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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on John's Gospel (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 30. The Spokesman of God
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The Spokesman of God
Then John quietly, deftly draws the line around to the starting point in that first tremendous statement. He completes a circle perfect in its strength and beauty and simplicity, as every circle is. If we follow the order of the words somewhat as John wrote them down, we find the bit of truth coming in a very striking, as well as in a fresh way. "God no one has ever, at any time, seen."
That seems rather startling, does it not? What do these older pages say? Adam talked and walked and worked with God, and then was led to the gate of the garden. God appeared to Abraham, and gave him a never-to-be-forgotten lesson in star study. Moses spent nearly six weeks with Him, twice over, in the flaming mount, and carried the impress of His presence upon his face clear to Nebo's cloudy top.
The seventy elders "saw the God of Israel, and did eat and drink," the simple record runs. And young Isaiah that morning in the temple, and Ezekiel in the colony of exiles on the Chebar, and Daniel by the Tigris at the close of his three weeks' fast,—these all come quickly to mind. John's startling statement seems to contradict these flatly.
But push on. John has a way of clearing things up as you follow him through. Listen to him further: The only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father—He has always been the spokesman of God. Look into that sentence of John's a little. It seems quite clear, clear to the point of satisfying the most critical research, that John wrote down the words, "the only-begotten God." The contrast in his mind is not between "God," and the "only begotten Son." It is a contrast whose verbal terms fit with much nicer exactness than that. It is a contrast between "God" and the "only-begotten God."
There is only one such person whichever way it is put. Whatever one may think about the preexistence of Jesus, it is clear that the only reference of these works could be to Him who was known as Jesus. John's main statement is no way changed whichever way the thing is made to read. It is simply one of John's simple tremendous touches to bring out incidentally, and so with great intensified emphasis, the deity of Jesus.
And this sifts John's statement to something like this: The Father-God, no one has ever at any time seen. The Only-begotten God who lived in the most intimate and tender relation imaginable with the Father, it is He who has always been the spokesman of God. In what He was, in what He said, and in what He did, He has ever been the interpreter of God.
An interpreter stands between the chief speaker and the listeners. The listeners know the speaker only as the interpreter interprets him. The speaker takes on entirely to them the personal colouring of the one interpreting. He is limited by the interpreter. Not only does he come through the interpreter, but he doesn't come in any other way. He remains unknown except as his interpreter makes him known.
Now this is exactly John's thought here. In His life, and actions, in His personality and presence and words, this only-begotten God, later called Jesus was telling out the Father-God. It was only so that men ever knew anything of the Father. For interpretation presupposes different languages, at least two of them. It supposes persons utter strangers communicating through a third, who knows the language of both. And they who receive the message only know it and him from whom it comes, through the spokesman, the interpreter.
This only begotten God who later walked among us in homely humble garb as Jesus, this is the one who walked with Adam, and, broken-hearted, led him to the Garden-gate. He is was who lured Abraham away to a Pilgrim life, and talked him under the starry blue, that left the subtle beauty-touch of His presence in the mount upon that gentled face that shone so, and that talked with the man of the storm and blood in the mouth of the early morning cave.
It was He who brooded over the man in the temple till he glowed with the Gospel, before that word had yet been minted, that looked out of the Chebar storm into the awed eye of the young Hebrew priest of such rare pen, and that talked to the world's premier-administrator by the Tigris of what would befall his kinspeople in a time yet future. It was He that in the fullness of time and love, wrapped the homely garb of our humanity about Himself and walked amongst us as one of ourselves.