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  • A Witness through John – King of the Darkness

    A Witness through John – King of the Darkness

    And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 9:11

    Light from Darkness

    What do you believe about light and darkness, about good and evil, about God and the opponents of the LORD?

    John begins his gospel much like Genesis with contrasts between light and darkness and introduces evidence of the presence of Christ and the Spirit of God.

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… 

    That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

    John 1:1,5 CSB

    John compares Jesus to light, God’s answer to formlessness and darkness. Moses illustrates darkness in the beginning (Genesis) as chaos prior to God’s intervention by creation. 

    Genesis 1:

    2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

    And the Spirit of God moved like the wind over the gathering wave of a deep unending sea.

    And God saw that it was good.

    Light and darkness, good and evil, God’s plan and chaos: always separated. The Apostle John makes this separation very clear to the church as he writes in his third letter:

    3 John 1:11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

    Choose Light or descend  into darkness?

    We like the Apostle John because he points us toward Christ’s love for the world. His gospel emphasizes Jesus’ love with little mention of the devil.

    Some christians and others of this twenty-first century doubt the existence of the devil or question the influence, if any, of Satan and demons. We think we know these influencers of evil from other books of the Bible and tend to dismiss demons and devils.

    John’s gospel is all about the Light.

    John 1:9 The true light that gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

    Yet Jesus cautions us, pointing to contrasts between light and darkness, good and evil, and yes, between following Him or the prince of darkness.

    Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

    “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness.

    John 8:12 & John 12:46

    These warnings against darkness from the Son of God ought to be enough, yet the prince of the world would tempt us to worldliness.

    These warnings from John’s gospel do not differ from those of the Prophets.

    Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
    What will the day of the LORD be for you?
    It will be darkness and not light.

    Amos 5:15 CSB

    Revelation – ἀποκάλυψις apokalypsis

    When we think of young John, the loving faithful follower of Jesus, we forget that he lived a long life as the only surviving Apostle. Rome finally banished John to Patmos where he received a terrifying apocalypse from the risen Christ.

    Orazio Fidani, Saint John the Apostle, c. 1640-56

    God judges the world; that is, those of the world who have turned away from the only Savior, our Lord.

    Do you fear the uncertainty of darkness?

    Consider the uncertainty of death!

    Should God punish sin?

    Dare you consider the darkness of death, experienced by your soul?

    Judgement of the World

    “Go and pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

    Revelation 16:1
    Last Judgment painted by Michaelango on ceiling of Sistine chapel
    Last Judgement – Michelangelo

    10 The fifth [angel] poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.

    People gnawed their tongues because of their pain

    11 and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they did not repent of their works.

    Judgement! And punishment, even after death.

    No redemption from sin, no help from the beast or false prophet.

    Certainly no post-death incarnation into a new or different body, not even that of a lowly animal. (Such selfish idolatry of those lost souls who strictly adhere to such ancient lies or worship false gods.)

    John proclaims Jesus’ love for the world! Yet the world rejects Him, because their deeds done in darkness are evil.

    And who is behind it all? Who would lead sinners into a place of darkness and evil since the beginning of the world? John tells us.

    That Great Dragon of Darkness

    12:9 καὶ ἐβλήθη ὁ δράκων ὁ μέγας ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος ὁ καλούμενος Διάβολος καὶ ὁ Σατανᾶς ὁ πλανῶν τὴν οἰκουμένην ὅλην ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν γῆν καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἐβλήθησαν

    He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. – Revelation 12:9

    Revelation 9: The Fifth Trumpet

    The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The key for the shaft to the abyss was given to him. 2 He opened the shaft to the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great furnace so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.

    The Dragon Thrown Out of Heaven

    7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. 

    You with eyes to see, souls seeking the Light of salvation: observe the terrible intensity of the battle between good and evil – Satan’s opposition to the Lord God and Christ Jesus. It is a battle to the death for our souls!

    Yet by the mercy of the LORD’s Sacrifice of love on the Cross for you, Christ Jesus purchased victory eternal over the dragon of darkness.

    9 So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.

    The many names of the evil one

    He hides in the shadows of darkness and speaks lies to false prophets. We know this dark imitator of light by many names, confusing even more our blurred vision of his subtle evil.

    The great dragon – δράκων  from familiar imagery of Greek mythology to John’s audience. The ancient serpent – ὄφις , a familiar reference to the cunning tempter in Eden , a clear reference to original sin חַטָּאָת.

    John clarifies the identity of the enemy with two additional names more familiar to us, first: the devil – διάβολος diabolos in the familiar Greek, which means slanderer or accuser. He is known as the tempter πεῖρα, one who would bring you to a trial or terrible experience. It is a word from a root word πέραν meaning,  ‘to pierce,’ which contains significant symbolism in the war between good and evil, between Christ and Satan.

    John’s second identification is the most familiar and most feared: Satan. The contemporary name in the Greek,  Σατανᾶς  Satanas, also known to fellow Jews, believers along with John, as Satan שָׂטָן.  

    Revelation 16:10 refers to Satan’s princely throne as ‘throne of the beast,’ θηρίον thērion, implying his wild, venomous nature, even brutal, savage and ferocious, sometime illustrated as a bestial man.

    Is is any wonder that the evil one wants man, created in the image of God, to dismiss him as myth?

    More names of the prince of darkness

    While relating the prophesy known as the fifth trumpet, John refers to Satan as: ‘the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.’

    Luke’s Gospel describes the actions of demons, evil spirits influencing a human soul, confronting Jesus.

    28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and said in a loud voice,

    “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torment me!”

    29 For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man…

    31 And they begged him not to banish them to the abyss.

    Deep in the darkness of the pit of the abyss sits the throne of its angel and prince.

    John identifies the destroyer of souls as Abaddōn, from the Hebrew אֲבַדּוֹן ‘abaddown most associated with the sheol and the grave.

    The LORD brings death and gives life;
    he sends some down to Sheol, and he raises others up.

    1 Samuel 2:6

    Knowing its familiarity to the learned Greek culture of the Roman empire, John also refers to the prince of darkness as Apollyōn, the Greek adjective for destroyer.

    War in Heaven

    war in heaven warriors depicted by Rebens
    War in Heaven by Pieter Paul Rubens, 1619

    Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer.

    Revelation 12:7-8

    Though Satan rules the darkness and entices sinners to turn against Christ Jesus and bow down at the throne of darkness, dare you doubt the consequence of the war between good and evil? 


    Michael and Satan, by Guido Reni, c. 1636

    Revelation 19:

    Satan and the false prophet are defeated and punished.

    The saints then reign with Christ.

    The Lord reigns over a new creation and a new Jerusalem.

    The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 Night will be no more…

    Revelation 22:3b-4a

    The Apostle John pleas to his beloved churches, to beloved saints who claim Christ. The commandment of God is love, as Christ has loved us.

    This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.

    1 John 1:5

    Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

  • God’s Love Through John: Of water and the Spirit

    “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

    Christ Jesus – Gospel of John 3:5

     

    The Apostle John begins his Good News with creation then proceeds to verify the identity of Christ as prophesied and witnessed in Jesus’ earthly ministry.

    Previously I addressed the very question of God, for not everyone believes in Almighty God, creator of the heavens and earth. We will for the moment skip over the powerful testimony of John the Baptist and continue with creation.

    Do you believe in God?

    If so, it must follow that you want to know more about God. John refers to Jesus as logos or ‘the Word.’ He tells us: “… the Word was God.”

    Therefore, Jesus IS at the beginning – He created with God and He IS God.

    Note that the Hebrew word for God, אֱלֹהִים ‘elohiym is plural. Jesus speaks of Himself in this same plural sense.

    John 3:11, “Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony.

    Perhaps you believe in God, but do you believe what God says?

    Jesus speaks the very words of God!

    John acknowledges the Messiah Jesus the Son as part of the One True God; but John witnesses even more. So let’s continue with the nature of God, also considering Spirit and the intangible attributes of that which is unseen.

    John introduces the Holy Spirit in a dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus.

    Nicodemus, a faithful Jew

    Visit of Nicodemus to Christ painting by John La Farge

    Nicodemus was a Pharisee and therefore believed in the resurrection. His learned position as a leader of the Jews brought him to question Jesus, who had performed many miracles.

    John 3:

    “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”

    3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

    4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

    We make the same mistake, thinking of birth as creation. It is not.

    Just as the resurrection marks an event uniting a created soul with God, birth is an event marking a new existence of that which was already created. The birth of the flesh marks an event connected to the breath of a baby whose spirit is formed by the Lord.

    Just as you don’t know the path of the wind,
    or how bones develop in the womb of a pregnant woman,
    so also you don’t know the work of God who makes everything.

    Ecclesiastes 11:5 CSB

    Does the work of God in the spirit of man end with the end of our flesh? The Pharisees and Jesus believed the spirit to exist beyond the life of man. (We will not here discuss the nature and timing of the resurrected body here.)

    Note that the Hebrew word for wind, רוּחַ ruwach, is equivalent to ‘spirit,’ which we note in the creation narrative of Genesis.

    Genesis 1:

    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

    2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

    A description of a chaotic void of darkness, an emptiness, watery depths describes a formless space without purpose or life itself. Yet God, specifically the Spirit of God (רוּחַ ruwach אֱלֹהִים ‘elohiym) was moving over this formless void.

    God IS the only Life in the instant of creation.

    Jesus tells Nicodemus, ‘you should know that God is Spirit.’

    5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    Born of water

    Genesis 1:6-7 Then God said,

    “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 

    So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so.

    Consider for a moment that if Jesus is the logos, the very spoken Word of God, then these Mosaic quotes may be attributed to the Messiah.

    Jesus implies, ‘I AM He who separated the waters and I tell you that you must be born of water and the Spirit.’ 

    Be born again from your chaotic sinful life into the resurrection, reborn pure and forgiven that you might have eternal life.

    John also witnesses a connective symbolism between the pure water and the blood at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.

    John 2:

    6 Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification… 

    7 “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim… the headwaiter tasted the water (after it had become wine)…

    11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

    John then tells us how after this Jesus goes to Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple marketplace. As a result of these events Nicodemus will come to Jesus privately one night.

    23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.

    John points out additional connections between the purification water and the purification of the wine of the Passover sacrifice. In his first letter John speaks again of this rebirth as he writes to the church:

    1 John 5:

    Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

    6 Jesus Christ—he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

    7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and these three are in agreement.

    Born of flesh

    Imagine a personal conversation with God! The Lord, a flesh and blood ‘Son of Man’ as Jesus referred to himself, answers a learned teacher of scripture. He essentially suggests to Nicodemus that what is created of water and Spirit is different from our flesh created from dust.

    Water becomes essential to bones and flesh, as blood  flowing with life. Spirit separates the chaos of created man from the lifeless nature of a formless and godless earth.

    Perhaps Jesus referred to the scripture from Ecclesiastes in His dialogue with Nicodemus asking about being born of water and the Spirit.

    10 “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied.

    Jesus, the Messiah in the flesh, tells Nicodemus that we must be born again – born again in the Spirit.

    John the Baptist and many other Prophets urged true believers in the Lord to repent. Jesus also preached repentance and emphasizes a return to a new and pure relationship between the Spirit of God and the spirit of a man.

    To be ‘born again’ is much more than mere repentance, which may be temporal and lacking in guilt, contrition and an earnest desire for the cleansing of sin.

    Our born again spirit is rebirth of a relationship between the new spirit of changed flesh and the Spirit of the Living God.

    John also witnesses much more of the difference between spirit and flesh, mostly in the spoken words of Christ Jesus.

    “The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

    John 6:63

    Born of Spirit

    The concepts of spirit, as in the Holy Spirit and the spirit of man, is more complex than what we can address in discussion of John’s Gospel, letters and the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John. Jesus’ simple reply to Nicodemus that we must be born again does point to the Holy Spirit.

    For a more detailed study worthy of academic study of Scripture as Nicodemus would have been familiar see the entry below:

    “Holy Spirit.” Examples where the Person is meant when the article is absent… Sometimes the absence is to be accounted for by the fact that Pneuma (like Theos) is substantially a proper name, e.g., in Jhn 7:39. As a general rule the article is present where the subject of the teaching is the Personality of the Holy Spirit, e.g., Jhn 14:26, where He is spoken of in distinction from the Father and the Son. See also Jhn 15:26 and cp. Luk 3:22… 

    The subject of the “Holy Spirit” in the NT may be considered as to His Divine attributes; His distinct Personality in the Godhead; His operation in connection with the Lord Jesus in His birth, His life, His baptism, His death; His operations in the world; in the church; His having been sent at Pentecost by the Father and by Christ; His operations in the individual believer; in local churches; His operations in the production of Holy Scripture; His work in the world, etc.

    Vine’s Expository Dictionary:

    What does it mean to be ‘born again?’

    We could, as many do, become entangled in more theological argument of what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 and consequently neglect John’s witness of what Jesus reveals about the Person of the Holy Spirit. 

    Jesus states that we must be born again in Spirit. Where else does John mention this?

    Because the Holy Spirit commonly the Person of God most misrepresented and least mentioned, let’s look first to the examples cited in Vine’s Dictionary (above) to the scriptures from John.

    “The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” He [Jesus] said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

    John 7:38-39 CSB

    In our next post we will take a look at the witness of John the Baptist, who also bears witness to Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit, to which the Apostle John refers here.

    Jesus, prior to His crucifixion and resurrection in the flesh and in the spirit, instructs the Apostles further about the Holy Spirit.

    John 14:

    25 “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

    Jesus’s Gift of Peace
    27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.

    Who would not love a personal counselor like this? Jesus promises a Person with His same love in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Later John affirms this testimony of Jesus:

    “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father ​— ​the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father ​— ​he will testify about me. 

    “You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

    John 15:26-27

    John is witness and testifies to this for many years, more years than all other Apostles. Jesus also refers to the Holy Spirit as ‘the Spirit of truth.’

    Does one desiring God seek truth?

    John provides both witness and explanation of the Truth. Therefore, even in this present day we would not want to miss what he shares with the church in the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John.

    “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will never be harmed by the second death.

    Revelation 2:11
    God’s Love Through John: To be continued...
  • God’s Love Through John: In the Beginning

    God’s Love Through John: In the Beginning

    The Gospel of John

    John 1:1 ESV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    1:1  ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος

    The Apostle John begins his Gospel prologue with inspired, nearly unparalleled words pointing back to Genesis 1. Every Jew who knew God knew the beginning of the the Pentateuch.

    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.


    Genesis 1:1  בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

    Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz.

    John connects creation with logos, literally the word for word in the Greek. Jesus is the Person of the spoken Word of Elohim! אֱלֹהִים

    2 He was in the beginning with God.

    In essence John proclaimed:

    Jesus IS in the beginning, Jesus is with Elohim, Jesus IS Elohim!

    Basic Belief: Do you believe in God?

    John begins by categorically stating that Jesus IS the One True God.

    This is Good News to those who believe. Yet even if you do not believe in the One God, John proclaims this Gospel as challenge to our misconceptions of the Creator.

    Every Greek knew the importance of logos. A secondary use of the word logos, familiar to unbelieving Greeks who claimed many gods, is its use as respect to the MIND alone. 

    Think about this, John tells those who do not know God.

    Reason through it and try calculating the logic of this relationship between a Power you cannot measure and a Person whom we have regarded. And again, John points to creation:

    3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

    John 1:3 CSB

    The First Letter of John

    In his first letter to the church John begins in a similar fashion when addressing those who already follow Christ Jesus in the first century.

    What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life …

    1 John 1:1 CSB

    The Disciple Jesus loved gives followers of The Way a testimony of his own witness of ‘God in the flesh’ in the Person of the Messiah of God.

    Orazio Fidani, Saint John the Apostle, c. 1640-56

    John, now a fully mature Elder, tells his churches, gatherings of believers in Christ:

    We know that Jesus IS who He says He IS. We are witnesses to the facts and preach our testimony to you you. 

    Jesus IS God and we have personally seen, heard, observed and touched the Living God!

    Good news for believers.

    4 ‘We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete,’ John writes to believers.

    Jesus, the Christ, a personal Lord who loves and ministers to sinners.

    The Beginning and the End

    John’s Gospel and three letters reveal Jesus as the Christ, Almighty God as One with the eternal Person of the Son of Man.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John speaks to the beginning of Creation, in addition to providing troubling imagery of the apocalypse of the heavens and earth.

     “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

    Revelation 1:8 CSB

    John’s Vision of the Risen Lord

    9 I, John, your brother and partner in the affliction, kingdom, and endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

    The Apostle John, whom we picture as a young man mentored by Jesus, reveals much more about the Lord.

    Almighty God, Creator of the heavens and earth, in whose image man is made, IS; in the Person of Jesus, a Savior to eternal life to those He loves.

    Jesus will also judge rebellious sinners and cleanse creation of all unrighteousness. The LORD will make all things right.

    John, through Christ, reveals the ending:

    Revelation 21:3b Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

    John’s Good News

    Jesus loves you. This is John’s message. God is immeasurably more than an understood Power. Jesus shows God as a loving Father who also gives freedom to mankind to choose eternal life or deserved punishment for sin. 

    Do you believe in One God? Can you relate to Almighty God as a loving Father of a chosen family? In Christ Jesus we have seen the Lord!

    John gives us both brief glimpses and detailed accounts of the Logos, the Very Word of God.

    No mere mortal can fully fathom the ever-existent Creator of all things and of all men, even in the personal witness of John. Yet John reveals even more of the completeness of the One True God through consideration of the Spirit of God, the subject of our next look at understanding the Lord through the eyes of the Disciple Jesus loved.

    To be continued...