John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: July 2

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John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: July 2

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The Life and Death of our Lord: Evening Series

The Word

Joh_1:1-18

When the history of a great personage is written by different hands, the historians seldom commence at the same point of time. One begins with his birth, and reminds us of his parentage, his illustrious line, and his great ancestors. Another, passing over this, takes him up at the commencement of his public career. A third not only recites his birth and parentage, but dwells upon the circumstances which preceded him and introduced him, and those which surrounded him when he appeared. Another may go back farther still into the antecedents, reporting all that he has been able to learn of anterior history that might be supposed to influence his career, or to prepare the times for his appearing.

The men who wrote the history of Jesus Christ were permitted, by the Holy Spirit, to exemplify the same diversity of procedure in their narratives. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each commences our Lord’s history at a different point of time, corresponding to the intimations just given. Their accounts must, therefore, be collated to furnish a complete narrative; and the exactness with which their several narratives dovetail into each other, to furnish a perfect and coherent whole, is not only admirable in itself, but suggests that this diversity was designedly permitted, for the purpose of furnishing conclusive evidence of the perfect truthfulness of the writers, and the minute accuracy of their statements.

Matthew commences with a genealogy of Jesus, traced downward from Abraham, and then proceeds to record his marvellous birth. Mark says nothing of his birth; but after rapidly connecting “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” with the prophecies of the Old Testament, proceeds at once to the commencement of his public mission by his baptism by John in the Jordan, and his formal recognition from heaven. Luke goes farther back, to the circumstances preceding the birth of the Lord’s harbinger, and then furnishes a more particular account than Matthew had supplied of the events preceding the birth of Christ himself. But John goes back farther still into the remote and ancient past. He speaks but little of that human birth which chiefly engages the attention of Matthew and Luke. He says of this, simply, that He “was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” He goes back—back, into the darknesses of the eternal past, before the creation, and finds Him, who thus became flesh, “in the beginning with God.” He ascends to the heaven of heavens, and finds there, in the bosom of the Father, Him who had, in those latter days, laid aside this glory to become the light of men. The other evangelists knew all this; but John alone set it forth plainly at the beginning. There was a reason. John wrote later than the others: and it was needed that there should be a plain and explicit declaration on a matter respecting which men had already begun to question and dispute.

It is further remarkable, that while the other evangelists carefully record our Lord’s final ascent to heaven, John, who at the commencement brings Him down from heaven as the incarnate Word, is alone silent with respect to his return thither. He knew that great fact to be already sufficiently recorded; and it was the will of the Spirit that he should put on record much that they had passed over, rather than that he should repeat that which had already been sufficiently attested.

We need not enter into the questions which have been raised as to the import of the Greek term (logos) translated word, or into the views under which the sacred writer applied it to Christ. It is enough to know, that he certainly and undeniably denotes by this term the Son of God, who, as Jesus came into the world, and the world knew Him not; who, as the Christ, to whom all the prophets had borne witness, came unto his own, and his own received Him not; who, as the Light, came to shine into the darkness, and the darkness comprehended Him not. Some, however, beheld in Him that glory which could belong only to “the Only-begotten of the Father;” a few comprehended Him; and some, although they did not yet fully comprehend Him, yet rejoiced to receive Him as their Savior and their Lord. And what profit had they? Verily this, that although they were exposed thereby to a great fight of afflictions, and were pierced through with many sorrows—yet, to “as many as received Him, gave He power to become the sons of God!”

“His by redemption, by adoption his”—

in the possession of which high privilege and glorious distinction they might well afford to trample, not only the treasures of the world, but its thorns and torturing scourges, beneath their feet. But what is it to receive Him? Oh, would He but come, would we not receive Him—would we not set wide open all our chambers for Him to enter in? But, lo, He has passed away into the heavens, where we behold Him not, and whence we cannot receive Him. No, no. There was never but one way of receiving Him; and every one of us can receive Him as did the disciples who walked with Him on earth. The evangelist himself is careful to guard against any misconception on this point, by explaining what it is to receive Him, and who they are to whom it is given, by receiving Him, to become the sons of God—“even to them that believe on his name.” Therefore the Ethiopian eunuch, when he declared that he believed “with all his heart,”—that is, with true appropriating faith, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God—therefore the jailer at Philippi, when he “rejoiced,” believing in the Lord Jesus Christ—therefore the last heart that has opened to receive Him as a Savior—all these, although they beheld Him not in the flesh, did as truly receive Him, and did as truly receive the gift to become the sons of God, as those who, in that day, did literally receive Him into their houses—literally leaned upon his breast—literally left all and followed Him.