The Gospel of John
An Exposition by John Edmiston
Eternity Daily Bible
Study
©
Copyright, John Edmiston 2005
John 1:1-3
Jesus The Creative Word
John 1:1-3 MKJV In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. (2) He was in the beginning with
God. (3) All things came into being
through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come
into being.
Colossians 2:9 MKJV For in Him (Jesus Christ) dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
We know from Genesis
that all things were made through the word of God, what John reveals in this
chapter is that Jesus is that Word, He is the very Creative Word of God!
Through
Jesus Christ: “All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even
one thing came into being that has come into being.”
From
pineapples to porcupines they all came into being through Jesus.
John carefully rebuts various Gnostic teachings when he tells us that Jesus the Word did not come into existence after God - He was “in the beginning with God”, and that He was “with God” and He “was God”. Jesus is not am emanation, or an ascended master or an angel or a “creature” of any kind. Rather He is the very creative word of God in personal and bodily form. (Colossians 2:9)
The
scriptures emphasize that Jesus and God are identical in nature:
Hebrews 1:1-3 MKJV God, who at many times and in many
ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, (2)
has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed
heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds, (3) who being the shining
splendor of His glory, and the express image of His essence, and upholding all
things by the word of His power, through Himself cleansing of our sins, He sat
down on the right of the Majesty on high,
John 14:6-10 MKJV Jesus said to him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me. (7) If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. And from now on you know Him and have seen Him. (8) Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. (9) Jesus said to him, have I been with you such a long time and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. And how do you say, Show us the Father? (10) Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The Words that I speak to you I do not speak of Myself, but the Father who dwells in Me, He does the works.
Jesus
is God, and all things were made through Him and for Him, and He holds all
things together. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15-20) and
he helps us to know what God is like (John 1:14-18). When we see Jesus we see
the character of God revealed to us in a way we can understand.
[Now
the Trinity is a complex topic and I will not tackle it today but refer you out
to an article on my website: http://aibi.gospelcom.net/articles/trinity.htm]
A God who is exactly
like Jesus Christ rules reality. If you have seen Jesus you have seen the
Father. A grumpy old man does not run the world on a cloud (which is the image
of God I had as a child). A God full of mercy and compassion and grace and
truth runs the world.
Thus when you pray you are praying to a God who is like Jesus, to someone who loves you and accepts you and who wants to work all things together for your good.
This is not a split
world, a battle between light and darkness. There is only one Creator and one
creative process – and that is through Jesus Christ.
So when we are in
Christ, we are in the center of God’s creative process. We are in the Person
who brings all things into existence.
In the beginning of
God’s creative process everything was chaos, the Hebrew for ‘without form and
void” is “tohu w’ bohu” which is the exact equivalent of helter-skelter or
topsy-turvy or in Filipino “halo-halo”. That is a world without structure,
chaotic, primeval, and confused.
Into that confused mess
came the creative Word and He imposed an order on creation that was “good and
very good” (Genesis 1). Similarly Christ can come into the confused life of the
sinner and bring grace and salvation. Or He can come into the body of the leper
and bring wholeness and cleanness. Or He can speak over the grave of Lazarus
and bring life.
As God’s creative word
Jesus comes into the confusion and brings the Kingdom of God and love and peace
and joy and creates a Paradise, a Garden of Eden.
Jesus is not just an
ancient prophet wearing a beard and sandals He is the creative Word of God
through whom all things were made. If you are a Christian then you are “in Him”
and you are loved by Him and His immense power is available to you to bless
you.
John 1:4,5
Life Was In Him
John 1:4-5 HCSB Life was in Him, and that life
was the light of men. (5) That light
shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it.
There are 39 references
to the word “life” in the gospel of John and most of them refer to Jesus being
“life” in some way. Here are just five of them:
JESUS IS LIFE
John 5:21 HCSB And just
as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life
to anyone He wants to.
John 5:26 HCSB
For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted to
the Son to have life in Himself.
John 8:12 HCSB Then 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."
John 11:25 HCSB
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who
believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.
John 17:2 HCSB For You
gave Him authority over all flesh; so He may give eternal life to all You have
given Him.
Thus the Word is
a living Word, life is in Him, the Word of God is “living and active” (Hebrews
4:12), He is not dead and passive like a concept in Greek philosophy.
Jesus is the life of
Creation and He is the light of Creation. All true life proceeds from Him and
He has the power to give life. Jesus is
the resurrection and the life. He has life in Himself – the same sort of
self-existence that the Father has and He can give life to others, and those
who follow Him do not walk in darkness but rather are granted the “light of
life”.
What is this life? Life is the ability to maintain an integrated complex and functional existence and thus to have a continuity of being. Death is to disintegrate, to decay, to longer function, to not continue in an ordered state of being.
Thus Jesus is the source of life and light and progress and integrated complexity, beauty and order. In Genesis He commanded a formless, void and a chaotic world and brought forth that which is very good.
So Jesus is never on the side of darkness, death and decay. He is always on the side of peace, health, order, beauty, life and wisdom. When Jesus encountered leprosy He did not led the disorder and death win, instead Jesus brought about a clean and beautiful restoration.
Mark 1:40-42 MKJV And a leper came to Him, begging Him and kneeling down to Him, and saying to Him, If You will, You can make me clean. (41) And Jesus, moved with compassion, put out His hand and touched him, and said to him, I will; be clean! (42) And He having spoken, the leprosy instantly departed from him and he was cleansed.
Thus darkness, chaos and decay are enemies of God’s purposes on this planet. Jesus shines into this darkness and the darkness cannot comprehend it / overthrow it /seize /possess/overtake it. (The Greek word is “katelaben” and it has this range of meanings).
Whether it be political darkness, moral darkness, criminal darkness, spiritual darkness, or the darkness of ignorance lies and treachery – the light of Jesus is still more powerful.
The darkest place I have ever been in was a small village, in a very remote part of Papua New Guinea. The village was noted for witchcraft and was filled with disease and insanity. Yet for a few days we preached the gospel there and saw some response. There is no place so dark that the light of Jesus cannot shine there. As Corrie Ten Boom said after suffering through Auschwitz, no matter how deep the circumstances, the love of God is deeper still.
“In Him was life and that life was the light of men.” Jesus is not just a general life principle inherent in Creation, which would be close to pantheism; rather He is also a very special revelation to humanity. Jesus is the light that everyone is searching for.
“That life was the light of men” – the light of humankind is not a tremendously insightful concept it is a LIFE, a single human life, the life of Jesus. Just as a husband may say of his wife “she is the light of my life” so Jesus is the light of the life of all humanity.
Without Jesus our lives are gray and dull and dead and without deep meaning, or as the existentialists say: “life is absurd”.
Life becomes meaningful when a person enters it: a parent, a lover, a friend, a spouse, a mentor, or a teacher. Meaning always comes from relationship and ultimate meaning comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Well what does this mean for us? It means that if we want a life that is full of light and life then we should live it by the commands of Jesus Christ, in close relationship with him. You will not get much meaning from achieving or possessing or having power and prestige. I grew up among that sort of stuff and I saw the outcome and the profound mid-life sadness of the very successful.
Secondly it means you should not let chaos rule in your life. You are born-again to new life, to beauty and order and grace, not to chaos and disorder and turmoil. Put Jesus in charge of your life, your business, your family, your finances and watch Him create peace and order and righteousness and light and life.
John
1:6-8
John
The Baptist
John
1:6-8 HCSB There was a man
named John who was sent from God. (7)
He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe
through him. (8) He was not the light,
but he came to testify about the light.
If you have been
watching the news about Iraq recently you may have heard about the persecution
of the Mandeans – modern-day followers of John the Baptist. In fact in the
first century John the Baptist got such a large following among Jews and other
folk in the Middle East that quite a bit of the New Testament is spent
explaining the connection between the two cousins – John and Jesus. In Acts 19
Paul has to explain the gospel more fully to a group of John’s disciples in
Ephesus as the changeover from following John to following Jesus was not as
automatic as we may think.
In Matthew 11:11-13
Jesus says that His cousin John was the culmination of the Law and the Prophets
and the “greatest of those born of women”. Yet John, despite his greatness “was
not the light”, but rather, like all the prophets of old, John ‘bore witness to
the Light”. John “prepared the way of
the Lord” by helping Jews take the necessary steps of faith so they could be
ready to hear the message of Jesus.
“There was a man named
John who was sent from God.” Those
“sent by God” are apostles (that is what the word apostle means). Apostles are
not sent from a nation as an ambassador, or from a company as a representative
but directly from God so as to speak on His behalf.
Those sent from God are
sent with a particular message to a particular people – just as Jonah was sent
to Nineveh with the commission to warn them of impending judgment. Thus John
the Baptist was sent to the desert of Judea with the message “repent for the
Kingdom of God is at hand” and a purpose “to be the voice crying in the
wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
John thus prepared the
way for Jesus by calling the Jewish people to repentance, so Jesus could call
them to faith in Him. The New Testament makes clear that we cannot have
biblical faith apart from moral regeneration. The faith of the positive
thinkers is not enough. New Testament faith has a direction and that direction
is into God, and into His nature.
We cannot remain in sin
and truly believe in Jesus, because if we truly believe what Jesus said we will
believe what He said about sin and righteousness and repentance.
Believing in Jesus is
not just believing that He exists, or that He is loving and nice, or even that
He is God, it is also believing what He said and thus obeying His commandments.
If Jesus says “do not lay up treasure on earth’ (Matthew 6:19) and we do so
then we are not believing what He said.
Believing in Jesus
requires stern moral commitment. It is more than a warmed heart; it is a
morally changed life. John came as a preacher of righteousness and moral
regeneration so that people could be convicted of their sin and turn to God for
mercy and a new life in Christ.
The modern debate on
grace is often misconstrued. Grace is not God excusing you from all sorts of
abhorrent moral behavior, nor is it a free pass into heaven for the
unrepentant. Grace is given to make us holy. Grace calls us from wickedness to
repentance, grace reveals the way from repentance to faith in Christ, grace
grows us from initial faith to deeper sanctification and grace frees and
transforms us along the path from sanctification to ultimate glorification.
Grace gives people the
chance to become like Jesus. Grace makes the highway of holiness one that is
free from condemnation so that we have the courage to travel along it. Grace is
not the same as freedom from condemnation, which is only part of the story. We
don’t sit down in the road saying: “Wow, I am free from condemnation.” The idea
is to keep moving toward Christ-likeness.
It is much easier to tell
a convicted and repentant sinner about Jesus, than a complacent and
self-satisfied person who is uncaring of the state of his or her soul. So John
came to stir people up so that they would care about their souls and seek God.
John came “so that all might
believe through him.” He was a prophet
who had as his objective - that others would believe in Jesus. Our ministries
should be the same – pointing always to the Savior.
“He was not the light,
but he came to testify about the light.” No
matter how great our intelligence or insight or calling we are not the Light.
Only Jesus is the light. Sometimes we make a preacher or teacher or founder of
an organization or denomination another “light”. That is wrong, they may give
witness to the light, but they are not the light. You can disagree with me and still be wonderfully saved, but you
cannot disagree with Jesus and be saved. Jesus is the Truth and I and all other
ministers of the gospel merely point to Him.
The Mandeans need Jesus.
They need the Light. No man born of woman can guide us. Only Jesus is the Light
of our lives.
John 1:9-13
Receiving
Jesus
John 1:9-13 HCSB The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the
world. (10) He was in the world, and
the world was created through Him, yet the world did not recognize Him. (11) He came to His own, and His own people
did not receive Him. (12) But to all
who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who
believe in His name, (13) who were
born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of
God.
The fallen world order
does not acknowledge or receive Christ and the New Testament, and particularly
Paul gives us a variety of reasons such as:
own fleshly inclinations, wrong teaching, our fallen nature, the Devil’s
blinding of the heart, Jewish legalism, cultural and spiritual strongholds, and
human ignorance, pride and folly. I have listed some verses on this topic
below:
WHY PEOPLE REFUSE TO
RECEIVE CHRIST
Romans 8:7 HCSB
For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not
submit itself to God's law, for it is unable to do so.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 HCSB (18) For to those who are perishing the message of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is God's power.
1 Corinthians 2:14 HCSB (14) But the natural man does not welcome what comes from God's
Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to know it since it is
evaluated spiritually.
2 Corinthians 3:14 HCSB (14) But their minds were closed. For to this day, at the reading
of the old covenant, the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is
set-aside only in Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 HCSB (3) But if, in fact, our gospel is veiled; it is veiled to those who are perishing. (4) Regarding them: the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 HCSB (4) since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are
powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish
arguments (5) and every high-minded
thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought
captive to the obedience of Christ.
Ephesians 2:1-3 HCSB And you were dead in your
trespasses and sins (2) in which you
previously walked according to this worldly age, according to the ruler of the
atmospheric domain, the spirit now working in the disobedient. (3) We too all previously lived among them
in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and
thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also.
Ephesians 4:17-18 HCSB Therefore, I say this and testify in the
Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their
thoughts. (18) They are darkened in
their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance
that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.
Colossians 1:21 HCSB And you were once alienated and
hostile in mind because of your evil actions.
This is a convincing
enough lists of verses – some folks are perishing in stubborn unbelief and
spiritual blindness. Such people need a lot of patient prayer and witnessing if
they ever are to believe. I was an anti-Christian atheist prior to being saved
and many thought I could not be saved – but nevertheless God “got me”.
Yet we need to put an
end to Pollyanna views such as: “If we just preach the gospel everyone will
believe.” If Jesus Himself could not get everyone to believe, even with all the
miracles He performed and His wisdom, love and grace - then we need to accept
that this is “something fundamental” in humanity. In fact there are almost two
types of people “those who are perishing” and “those who are being saved” and
it is seems that it is with difficulty that many of those who are perishing
find Christ.
One reason that the
world does not acknowledge Christ because the “ruler of this world” is the
Devil (1 John 5:18,19) and he has absolutely zero intention of letting this
world be released into the freedom of the sons of God. (Romans 8:19-25)
Therefore intercession
and spiritual warfare must precede evangelism if the Devil’s grip on fallen
humanity is to be broken. Much prevailing prayer has preceded every great
revival – (see Dr. Stewart Robinson’s excellent review article Praying the
Price of Revival http://aibi.gospelcom.net/prayer/payprice.htm) and here is a link on Prayer Evangelism: http://aibi.gospelcom.net/articles/prayer_evangelism.htm
The natural human mind
is not a level playing field. It does not naturally think the thoughts that
accompany salvation. It rushes into folly and gossip and pornography and
tabloid rubbish and totally ignores, ridicules and dismisses the deep things of
God.
Humanism, which almost
deifies the natural human intellect, is without a good explanation for the
lust, cruelty, evil, folly, and madness of humanity. Humanism can never
properly explain Auschwitz or Rwanda or the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The world did not
acknowledge Jesus, His own received Him not, yet some did believe and He gave
them the power to become sons of God. That is the power to be eternal beings of
great glory and authority.
The basis of this
sonship is being “born of God”, that is a spiritual birth that comes from God,
not a literal or physical birth from mankind or the human will (see John
3:1-18). In the new birth we are born as eternal spiritual beings, who are
citizens of Heaven (Ephesians 2:19, Philippians 3:20), and are seated with
Christ in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6, 1:20).
The world can give us
all sorts of other powers – the power to earn money or the power to be famous
or the power to rule nations, but only Jesus Christ can give us the eternal and
holy power that will last forever, the power to become a son of God.
John 1:14-17
Jesus
Reveals Grace And Truth To Us
John 1:14-17 HCSB The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed
His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and
truth. (15) (John testified concerning Him and exclaimed, "This was the
One of whom I said, 'The One coming after me has surpassed me, because He
existed before me.'") (16) Indeed,
we have all received grace after grace from His fullness, (17) for although the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
The eternal and
pre-existent Word took on flesh and dwelt among us, and when He did He was
revealed to be full of grace and truth.
When God walked among
men He did not swagger. Nor did He come like some outer-space alien full of
wizardry, fire and strange weaponry. God came among us as one full of grace and
truth. The Word did not come to dominate – but to serve.
The Word is not so
“gracious” - sentimental and forgiving that it lets go of the truth; nor is the
Word so “truthful” and blunt that it is unaccompanied by grace. The Word speaks
to both the sinner and the sin.
John the Baptist
declared: “The One coming after me has surpassed me, because He existed
before me.” – this conundrum is solved by his younger cousin Jesus, who started
ministry after John, being the incarnation of the eternal and pre-existent Word
of God. When we touch Jesus, we touch eternity.
This eternal,
pre-existent and glorious creative Word clothed Himself with lungs and arms and
flesh and blood. This body was not some “appearance of flesh” like a mystical
hologram, rather it was real flesh that was hungered and thirsted and was
scourged and crucified and which bled blood and water when pierced.
Jesus reveals what a man
looks like when He is fully the Word and what God looks like when He is fully a
man.
In our quest for
holiness and sanctification we must return to Jesus and to His character and to
being “full of grace and truth”. We can easily equate holiness with things
other than Christ, grace and truth; even with things such as knowledge, power,
eloquence, a winning personality, or time served. One of the less subtle traps
in the Christian life is to equate sanctification with moving up a church or
mission hierarchy. Instead Jesus teaches us that servanthood is holiness and
the greatest in the Kingdom is the person who is full of grace and truth and is
the servant of all.
A focus on grace and
truth will cause each of us to ask questions such as: Am I increasing in
graciousness, kindness and love? Am I increasing in the Truth? Am I honest and
above reproach? Do my words come from the Word?
The Law by contrast is
not from grace and truth; it simply brings the knowledge of sin and can do no
more. The Law cannot help you. The Law is like a man high on a cliff shouting
swimming instructions to drowning men and women. On the other hand Jesus is the
lifeguard plunging into the surf and dragging them out. What the Law says is
true – but everyone dies. What Jesus does in gracious – and is a far deeper
Truth.
Plunging into lost and
broken humanity is very frightening. It is easy to be scared by the poor, the
homeless, the diseased, the demonized, the wicked, and the violent. It is easy
to be repelled by the leper, to flee the prostitute, and to condemn the
heretical Samaritan.
Jesus took on flesh and
dwelt among us, and He did not run away from a single needy sinner. We need to
ask for the courage and boldness and grace to engage in incarnational ministry
in love.
“We have all
received grace after grace from His fullness.” - We do not just receive grace once, leading
to conversion, rather we receive grace after grace every step of the way to
glory.
Grace is
the power behind all spiritual growth, and grace proceeds from God through
Jesus Christ and is received by faith. Grace comes to those who want it enough
to believe in it.
Grace is
both God’s kind and forgiving disposition toward us, and the tangible effects
of that disposition – miracles, healing, changed lives, deliverance from
demons, breaking of curses, blessings abundant. Grace creates the conditions so
that peace can prosper – the very shalom of God.
Grace
descends to the needy, the humble, and the contrite. The poor in spirit receive
great grace, while the proud in spirit receive nothing.
All spiritual growth depends on our ability to receive grace by faith and to put it to work in our lives through faithful obedience. There is no shortage of grace and truth, that is never the problem, Jesus is inexhaustibly full of grace, it is up to us to humble ourselves, to believe, to receive and to obey.
John 1:18
Jesus Reveals God To Us
John 1:18 MKJV No one has seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
Jesus is a complete
declaration of what God is like. He is the “exact representation” of His being
(Hebrews 1:1-3) and the “fullness of Deity in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9) so
that it could be said that Jesus and the Father were one (John 10:30) and those
who have seen Jesus have also seen the Father. (John 14:9)
In practical
terms that means that God the Father is like Jesus. He is not the grumpy old
man sitting on a cloud throwing thunderbolts at sinners. He loves those
sinners, has compassion on them, wishes to show them mercy, sends His rain on
the just and the unjust, heals them, loves them and sent His Son to die for
them.
If God is like Jesus
then God is also kind and gracious and God also heals, and God also resurrects.
Is God really the
friends of drunkards and sinners? Would God supply wine at a wedding? Would God
touch a leper? Surely in Christ He did so.
Sometimes God and Jesus
are almost portrayed as opposites – good cop, bad cop style. That is false. If
Jesus is a prefect representation of God then there is no inconsistency between
the two. They are never opposites. God
is not harsh, while Jesus is merciful. Jesus is not kind while God is cruel.
Jesus shows us what God is really like – good, kind, accepting, patient and
compassionate.
God came in Christ to
achieve reconciliation with His Creation; here it is in two versions:
2 Corinthians 5:19 LITV
(19) as, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not
charging their deviations to them, and having put the Word of reconciliation in
us.
2 Corinthians 5:19 HCSB
(19) that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not
counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of
reconciliation to us.
Colossians
sees this as a reconciliation involving the whole cosmos:
Colossians 1:18-20 LITV (18) And He is the Head of the body, the assembly, who is the
Beginning, the First-born out of the dead, that He be preeminent in all
things; (19) because all the fullness
was pleased to dwell in Him, (20) and
through Him making peace by the blood of His cross, to reconcile all things to
Himself; through Him, whether the things on the earth, or the things in the
heavens.
So
God took on material form, human form, in Christ and reconciled the entire
Universe to Himself. Jesus Christ is God’s perfect statement about Himself and
His appeal to His Creation to be reconciled with Him. This is the King’s Son,
His only Son, in His exact image, His final appeal that we must not reject.
(Luke 20:9-18)
In
Jesus Christ God walks among us in a human body and tells us all what He is
like. God is love. God is relational above all else. God wants us back with
Him; God has come to the lost to bring them home.
Since Jesus is the
perfect declaration of what God is like then we must takes Jesus with utmost
seriousness. He is not just a prophet, or a good teacher or a moral man rather
He is God revealed to us and we must study to know Him.
Once we realize that
Jesus is God revealed to us then all the “funny notions” of Jesus as a Jewish
revolutionary, or Jesus as a Essene, and countless others must be dismissed.
Jesus was a person of great personal authority (Matthew 7:29) who people
followed and obeyed and who could rightly give new commandments (John 13:34)
because Jesus Himself was God.
Jesus is the final word
about God. The law and the prophets were partial and fragmentary words, but
Jesus is the complete package.
Hebrews 1:1-2 MKJV
God, who at many times and in many ways spoke in time past to the
fathers by the prophets, (2) has in
these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all
things, by whom also He made the worlds,
What does Jesus tell us about God? That God
is a living, compassionate, truthful and gracious Being who is interested in us
and in our problems, who will heal a broken arm, rebuke a demon, provide bread,
make wine, still a storm, and answer our honest questions.
God is someone who will
go to a party and eat with you. He will even invite you to His wedding feast!
John 1:19-27
John the Baptist’s Confession
John 1:19-27 ISV
This was John's testimony when the Jews sent priests and Levites to
him from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" (20) He spoke openly and did not deny it,
but confessed, "I am not the Christ." (21) So they asked him, "Well then, are you Elijah?" He
said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" He answered,
"No." (22) Then they said to
him, "Who are you? We must give an answer to those who sent us. What do
you say about yourself?" (23) He
replied, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make the
way of the Lord straight,'" as the prophet Isaiah said. (24) Now they had been sent from the
Pharisees. (25) They asked him,
"Why, then, are you baptizing if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the
Prophet?" (26) John answered them,
"I am baptizing with water, but among you stands a man whom you do not
know, (27) the one who is coming after
me, whose sandal straps I am not worthy to untie."
The Jews expected three major people – the Messiah, Elijah and the Prophet Jeremiah. The Messiah would bring military victory and liberation, Elijah would return from Heaven where he was translated and bring national revival, and apparently Jeremiah was expected to return with the Ark of the Covenant, the pot of manna, Aaron’s Rod that budded and the Ten Commandments that he had hidden so the Babylonians would not get them.
These notions came from
a very literal ideal of national restoration – back to the time of David and
Solomon. This is why John denied being “Elijah” because he was not the Elijah
that they expected.
However John was the
“Elijah” of God as the angel said to his father Zechariah:
Luke 1:15-17 ISV
For he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will never drink wine
or any strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he
is born. (16) He will bring many of
Israel's descendants back to the Lord their God. (17) He is the one who will go before the Lord with the spirit
and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the
disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, and to prepare the people to be
ready for the Lord."
And as Jesus said of John later on:
Matthew 11:7-14 ISV
As they were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John.
"What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the
wind? (8) Really, what did you go out
to see? A man dressed in fancy clothes? See, those who wear fancy clothes live
in kings' houses. (9) Really, what did
you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and even more than a prophet! (10) This is the man, about whom it is
written, 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your
way before you.' (11) Truly I tell you;
among those born of women no one has appeared who is greater than John the
Baptist. Yet even the least important person in the kingdom of heaven is greater
than he. (12) "From the days of John the Baptist until the present, the
kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people have been
attacking it. (13) For the Law and all
the Prophets prophesied up to the time of John, (14) and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to
come.
John came “in the spirit and the power of Elijah” and brought national revival, but the revival did not take Israel back to the Golden Age of David and Solomon but forwards into grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, and when they refused it – to the judgment of 70 AD.
God is creative and tends always to move forward. We cannot go back to past Golden Ages – the age of chivalry, the age of missions, the Great Awakening, the Reformation, even the early Church. While each of these made very valuable contributions they are now in the past. However God works in the eternal now and brings us forward to His future.
There is no
static state of perfection to which we must aspire. The early Church was riddled
with racism and slavery. The Reformation saw a lot of Catholics and Anabaptists
being drowned or being burned at the stake. The Age of Chivalry was riddled
with disease, injustice and very rigid class distinction and the age of
Missions was often far too close to the Empires of the time. Good came, even
great good, but they were imperfect ages, and we must move on.
In this age
we await the completion of the Great Commission, the salvation of the Jews, and
the Return of Christ. Yet in some of these things we may be as wrong as the
priests were about the Christ, Elijah and the Prophet.
John said “none of the
above” – and then described himself as “the voice of one crying in the
wilderness” a reference to Isaiah 40:3
Isaiah 40:3 MKJV The voice of him who cries in the wilderness, Prepare the way of Jehovah, make straight a highway in the desert for our God.
In other
words John was a voice calling for moral change prior to God Himself coming
into their midst – in the form of Jesus Christ. John was pointing to one coming
after him who was far more worthy than the Baptizer.
Since John was held in very high regard, and all Israel came
out to him, then the notion of someone even more worthy was astonishing! It was
made even more astonishing by John’s statement: John answered them, "I
am baptizing with water, but among you stands a man whom you do not know, (27) the one who is coming after me, whose
sandal straps I am not worthy to untie."
Duties such as the
washing of feet and the untying of sandals were considered so low and demeaning
that the religious canons of the day said it could not be performed by a Hebrew
slave but only by a foreign born slave:
"If
thy brother is become poor, and is sold unto thee, thou shalt not make him do
the work of a servant; that is, - any
reproachful work; such as to buckle his shoes, or unloose them, or carry his
instruments (or necessaries) after him to the bath.''
(This says a lot about Jesus – and the foot washing in John 13 as the end
of all social distinction).
The Christ was so high and
lofty that even a great prophet like John the Baptist “the greatest of those
born of women” was unworthy to be even His most lowly servant. Which is why
Jesus can say: Luke 17:10 MKJV So
likewise you, when you shall have done all the things commanded you, say, We
are unprofitable servants, for we have done what we ought to do.
Jesus
stood among them but they did not “know” Him. God was unrecognized in the midst
of His people.
John
1:28-34
The One Who
Baptizes With The Holy Spirit
John 1:28-34 MKJV
These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was
baptizing. (29) The next day John sees
Jesus coming to him and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world! (30) This is He of whom I
said, after me comes a Man who has been before me, for He preceded me. (31) And I did not know Him, but that He be
revealed to Israel, therefore I have come baptizing with water. (32) And John bore record, saying, I saw the
Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and He abode on Him. (33) And I did not know Him, but He who sent
me to baptize with water, that One said to me, Upon whom you shall see the
Spirit descending, and remaining upon Him, He is the One who baptizes with the
Holy Spirit. (34) And I saw and bore
record that this is the Son of God.
John speaks of Jesus in the most heavenly of terms:
1. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)
2. The One who has “been
before me”. (John 1:30)
3. The One on whom the
Spirit rested and abode. (John 1:32,33)
4. The One who baptizes
with the Holy Spirit. (John 1:33)
5. The Son of God. (John 1:34)
These are not terms that
can be applied to any normal person ore even to a prophet. The Baptist was a
great and mighty prophet, but yet he pointed to Christ as One who was
infinitely more worthy than himself. (John 1:27) The prophets could preach
repentance from sin – but Jesus would actually take away the sin of the world!
John the evangelist is
deliberately making the reader see Christ as both a man and as something far
greater than a man. In Hebrew thinking there was a spiritual hierarchy and it
probably went thus: Gentiles, Samaritans, women, male Jews, kings, priests,
prophets, angels, God. By being greater than the prophets, and obviously not an
angel then Jesus is another rank of being – that of the Son of God. [The
article “the” is important as some angels were “sons of God” (see Job 1&2
and Genesis 6) but Jesus is the unique “the” only-begotten Son of God]
The spiritual rank “the
Son of God” has the distinction of being one where the Spirit can rest and
abide, and which can baptize in the Spirit, whereas the prophet could only
baptize in water. The Spirit came upon the prophets and they spoke, but they
could not baptize in the Spirit, even Elijah said it was difficult to pass the
Spirit to Elisha (2 Kings 2:8-10). On the other hand Jesus could send the
Spirit, He could baptize with the Spirit, and make the Spirit come upon others.
Thus Jesus is greater than all the prophets and is of entirely another
spiritual order.
Jesus was also
pre-existent; he “came before” John, in fact even before Abraham! (John
8:56-58). Now Abraham is regarded as
the spiritual founder of both Judaism and Islam. But Jesus is the founder of
Christianity and existed far before Abraham, as the eternal creative Word of
God. It is Christianity that is the truly Ancient Faith!
Christianity is a
religion of the Spirit, not the law book. It is faith in one on whom the Spirit
abides, faith in One who is familiar with God and is His beloved Son. One who
can place the Spirit of God in us and upon us.
For us to be baptized in
the Spirit we must first have our sin taken away. Thus Jesus is the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus removes our sin so He can baptize us
with the Holy Spirit so we can dwell in fellowship with God and worship in
Spirit and in Truth!
Thus Jesus is both the
means of initial saving grace – in that He takes away our sin through His
substitutionary atonement; and the means of ongoing salvation and
sanctification as He sanctifies us and empowers us through baptism in the Holy
Spirit.
Twice John
says “I did not know Him”, John did not recognize Jesus as the Son of God except via
His relationship with the Holy Spirit: “And I did not know Him, but He who
sent me to baptize with water, that One said to me, Upon whom you shall see the
Spirit descending, and remaining upon Him, He is the One who baptizes with the
Holy Spirit.” When God spoke to John the Baptist telling him how to recognize the
Messiah – its was by His anointing that He would be known.
In a sense this applies
to all ministers of the gospel – it is by our anointing that we are recognized
in Heaven – not by our human qualifications. I can imagine the angels saying
something like: “He is the one who is compassionate, she is the one who teaches
with wisdom, he is the one who heals.”
Christ means anointed one – and “Christian” means “little anointed one”, we are to be Spirit-baptized, anointed, carriers of grace. This can only come about through an intimate relationship with Him who “gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34).
John
1:35-37
Directing
People To Christ
John 1:35-37 MKJV
Again, the next day afterward, John stood with two of his
disciples. (36) And looking upon Jesus
as He walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of God!
(37) And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
The disciples of John
were men who sought religious truth and who wanted to live authentic and
penitent lives. John pointed these keen learners to a greater truth, Christ the
Lamb of God, so they left John and followed Jesus. This was the right thing to
do. The first duty of the Christian disciple is to learn from God, which is
even a higher duty than personal loyalty to a great leader.
Every now and then we
find a human leader who inspires us, but we have to remember that such a person
is not the end of the story. We may have to move on, to discover new things of
our own, to learn things that they cannot teach us or will not teach us. Ultimately we are always following Jesus and
learning from God.
My bible college
principal Dr. Gibson was such a man, a very wise and great and learned man of
God for whom I am forever grateful. He taught me how to mine the Scriptures.
Yet he was not the end of my learning curve.
The theology I have now is a development, an unfolding, of what was
taught back then.
This can be difficult
for Christian movements that follow a clear defining leader. Necessary changes
can be resisted if they mean going against the historical precedent set by the
great one.
But all such leaders, if
they are any good, want you to follow Christ and learn from Him. They say,
“behold, the Lamb of God” and are happy when you go off to follow Jesus.
You must follow the Truth
wherever the Truth leads you.
The earnest disciple
hungers for the Kingdom of God far more than for the comfort of tradition or
the routines of the organization.
Sometimes the Truth we
find can put us at odds with those around us. We move to drink the new wine and
they prefer the old. Share your joy tactfully, create a hunger, and feed only
the hungry. Do not force-feed the rest.
What about those of us
who lead? They need to recognize that all Christian leaders are like John the
Baptist, pointing people to Christ. They need to let people move on in their
spiritual journey, and follow Christ in the way that He has called them to.
Leaders also need to be
hungry disciples and followers of truth themselves. The leader needs to be a
learner, and be constantly at the feet of Christ to learn new things about His
Kingdom and to receive grace from His throne.
No human leader “owns”
his flock, they are on loan from Jesus, and the leader is only an
under-shepherd. The sheep are followers of Christ that the leader is caring
for; the sheep are not the followers of the leader.
Sheep have feet and will
go where they feel they are fed. The
two disciples left John for Jesus because they were seeking spiritual food.
Therefore a great and high duty of the Christian leader is to provide the food
that leads to eternal life.
There comes a time in
the life of some pastors when they say “I cannot feed you any more, you need
another pastor, I must move on to another church.” And there comes a time for
the missionary when he says “You are now leaders and you have great men of God
among you, it is time I went away. Please go on and learn from God.” There
comes s time to hand over, to go, to let the sheep be led by someone else.
However such handovers
need to be in the Lord’s timing. If they are premature the church can collapse,
if they are delayed it can be split.
Look at your own life: Are you hungry for the Truth? Are you so ruthless in your s