No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. – John 1:18

This final verse of the opening to the Gospel according to John is a true gem.

We have record of people like Moses seeing God in the Old Testament. When we look at John’s statement it seems like it contradicts the fact that some people have seen God. However, it is not a contradiction at all. What John is saying is that anytime someone has seen God they have been looking at Jesus!

Moreover, John is telling us that everything we need to know about God we can find in Jesus Christ. AND everything we need to know, Jesus declared. He kept nothing back from us!

What an amazing gift! The God of glory has given us such a clear picture of Himself…

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. – John 1:15-17

The greatest evidence of the new birth is the fact that, not only did some people recognize Jesus, they saw Him for Who He was, the Son of God! Because God loved them with an everlasting love, He drew them in the new birth (Jeremiah 31:3). God chose His children according to His sovereign mercy (Romans 9:15-16) and He sends His spirit into their hearts with the same irresistible power (John 3:7-8).

So, John is basically saying that we got a “free gift” as…

In my two previous posts, we learned something very important about the power of Jesus and the power of sin. We learned that Jesus is the source of all life for creation and mankind in particular. However, we also learned that sin has such a detrimental effect on man that he cannot even recognize God when He is walking among them. If God were to leave us in this state, we would be eternally miserable. But, thankfully He does not leave us powerless. We will see in these final verses of the opening of John’s gospel that it is by the power of Jesus Christ giving the children of God spiritual life that we are made able to comprehend and enjoy our Savior!

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were…

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. – John 1:5

Satan lies! He lies every time he speaks. He lies today, and in particular, he lied to Adam and Eve in the Garden. He told them that they would become like gods knowing good and evil. What he did not tell them is that sin would blind their ability to truly see and understand who God is.

John confirms this in his gospel when he reports that God came in the flesh to earth and the world did not know who He was. The natural man, because of sin, can no longer truly understand who God is and so men, looking with their natural eyes, saw Jesus as a just another poor man from Nazareth.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came…