February 11 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

John 1:1-18:

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
²The same was in the beginning with God.
³All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
⁴In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
⁵And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
⁷The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
⁸He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
⁹That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
¹¹He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
¹²But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
¹³Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
¹⁴And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
¹⁵John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.
¹⁶And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
¹⁷For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
¹⁸No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Devotional

John beheld with his own eyes the glory of Christ. He bears witness in his Gospel to One whom he has seen and known. He is not writing about a stranger; he is not presenting the mere traditions or theories or speculations of men about the Son of God. The Word was made flesh and His glory was manifested. John witnessed that glory. And he saw mighty signs that the Lord performed in the presence of His disciples; he heard His revelations of divine truth; he observed His perfect life; he beheld Him risen from the dead. John gives us facts and an inspired interpretation of those facts.

Nothing can overthrow the testimony of John. No new theory, no discoveries of science, no ungodly philosophy can ever succeed in shaking that witness. Whatever men today may choose to believe and do, nothing whatsoever can shatter the fact that John and others actually beheld the glory of the Saviour of the world and the Son of the living God. Nothing can erase the historical record of those divine signs that John and others witnessed. Nothing can ever disprove the existence of the sovereign triune God; for apart from God there would be no facts, no signs, no existence, no meaning. John's testimony stands, and we by God's grace and power believe that testimony. And we look, in faith, toward that day when we will be admitted to the presence of our Redeemer and our God, and we too shall behold His glory.

Welcome to "Think on These Things," a twelve-week daily devotional prepared by the late Dr. John H. Skilton, an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and for many years Chairman of the New Testament Department at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

We are indebted to P & R Publishing and Skilton House Ministries for permission to use this copyrighted material on the OPC Web site. (P & R held the copyright from 1975 to 2005, at which time they reassigned the copyright to Skilton House.)