ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 19 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> All right. Now that we are speaking of Jesus as God, I can ask about one of my favorite sections of the gospels. John begins his testimony with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Later John writes "and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." It's a beautiful passage. But I would like to be sure that I understand it fully. What does John mean in calling Jesus the Word of God? >> DR. DAVID SCAER: For Luther and for Lutherans in general, the Gospel of John has been the favorite Gospel. On that account, people who have attempted to read the gospels have often begun with the Gospel of John and so they have met these words "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." A few verses later it goes on to say "and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory full of grace and truth." Generally in our preaching when we refer to the Word of God, we use the phrase to refer to the holy scriptures, that's the word of God. We can use the word of God in any number of extensive senses. The preaching is the word of God. If the pastor isn't convinced he's preaching the word of God, then he shouldn't preach at all. But then the phrase also applies to the hymns that we sing in the church and the liturgy. It's all the word of God. And the words we speak to one another to encourage one another is also the Word of God. So it has a wide and varied meaning. But also entered of course in the person of Jesus Christ. The phrase used in the first verses of the Gospel of John have a particular meaning. When we say that Jesus is the word of God, we mean that he is the complete expression of who and what God is. He's the image of God. He's the mirror of God. He has his existence out of God. It almost seems as if when John was writing this, he was reflecting on the first verses of the book of Genesis. And you, David, are already acquainted with the book of Genesis, how God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. And the formula which is used for each of the days of creation is this: And God said let there be light. God created the world not directly but he created it through the Word. I don't like to say that God was a Lutheran and using means of grace. But that might help us understand it. God doesn't act directly. He acts through an intermediary. And that intermediary is the word. And that word now is known to us in Jesus Christ. He is the one who became flesh and dwelt among us. On that account we can say in the Nicene Creed that all things were made through him. He is God's eternal word which not only created all things but to this very day the world is sustained by Jesus who is the -- God's word. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***