To the Manner Born

 

Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.  And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight.  --Malachi 3:1 (NKJV)

The phrase “to the manner born” is an idiomatic expression that has its roots in the works of William Shakespeare, one of the most influential playwrights and poets in the English language. This phrase is often used to describe someone who is naturally suited to a particular lifestyle or role, suggesting that they possess an innate ability or inclination that aligns perfectly with their environment or circumstances.  Over the centuries, “to the manner born” has been adopted into everyday language, often used to describe individuals who seem to excel in their roles or professions without apparent effort. For example, a person who is a natural leader may be described as being “to the manner born” for their ability to inspire and guide others. Similarly, an artist who effortlessly creates beautiful works may also be referred to in this way, highlighting their innate, God given talent.

I thought of this phrase when I read our passage for today, found in John 1:6-13.  Let's read it together.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  This man came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, that all might believe through him.  He was not the Light, but came to bear witness about the Light.  The true Light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.  But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

We are introduced first to a man called John the Baptizer.  We may know him better by the name John the Baptist.  He was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who was herself a cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Like Jesus, John's birth was announced by an angel (see Luke 1:11).  Like Jesus, John was sent by God, as we read in John 1:6.  Like Jesus, John spoke truth to power.  Unlike Jesus, however, John was not the Light of the World.  That Name belongs to Jesus only.

John was sent by God to be a witness.  His identity could very well be "John the Witness" as easily as "John the Baptist."  He was sent by God to be a witness, "so that all might believe through him."  There is, I am sure, some debate among theologians and Bible scholars as to specifically whom the "him" refers to in verse 7.  We know from other scriptures that Jesus' message was that all who believed in Him might be saved.  However, in this instance I believe it was the Gospel writer's intent to assign the job to John to be a witness to all, so that all might believe through John's witness that Jesus was the Messiah.  

One of the things I like about the New King James Version of the Bible is that they do not follow the Associated Press Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style or even the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.  None of these style guides allow capitalization when referring to God.  The NKJV Bible, however, does capitalize all references to God.  Whenever you see the capital H "Him" in the NKJV, you know it is speaking of Jesus or God.  In John 1:7, however, there is a lower case "h" in the phrase "that all might believe through him."  That is, through John the Baptist.  

That's a big job, being the one person whose message was for all to believe in Jesus.  You may be the only person in your family who believes in Jesus.  You may be the only believer in your place of business.  You may even be the only person in your city or entire country who believes in Jesus.  What should your primary focus be?  Your only job is to to a witness to the Light, so that all might believe through you.  Think about that.

Think about this, too:  The Greek word for "witness" is μαρτυρία or martyria, where we get the English word "martyr."  John's task was to be a witness to the world, to speak truth to power, and it ultimately got him killed.  Are you willing to go that far?  Are you willing to put it all on the line for Jesus?

George MacDonald, a Scottish, poet, and Christian minister, once said, "I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of.  For to have been thought about--born in God's thoughts--and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all thinking."

The second person spoken of in our passage is Jesus.  As beautifully as the Gospel writer presented this passage, we are again met with that pesky pronoun "he."  In verse 10, the antecedent of the word "he" was John.  This is usually the way to interpret context, and I'm sure all the style manuals would agree.  However, John the Gospel writer follows the word "He" with "was the true Light."  We already know from this passage that John the Baptist was not that Light, so this "He" must refer to Jesus.

He, Jesus, came into the world that He had created, to the people of the nation of Israel, whom God had specifically chosen among all the nations on Earth.  Did these people accept Him as Lord?  No, they did not.  "He came into His own, but His own people did not receive Him." But, the Gospel writer says, whoever does receive Him into their lives as Lord and Savior, those people will be given the right to be called Sons of God.

To what manner was Jesus born?  How about John the Baptizer/Witness/Martyr?  Neither of them very well received by the religious leaders of the day.  Jesus commented on this in Luke 7:33-34 when He said, "For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.'  The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look at Him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'"  Yet throughout the New Testament we see Jesus speaking to people of various socio-economic backgrounds, education levels, and religious traditions.  He spoke kind words to women, which was almost unheard of in that day and time.

The Apostle Paul modeled his ministry after that of Jesus.  In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 he said,

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.  To the Jews I became a Jew, in order to win Jews.  To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.  I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

It takes a special person to be able to engage with rich and poor, male and female, religious and non-religious.  Paul did it.  John did it.  Jesus did it most of all.  In the same way, you and I are called to reach out world with the gospel.  We are called to bear witness to the Light, so that all we come in contact with will believe through our testimony.  God may call some of us to speak truth to power.  He may even call some of us to die for the sake of the Gospel.  If God calls us, then He will equip us.   

Jesus: the Word, His Works, Our Worship

It is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His presence to men.  --CS Lewis

 Whenever a new Christian, one who has never studied the Bible, asks where he should start in his personal devotions and daily Scripture reading, the most pastors would overwhelmingly tell them to begin with reading the Gospel of John.  If you start in Genesis with the Creation narrative (which is fine), you could get caught up in the history of the world through the fall of Adam, followed by the worldwide pervasiveness of sin, then the rise of Noah through whom God would continue the human race after the worldwide flood.  You would then be introduced to Abraham, the father of many nations but particularly of the nation of Israel, God's chosen people.  This would lead invariably to Moses, the Law giver and friend of God.  All of this history and epistemology is well and good, but it might be overwhelming to a new Christian, especially one who immediately wants to know more about Christ (and who may get bogged down by the time he gets to Leviticus and Deuteronomy).

In John's Gospel, we can see the story of Creation boiled down to its essence: "In the beginning, God."  We see man's sin and separation from God, putting us in a hopeless state until the work of Christ was complete in the Word of God, the Man Jesus Christ.  We can also see that Christ came not only to fulfill the Law, but to replace it with a law of love.  John 13:34-35 says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.  By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

In our brief study today we will see that John's Gospel also starts with creation, but also that God shone His light through the Word, who is Jesus. And we will see the work of God through the Word of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us for a purpose, to give life meaning.  John MacArthur said, "The purpose of John is to convince the sinner of the true person of Christ."  This leads us to our final point, that we must worship Christ as God.

The Word

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  --John 1:1-2

John uses a concept that was recognizable to his Hebrew readers as well as his Greek readers.  In his study guide to John's Gospel, David Guzik writes:

Jewish rabbis often referred to God (especially in His more personal aspects) in terms of His word. They spoke of God Himself as “the word of God.” For example, ancient Hebrew editions of the Old Testament change Exodus 19:17 (Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God) to “Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet the word of God.” In the mind of the ancient Jews, the phrase “the word of God” could be used to refer to God Himself.

So we see that John's choice of words can appeal to the Hebrew reader, who equates the concept of "the Word" with the concept of God.  In this same way, with the word-choice that John makes, he appeals to his Greek audience as well. In the Greek way of thinking, 

The Greek philosophers saw the logos as the power that puts sense into the world, making the world orderly instead of chaotic. The logos was the power that set the world in perfect order and kept it going in perfect order. They saw the logos as the “Ultimate Reason” that controlled all things. (David Guzik).

Commentator Matthew Henry says that the term Word is two-fold: it speaks both of intelligence and utterance, of ratio (where we get the English word "rational", speaking of knowledge) and of oratio (where we get the English term "oration", or the spoken word).  In this sense, we can see how John describes the first two persons of the Godhead.  God the Father is all knowing, rational, intelligent; but He did not keep this knowledge, this Wisdom to Himself.  God the Son is the Word, the idea of divinity brought out in the open for us to hear and understand.

When Moses asked who God was, God's response was, "I AM."  Here in the first verse of John's Gospel, we see that Jesus identified as God, as He is described in the past tense form, "HE WAS"--He was with God, He was God, and He was in the beginning with God.  There is no greater indicator of the deity of Christ.  In fact, we see this personification of Jesus as Word or Wisdom all the way back in the Old Testament.  Proverbs 3:19 says, "The Lord by Wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens."  I believe that this Wisdom expressed in Proverbs 3 is the same Word expressed in John 1.

The Work

"All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." --John 1:3-5

Jesus was at work through the creation of the world.  Psalm 33:6 says, "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth."  This means that God exists outside of space, time, and matter, since He existed before Creation.  If Christ was with God and is God, then He too is eternal.  1 Corinthians 8:6 says, "Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we are all things and through whom we exist."  So we see that Christ's work was manifest in creating us, and is made perfect in living through us.

Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world."  So we see that Christ's work was not limited to the creation of all things, but also through our "re-creation" by His calling us to repentance and sonship, so that we too are heirs of Christ, who is the heir of God.  Guzik writes, "The Word is the source of all life — not only biological life, but the very principle of life. The ancient Greek word translated life is zoe, which means 'the life principle,' not bios, which is mere biological life."

Matthew Henry's commentary says this:

The eternal Word, as God, shines in the darkness of natural conscience.  Though men by the fall are become darkness, yet that which may be known of God is manifested in them; see Romans 1:19-20.  The light of nature is this light shining in darkness.  Something of the power of the divine Word, both as creating and as commanding, all mankind have an innate sense of; were it not for this, earth would be a hell, a place of utter darkness.  Blessed be God, it is not so yet.

So we see that the work of Christ was evident in creation, is evident in salvation, and will be evident in the coming judgment.

The Worship

This, then, is our reasonable response.  We are to worship Christ as God.  We are to love Him with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strengths.  We are to acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior.  Romans 12:1 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." (NIV)

It is also our solemn duty to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the world.  Matthew 28:18-20 says, 

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

I want to go back to our original text in John 1:1-5 and read it from the Phillips paraphrase.  I think it sheds new light on the Word, the Work, and the Worship of Jesus.

At the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that Word, was with God, and was God, and He existed with God from the beginning. All creation took place through Him, and none took place without Him. In Him appeared life and this life was the light of mankind. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out.

We may not be able to fully comprehend Christ as the fullness of the Godhead bodily (see Colossians 2:9), but we have been given enough light to see that He is worthy of our praise.  DT Niles wrote that "evangelism is one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread."  From our study today, we see that it can also be described as one blind person who has been divinely able to perceive divine light in the darkness, showing another blind person the source of that Light.  We may not be able to fully comprehend it, but neither can we extinguish it from our hearts and our lives.