20260726-sean-mcdowell-sun-pm

That was the quickest to the point intro I think I've had in Hume teaching series history. And no whistle, man, stay good and he'll keep it up. Thanks for coming out. This is fun.

I've been looking forward to this for a while because I get to bring my family up and be a part of the Hume teaching series. Typically they've said something like, Sean, just kind of do your thing, apologize. I've done that in different ways for years. But I thought I'm going to try something different.

Let's work through the Gospel of John together. That's what we're going to do. I can talk, it's my job. I'm a communicator.

I'm going to ask you a lot of questions. I should participate. I should make some observations. So we're going to use technology, but what I would call old school technology, the word, and fortunately, I need some readers these days.

But if you have your Bible, take it out. And let me have a couple of preface things about what we're going to do. The goal in Five Nights is not to get through all 21 chapters of John. That is almost certainly not going to happen.

I teach at Tab School of Theology, but I taught high school Bible part-time and full-time 21 years. When I would teach juniors on systematic theology, when I started, I thought, well, I've got to get through the Dr. Mann, Dr. Angels, and Time.

So I took the number of weeks that I had, broke it up. I was like, well, I've two weeks on this, two and a half on that. And I just kind of stayed on schedule. And then after about two or three years, I thought, you know what?

Why am I so concerned about getting through all of these different doctrines? I'm focusing on quantity rather than quality. So I slow down and started with some of the big ones, like Doctrine of God, Doctrine of Scriptures. And I thought, if we don't get through them, it's fine.

I'm more concerned teaching students how to think theologically, how to think biblically, how to go deep into the scriptures. So if we don't get to a certain doctrine or get to a certain chapter in the Bible, that's fine. You now have a roadmap and a way of reading the scriptures more intentionally and with some depth. We might not have had otherwise.

So I'm far more interested in the quality of the conversation that we have than checking off a box, trying to get through a certain level of chapters in the time that we're here. Now, with that said, a couple things about the gospel of John. It's different, as you probably know, than the Synoptic Gospels, which are what? Matthew Mark and Luke.

And the question is why? Well, Matthew Mark and Luke, very similar storytelling, very similar structure, a lot of the same content. In fact, a vast majority of scholars will believe that Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark that they both used and then had some other sources for additional material. Then comes along John.

And it's not full of the parables that you see. As we'll notice, it doesn't start with the birth of Jesus. It starts with creation and has these long speeches. Why is it so different?

And one question to throw out there right away is most scholars would agree that John is the apostle John. There's some other theories that people debate, but most would say it was the beloved disciple, the gospel of John, brother of James, who's the author of John. And he probably wrote in the 90s. So if Jesus died, say, 30 or 33, there's debate about this.

We'll say 30. He writes in the 90s. He writes this book, six decades after the death of Jesus. They say, well, how old was this guy?

He might have been 14, 15, 16 years old when he was at a disciple of Jesus. So clearly, he wasn't a millennial. Sorry, I just had to go there. My sister, Melinda, now she's given her a hard time, and she was going right back at excerpts, being slackers, and all this stuff.

So imagine he's, say he's maybe 15 years old, and he's at a disciple of Jesus for that time. He's probably in his mid-70s when he writes this book. And so I think there's some of the theological reflection and depth we see here. Arguably not Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Because he might be the last disciple that's still alive, and he's been thinking about this for decades. And we see that stamp on the gospel of John. I don't know how long ago it was now. Maybe a couple years ago, I watched a debate between a Christian and an atheist on whether or not Jesus claimed to be God.

And they went to the gospel of John. And I remember watching this going, man, dang it. I don't think I have a command of the gospel of John as well as I should. And it bothered me.

I was like, I don't know how to answer a couple of those questions. So I've read it over and over and over again. I'm not claiming to be a Joe Hennine scholar, don't let me say that. But I thought, I want to know the word, and I want to know it well.

And that's my hope for you. You'll be challenged to think about this a little bit more deeply. Maybe ask some questions you hadn't asked before. What's done, hopefully, is like, wow, this is interesting.

There's a lot more in this book that I had seen before. And maybe just encourage you in a little bit of a love for the gospel of John. Now, one last challenge before we start is I'm going to encourage you while you're here to consider each day before and 30 light. There we go.

Check, check, one, two, three. Just kidding. All right. Rule number one, it can't flex.

Whoa. Check, one, two, three, four, I loaded better. Oh, so my challenge for you would be while you're here. If you can find the time, read the gospel of John in its entirety in one setting.

Now, it's 21 chapters. So depending on how quickly you read and how familiar you are with John, it's probably going to minimally take you at least an hour. If you're ADD, it might add a little bit of time on top of that. But if there's anywhere we should be able to focus and just read and think, it's here.

And I feel like I'm not going to carve out a time. Then just read the first seven chapters. And then if you get 30 minutes later, read the next seven chapters. And then do it again.

I wish I'd taken this advice at heart, but I had a chance when I was at Camps' Crusade. My dad's been with crew for years. And we met, I got a chance to meet Bill Bright this probably 30 years ago, who founded crew. When great, evangelist and missionaries to 20th century.

And he goes, John, take a book in the Bible and read it every day for a month. And you'll own it. And I wish I could say I'd done that 30 years ago. But I remember it.

And it's come back. In the past few years, I've been doing that more intentionally than ever. So go grab some coffee, grab some hot chocolate, grab a shake down at the shack, and just find some space and read the gospel for John. Then the next day, do it again.

And then do it again. And then do it again. You know what happens? You start seeing things and repeat it.

You start making connections. You start seeing things that you would not have seen before. And you start anticipating things. Then the word becomes a part of you.

And you just know it. And you can cite it. You can explain it to other people. That's my encouragement for you this week.

So that said, take your Bibles out to John chapter 1. And let's start. And let's have some fun. John chapter 1 starts with, in the beginning, what's the word?

The word was with God. And the word was God. Now right away, what is Genesis 1? I just gave it away.

I meant what is John 1? You meant what I knew. What is John 1 playing off? And everybody said, Genesis chapter 1.

Now what is interesting? Both Mark. I'm sorry. I'm not Mark.

Matthew and Luke start with the birth of Jesus. John starts with the creation account. So it's right primarily to a Jewish audience. So he says, in the beginning, right away, everybody's thinking, oh, this is the beginning of creation itself.

And of course, in a minute, when he leans into Jesus being the creator, we know that he's going back saying, wait a minute, I'm going to fill in some gaps at the very beginning of this creation. You might not have known yet. It's revealing something in this book about the creator. We have not known until God speaks through John.

Now what's fascinating about this is as in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. Now right away, you should be thinking, OK, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. So if this word we know is who, by the way, is Jesus. And you know this because you're good Bible students, but as we keep reading, it's clear that the word is Jesus.

He's with God. Who is God? Who is God in this? If the word was with God, who's the title God referring to?

Not Jesus yet. It's referring to the Father. It's really important. He says, when the word was with God, it means a Father.

But then it says the word was God, was Jesus the Father? No. Jesus is not the Father. Now here's right away.

I want to get too lost in this. But right away, this is where early Christians go. OK, wait a minute. We believe there's one God.

There's not multiple gods. This is Deuteronomy 6, 4, the Shama, the Lord, our God, is one, which Jesus repeats and marks to what marked well. The Lord, our God, is one. But then the Father's properly called God.

And the word is properly called God. But the Father is not the word. How do I know from this passage that Jesus is not the Father? How do I know that?

Somebody tell me. What does it say? Because he's with God. So Jesus is God, but he's with God.

So there seems to be some sense where both Jesus and the Father are divine, but they're together, so they're distinct. How do we make sense of this? Well, we'll come back to that. But realize the Bible starts with about as high of a Christology as you can get, so we don't miss it.

Now, oftentimes in the New Testament, to make it clear that Jesus is God, but is not the Father, can anybody tell me what term would be used for Jesus? OK, so Son of God, yes. But there is a term in Greek, karyos. They would call them the what?

Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. So Lord is a term that carries divine status when it's referred to Jesus not every time but most times. To make sure Jesus is distinct from the Father, who's often called God or the Father. But in this case in John 1, Theos is used, which is the Greek strong term for God.

There's about five to seven terms in the New Testament where Theos is used to describe Jesus. You see it in John 1, 18. You see it in Titus 2, 13, if I remember. John wants to make it very clear.

The way to understand Jesus is not the Father. He's sent by the Father. He's with the Father. The Father's God.

And Jesus is God. John starts there. OK? All right, let's keep going.

We'll read the prologue and then we'll stop. He says, in case we miss it, it says, He was with God in the beginning. And who's He? There's nothing fancy going on here.

Everything was created through Him. Now, there's other passages in the New Testament. Colossians 1, 16, Romans 4, 17 that says things that are visible and invisible. God created.

But right away, John is saying, all things were created through Him. All things were created through Him. And then to make sure we don't miss it. It says, apart from Him, not one thing was created that has been created.

John is a little bit repetitive to make sure we don't miss things. He was with God in the beginning. He was with Him. He made everything in case you missed it.

That means there's not one thing that was made that He didn't make. John, it's been very clear and very repetitive here. Then it says, in Him was life. And who was Him, by the way?

Jesus, good. In Him was life. And that life was the light of men or human beings. That light shines in the darkness.

And yet the darkness did not overcome it. And you might say a couple things about Him being the life. He is God's self-exists as a life. He's not dependent upon anything or anybody else.

Any life that we have is contingent from God giving it to us. God's self-exists and He is life. Now, how else does anybody know life is used in the gospel, John, besides like biological life? What other kind of life does He refer to?

OK, spiritual life. They don't really use that term. I don't even know what kind of life. Eternal life, good.

So eternal life, we can have eternal life because Jesus is the eternal one and in Him is life. OK? All right, let's keep going. So if we're going to sell them so far, what do we have?

In the beginning, meaning this Jesus didn't have a beginning. He's eternal. He was with God the Father, distinct from God the Father. He created everything.

And He's life itself and our life flows from Him. Pretty dramatic opening. In number six, it says there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. Now, which John is this, by the way?

Now we're talking about John the Baptist. OK, good. This is where it gets confused. There's five James.

There's at least a couple of John's. Maybe three. But now we're talking about John the Baptist here, good. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through Him.

He was not the light. He came to testify about the light, the true light that gives life to everyone was coming into the world. Now, a couple of things about this. It just said the true light who gives life to everyone was coming into the world.

Does that mean everybody is saved? This is a verse used by a universalist to say, he gives light to everybody. How would you respond to that? I'm curious.

He gives light to everyone. In the Greek, everyone means everyone. Anybody? OK, so you'd interpret life as common grace.

OK? That would be one way. He does give common grace to everybody. How else?

OK, I don't know how much the term eternal life would be used to refer to eternal damnation. Now, it does say, what is it in John 12, that some are raised to eternal life and some are raised to eternal death. So they still continue to exist biologically and consciously. But I don't think John would refer to that as life like eternal life.

So I'm not sure. That's a very creative way to approach it. I'm not sure that would get us out of the challenge. But other ways, go.

OK, now, note what's your name? Robert, no Sir Robert just did. I asked a question. I stopped.

And what did he do? He kept reading. That's the single best thing you can do. Now, one of my friends and mentors, you might know the name Greg CoCo with standard reason.

He has a great talk. And he calls it never read a Bible verse. And I love it. His point is that we shouldn't read a Bible verse, but his point is that we shouldn't read a Bible verse what?

Exactly, divorced from its context. You can make the Bible say almost anything if you take a passage out of its context and its genre. So the first thing when I don't know what passage means is I look at what it says before and look at what it says after. So if you're to just take this verse and refer to Jesus as light, who gives life to everybody, you can make a case for universalism.

But if you just keep reading in the entire book of John, not to mention the very few verses, it's very, very, very clear that those who do not believe in him do not have eternal life. John 3 16, perhaps the most famous verse of all time, but John 3 18 is actually, in many ways, more powerful, where he makes it clear who those who believe in him are not condemned. But those who do not believe are already condemned, because they do not believe in the one and only son of God. So here's what we can conclude.

Whatever it means that he gives light to everyone, it doesn't mean that he gives salvation to everybody. Just read the rest of the Gospel of John. So maybe it means he's given people a light to draw people in. Maybe it's common grace.

Maybe they can see the goodness of him, but it's not salvation. I think that's pretty clear. Good answer, Robert. Did you go to Biola?

You had a chance to just lie on that one. I'd give you a pass. All right. Okay, one other thing from this that's really important.

Right away we're introduced to a theme in the Gospel of John, which is what it means to witness and testify about who Jesus is. If you read through John, I think you'll see that it's like a drumbeat through the entire book. Almost every story it's asking a question, is this person a good witness? Does this person testify to the truth?

So we get to John chapter five when he heals the paralytic, who's paralyzed 38 years. He's an example of somebody who does not testify and witness correctly. He goes and tells on Jesus to the authorities. And then he gets a blind man in John nine, and he's bold and clear and stands up to him.

He gets to the Samaritan woman in John chapter four. She goes back and tells everybody, I met someone who knew everything that I did. And she's like leading people to the Lord. He testifies.

But then you have people like Nicodemus and Joseph Arimathea, who are kind of secret disciples. They believe in Jesus, they're drawn to him, but they're not quite ready to go public yet. They're counting the cost of what it might cost to them to follow him and witness and testify. In fact, the blind man's parents do this.

And they come to him and they're like, is this your son? They're saying yes, because if they said yes and know that they could have got kicked out of the synagogue, they're like he's old enough, ask him. So throughout John is this comparison and contrast about the whole gospel, is what does it mean to testify about who Jesus is? Who is a good and faithful witness and who is not?

And we start with John right away, John the Baptist, as somebody who's an amazing example of testifying this. So that's where we see right away. John says again, he was sent from God, his name was John, and he came as a witness to testify about the light. So all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. Okay, verse 10. He was in the world, who was he, by the way?

Jesus, okay, good. He was in the world and the world was created through him. And yet the world did not recognize him. I just pause on that for a second and let that sink in.

Here's Jesus, this word, by the way, he hasn't been called Jesus yet. Here's this figure called the word, word, and he spoke reality into existence. He is the one through who created what? Everything.

Everything. Give us breath, give us life, give us bodies, give us strawberries, you name it. Whatever it is, all of it comes from him. And the one who made the world is in the world.

And yet those who he made do not recognize him. There's such an irony and profound twist here that's like, wait a minute. You're the one who made us and we don't recognize you or give you credit for making us. This is unique to the Christian story, by the way.

There's no other faith, period. This says the creator steps down, takes on human flesh and enters into the story and we still don't even recognize him. This is utterly unique to Christianity. Now before we stop again, he keeps going.

And then it says, uh, where are we here? What verse are we on? Like I said, 11. All right, here we go.

He came to his own and who's his own? Who's his own? Okay, so it's the first reference we have to his own. I do want the back of your mind to notice because one of the biggest apologetic questions I now asked that I did not five years ago was how should a Christian think about Israel?

I get asked this question all the time. I probably got asked that question five in the first 25 years I have to read the ministry. Now it's almost every time I speak. I'm not going to answer that explicitly, but many would say that Jesus and the Christian message is anti-Semitic.

I want you to ask the question, how are the Jewish people portrayed in the Gospel of John? Positively, negatively, are they demonized? Here's the first reference we have that says what? It says he came to his own.

His first mission was to his own, which means Jesus is what? Jewish. By the way, what was John the Baptist? Jewish.

Okay, all right, so he came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name who were born not of natural descent or the will of flesh or the will of man but of God. Now we get to the question Robert, you raised earlier when I said is the light means salvation is like read three verses later and it says what specifically? It says for all who did receive him, he gave the right to be children of God, which means if you don't receive him, what do you not?

You're not a child of God. Now that might sound unkind, that might sound, I don't know how that lands, but that's just a fact and this is what Gospel John says and Jesus affirmed it. You guys can pray for anything about it. In October, I'm doing this, I don't know, this good sized YouTube channel where it's me versus 10 Mormons.

I was like, that'll be fun. I'll do that. Why not? Like people watch this stuff, they engage, I'm studying, I'm practicing, I've been reading a lot of LDS theology.

And we'll go back and forth. And so I've been reading a lot of Latter-day Saint theology. And one of the ideas at their core is that we are all children of God. Now one, if you said children of God mean God is the source of everything and then we just saw that God created everything the Father through Jesus, then in a sense we're children of God in the sense that we are creations of God.

But Jesus makes it clear that we are only children of God by believing in him. That's why in John chapter nine or John chapter eight, he calls the Pharisees and religious leaders, sons of what? He calls them sons of the devil. Your father is the devil.

So we are not all children of God. We are adopted in to the kingdom of God by belief. What's powerful here is the message was first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. But friends, we are not all children of God.

Jesus did not teach that. He didn't teach that. He said we are adopted in the kingdom by belief. Okay, let's keep going.

Verse 13, verse 14. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. What does this mean?

In a sense what it means is the word who is Jesus tabernacled with us. Why use that word tabernacle? What do we refer to? The Old Testament.

God has his chosen people. How does he appear? Do the covenant with Moses? They built the tabernacle.

Although God exists everywhere he is omnipresent, there is a sense where he would manifest his presence most powerfully and you might say locally within the temple and within the tabernacle. What this is telling us is that that was a type, preparing and anticipating that not that God would just come down in the temple or tabernacle, but that God would come down in a human being in his body and this word would take on flesh. What do we call this in theology, the what? The incarnation.

By the way, what does carne mean? It means meat. That's actually what it means. It's incarnated, it takes on meat.

Which by the way, I don't want to go too far down this. When people say salvation is leaving the physical realm because the physical realm is bad and corrupted and going to this spiritual realm above, that is a platonic idea and it is not a biblical idea. Randy Alcorn said this is one of the key myths that people have about understanding heaven. I think we leave this physical limited body behind and we go spiritually in some immature realm to be in God's presence.

That is platonism. That's Gnosticism. Here, why should we not believe that? First of all, God made each day and said each day is what?

It's good. Now, what do we see here? The highest value for the physical is what? That Jesus takes on flesh.

He actually takes on flesh. This one who is with God and who was God somehow takes on flesh and we don't recognize him. Now, for some reason before this, I was trying to get the show and it was on Netflix, the Korean show, super violent about squid games. All right, I watched it.

How have you seen squid games? All right. This is definitely not endorsement. It is a violent show.

But in the second episode, the second season, the creator of squid games goes undercover as a participant in the game. So I was watching, I was like, how interesting is this? Now, these games are violent and it's not like a good creation. It's like a twisted messed up creation.

But in some ways, you have the creator of the game, enters into the game and the people who are in the game don't recognize him as the creator. Now, it turns out he's the bad guy and the good guy, I'm sorry, but you've had time and this is not endorsement. But the good hero at the very end, it's basically down to him and the child on this platform. And one of them can survive and get, I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars.

So he throws the baby off and kills the baby. Nobody would know. He survives with hundreds of millions of dollars. And he walks the edge of the platform, opens his arms out like a cross and falls off and lays down his life.

So this innocent child survives. I'm watching this going. There's kind of these biblical themes all over embedded within this, even though it's violent and it's not endorsement. We can't get away from it.

But that's, but here in the case of Jesus who created the world, he's in the world and the very beings who he made don't recognize him. I mean, the irony of that is profound. In other words, we don't recognize him with the eyes that God gave us. We don't recognize him with ears that God gave us.

We're missing the whole point of it. All right. We're never going to get this through if we keep going to this pace. All right.

The word came flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory. This is verse 14. The glory as the one and only son from the father.

Wow. We can be adopted as children of God. There's only one son of God. That's Jesus.

And he's referred to this multiple times. That's really important. We don't miss that. All right.

John testified concern him explain this was the one of whom I said the one coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me. Now, who's supposed to have higher rank? The older one is right now. Who's older in the biological realm?

Jesus or John the Baptist? John the Baptist is born first. He's quote the first born. So now we have this reference about what attribute about Jesus.

He existed before me. What does that tell us? Jesus is eternal. Excellent.

He is pre-existent. Now, by the way, we're going to come to this again, but it says this twice in John chapter one twice. John says this to make sure we don't miss it. Now, again, it's just fresh in my mind, but in LDS theology, you actually thought that God didn't and cannot create us in LDS theology.

We are eternal intelligences that were not created and we have an element of matter tied to us. In LDS theology, God reforms existing matter, which you actually see in pagan religions, rather than speaking matter into existence. I think we see in John by also saying Genesis chapter one, but all of us in LDS theology pre-existed. Friends, that is nowhere in the scriptures.

That is nowhere in the Bible. I mean, John actually couldn't make this argument. He couldn't say he pre-existed me. If they're both eternal, which LDS theology teaches, there would be no rank and authority here.

You'll see this over and over again by time. We probably won't get there at this rate. We definitely won't get there. John chapter eight, when Jesus is reasoning with the Pharisees, and what does he say?

He says, before Abraham is born, what? I am, which is a reference to Exodus three. So right here, John is saying he existed before me. He's telling us Jesus is the pre-existent one.

He did not have a beginning. Okay? Let's keep going on with John's house. All right.

Indeed, we've all received grace upon grace from his fullness. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Now, this verse is the second verse where Theos is used for Jesus.

I think John is trying to make it as clear as possible. We don't miss or we don't think Jesus is a lesser God. He's a sub-god. We don't know Jesus is a fully divine being.

It says, no one has ever seen God. What's this? No one has seen God. What's he talking about?

No one has seen what? The Father. Robert, you're two for two, man. Good job.

No one has seen the Father. The one and only Son who is himself, Theos. But he is at the Father's side. So again, no one has seen the Father who he calls God, but the Son is at the Father's side.

So he's not identical to the Father, but he's done what? It says he has revealed him. But guess what? Nobody recognizes who Jesus is.

That's the irony. So bottom line, let me stop and see what questions have before we keep going. If you want to know what God is like, says nobody's seen God, where do we look? We look at the person of Jesus.

That's the best way to understand the character of God. He is God who has tabernacled amongst us. He's fully God. He has taken on human flesh and reveals God the Father to us.

Now, let me stop. Questions, thoughts, clarifications, challenges before we keep going. Take a breath. This is like fast forward speed theology class.

But any questions, any clarification, anything I skipped over? It'd be helpful for me to comment on here from John 1. Yes, please. I did not finish my thoughts.

And I intentionally didn't finish my thought because I wanted to plant the idea in your mind to ask and see through the gospel of John how the different, how Jews are presented. Are they presented univocally as the villains and the bad guy? Or is there a more complex picture of how we should think about the Jewish people and God's to understand the vision? I'm not talking about the modern state of Israel.

That's a whole separate question. I'm saying is John and the gospel and the Christian message anti-Semitic. Now, so far on that question, what do we see? We see that Jesus is Jewish.

We see John the Baptist is Jewish. We see this message couched deeply in Jewish language. It starts with the Genesis account, which was the scripture for Jewish people. And he first came to his own people who were the Jews.

Now it says they didn't believe, but I had about a year ago a debate with a friend of mine who's an Orthodox Jew. And they have no problem saying we reject Jesus and don't believe. So that's not anti-Semitic whatsoever. But I was more doing teacher mode on you, planting in that idea, not quite giving you the answer yet to anticipate it and read that in the back of your mind.

Does that make sense? Now, if I don't sufficiently give you my two cents by Thursday night, I'll tell you exactly what I think. But I'm asking certain leading questions because just like Jesus in the incarnation, he grows and develops. We also see certain things growing and developing through John as we're getting more and more revealed to us about exactly who Jesus is, exactly what he accomplished.

That's going to come through time. Does that make sense? Good. Excellent question.

Any others on this before we keep going, John 1? Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting question. I did read a couple of commentaries on this.

And there's a difference. There's debate about how much people are trying to say this is a sharp contrast between the law, what it revealed, and then with Jesus we have grace and truth. And more a difference in emphasis. I think it's probably more a difference in emphasis because in the Old Testament we have obviously truth.

We clearly have grace coming through in the Old Testament. You see it all the time. I can give examples of it. But it's not really until we have this incarnation where we see it in the flesh and can get it in the depth and nuance and understanding that we have in Jesus.

So I think those things are present and they're anticipated in the Old Testament, both truth and grace, but now that God himself takes on human flesh, we can see the fullness of these in his life and character in a way that was maybe hinted at in the Old Testament. That's my best sense of what I think John is saying here. That's a great question. Anybody else here in John?

Yeah. What will be considered authoritative? Well, there are differences between LDS and traditional Christians, evangelicals on authority. That's for sure.

So they accept a living prophet who in many ways according to some of their writings and prophets in the past, Trump scripture. So they have a living prophet. I do not accept their living prophet. They also have additional scriptures.

They have a quad. So they'll use the King James version of the Bible. And then they'll have the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. And the only one that I'm aware of they'll say was not translated correctly in the Bible.

So the other three scriptures they have will also be considered authoritative over against the Bible. What I'm going to say is you have the Bible in your quad. You consider it scriptures. And I think the Bible is pretty clear like in Acts chapter 17 that we should only accept new revelation if we compare it to the scriptures and it lines up.

So there's things in your teaching that directly contradict and go against what scripture teaches. I think it's out of bounds and it's false. That's a direction I'm going to go with it. But I got a little more time to prep.

So, but you're right. It's a really interesting question. All of us have some authority in our life. Maybe it's the Bible.

Maybe it's your self. Maybe it's your feelings. Maybe it's science. We all have some authority that we look to.

It's not possible not to. Gee, his authority was the scripture. He refers to scriptures as unbroken and being true and being reliable multiple times. All right.

Let's keep going so we can make a little bit of more progress here. All right. Verse 19. This was John's testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and the advice asked him.

He said, I'm not. He didn't deny it but confess I am not the Messiah. Now, what you'll see very quickly in John chapter one is Andrew is the first one to say Jesus is Messiah, but John's like I'm not the Messiah. Very clear.

What then they asked, are you Elijah? He said, I'm not. Are you the prophet? Now, do you know which prophet they're referring to?

Anybody know? Prophet after Moses in Dude Rani chapter 18, we're told a prophet who is greater who would come. That's what they mean by the prophet here. Okay.

And I think Jesus was greater. Obviously than Moses. We'll get to that. No, he answered.

Who are you then? They asked, we need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself? Now, this verse 23, he said, John the Baptist, I have a voice of one crying out in the wilderness.

Make straight the way of the Lord. Just as Isaiah the prophet said. Anybody know what passage that's from? That is from Isaiah what?

40 verse three. All four gospels cite that exact verse. Mark Matthew Luke and John. All cite that verse.

Now, don't miss what's going on here. I think there are so many claims to the deviant in John if we'll just see it. So they're coming to John the Baptist and they go, who are you? Are you Messiah?

Nope. Are you Elijah? Nope. Are you the prophet?

He goes, no. He goes, many sites, Isaiah 40 verse three, which says, I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord. Now, in Isaiah 40, who's the Lord?

Say it. Who's the Lord? Okay. Yes, it's Jesus and Isaiah 40 verse three.

They wouldn't have given the name Jesus. What's the name in Isaiah 40 verse three? It's Yahweh. So how significant is this?

In Isaiah, seven centuries before Christ, one would cry out in the wilderness to prepare the way for the coming of Yahweh. John the Baptist goes, yeah, I'm not guy. I'm the one in the wilderness preparing the way for who? Yahweh.

What's he saying about Jesus? Jesus is Yahweh. He's the God of the Old Testament. Matthew, Mark and Luke all cite the same passage.

That's a pretty high Christology of what John is testifying about Jesus. Now, they've been sent from the Pharisees to the Estim. Why didn't you baptize if you weren't the Messiah or Elijah or the prophet? So clearly they didn't really get what he was saying yet.

I baptize with water. John answered them. Someone stands among you, but you don't know him. By the way, I just noticed reading this morning how much water shows up in the Gospel of John.

Almost every single chapter it shows up. Why? We'll get to it. See, these are my hooks to keep you coming back.

That's all I'm trying to do. Where was I? What verse was I? 26.

I baptize with water John answered. Someone stands among you, but you don't know him again. What is he saying? This isn't just someone who stands among you.

By the way, it's Yahweh who was with God in the beginning who crated all things, who took on human flesh, he stands among you and you don't know him. Hello, McFly. Then he says, all this happened in Beth and you crossed the Jordan where John was baptizing. We've got time to do a little bit more.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now why did he, again, he says this how many times in John 1? Twice. He calls Jesus the Lamb of God twice.

When things are repeated, it's important. When things are repeated, it's important. When things are repeated, all right, I'll stop you at the point. He calls on the Lamb of God twice.

This is a reference to. What's this a reference to? Okay, yes, sacrifice is generally speaking, but more specifically, what story? The Passover exit is chapter 12 where the spotless Lamb was, and the blood was put in the door post, the angel Lord would pass over and protect those.

So when he sees Jesus coming, John the Baptist says, here comes the Lamb of God. He calls on that out. And we're going to see it happen twice. Who takes away the sin of the world.

You see, in the Old Testament, all of Isaiah, my wife and I have been studying Isaiah, starting in Isaiah chapter 4, you have a reference that a day will come when sin will permanently be removed. So the Old Testament is anticipating sin, sacrifice, sin, sacrifice. Who is anticipating a day, you see this in Jeremiah 31 as well in the New Covenant, when sin would be taken away. And John goes, here's the Lamb of the Lord who takes away what?

The sin of the world. Okay? All right, this is the one I told you about. After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.

Has he said this before? Yes. What's John doing? Making sure we don't miss it.

Hello, if you missed it reading or listening in that day, he existed before me. He existed before me. I didn't know him, but I came baptizing with water. So you might be revealed to Israel back to your question, first to the nation of Israel.

And John testified, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and he rests on him. I didn't know him, but he was sending to baptize with water, told me the one you see the Spirit is sending resting on. He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Now when did the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove?

At what? At the baptism of Jesus and also the transfiguration, by the way. But at the baptism of Jesus this happened. Now before we can do a little bit more here in John chapter 1, tell me everything we know from the first half of John chapter 1 about this person Jesus.

What do we know about? What are all, if we were to make a list and write it out, what does John tell us, and I mean John the gospel writer about this person, the word in Jesus. Give me all details. What does he say?

One at a time, just so we can have some, some one sub order here. Pre-existent and we're told that twice. John says that. He's pre-existent.

He is the creator of everything. Or at least the way it's word is the Father creates through him. Everything. Nothing was created he didn't make.

So pre-existing creator, what else? He was with the Father before creation. So there's some unique tight dynamic and relationship going on here. Good.

What else? He's Deos twice. This is used one one and one 18. That's a strong of a term for the deity of Jesus as you could find.

Good. What else? His mission is he's not a social justice warrior. Because there's a new Jesus we've heard recently that Jesus exists to fight social justice.

Now, Jesus cares about the poor. Jesus cares about the marginalized. Don't miss hear me on this. But the reason he came is what?

To take away the sin of the world so we can be reconciled to God. Excellent. What else do we know in John one about him? He's the light.

Okay. So he's the light. He's pre-existent. He's the creator.

He came to take away sins. Has an intimate relationship with Father. What else? Excellent.