CORE

Bible Concepts
The Revelation of God in Jesus

BibleClass.com.au Teaching Series

Series: Core Bible Concepts
Part: #2
Main Scripture: John 1; John 17:3
Teacher: Dr Paul Iles
Date: 23.01.2013

Inline, direct scripture quotes are italicised. Block quotes are indented.
The New King James Version is used unless otherwise stated.
This transcript has undergone minor editing to ensure readability.

The MP3 audio of the study upon

which this transcript is based and
a learning guide are available from
http://bibleclass.com.au/

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Scripture Readings
John 17
3
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
You have sent.

John 1
1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He
was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

And the Word became 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. 15 John bore witness of Him and cried
out, saying, This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me,
for He was before me. 16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
14

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
18

Introduction: Knowing God

With these scriptures in mind, we continue our study of the revelation of God, which examines
the way in which God has made Himself known.
In this study we will look at two ways by which God has made Himself known. These are the two
major instruments that the Holy Spirit uses to bring the knowledge of God to a soul:
1. The knowledge of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the living word.
2. The knowledge of God through the scriptures. They are the written word.
In the last study we saw that God reveals Himself generally, to the whole world, and specifically,
to individuals. We saw that, generally, God has made Himself known in some detail through
creation, conscience, providence and history. Therefore, all men and women can know that He is
God.
We are now concerned with special or specific revelation. These are the means by which God
reveals Himself to the individual who has been awakened to their need of Him and therefore
seeks Him, with a desire to find Him and His forgiveness and reconciliation. This revelation is
personal.
The last study also revealed to us the first basic principle of knowing God in this way: We cannot
do it without His help. We will never arrive at a personal knowledge of Him by ourselves simply
because He is infinite whereas we are finite. He knows no boundaries whereas we have great
restraints, constraints and limitations. If we are tainted by sin in all our faculties, when we will
never understand or grasp Him who is perfect. Therefore, The world through wisdom did not
know God (1 Cor 1:21).
Mankind is shut up to God revealing Himself to us, and this is the very thing that He has done. He
has become knowable, and He has achieved that through these two methods.

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The Lord Jesus Christ

The Living Word
The reading in John chapter 1 describes the Word. He is eternal, with God and is God. He is also
the creator. He is also the true light who lightens every man. Here we have the source of two
great general revelations: creation and conscience. But there is something more: this Word was
made flesh. He became visible, seeable and knowable... And He was God.
When we talk about the Word becoming flesh, we are talking about the invisible God becoming
visible in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whilst we could not go to Him in all His perfection and
holiness, He has come to us.
The title given here in John 1, the Word (Logos in Greek), has wondrous implications. This is
Gods communication to man. I take words in order to communicate to you what my thoughts
are, and you can discern and understand me. The Lord Jesus Christ is Gods ultimate communication of Himself to humanity, so that mankind can really know Him.

The nature of His revelation

The Word has always been the communication or revelation of God to humanity. 1 Peter 1:11
tells us about the prophets and how that they spoke in the Old Testament. We are told that they
were searching what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify. It doesnt
say the Spirit of God (although that is the same spirit), but the emphasis in this context is that the
Holy Spirit was moving in those prophets, revealing Gods will, the coming of Christ and the plan
of redemption under the direction of the Word Himself - the Lord Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate
and eternal existence.
So, in the past, He was the Word directing the mouth of the prophets through His own spirit. In
the present it is still the Lord Jesus Christ who is the full revelation of God.
Hebrews 1
1
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son...

The context here is that it encompasses more than just the words the Lord spoke, but also the life
that He lived and all that He did. The literal translation is, Spoken to us in son.
...whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who
being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person...

We saw the brightness of Gods own glory in visible form when Jesus came. There was always a
light associated with Gods presence, as an effulgence of His power and holiness. That was shining
in the Word, in His moral perfection and all of who He was when He became flesh.
...and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our
sins...

God is communicating Himself in the actions of creation, providence and redemption. All this has
been revealed, and the way in which we learn of it is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Additionally, the specific, spoken words that God wanted to communicate to humanity did come
through the Lord Jesus:
Hebrews 2
3
how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him

To summarise, the Word always existed, and inspired the prophets in their time. Now He has
come to this earth and been made flesh, showing us something of the brightness of His glory. He
also demonstrated who and what He was in the words that He spoke.
In the future it does not change. Ultimately, God will reveal Himself in all His glory and perfection
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 19 tells us about the Lord coming forward as a rider on a
white horse, His garments dipped in the blood of His enemies, and notice this: His name is called
The Word of God (verse 13).
Those actions in the future involve His taking the whole of Gods plan of redemption into His
hand, bringing it to its final fruition in the casting out of Satan, the putting away of sin, the
destruction of the enemies of God, the deliverance of the redeemed into the fullness of their
redemption and the establishment of the righteousness of God through the new heavens and the
new earth. That is all given into the hands of the Word of God, the Lord Jesus in His exaltation.
John 1
18
...No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him.

The Lord Jesus is the ultimate and fullest revelation of God, for He was God. He became man and
He brought all of Gods glory, works, power and thoughts right down here amongst us.
Matthew 11
27
All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the
Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son
wills to reveal Him.

The meaning of, knows here is to fully comprehend. Nobody knows the mystery of the Lord in
incarnation and nobody knows the mystery of the fullness of God except themselves. But note
there is an exception: those to whom the Lord reveals Him.

And that is our central point: The Lord Jesus Christ reveals God to the soul. Not only that, but He
makes it quite clear that it is He and He alone who does it.
Immediately He then says:
28

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And it is absolutely true that no man or woman finds rest for their souls until they are brought
into a living, real relationship with God through the knowledge of Him, and that knowledge is the
result of His special and personal revelation to them.
When you are truly saved, there is a rest and a peace; something within, rejoicing that at last
you have found Him, you know Him and you belong to Him. Now you have an eternal, loving and
living relationship through Christ Himself.

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John 14
6
Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through Me.

Again it is clearly revealed to us that we will not find God, nor the knowledge of Him if we exclude
the Lord. That is why John 17:3 says that eternal life is to know both the true God and Jesus
Christ. The two go together, or else you would not have the personal knowledge of God at all.
9

...He who has seen Me has seen the Father...

God was expressing Himself, communicating Himself, revealing Himself through the Lord Jesus
Christ.
God worked through Jesus. He said Himself that the words He spoke we not His own, but that the
Father gave them to Him to speak. He testified to the fact that He did not do His own works, but
that the Father who dwelt within Him was doing them1.
Read Peters words:
Acts 2
22
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by
miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves
also know

Even those hallmarks of His divine power, the miracles, were not attributed directly to the
independent activity of the Lord, but rather it was God working through Him.

They that havent seen

This is all very well, but neither you or I have ever seen the Lord Jesus Christ. John was able to say,
We beheld His glory. But we cannot say the same thing in that sense. He goes further in his first
letter:
1 John 1
1
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.

John and the apostles were eyewitnesses. They had a supreme blessing in that respect. There is a
hymn that says:
We saw thee not when thou didst come
To this poor world of sin and death2
But we need not fear, because the Lord Himself said a very beautiful thing to Thomas:
John 20
29
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

The role of the scriptures

But the question remains: How does the revelation come to us if we cannot go and see Him? This
1
2

Refer John 14:9-10; 17:8.

Anne R. Richter, We Saw Thee Not.

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is where the scriptures come in: the Bible; the written word of God. Of the scriptures, Jesus said:
John 5
39
These are they which testify of Me.

And so we introduce the second means by which God reveals Himself throughout all time. The
first was the Lord Jesus Christ and the second is the scriptures. The whole of our faith is based
upon these two things. I say again: The whole of our faith is based upon these two things!
Take away any scripture and you lose something. Take Christ away and you have nothing.
1 Corinthians 3
11
For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

If He is not there as the foundation, then our faith cannot even get started. He spoke those divine
words and from them the apostles wrote, because they saw Him and heard Him. They built upon
the foundation that was laid to build it up by explaining it, bearing testimony to it and being
amongst those who witnessed Him in resurrection.
Putting all that together, we see that we have the complete record of the Lord Jesus Christ in the
scriptures.
If you want to know about Him, if you want His salvation, if you want to find God, if you want to
know the truth, if you want Gods personal revelation... Then read the Bible. You cannot see Him,
but you have the evidence written there from the apostles eyewitness and confirmation.
Hebrews 2
3
How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.

The next study will be entitled, Gods Word: the Bible and we shall expand upon this subject.

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