John, Chapter 1

Come and study Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast, "The Whole Council of God." Father Stephen is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the Reformed Church, but now an Orthodox priest serving at St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Charleston, West Virginia. So, any other questions? What do we sort of dive in? Okay. So, when I say dive in, we are going to dive in because St. John's Gospel here, beginning in one verse one, dives right in. He's got sort of this poetic, the first 18 verses are sort of this poetic introduction, which is very different than the other three. St. Matthew and St. Luke have genealogy, material, and sort of try and locate us historically. Here's when these things happened and then start with Jesus' birth and go from there. St. Mark starts relatively abruptly, but he goes right into Jesus being baptized. And the story goes from there. St. John, we can already see, is taking a different approach because he begins with a poem. He's going to tell us who Jesus is, not by telling us when and where he lived, or who his ancestors were, but by poetically describing who Jesus really is. Yes. Yes. Genesis chapter 1 through about 2 verse 2 is basically a poem about the creation of the world. So John 1 verse 1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. You notice the first three words in the beginning is lifted directly from Genesis. In the Hebrew, it's per sheet, barai, Elohim, in the beginning God created in the Greek, it's in our key, both the Oaths in the beginning God. So when St. John begins and in the Greek, it's in the beginning was the word. It's very striking that he's already put the word in the position that God occupies in Genesis. It's also important that the verb he uses when he says was is a particular type of Greek verb called an imperfect that refers to not something that just happened in the past, but something that was going on continuously in the past. So he's saying in the beginning, right, in the beginning the word already was existing. So not in the beginning the word came into being, but in the beginning the word already was. He was already there. And the word of course is our common English translation of logos. Logos is kind of more complex than that is as a word. Logos can refer to, it's the root where we get the word logic. It can refer to a pattern of meaning. So you can see how that applies to a word, a word as it's connected to a meaning. But it can also refer to a structure or a pattern. And so sometimes it's translated in other context reason, not in the sense of my reason, but in the sense of the reason for something. Or the underlying motive, the reason for existing. And so by referring to, as we're going to see, this is going to be Jesus, referring to Jesus as the logos of creation, he's not just giving him a title, but he's saying that Christ is sort of the reason behind creation. Yeah, the structure. It's a similar in Proverbs chapter 9. There are some very similar things said, such as St. John's probably picking up on them about wisdom. In the beginning, wisdom sort of providing the pattern for everything God created. And so that's sort of a parallel idea here. But the change that St. John makes there from wisdom is that wisdom is sort of an abstract concept. The logos we're going to see as a person, as personal qualities. So in his readers hear that word logos right there at the beginning. What meaning does it convey to them? Because of course I was taught the Old Fashioned, this is all Greek philosophy. Right. So it's stoicism. So yeah. So what does it mean to these non-Greek philosophical people who are hearing this? This word. Right. Five words into the God's. Right. Stoicism would not have been their first point of reference. Right. Hearing it. Well, assuming they understood it as word, in the Old Testament, the word of the Lord is very commonly spoken of in terms of the prophets. It's sort of the stair, it's the Dabariye way. And it's spoken of in terms of at the beginning of a prophet's ministry or what he's called to do a particular thing, it'll say it's usually translated in English. The word of the Lord came to Elijah or the word of the Lord came to Amos or the word Lord came to Hosea saying. And so that would have been the more immediate. So that's the word of the Lord is what it's not the meaning, it's not this prophet's message but it's what brings the prophet. Yes. It's the intermediary between God and the prophet. Right. That brings the message or empowers them to do it. So that's an element of it too. And so St. John is also projecting that back into the creation, tying it together with that idea of wisdom in the creation so that it's not just something back at the beginning, but see now you've got the word playing a role all the way through the Old Testament history of Israel right up to the present day. This word that was at the beginning is what inspired Jeremiah. It has come to the prophets, it has come to the right. And so it's not just sort of the reason for the creation but it's also the reason all the way through guiding Israel. And so when he personalizes that word, you now have the person of God, the person of the father and the logos that existing in this relationship with God's people throughout the Old Testament. Yeah. That's why I said you can take one sentence and chew and chew and chew on it. And he's done that with just one sentence. We haven't even done the whole sentence. At the first clause of the sentence. But yeah, so he's and it's also important that this prolog here, is it just a poem to sort of set things up but he's sort of laying the groundwork for now everything he's going to do as he tells the rest of his story. He sort of hear my themes, hear the things to be looking for. It's sort of a chorus. You know, here are the things to be looking for now as we go forward. So in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. And so this establishes that the word and God are separate persons. It's not just another name for God, in other words, right, for a universal God. And the word was God. So we already have what you can call binitarianism. Right here we have one God, right. But this God now we see two personal existences, one that's called God proper, right, Hothail, the definite article, the God, and one that is V word, but they are both God singular. So we already have that. Now a note for our Jehovah's Witnesses friends. Because they like to come to this verse and what they will point out is that in that last clause what it literally says in Greek is and God was the word. There's not a definite article in front of God. There's not a the, right, they say, so see, it doesn't say the word was V God. So they want to say it means the word is a God, right, that's our understanding because they reject the idea of the Trinity. and they try to do that from here. There are several problems. There are several problems with that. But the biggest one is that it's a misunderstanding of the Greek language. I don't want to go-- I'm a language nerd, but I don't want to go too deep in this, because I'll bore everyone to tears. But it's important to remember that both Greek and Latin didn't really have articles the way we have articles. Latin has no definite article whatsoever. There is no word "the." And in Greek, at Homer's time, there was no "the." And in Greek, there has never been an indefinite article. There's never been "a." So there's not a way to say in Greek, "a." God. Right? Strictly speaking, that's an English thing. In English, we say, "the tree or a tree." Whatever one refers to a specific tree, whatever one refers to just any tree. To do that in Greek, you would have to say the equivalent of this tree-- you could point at a tree-- this tree, or you could say some tree. But the word "God" here has neither of those in front of it. So it just means "God." It doesn't mean "a." God. It doesn't mean "the." God. It just means "God." So what it says is, the word was "God." Right at the end. So they're trying to take the way English works, and pretend that Greek works that way. And that's largely because their founder didn't actually know Greek. He made a translation to the Bible without ever studying Greek, which makes it hard to translate from Greek. Impressive in his way. But so that's not what it says. It very clearly says the word is "God." And so what we see in this clause is, in the beginning, the word is already existing. He's with God. So there are two personal existences here, but they are one God. Now, it says, though word, what you're saying is personal. Is there something-- Right. In the Greek that's indicating that the word is not a thing, but a person. We'll get there in the next verse. Oh, OK. Because verse 2 starts, he. And Greek does have a developed pronoun system. So you could say he. You could say she. You could say it. And it doesn't say it. Does it say it was in the beginning? It says he. So here we have a personal pronoun, referring back to the logos. So he was in the beginning with God. That's basically re-establishing. But adding that element to clarify, I'm talking about a person, not, and again, an abstract idea or principle, which is how the like the Stoics would have used logos. I'm talking about a person. So really up until the point of the word, he, a person could be thinking of this as an abstraction. Could. Right. And no, it's not an abstraction. Right. Right. Hebrew does not have a neuter. Hebrew is a gendered language. So everything is either he or she. But Greek has a neuter. There's he, she, and there's it. And nowhere here does he use the word it to refer to the logos before or after the incarnation. For three, all things were made through him. And without him, nothing was made that was made. Now this tells us a couple of things. Number one, it refers back to that idea of, remember wisdom being the reason behind creation. The logos here is the reason behind creation. And things are created through the logos. But also, if all things are made through him, and there's nothing made that was not made by him, what does that mean automatically? Means he was not created. He was not made. It doesn't say everything else was made through him, as if God created him. And then he helped create everything else. Now, everything that's created was created by him in tandem with God in the beginning. So creation is the product of both the Father and the Son. Yes. Yes. One or the other. Right. Right. And if we go back to Genesis, we also see at the very beginning of Genesis, the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters. So when you bring those together, you see the creation is the work of the whole Trinity together. Together. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. So there's two pieces there. One of the most common ways of referring to God in the Old Testament was as the living God, the true and living God. And that was as opposed to idols. Right. An idol is not alive. It's a piece of wood. It's a piece of stone. That's right. It's a piece of metal. It's not alive. It can't act. It can't do anything. Whereas God, because he is living, he can act. He can do things. He can accomplish his purposes. He can accomplish his will. And so we see here, this is again adding to this idea that the logos is a person, and not an abstract concept. He's a person. He's alive. He's active. Right. He's doing things. He's not sort of a tool that God uses to create (chuckles) the universe. He's an active living participant in that creation. And it's his life also that becomes the light of men, meaning already in the past and the Old Testament, the word of God has had this relationship with human beings. It's not that in the Old Covenant, they just knew that sometimes people think this way. The Old Covenant, well, they knew the Father. And then in the New Testament, we meet Jesus. (chuckles) They'd been a cause, we meet the Holy Spirit. But that's not the case. He's been living, he's been active. He's been known by the people of God since the very beginning. That's as the spirit. - You made that line again about the life of man. - Right. In him was life, and it should be this life, really. Not the life. This life was the light of man. So when men, even in the Old Covenant, when they came to know God, when they were illumined by God, it was by Christ. It was by Christ. And we're gonna see as we go on that part of what St. John is gonna do, and St. Paul is gonna do this too. And several of his epistles is they're gonna go back to the Old Testament, and they're gonna use what they now know about Jesus Christ, help them understand some of the confusing passages in the Old Testament. For example, in Exodus, we read that Moses sat and spoke with God face to face as a man speaks to his friend. And then, less than a chapter later, Moses tells God he wants to see him, and God says, "Well, you can't see me "because if you see me, you'll die." (chuckles) Well, wasn't he just sitting there and speaking to a face to face? Well, they'll go back and read those passages and say, "Okay, well, here you see. "You see God the Father who can't be seen "and has never been seen by anyone." And you see God the Word, who is illumined, who has illumined men, and who we have. - He's not too face to that. - Who we have, it's several of those things. And the Psalm, the Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand." Well, there's two lords there, that they're having a conversation. All right, they'll go back and say, "Oh, this is the Father and the Son." You know, the Father's saying to the Son, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool." And they'll connect that to Christ's ascension and to heaven, that's sitting at the right hand of God. So they'll sort of go back and understand those in terms of, and that's what St. John is already keying in on here, that it isn't just the Word popped up now. (chuckles) But in our day, it's that all along he's been, the word of the people of God. Now he's gonna come to us in a unique way, as we'll see, later on in this prologue, but he was already present and already active, already alive. - We'll never see from God in the past, we have received through Christ, right? Because remember, the Word of the Lord comes to the prophets, right? So that's that intermediary, right? That he was revealing himself through the Word. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Comprehend is probably a better translation than what you see sometimes. Sometimes it'll say overcome, but comprehend is probably a better translation of the Greek word. They're both true. I mean, the darkness didn't overcome Christ either, But. but. The idea is that even though that light has been there, that those who are in sin did not perceive it. So this is again, one of the themes we're gonna see in St. John's Gospel, he's telegraphing right here. And that's gonna be his answer to the question, why if Jesus Christ is so present in the Old Testament? And you'll come in, why did the teachers of the law, the people who'd spend their lives studying the Old Testament scriptures, why didn't they recognize him when he came, when he showed up amongst them? Why didn't they have all people say, oh, this is, right? And St. John's explanation for that is going to be, it's because of their sinfulness. It's their sinfulness blinds them to seeing what is there, to realizing and recognizing him. So for St. John, it's not a question of sort of a decision. You know, we tend to think of accepting or rejecting Christianity as someone presents Christianity, here's what Christianity teaches, and then we choose to accept it or reject it. Whereas for St. John, there are gonna be people who are righteous or holy, and they get that way by repentance, not by just being, born saints, but there are people who are seeking after God, they're gonna see Jesus and they're gonna recognize him immediately. And then there are gonna be other people who are sort of immersed in their sin, and it's not gonna matter what, I mean, Jesus can do every miracle in the world in front of them, and they're blinded by their own sin and wickedness. So for him, it's not so much a decision as sort of, whether someone's heart has been prepared to receive Christ or not, that's gonna decide whether people accept or reject him. And so that's what he's laying out here in the beginning of the prologue that Christ's light has been shining all the way through, all the way through the history of God's people. - Are they eyes they do not see Him? - Yes, yeah, but because people are sunken and wicked, they can't, they don't realize Him. - There are false testimonies. - St. John, so to speak, who did see, and we revered. - Right, right, and there will be people, of course, in Jesus' life. - Yeah. - Unfortunately, I'm not aware of them, but there will be people in Jesus' life who will encounter Him, and see. St. Simeon sees Him as an infant, but because he's a righteous man, because he's been waiting out of the Lord, because of his relationship with the Lord, he recognizes him even as an infant immediately. This is him. - He's sort of the last person to recognize Christ in the Old Testament way. - Yeah, he and St. John the four runner, who points, it says, look, they're, - He has a very unique role in the Simeon. - Right, he has a unique, yeah. And speaking of St. John the four runner, the very next verse. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. So, this is something that, in a lot of modern Christianity, it's not as much the case in the Orthodox Church, but in a lot of modern Christianity, St. John, the four runner, St. John the Baptist, is kind of minimized. I mean, he certainly mentioned, you know, and read about, but, even in most Roman Catholic circles, there's not a lot of veneration of St. John the four runner, especially compared to the Orthodox Church. But we see here just how central he is, to the story that St. John is telling, that he needs to be, he and his witness need to be here in the Pro-Loc. All four of the gospels include, even St. Mark's Gospel that doesn't have anything about Jesus' childhood, it starts with St. John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River and testifying to who he is. - I always thought that this passage about John the four runner, in here, was a sort of parenthetical insert to tell people, don't follow John the Baptist. - But we're gonna get that, we're gonna get that here in a minute. And when we finish these next couple of verses, I'm gonna come back around a little more on that. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all through him might believe. Now, the hymn there, hymn there is not referring to Jesus, it's the hymn there is referring to St. John. So, the second verse here is pointing out what St. John the four runners role was. He came to bear witness to Jesus, why so that through St. John's testimony to who Jesus was, all might come, meaning all at that time, might come to follow Jesus. So, he was not just sort of an Old Testament prophet who came and preached righteousness the way the Old Testament prophets did, that was killed by the king, the way a lot of the Old Testament prophets were, but he has this unique role in terms of Jesus, to give his testimony. And his testimony here again, is, his testimony is especially important, consider especially important, that he vouched, that he pointed to Christ, so that his witness, his testimony should cause anyone who hears it to accept that Jesus is, is who he says he is. And then in the next verse, he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world. So, at the end there, you have this idea that Christ who has been this light throughout the Old Covenant, throughout the history of Israel, he's been this light to people, now he's coming into the world in a unique way. So, there's both the fact that he's always been present with God's people, but now there is something unique happening. He's coming in a special way, it's about to happen. And because he's coming in that special way, St. John has this special mission, to point to what's happening. That this is now happening. This is now taking place. - So, John knows and understands what is about to happen. - Yes. - And is proclaiming that so that other people are ready to hear. - Right. He is, and we'll get to it, it talks about him baptizing. He is preparing, and the reason he's baptizing in the Jordan in particular. Remember when Joshua led the people of Israel into the Promised Land after they finally got there, and Moses had died, he led them through the Jordan River and the Jordan River parted. - Yes, like the Red Sea. - And so, St. John is now calling the people back out of the land to again pass through the Jordan. So, he's sort of creating this new people of God for Jesus now to come. And rule and lead. So, he is, that's why he's called the forerunner. That he's preparing the way in the sense that he's preparing this people. - Do we know of any of the disciples or other followers of Christ who were first followers of John Baptist? - We know several of them were. St. Andrew was, she's very likely St. Peter was his brother. Philip and Nathaniel were, so at least there were several that were-- - Have you ever been pointed out to me? - Oh yeah, that were originally followers of St. John. - It really helps make the whole John situation clearer. - Ref, you realize that yes, it worked. (laughing) - And here are some specific examples. And when St. John says he must increase, and I must decrease, he's not just talking about his own humility, he is talking about his own humility. But he's making a very literal statement of, now I'm handing off, right? I've done my part that I was called to by God, and now I'm giving this over to Christ, to do what he's going to do. So yeah, that's-- - Yeah. - They were cousins. - That's right. - Yeah, they were cousins. - The government needed to own adults. - Yes, because St. John had to flee. He was born, and it's beginning of St. Luke's Gospel, the first chapter that tells about St. John's birth. He was born not long before Jesus was born. And if you remember what happened after Jesus was born, Herod ordered all the infants killed. and in hiding the sun. Zacharias' father was killed by Herod's troops in the temple. And so St. John and his mother, St. Elizabeth, had to flee into the desert. And she ended up passing away in the desert. And so St. John grew up out in the desert, sort of by himself. And that's part of the Elijah imagery around St. John. When St. John shows up, he sort of dressed like a Elijah. He eats like a Elijah. He's out in the wilderness like Elijah. Whenever when Elijah was in the wilderness, he had the Ravens bring him, bring him meat. And he had the stream and that kind of thing. So it's the same kind of imagery. The St. John grew up out in the wilderness. And so then when he comes of age and begins his ministry, he comes out of the wilderness to preach to the people who are in the cities that they need to come out. Right. Explain to us a couple of Leonardo da Vinci's stories. Yes. Yes. There's a very common, there are several Renaissance art themes that are stories that we don't hear a lot today. One of them is that you will see a lot of pictures of the infant St. John in the wilderness being fed by angels sometimes. Another one, just as a side that I know about because of my name, there are a number of paintings of the burial of St. Stephen from the Renaissance, which is it really described in the book of Acts. But that was a very common theme in Renaissance art. Do you see the experience you've been in the last seven years? St. John. Yeah, he, he, a lot of the, what's called the aromatic or the desert lifestyle. There are a lot of the desert fathers, St. Anthony the Great, St. Pecomius. We're sort of emulating St. John's way of life at first by going out into the desert and it's injecting them self-tostarity. And that, that really begins, I mean what really starts monasticism is the legalization of Christianity. And so once Christianity becomes legal and then once under the adosius at the end of the four century becomes the official state religion, you have a lot of people coming into Christian churches who maybe aren't the most sincere pious people. They're just sort of doing it because, you know, for political advantage or whatever. And because of that sort of compromise has started being made. You know, for most of the history of Christianity until then, Christians had given everything they possessed to the poor and lived in common. You know, well, once the whole Roman Empire becomes Christian, you know, the economy would collapse if everybody did that. If everyone dropped out of the army, they'd get invaded. And so they had to start changing things. But there were a lot of very pious Christians who said, no, we need to preserve sort of the original traditional, you know, strict form of Christianity. Yeah, yeah. Really, before while Christianity was being persecuted, just by default because of the persecution, they lived a very monastic kind of lifestyle. You know, I mean, you couldn't get a lot of jobs if you were a Christian in the Roman Empire. You know, you sort of had to support one another. You had to live in communities and that kind of thing. And so the original monastics are sort of preserving that earlier Christian way of life, you know, after the legalization of Christianity, sort of, in its strictness. But yeah, they were also emulating sort of St. John's way of life. And St. John's way of life and his parallel to Elijah was not lost on the Jewish people of the first century. Because we have, for example, Joe Cephas, who was a Jewish historian, who was not a faithful Jew. At the end of his history, he comes to the conclusion that Rome is the Messiah. And that Jews should just become good Romans because it's Rome great. So he's not exactly a pious man. But even when he talks about St. John the Forerunner, St. John the Baptist, he says he's a prophet, hands down. And he attributes the destruction of both Herod's line and the temple in Jerusalem to the fact that Herod had killed St. John. He said he killed this righteous prophet and this was God's judgment on him because of that. So that's the reputation St. John had that shows you for somebody who's completely impious. Quite a bit later, too. Yeah, he's writing about the eighties. He's writing probably around the same time St. John was writing. But yeah, so even at that time somebody living in another part of the empire who's not very pious still has this oppression of St. John the Forerunner. So his testimony, the testimony he boarded Jesus bears a lot of currency with the Jewish audience. That someone is righteous and holy as John was here to bear witness to who Jesus was. That's an important point. That St. John's movement was not sort of a rival movement to Jesus movement. But it was Jesus movement. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. This is Jesus again. Yes, this is Jesus. This is the light or the word this week. So he's now come into the world. He's in the world. He's the one who created the world. But the world doesn't recognize him. So this is describing the situation of Jesus life. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. So this is again that image. We saw the light and the darkness not being able to comprehend it. This is how that played out sort of in his life. When they're referring to the people of Israel or to all mankind? His own there is referring to the people of Israel because that particular language comes out of the book of Exodus. Where God calls Israel his own people. Where he says, I've called you out of all the nations to be my people. So this is sort of furthering the original thought. He comes into the world. The whole world was created by him. But the people of the world don't recognize him. He not only came into the world but he came to his own people. And his own people didn't even recognize him. The people who had known him, you know, in this other way previously did not recognize him now. But as many as received him to them, he gave here it has the right. That's a good American translation. Rights. That's what he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. The word that they translate right is really more power or authority. But so it's not everyone who rejects him. Right, there are those who receive him. And everyone who receives them receives what? They receive this power, authority to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. So accepting him and believing in his name here are the same thing. That's what it means to accept him is to believe in his name. And the result of believing in his name is having this power and stability to become one of the children of God. Now they use children of God because they're trying to be gender neutral. It literally says sons of God. Now I'm going to say that's important for this reason. A lot of people just interpret that as well. That's the first century they're sexist. But here's why it's important because of the first century they were sexist. In the first century they viewed sons as more valuable than daughters. Right, sons were heirs and daughters weren't. So you notice it doesn't say to the men who believed in him he gave the authority to become sons. It says as many as everyone has seen him became sons. So became heirs. Became heirs. So this means that everyone, right, because if we say they became sons and daughters of God, the original context they would have said, well, you know, the sons are better off than the daughters. But the point is everyone who believes in Christ's name becomes an heir of the promises of God. Whether they're male or female, both become sons, both become heirs. Both become the valued, you know, that first born child who. and herit. And that's important because this is the way the promises of God were handed down in the Old Testament. The promises made to Abraham and his seed. And so we see in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the first born son and sometimes the son's fighting over who gets the birther. So this is saying anyone who leaves the name of Christ becomes the heir of those promises. But this is the way it goes. This is a really important phrase that leaves the name of Christ. We've heard that from countless pulpits. What does that mean in the eyes of these first three? The word name there is not as neutral as name in English. We tend to think of name well, yeah, that's just what you're called. You can go to the courthouse and change your name. Or go by your middle name or short in your name. Or have a nickname. But name, especially in this kind of context, again refers back into the Old Testament. The name of the Lord. And remember, the name of the Lord was not spoken a lot, was not written even. And when you came into it in a text, you would substitute one of two words for it. You either get to it and substitute at an eye, which means Lord, which is where we get. You know, when you're reading the Old Testament in English, it says the Lord God. The word Lord there is covering Yahweh. It's covering the name. Or, and this is still the practice in a lot of Jewish circles, they'll come to and say, "Hashem," which means the name. Right, so he's come to and say, "And so the name said to." And so when they talk about Christ's name, when St. Paul says that Christ was given the name that is above every name. This is a reference back to the name of the Lord. So in the Old Testament, God to believe in the name of the Lord meant to worship Yahweh as your God and as your only God. So when they talk about believing in His name, the name of Jesus here, the name of the word the light, it means that same, that belief is means worship. It means to worship and embrace Christ as God, as God. So that has that context of worship. I think it's been weakened in modern religions so much that it sounds like it comes out in many people's minds as a scent to some propositions about Christ. Yeah, the true false test. Jesus has got true. You know, Jesus has made true. The Holy Trinity, true. And so there, I believe. The concept of belief in the scriptures is tied up with the concept of worship. So who you believe in is who you worship as God. And that is the core question for Israel through the whole Old Testament. Who are they going to worship as God? Are they going to worship Yahweh? Are they going to only worship Yahweh? Are they going to try and worship other gods alongside Yahweh or instead of the Lord, these other gods? Or are they going to worship only Yahweh? And so this is a word of worship, right? That's why we're going to see later on, not in John's Gospel later on. You know, that before the name of Jesus, every knee would bow at every tongue confess. Right? Your knee bowing and your tongue confess, this is worship. Right? This is worship. So that's that's what's tied up there. Right? So this is saying that to those who receive the way you receive Christ is by worshipping, by offering Him glory and worship. Now that is the only that's the only meaning of receiving Him. It doesn't mean of saying His great prophet. No, no, you don't receive Him unless you worship Him. Yeah, unless you're worshiping. Yeah. And that is worship has been so distorted in our modern world too, where it's, you know, people will talk about the kind of worship they like. Right? As if it's something they're receiving. Right? They're going somewhere there is, whereas worship, the Scriptures is something we offer to God. Right? So that it comes from us to God. Right? Right? So we're offering it together. Sort of overwhelming. It's something that you can't not do once it has hit you. But God is you first out in worship. You don't just say, "Okay, I'll go to church now." Right? Right? Right. And that going to church where we were, it's an activity. Right? It's not something we sit and passively take in and experience. It's something we do. So yeah, that's included here. And that's really what's at stake. And we've intellectualized belief and sort of separated it from worship and turned it into, well, I mean, Cardinal Newman, you know, his work on faith is called a grammar of a scent. I sent to these things that they're true, even though I don't have evidence or proof and that's faith. That's not really how the Scriptures talk about faith. So the questions that you have with anti-Christian people are on the basis of, is this intellectually plausible? Right? That's the question they're asking. Right? And that's not the question that we're answering. Right? Right. The question is, who are you going to worship? Who are you going to put your trust in? Who are you going to put your hope in? Right. Right. Who are you going to serve? Right? Those are the questions that we're answering. Right? Not, is this quote, quote, believable in the sense that, you know, it's not a, as it's often people often say, a substitute for science because they didn't have science. Right? Right. It's not a, it's not a way of knowing things about the world. Right. Right. Right. And human beings are created in such a way that we are going to worship and we are going to serve something in someone to paraphrase Bob Dylan. But, but we're going to serve somebody. Right? We're good at, there's going to be someone or something. Right? And so that's the way, I mean, that's the way Jesus poses the question. Right? He says, you cannot serve God and man. Right? You're going to serve something, you're going to chase after something. There's going to be something that you're putting your hope in your trust and your confidence in whether it's money or fame or science or philosophy or that or some God or other. Right? In a literate, you know, and, and what happens is when you worship in a biblical sense, this is what you get out of particularly in Isaiah when he's attacking idols and idolatry, you become like what you worship. And so if what you worship is empty and powerless and dead, you become empty and powerless and dead. What you worship is blind, you become blind. Whereas if what you worship is the living God, then you come alive. If what you worship is the light of the world, then you're illuminated. If what you worship is the Son of God, you become a Son of God. Right? So, it's worship is transformative when we do it. And that's part of what St. John is getting at here with that idea of authority that by worshipping Christ, we gain the sonship because we become like the one who we're who are worshipping. And then he continues talking about these sons of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. He's already laying the ground worth for something we're going to see in a couple of chapters when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. And he talks about being born again or being born from above. He's already talking about when you become the we become the Son of God. You become the Son of God, how through the worship, the acceptance of Christ the belief in his name, not by what? Not by what? Not by blood? Relationship? Right? Will of the flesh? Someone goes and it decides to have a child? Right? Nor the will of man? Right? This is my desire, this is what I choose. But of God. Okay? So St. John is here. juxtaposing the way in which we become heirs of the promises of God with the way many of the Jewish people at the time thought you became heirs of the promises of God. They thought you became heirs of the promises of God how? Well by being one of Abraham's blood relatives or by the will of the flesh again by being born into a Jewish family or by the will of man by being adopted into right through circumcision and becoming part of becoming part of the Jewish people and saying John is already here saying that's not how it works that's not how it works that it's through the one who accepts Jesus the one who receives Jesus the one who believes in his name that's the person who becomes the heir of God's promises and we're gonna see later in in St John's gospel Jesus is gonna have this dispute with the Pharisees where they're gonna say we're the children of Abraham right and he's gonna say no you're not right you're the children of the devil because you do what he does right you're like him right you've become like him you haven't become like Abraham right so you're not really Abraham's children so then who are the children of Abraham the children of Abraham are the ones who the real children of Abraham or see Abraham's promises are the ones who receive Jesus and who and who believe in his name we'll end here because I've gone on a long time that's so we're not quite at the end of the poetic prologue but we'll pick up here next week Lord willing and keep going so thank you listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole Council of God Father Stephen's email address is whole council at ancient faith dot com that's whole council at ancient faith dot com [Music]