The gospel of John is good going word by word and verse by verse in great detail, doing a three year series. I've done that twice, the second time, twice as slow as the first. John is also very good reading it straight through as if it were a gospel tract. This can be a good reason that churches often hand out copies of John and Romans as an evangelistic tool. I don't know how many people would actually read those two, who've been handed them, but if they did, they're powerful as a testimony to salvation.
I've mentioned that I'm reading through the Bible twice this year, and I read through half of John today as part of my first time through. It's easy math to think that you can read John through in seven days at three chapters a day. Perhaps read it through in two days and see the difference in that too.
I wouldn't say John isn't the life of Christ, but it isn't exactly biographical either. It goes in chronological order, but it reads like an evangelist persuading someone to be saved. That's what John says he is doing at the end of the book (John 20:30-31):
30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
To have eternal life, John says we must believe that Jesus is the Christ. You can be saved by believing in Jesus Christ, but believing in Jesus Christ is believing that Jesus is the Christ. The Christ is the Messiah, that prophesied Savior of the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament, the One Who came the first time to suffer and die and raise from the dead, and the second time as a glorified, conquering Judge and King to transform the earth and rule it. You must believe Jesus, that historic figure, the One Who Already came, is also that second figure, which would mean that your future is wrapped up in Him.
John picks out material in the life of Christ -- this is, of course, all under the inspiration of God -- that will give evidence and persuade that Jesus is that Person, so that you can and will want to receive Him as the Christ. For those who say that repentance is not in John, believing that Jesus is the Christ is repentance. You have repented if you believe that Jesus is the Christ. I didn't say intellectually assent that Jesus is the Christ or pray a prayer, but believe that Jesus is the Christ. This isn't asking someone into your heart or even asking someone to save you in a way that you keep on the same path you were before. No, you know your way is changing if you believe what John writes in his gospel.
This last week I twice ate at an Arab or Middle Eastern restaurant in Detroit. It was authentic. You look around and everyone around is Arab and there is Moslem dress on the ladies. It's like a foreign country. The first meal was the sample platter. This had quite a few of the standard classics in that genre of cuisine, using the names in the original language. That plate, which fed all five adults at the table, gave you a good idea about the food, whether you liked it and what you liked. John gives the sample platter. If you can't receive John's testimony of Jesus as the Christ, you aren't going to believe that Jesus is the Christ.
John writes with authority. If what he writes is true, and it is, you better do something about Jesus Christ. You can't be neutral. You can't just enjoy the story and appreciate what a good man Jesus was. It doesn't read like that at all. A lot of John are long passages of Jesus teaching in Jerusalem on various occasions. Peppered among these are various miracles of different sorts that confirm His teachings.
Before John ever presents the multitude of testimony, he pronounces how and why with outright statements of the identity of Jesus. He will do and teach these things, because He is the God the Son with the same attributes of God. He preexisted before time and created the world. If you believe John's opening salvo, everything is downhill from there, much like if someone believes the first verse of the Bible.
Everything of Jesus was coordinated from above with His fulfilling Divine plan and purpose to perfection, including the foreordination of the forerunner, John the Baptist, who also then testified to Jesus. His initial followers recognized He was the Christ in accordance with their knowledge of the Old Testament. Then Jesus' works evince this reality with the miracle at Cana and His cleansing of the temple. An unbelieving religious leader and teacher was challenged by what He saw personally and Jesus' preaching to Him in John 3 reads of an extraordinary presentation of His role as Savior. John ends the third chapter by saying this (v. 36):
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Jesus is the Christ.
New Testament scholars and historians acknowledge the validity, truthfulness, and authority of the events of the New Testament. They question the supernaturalness of the New Testament, but that's what John is all about. Jesus wasn't just a man. He was a man, but He was also God. His teaching wasn't only Jewish either, even seen in John 4 with the Samaritan woman. Samaritan salvation was also of Jesus Christ. Using the water of the well as an analogy, Jesus said in verse 13-14:
13 Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
"Drinketh" of verse 13 is present tense and "drinketh" of verse 14 is aorist. Continue drinking and drinking this water and you'll thirst again, but I give a water, that if someone drinks it one time, He will never thirst again in the strongest possible negation of thirst. Jesus is the source of everlasting life for everyone and once someone has it, he can never lose it.
Next chapter in John 5, Jesus heals the impotent man. Jesus can because He is the Christ. He did it on the Sabbath and He explains, verse 17: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." The Father never stops working, even on the Sabbath, because the whole world is upheld by Him. Because His Son, Jesus, is also God, He also must always be working. And then in verses 22-24:
22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: 23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
All judgment is committed to Jesus. He is the Christ. The Son is to be honored as the Father is honored. Eternal life is dependent upon hearing and believing the word of Jesus.
In John 6, Jesus feeds the 5,000 and He says this afterwards in verse 35, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
The whole book keeps going like this. It doesn't let down. One particular repeated manifestation of Jesus as the Christ are statements like what Jesus said in verse 35, "I am the bread of life." They've been called the "I am" statements. In John 8:58, Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." "I am" points to God's introduction to Moses as "I am" in Exodus 3:14:
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Every chapter of John evinces Jesus as the Christ from beginning to end.
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