Special Event – Summer Series; John 1:19-20: Dr. Chris Kugler, 07/26/26

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[00:00:00] Was back there. So the, the opening of John's gospel evokes the text of Genesis and wants you to see that when you think about the story of creation, when you think about Genesis, when you think about those first words in Genesis one one, in the beginning, don't think you're reading a story. You're reading a story in which the key saving character won't show up for thousands and thousands of years.

He's already there. He's already there. There is no element of reality or story that Jesus is absent from that at some later date, hopefully he'll get dropped in and show up. He's the Lord of all of history. He's the savior of all [00:01:00] of history. Okay, a little bit more of John one, 'cause John's got more echoes and allusions for us.

So this Jesus, this Jesus who is fully God, he's staring the Father in the face, and the Spirit is uniting them in love and in joy and so on. This Jesus doesn't just stay safe in heaven in the story of creation, in the story of the fall. When in Genesis one, God makes human beings in the image of the Son, by the way, but that's another point.

God makes human beings in the image of the Son, and then Adam and Eve sin, and it all goes wrong. And then you have this story of the flood and the Tower of Babel. Then God calls Abraham and says, "We're gonna fix this mess. You're gonna be my covenant people." Then they commit idolatry and break the covenant and go into their various [00:02:00] exiles of Assyria and Babylon.

Jesus, the Son, the Word, doesn't sit in heaven and say, "You know, that whole idea about creation, that whole idea about image-bearing human beings, it just didn't work Let's just scrap it, give up on it, and do something else, right? Look what happened with Adam and Eve. I tried to sort that out. I called the covenant people of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their family, and look what they did.

They just recapitulated the sin of Adam and Eve. They committed idolatry. No sooner had they come to Mount Sinai than they were fashioning a golden calf. I'm done with human beings. No. Th-this is, th-this is part of the logic of the incarnation, is God hasn't given up on Genesis one. God won't give up on Genesis one.

God won't give up on Genesis twelve, because God doesn't lie. God is faithful. [00:03:00] If God intended, if God intended to create a genuine, full, image-bearing human being, and that didn't work out in the beginning, and then God intended to rescue those human beings and the whole creation through specifically an Israelite, Abraham and his family, then guess what?

God in the person of the Son is going to become a genuine image-bearing Israelite. That is the logic of the incarnation. God doesn't give up on his Genesis one or his Genesis twelve project, and the way in which John says this is designed, again, to evoke the stories of Genesis and Exodus. And the Word became flesh, and you'll have various translations of this in your Bible, and tabernacled in our midst.

Where's he, where's he-- Where's John getting this idea of tabernacled? Where, where's he getting this image [00:04:00] and this language? It's this word up here, skénosin, right? It's, it's hologos, sarx, et cetera, skénosin en hemin. The word for tabernacled is skénosin. Skéné is the same word, of course, in Greek instead of Hebrew, but it's the same word that the Israelites used to describe the tabernacle in the book of Exodus.

God at Mount Sinai instructs Moses and the people to erect a tabernacle so that he can be in their midst. They're broken and they're sinful, and he's holy, and that presents a danger to their frailty and particularly their sinfulness. So we've got to construct a barrier, as it were, but I do want to be with you.

I do want to be in your midst. Let's construct a tabernacle. Think of the story of Exodus. They construct the tabernacle for God's presence, and what's one of the first things Moses asks for? "Lord, show me your glory. Lord, show me your glory." And Moses is [00:05:00] told, "Hide behind a rock. I'll pass by, and you might have a partial view of my presence."

Look at what John says The Word became flesh, and in so doing, tabernacled in our midst. We have seen His glory. The glory that Moses asked to see but didn't quite get to see, we have seen in the person of Jesus Christ, John says. Paul makes an almost identical point in 2 Corinthians 3 to 4. We have beheld His glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.

Then he says this: "No one has ever seen God. It's God the only Son." This is monogenes theos, right? God, the only begotten Son who is close to the Father's heart. Remember from John [00:06:00] 1:1, He's in the Father's embrace. And then this is what we're told. He has made the Father or God as a whole, as it were, known

John is working with the sweep of that story from creation, fall, election of Israel, the sinfulness of the people, them coming out of their Egyptian slavery, coming through the Red Sea, coming to Mount Sinai, and they're at the mountain. They're terrified and trembling, and we don't wanna hear it. We can't see it.

Construct some tabernacle that will protect us from that. And w-we can't behold the glory. Moses wants to see the glory. He's kind of allowed to see it, but not quite. And what John is telling us is all that happened finally in the person of the Son. If you've been with Jesus, you've been with the glory revealed, the glory that Moses wanted to see but couldn't quite see.

And then you get this word, this lovely little word that, uh, [00:07:00] teachers are want to make a point of, and it's, it's appropriate that they should, is that the Son reveals the Father. This is the Greek word exegeseta. Exege-- the, the word revealed the Father. It's the word from which we get the word exegesis.

Exegesis. And exegesis is what teachers teach young pastors and preachers to do when they say, "When you hold the Bible, don't just come with all of your presuppositions and agendas and biases and project those onto the scripture, and then have them echoed back, and then go out and tell people what you already thought."

That's eisegesis, leading into the Bible something that you already think. Teachers teach students and pastors and ministers, preachers, "Do exegesis. Go into the text and let whatever is there come out. Just let it be let out." And what we're being told is this is what [00:08:00] Jesus does with the Father. This is what Jesus does with God.

He reveals who God is. He makes God known. All right. Yes As often, I've already said plenty about that and other things, so I'm gonna move on. You know what? Let's-- One more thing John 1:14, "The Word became flesh." Like, scholars have often wondered, why flesh? The Greek word sarx, flesh. Why? Why not just the Word became human, right?

The Word took on a soma, a body. The world became an-- Or the, the Word became an anthropos, a human be- Why the Word became flesh? Because John doesn't want you to think that God in the person of the Logos or the person of the Son almost came down into your [00:09:00] frail humanity. Got close to it, but didn't wanna get muddied or messed up with it.

Or He wanted to have the appearance of being like you in every way and without sin, but actually didn't wanna have as robust an association as that. John uses the word flesh because it's the word that emphasizes, that accents not just that we're human, not just that we have a physical body, but that we have a, a human constitution that is prone, prone toward fracture, frailty, and mortality.

Jesus took up real humanity. He didn't fake it. He didn't pretend it. He was like us in every way apart from sin. The Word became flesh. All right. Yeah, I've already said something about this. What I want to do now, it looks like we've got enough time, thank God, [00:10:00] is I want to go, I want to go, uh, to the end of John.

But I want you to keep in mind John 1. I want you to keep in mind the Word that was with God and was God, who became flesh, a genuine human being. That, that informs the entire narrative of John's gospel, and John hasn't forgotten about that when he gets to the end of his gospel. John hasn't forgotten about that when he's gotten to the end of h- his gospel.

This inspired author is recording and giving to you the truth as it was in the case of Jesus. So I wanna say a few things about the crucifixion and resurrection scene in John, what's often called The Passion. So we'll begin in John 19. Uh, and this is where I pretend to be cultured, okay? And I throw up an image of Antonio [00:11:00] Ciseri, right?

Uh, I'm not very cultured, but that is a beautiful image, and it's one of the fa- one of my favorites I could find. I don't think I send with this one in Used AI, though I can't remember. Um, but this is Pilate presenting Jesus to the crowds, right? And this is what John 19 says. "Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged, and the soldiers wove a crown of thorns, put it on his head.

They dressed him in a purple robe," right? They're mocking him. They're making fun of him. They're, they're, they're depicting him and presenting him in, uh, the royal attire which, who's mocking, they think his royal pretensions deserve. "They kept coming up to him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews,' striking him on the face."

This is the soldiers, right? "Pilate went out again and said to them, 'Look, I am bringing him out to you.'" And this is what's depicted in the image here. "'I don't find a case against him,' Pilate says. [00:12:00] So Jesus came out" and John, make sure you remember what he's wearing. He doesn't want you to forget. "He came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

And Pilate said to them, 'Behold the human.'" Idou ho anthropos.

Throughout history, a number of readers of this passage, a number of readers throughout history have come to the conclusion, I think rightly, that John has in mind and Jesus had in mind when he did this, and John has it in mind when he records this, um, the text of Genesis three, and I'm gonna show you what I mean by that.

Genesis three is the story of the fall, right? God pronounces the curse over Adam and Eve, over the serpent, and over the ground. Genesis 3:17, [00:13:00] "And to the man he said, 'Because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you.

In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.'" What's the ground gonna throw up for you instead of a fresh harvest, instead of vegetables and fruits and all sorts of things? Thorns and thistles. This thorn is the same word that John's gonna use for the material out of which the crown was made.

"Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. You shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground." Out of the dust you were ta- or, or out of the ground you were taken. You were dust, and to dust you shall return. "Then the man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living."

And then here's the key text, "And the Lord God made garments of skin for the man and his wife, and clothed them." This is after the curse. If [00:14:00] you go read Genesis 3, right after the pronouncement of the curse, when God is going to introduce to the rest of the creation, as it were, not just image-bearing Adam and Eve, but now cursed Adam.

He says, "Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the human.'" Behold the human. It's the same phrase. It's the same phrase that Pilate uses, and that John records Pilate using when Jesus is crucified. I'll go back to it He presents him, verse five. Pilate presents Jesus with the crown of thorns and the purple robe and says, "Now, behold the human So what is John, and what was Jesus asking us to see in this [00:15:00] moment of his crucifixion?

Okay, fine, maybe there's an evocation or an echo or an allusion to Genesis 3. What does it mean? What should we conclude from it? It's as though the Gospel writer is saying, and it's as though Jesus is saying, that this Word of God, who was with God and who was God, and who became flesh, didn't just become a human being in general.

He didn't just assume Adamic humanity in general, but he took the place in his crucifixion specifically of cursed Adam. It's like the Gospel writer is telling us Jesus has reached down into the cursed cosmos, and he's ripping up those thorns of cursedness and brokenness, and he's putting them on [00:16:00] his own head.

Behold, the human. Here stands Jesus now in the place of cursed Adam. It's, it's an amazing... Is it any wonder that this kind of theology, that this kind of narrative, that this kind of story has been the most influential narrative and story in the history of Western culture for 2,000 years? It's amazing.

Here is God in the flesh take- it's, it's, it's like God walking in that garden in Genesis 3. And having pronounced the curse over Adam and Eve, and it is a curse over Adam and Eve, and hum- a h- a human being will have to bear it. But God does that in view of the fact that he knows there will come a [00:17:00] future day, there will come a future day, when the Father announces the same curse over his own Son, who's going to take the place of Adam and Eve.

It's amazing. Behold, the human. So more echoes of Genesis. A more need to be biblically literate, more need to know your Old T- I already, I was already here. More need to know your Old Testament scriptures. I've already said a couple of things about this, but I wanna, I wanna make one more point. This is not just John's gospel.

A preacher, a teacher, a whatever that, that leads people in Bible study or devotional shouldn't just make cool connections for the point of being like, "Look at how cool the connections I made were." The point is, the Bible, and I don't mean this tritely, the Bible is an amazing text, [00:18:00] um, whose tendons and ligaments run straight the way through the 66 books, and there are myriad interconnections waiting for us to see these old familiar stories in more and more brilliant dimensions.

That's the point of this. So let me show you something about John 1 and 2, and then a bit about, um, uh, John 19 and 20, and then, uh, we're at 11:45, and, and I'll bring this plane to a landing as it were. In John 1, the narrative begins with a particular sequence. "In the beginning," Genesis. "The Word tabernacled in our midst, and we beheld his glory," Exodus.

Genesis, Exodus, that's the sequence in the Old Testament itself. This sequence is deliberately reversed in the passion and resurrection. In John, Jesus knows this, [00:19:00] John knows this. In John 19 and 20, instead of Genesis to Exodus, you get Exodus to a new Genesis, and I'll show you what I mean by that. When Jesus goes to Jerusalem to be crucified, of course, all four Gospels tell, tell us this, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, right?

There are a number of Jewish calend- there are a number of Jewish days that are significant. There are a number of Jewish festivals that are significant. Think of the Day of Atonement, for instance. No, Jesus comes that last fateful time, that last fateful time to Jerusalem during Passover. Right? And Passover is about the Exodus.

It's about the new Exodus. It's about the release from the slavery, not this time of the Egyptians, and not simply of the Romans, but of sin and death and brokenness itself. Jesus is facing off not with Pharaoh, but with the [00:20:00] darkest forces in the universe, Satan and sin and death itself, and he a- intends to defeat them and to effect a new exodus.

So that's Exodus. Which will result in the renewal of creation, the renewal of our, our humanity, and the renewal of the world around us. So you have Genesis, Exodus in John 1. You have Exodus leading the way to Genesis in, in John 19 and 20. Now, I'll show you what I mean by that. Remember I just said in John 19, or leading up to the crucifixion, it's Passover.

We're told a number of times, "This is the time of Passover. This is the time of Passover. This is the time of the Exodus." Then Jesus is crucified, and we get an evocation of cursed Adam in the garden. When you turn to the very next page in your Bible, John 20, you're going to start getting echoes and allusions now to Genesis [00:21:00] 1.

And it's because the whole ... Jesus ... It's because John wants you to see that Jesus has undone the sequence of brokenness and death. He's taken the story of creation, fall, Abraham and their family sinning, being in slavery in Egypt, and he's reversed it. He's turned it back. He's making all things new. I'll show you these evocations in John 20

Ah, nope, don't have time to say that. Sorry

That was just about the cry when Jesus says, "It is finished," tetelestai, and that cry almost certainly evokes the "it is finished" of, of the original creation, Genesis 2:4, which is amazing, but I- we don't have time for it. Okay. John, John tells us, totally superfluously, we don't need to know, meaning any [00:22:00] time in the Bible you're given an incidental detail, they're not- these are inspired, spirit-inspired authors.

They're not wasting their pen or their quill or their parchment or their time. Everything they say has the capacity to contribute to a larger meaning of significance. In John 19:41, we're just casually told, "Oh, by the way, he was crucified. I just evoked Genesis 3:22, and there was a garden where he was crucified.

I just thought you ought to know." Right? Just casually tells you that so that you're thinking about it. Why do we need to know that? Then the resurrection scene, right? John and Peter, or pardon me, the beloved disciple and Peter run to the tomb. They stoop in to see Jesus and then run away. Mary stays there, and in John 20:11 to 15, "Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been [00:23:00] lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' And she said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they've laid him.'

When she'd said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn't know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her," 15, "'Why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?'" And then we're told another seemingly insignificant detail. She thinks that he's the gardener. She says to him, "Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where, and I'll, I'll come and get him and, and, and put him somewhere more proper," to paraphrase.

Why does, why does John tell us that there's a garden where Jesus is buried, and now when she's, w- when, when Mary sees Jesus, she thinks he's a gardener? This isn't it. Same day, same day, if someone were to think these are incidental connections, same day, [00:24:00] Jesus meets a couple of other people, right? "When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, the doors of the house of the disciples where they met, they were locked.

They were afraid. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, 'Peace be with you.' After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you.'" Verse 22, "When he'd said this, he breathed on them."

Like John has, he's tried to walk you through the significance. Okay, okay, G- you know, Pilate says, "Behold the human," Genesis, Genesis 3. I'm about to tell the story of the burial. Okay, now there was a garden. There was a garden where Jesus was buried. Don't forget that. And then Mary goes to the tomb, turns around, thinks Jesus is a gardener, and Jesus is there, and now Jesus is breathing on people.

This is sh- this is all there in Genesis 1 and 2. God [00:25:00] in the garden taking Adam and Eve from... Taking Adam from the dust of the earth, and the word that's used is He breathes on Adam new life. John is telling you that this word became flesh, this true God in this true human, that was true God and tr- took on our true humanity and took the place not just of our humanity, but of cursed Adam, has re- reversed the curse of sin and death and thorns and thistles itself.

And now He's in the garden again. He's still the true God, but now He's the new Adam. He's both the gardener called to till the new creation, the new world launched in Jesus' death and resurrection, and He's the God breathing on new human [00:26:00] beings. He is both the true God and the new Adam. And let's bring this to a close.

Notice what He does this time The vocation of humans in the creation, before sin and corruption and brokenness, was to be fruitful and multiply and steward the creation. That is, fill it with my own glory and justice and cultivation and goodness and so on. But this time, this time when God's in the garden, Jesus, John 20, and he breathes on the disciples, he gives them a fresh commission, "As the Father sent me, so I send you."

You're now to be about forgiveness. Your message for the world, your new vocation after the death and resurrection of Jesus, is not just to be fruitful and multiply. It's not just to steward the creation. It's you are [00:27:00] entrusted with the message of the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection. That is the new commission in John 20.

Whoever's sins that you announce are forgiven, are forgiven. Whoever's sins that you, uh, retain are retained, et cetera. The basic point is this: You are now commissioned afresh, like Adam and Eve were in Genesis 1 and 2, but you have an extra special task now. You are the announcing of forgiveness people.

That is our, that is our fresh and new vocation in John 20. So all of that is, um, all of that has brought us to a close, and what we've tried to think about today, what we've tried to think about today is the glory of true God, true divinity, co-equal with the Father, becoming like us in every way apart from sin, taking the curse, our curse, upon himself, [00:28:00] dying our death, raising to fresh life, and announcing to each and every one of us there is now the hope of forgiveness.

There is now the hope of fresh humanness. There is now the hope that God's project to fill the world with glory and justice and peace through image-bearing human beings can now go forward because of the death and resurrection of Jesus and because of his outpoured Spirit. I hope that, uh, these reflections about John have stimulated you, encouraged you, excited you.

I hope they give you a lot to think about. Um, I have never felt so spiritual, because I've almost finished on time here. And so I just... I... If- if there are stages to this thing, and I don't think there are, there are, I think I've just leapt one. I'm very happy about that. Um, but, uh, it has been an absolute joy and delight to be with you.

Every blessing, and I hope that the service that you go to next is wonderful and enriching and encouraging. It's been a delight to be with you, okay? [00:29:00] Thank you.