Genesis 28. Because in the minds of Jesus and the listeners, there was such a knowledge and an understanding of the way that God had worked throughout history. And there were certain key moments in history. And one of them was there in Genesis 28.
When you remember He falls asleep, he dreams the deceitful one, dreams There's a stairway leading to heaven. There's movement between heaven and the earth. And Jesus says, you know. As you continue. on your journey.
you are going to see the reality of the communion between heaven and earth.
Now Some people say this can only be understood in terms of the second coming of Jesus. I don't think so.
Some people think it's because of the Transfiguration. I don't think so.
The only time we actually read in the Gospels of heaven being opened, apart from this, is in the baptism of Jesus. I think it is fair to say. that he is promising his disciples Heaven sent confirmation. that the one that they have acknowledged to be the Messiah. is in fact the Son of Man.
He's the son of man.
Now again, they would understand that. Daniel chapter 7. And there came one like as unto the Son of Man. It's Jesus' favorite self-designation. He refers to himself as the Son of Man.
He is a Son of Man. But he is the son of man. He is man. As man. was supposed to be.
He is the second Adam to the fight. He is the one in whom There is life. and there is light. In other words, Jesus is declaring himself as the way to heaven. the long promised Messiah The one who bridges the gap, the one who opens up the way.
In him the realities of divinity. are made known to humanity. And it won't be very long into the gospel. before we read the words. In chapter 3.
Jesus said, no one has ascended into heaven. except he who descended from heaven. The Son of Man. Notice again. The Son of Man.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, there's another Old Testament picture. Look and live. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That listen Whoever believes in him. Whoever believes in him May have.
Eternal life. Truly. Truly. I'm not sure if I can do it. You're listening to Alistair Begg, UnTruth for Life, with a message he's titled, What Does Jesus Say?
As we're beginning to look ahead to Christmas, the busyness of this season can often leave us distracted, with no time to reflect on the meaning of this season, the birth of Christ.
Well, the book we're recommending to you to day will help you refocus. It's called Christmas Thoughts, and it's a collection of five popular Christmas Reflections from J C Ryle.
Now, if you're not familiar with that name, JC Ryle was an Anglican bishop and a theologian in the nineteenth century. His works are widely read and still widely valued to day so if you've never read one of his books or commentaries you are in for a treat. Each chapter in this book reads like a personal letter from Ryle. In fact, he asks questions in a way that will make this book feel like a one on one conversation. It will compel you to think deeply about whether you are making Christ the center of your Christmas celebration.
Ask for your copy of the book Christmas Thoughts Today from Truth for Life when you donate to support this Bible teaching ministry, or you can give a gift online at truthforlife dot org slash donate. or call us at eight eight eight five eight eight seven eight eight four. And if you'd rather mail your donation, along with your request for the book, write to us at Truth for Life, Post Office Box thirty nine eight thousand, Cleveland, Ohio. Our zip code is four four one three nine. And with Advent coming up soon, one helpful way for you to make the most of this season is to reflect each day on the miracle of Christmas, God with us, The book Let Earth Receive Her King is a collection of twenty four daily readings written by Alastair to help you look forward to the celebration of Christ's first coming and to eagerly anticipate his return.
And the cost is just six dollars when you go to truthforlife.org/slash gifts. I'm Bob Lepine. There are some people who believe that being born again is a description of Christians who are superzealous. Tomorrow we'll learn why the new birth is essential for every believer. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life.
Where the Learning is for Living.
