In the first post we saw that John wrote this Book to make the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the human embodiment of God’s Word & glorious presence who has come to reveal who God truly is. Then we explored how John designed the first half of the book to demonstrate this claim. Jesus performed miraculous signs & made huge claims about Himself, that He is the reality to which Israel’s entire history points. This all generates controversy however, & the Jewish leaders confront Jesus for all these claims. It culminated with Jesus laying down His life for His friend Lazarus. By going near Jerusalem to raise him from the dead Jesus sealed His fate. So once the plot to murder Jesus is set in motion we come into the Book’s second half.
The first part focuses entirely on Jesus’ final night & last words to the disciples as He tries to prepare them for His coming death. Jesus performs this shocking act at dinner. He takes on the role of a common servant by kneeling down to wash their dirty feet; something that in their culture a superior Rabbi would never do for His disciples. Jesus said it’s a symbol of His entire life purpose: to reveal the true nature of God as a being of self-giving love. It’s also a symbol of what Jesus is about to do in becoming a servant & giving up His life to die for the sins of the world. So this act leads to His great command to His disciples that they are to follow Him by loving one another as He has loved them. Acts of loving generosity are to be the hallmark of Jesus’ followers. This is what will show the world who Jesus is, & therefore who God is. From here Jesus goes into a long flowing speech that’s concluded with a prayer. You’ll find the whole thing is unified by a few repeated themes. 1) Jesus keeps saying that He’s going away, which makes the disciples sad. But Jesus says it’s for the best because it means that He will send the Spirit, also known as, the Advocate, Comforter or Holy Spirit. As a human Jesus can only be in one place at a time, but the Spirit can be Jesus’ divine personal presence in any place at any time. The Spirit will do a number of things, Jesus says. 2) Remember, for John, the unique deity of the one God consists of that loving unified relationship between the Father & the Son. Jesus says the Spirit is that loving personal presence that will come to live in His people & draw them into the love between the Father & the Son. 3) So Jesus says His disciples are the ones who abide or remain in that divine love, the way the branches are connected to a vine. He is describing here how the personal love of God can permeate a person’s life, healing transforming & making them new. 4) The Spirit will also empower Jesus followers to carry on His mission in the world, to first of all fulfill the Great command to love others through radical acts of service. But also Jesus says, the mission is to bear witness to the truth, to expose & name the selfish sinful ways that we as humans treat each other & to declare that in Jesus God has saved the world through Him because He loves it. He’s opened up a new way to become human again. 5) So finally Jesus predicts that there will be opposition. Just as the Jewish leaders rejected Him, so His followers will be persecuted. But He tells them not to be afraid, because He has already conquered, or gained victory over the world. Now, what does Jesus mean by victory here? He doesn’t say. But it leads us into the final section of the Book, where John shows us what victory looks like, Jesus’ style. The Jewish leaders sent soldiers to Jesus & His disciples to arrest Him. When the soldiers ask which one Jesus is He declares, “I am”, & they fall backward. Now this is brilliant on John’s part. These words are the culmination of two sets of seven instances where Jesus has used that very phrase. It all highlights one of John’s core claims about Jesus. The words “I am” or in Greek “Ego eimai”, are the Greek translation of the Hebrew personal covenant Name of God that was revealed to Moses back in Exodus 3:14. It was also repeated many times in Isaiah. In Isaiah 43:10 and Isaiah 46:9. John has strategically placed seven moments in his story where Jesus says, “I am” followed by some astounding claims. “I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35), “I am the Light of the World” (John 8:12), “I am the Gate for the Sheep” (John 10:7), “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11), “I am the Resurrection” (John 11:25), “I am the Way, the Truth & the Life” (John 14:6), “I am the True Vine” (John 15:1). John’s also designed seven other stories that have key moments where Jesus says simply, “I am”, echoing this divine name. (See John 4:26, John 6:20, John 8:24, John 8:28, John 8:58, John 13:19, John 18:5.) So here, this occurrence, as Jesus is arrested, is the ironic climax of all of them.--Because Jesus reveals His divine name, & power, & victory precisely at the moment that He gives up His life. After this, Jesus is put on trial for His exalted claims to be the Son of God & the King of Israel. First before the high priest, & then before the Roman governor, Pilate, who has to take seriously anyone who is charged with claiming to be the King of Israel. Jesus tells Pilate that “My Kingdom is not from this world.” --Meaning that He is a King, & that His Kingdom is for this world, but it’s radically different value system, its redefinition of power & greatness, none of this is derived from this world. Rather, they are defined by God’s character that Jesus has revealed through His upside down Kingdom which is epitomized by the cross. It’s the place where the world’s true King conquers sin & evil by letting it conquer Him. And Jesus gains victory over the world through an act of self-giving love. After this Jesus’ body is placed in a tomb that is then sealed. On the first day of the week, Mary, & then later the other disciples discover that the tomb is strangely open & then empty. Then Mary, all of a sudden, she meets Jesus. He’s alive from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus connects back to another pattern of sevens in John’s Gospel. So all the way back at the wedding party in Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine, John told us that was Jesus’ first sign in chapter 2. He also identified the second sign, the healing of the sick boy in chapter 4. But after this John just lets you keep count. (3.Healing of paralyzed man in chapter 5; 4 feeding of 5,000 in chapter 6; 5 healing of blind man in chapter 6, 6 was the raising of Lazarus from the tomb in chapter 11, which Jesus performed at the cost of His own life.) So that & all of the signs, they point forward to this seventh & greatest sign at the culmination of the story, Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. It vindicates Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God, the author of all life, whose love has conquered death itself. After the empty tomb Jesus then meets up with all the disciples. He commissions them by sending the Spirit as He promised, so that His mission from the Father can now be carried on through them. After this, the Book concludes an epilogue that explores the ongoing mission of Jesus’ disciples in the world. A number of them are fishing & they’re not catching anything. So Jesus appears to them on the shore. They don’t recognize Him though. He tells them to cast their net on the other side of the boat. When they obey Him they catch a huge amount of fish, & it’s only then that they recognize Him as Jesus. Now John’s offering here a picture of discipleship to Jesus. His followers will be most effective in the world when their focus in not on their work as such, but on simply listening for Jesus’ voice & obeying Him when He speaks. That’s when they will truly see Him at work in their lives. After this, Jesus talks with Peter & then commissions him as a unique leader in the Jesus Movement, indicating that he too will give up his life one day. But in contrast to Peter, the last moments of the story focus on the author of this Gospel, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. Unlike Peter, his job was not to lead the Jesus Movement, but rather to spend his long life bearing witness to Jesus so that others might believe in Him. That’s actually what he’s done right here, by authoring this amazing story about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God & that’s what the Gospel of John is all about.
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AuthorThe goal of the blog is to provide interesting, motivational, soul feeding material. All to help remind us that God loves us all and wants a personal relationship with each of us and will take care of us in times of trouble. I aspire to be a force for good by providing you with positive input. I encourage you to share the blog with others. Archives
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