Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And this is one of those episodes where if you didn't catch the one yesterday, you might want to go catch the one from yesterday because this is kind of a double episode. We're tackling a super important thing that we gotta tackle before we move forward in John. That is, we are comparing and contrasting John's prologue and John 1 right at the beginning, and what John is saying, or maybe what he's quoting Jesus is saying here in John chapter 3 on the back end of Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in verses 3, 16 through 21. This is if this is overwhelming you a little bit, don't worry about it. Just go catch yesterday's episode and then we'll get into it today. If you did catch yesterday's episode, then you will remember that I have got a very convoluted metaphor that I am very committed to about sailing the seven metaphorical seas and getting blown off course into this metaphorical, awful bay that's full of trash and muck and filth and everything's gross and smelly in there, and it's all representative of this big, cluttered up ignorance-fest conversation, groping around for truth that's happening there. Then what we're thinking through is like, who would be the one being that would be positioned to step into this murky, mucky conversation where nobody really knows what they're talking about, but everybody's very confident and loud? Who would be the one who could bring clarity to that? And the answer that we get from the New Testament is well, Jesus, who made everything and who has for all of eternity, beyond even our conception of time, been in the presence of God, is God Himself, and now is God in the flesh, stepping down into the muck of this conversation. So there we go. I'm gonna have my close personal friend Jeffrey Foote play some music, and then we're gonna pick up right where we left off. The word became flesh. He made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. This is not someone who was born in mucked up bay. This is someone who is not even just an outsider from the next town, but this is one who sees the whole thing. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses sort of saw he is a better witness, but Jesus Christ, he is the knower of things, he is the seer, he is the one who is in the right position to have this perspective. No one has ever seen God, but God, the one and only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. Jesus is God. Jesus has the 10 billion foot view, not just one time. Like I went to the space station for a little while and I could see that the world is a sphere for a little while. No, no, no. Here we're talking about something even better. Jesus made the sphere. He made everything. Nothing has been made that wasn't made through him. He didn't see it for a few minutes. He's seen it the whole time. He conceived of it outside of time before time as we know it began. He understands the singular truth of God because he is God and God in the flesh making his dwelling among us. So then we get to the conversation we've been looking at in John 3 between Nicodemus and Jesus. And Nicodemus, he only knows the conversational dance steps of talking to somebody else at the dockside bar in mucked up Confusion Bay. And he's one of the more enlightened conversationalists at that bar, but the stench of turd wafting in from the bay is in his nostrils, too. He's never seen this thing from the 10 billion foot view, even once, let alone from time immemorial. So Nicodemus is in darkness. He's a perfect example of who is in darkness and a man who Jesus did not trust. That's what we get at the end of two. But Jesus is willing to talk to him. This is the light coming into the darkness, illustrated, illuminated, right here, right into mucked up confusion stench bay. And Jesus keeps saying truth to Nicodemus, but Nicodemus does not have eyes to see it yet. And in Jesus' third set of remarks in this conversation, he harkens right back to what John gives us in John chapter 1, that Jesus is from outside mucked up confusion stench bay. He is not one more participant in the theological melee and hubbub. He is the only one in the conversation who has a perspective to see this from outside an earthly perspective. Jesus says, I've spoken to you of earthly things and you don't believe. Like I'm talking to you about things that are in your own mucked up conversational bay, and you're not getting it. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? Things that implicitly he seems to be saying, Nicodemus, you you can't even picture right now. You're so in the muck. Jesus continues, and this is like a giant payoff for what we're talking about right now. No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man. If you're having a conversation with the flat earthers in Flat Earth Bay in a corner of the internet, and there's one person in the room who's been to space and seen the sphere, the marble of earth in the heavens, sitting there suspended, and has seen it rotate and revolve, that person is the one who has the authority to empirically say, This is true. You all can say all the words you want. You can make a mockery of logic all you want. You can insult me in all the ways you want. I've seen it for an extended period of time. I have empirical verification that this is how it is. But how much more so is Jesus being in mucked-up theology bay saying, I'm the one who has seen all of this from all of time. Everything that was made is made through me. How much even more authoritative is that? This is not just one more contribution to the theological set of discussions and ideas. This is the end game. This is the coup de gras. This is the final word on the situation. There is no other opinion needed because this isn't an opinion. This is religious fact. This is fact fact. This is truth with a capital T. Jesus says in verse 13, no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man. And then Jesus goes back to an earthly example, something Nicodemus might recognize from mucked up bay. For Nicodemus' own benefit of understanding, Jesus says, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. And then from there, maybe Jesus continues here, as we discussed, I think it's more likely this is John commenting in follow-up to what he said in the prologue back in John 1. He says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. He didn't come to mucked up bay to just say, Yeah, this is very bad here. Okay, Tootles, he came to solve it. He came to lift people out of the muck because they're not in a position to do so, only he is. Whoever believes in him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he's not believed in the name of God's one and only son. Yeah, but we talk about a lot of theology here in Muckdub Bay. No, the only way out is the one who has seen this from the ten billion foot view. This is the verdict. This is so important for what we're talking about these two days right here. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. They liked the muck. They liked the bay. They liked the smell of the turd. Why am I saying they? We like the muck. We like the bay. We like the smell of the turd. We like grappling back and forth with ideas and seeing if we can get over on somebody else that makes us feel like we know smart secret things and we won the thing. But no matter what we do, we're still in mucked up bay, and we lack the perspective to see the thing without the light of one from far beyond mucked up bay coming in to provide us with this clarity. Who is it? Well, it's the same language that we get in John 3 that we get back here in John 1. It's the light of the world. Who comes into the world? The darkness doesn't understand it. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Verse 110, he was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Flip back over to John chapter 3. Okay, so the light comes into the world, but men love darkness. Instead of that, verse 20 here in John 3 continues: Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. Again, and in conclusion, the central thought here is that Jesus is not one very enlightened contributor to the conversation. Jesus is not an opinion bringer. Jesus is God, the maker and sustainer of all things, stepping down into the mess and speaking with an authority that is foreign to everyone else. And people recognize it, they don't know what to do with it, even after the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7. Everybody's in awe because he speaks as one who has actual authority, not as their teachers of the law, like Nicodemus. Why does he have this authority? Because he's from somewhere else, and he's stepping down into the mess to bring clarity and to provide a way out of mucked-up bay, which in this extended illustration apparently has some sort of extended hurricane at the mouth of the bay that prevents anybody leaving, a hurricane of sin and the weakness of the flesh that prevents anybody from escaping it on their own. Clarity, truth, light, and life, it's all from God. And John is showing how it is delivered in explicit terms right here in Jesus of Nazareth, who is God dwelling among us, tabernacling among us, and revealing light and truth in our mess and in our muck, and bringing life to all who believe in his name. John the Evangelist's prologue in John 1, and John the Evangelist's either quote of Jesus or commentary on Jesus' remarks here at the end of the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 parallel so tightly to paint a picture of the uniqueness of Christ in the midst of the inescapable turmoil and muck of the situation we find ourselves in. It's beautifully symmetrical, crystal clear, and given infinite strength of argument by the claim that Jesus is not one more contributor to the conversation, but rather God Himself speaking authoritative truth down into the mucked up opinion fest that has been the conversation to date. That's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.