Today we remember St John, who wrote with such beauty and
clarity about Jesus. John’s Gospel is
known as the one with the highest Christology, the one which sets out to
elevate Jesus the highest. I would
encourage you to read also today the first 18 verses of John’s Gospel in light
of the lesson from Proverbs.
This passage has always been interpreted as referring to
wisdom. We know that Jesus is the wisdom
of God. In I Corinthians 1 Paul refers
to Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God. He writes that Jesus has become to us wisdom
from God. Paul tells the Corinthians
that Jesus is greater than the wisdom of this age, and the folly of God is
greater than the wisdom of men. The
writer of Proverbs tells us why that is, wisdom, Christ Jesus, existed before
all things came into being. There was
never a time when wisdom, personified in Jesus, didn’t exist so He knows all
things including the reason for all things.
Because of this, we can trust His wisdom like none other. We can get no greater wisdom because nothing
else can know as far back as Jesus. His
wisdom knows no limits while all else is necessarily limited.
The passage begins with a logical statement. If you receive the one I send then you
receive me, and if you receive me you
receive the one I send. There are only
two ways that can be true. First, the
one sent and the one sending can be one and the same. Second, the one sending has the authority of
the sender and speaks completely truthfully for the sender, in other words, he
is a perfect representative. We believe
the first explanation concerning Jesus, that He and the Father are one, just as
He claimed to be. In this passage we see
John receiving revelation concerning the betrayer and then we hear the teaching
with John is most closely associated, love one another. Because John knew Jesus so intimately,
believed in that oneness of being with the Father, John majored in this command
of Jesus in his Gospel and in the epistles he wrote. He saw Jesus as the wisdom of God but also
perhaps more importantly, the love of God.
We need both to have a balance picture.
Joy to the world, the
Lord is come!
Let earth receive her
King;
Let every heart
prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature
sing,
And Heaven and nature
sing,
And Heaven, and
Heaven, and nature sing.
Joy to the earth, the
Savior reigns!
Let men their songs
employ;
While fields and
floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding
joy,
Repeat the sounding
joy,
Repeat, repeat, the
sounding joy.
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