God Made Known
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INTRO: There is almost certainly no part about the historical Jesus with which your are more familiar than with his crucifixion and his resurrection.
1/3 or at least 1/4 of each Gospel is devoted to this central event in the ministry and purpose of Jesus. But what does it mean? (Who is Jesus? Why was he crucified? And how could he rise again from the dead?)
The Apostle John wrote his Gospel after other good retellings of the good news of Jesus were already in circulation (Matthew, Mark and Luke). So John did not set out so much to recap the historical evidence that Jesus is the Messiah but to reinforce and explain further the spiritual significance of who Jesus is (the Son of God) and why he came (and did what he did).
According to John, Jesus reveals God. He makes God known. Jesus is the word, he is the light, and he is life. That means spiritual life comes to the one who knows God through Jesus. … We then become living witnesses to the logos and life and light that are in Jesus, that others may know God. (You just heard read, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” Jn 20:21)
Let’s journey with John to explore the spiritual significance of this unique Son of God who died on a cross and rose again.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Jesus is the Word - logos, the eternal wisdom and truth of God now revealed to us - he is divine reason, he reveals the mind of God, he reveals God’s wisdom in creating, revealing, and saving. Jesus is God the Son, he is God expressing himself in human form.
Jesus is Life - Jesus is God himself fulfilling what is required to grant spiritual life to those who are dead in sin, separated from God. The only one who can make alive dead sinners is Jesus.
Jesus is Light - This world is covered in spiritual darkness. Because of the fall (when Satan tempted Eve, and Adam and Eve sinned), all of nature, and especially the hearts and minds of every human, are trapped in darkness. … Jesus is the light of God’s holiness and purity and perfection breaking into this evil and corruption, exposing it for what it is. Without this light we would remain in darkness.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Jesus came through God’s own chosen people group, but they (as a whole) did not receive him. God had chosen this select people and made Israel a nation to share him on earth, but Jesus was always going to have to come. God the Son revealing the Triune Godhead on earth was always God’s plan to fulfill his purpose. Jesus was always to be the only way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6).
Also right here in the opening prologue John highlights that those who receive Jesus, who believe in Him, can be spiritually born of God and become his children. This is the right response to who Jesus is and why he came.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Here we stumble about blindly in spiritual darkness created by our own sin. Here we remain in tragic but willful, rebellious ignorance toward the God who created us. And our spiritually dead souls are racing toward an inevitable death of eternal separation from him.
But God… But God in his magnificent and immeasurable grace (unmerited favor shown to us), broke into our willful ignorance with his divine truth, shone the light of his perfection into this darkness, brought spiritual life into our certain eternal death. … He has done this in Jesus, and in so doing he reveals his glory (the radiance and weight of his own worth).
By God’s own grace and for his glory, he would not allow everyone to remain dead, in darkness. God graciously grants that some will be made alive to respond to Jesus, to admit what the light exposes and to embrace Jesus as the only means of rescue from the inevitable end of sin, as the only means to make us right with God.
So John can say of himself and others like him…
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Jesus, himself the second person of the Godhead, came to reveal God. The cross and the resurrection must be understood through this lens. Jesus is God making himself known and accomplishing what we could never accomplish.
And because it is Jesus who is the logos, the light, and the life, the Apostle John continues to show that that is why John the Baptist testified that Jesus is the greater one coming after him (1:30), that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who could take away sin (1:29) and who would baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:33).
And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
The significance of Jesus being the Lamb of God means that he can do what all the levitical sacrifices could never do, be complete and permanent. It is Jesus who lived as a perfect man, unlike any human in all of history, who can be the perfect sacrificial lamb to atone for sin, and can satisfy the justice of God and his righteous wrath.
So too we begin to see that spiritual life can only come by the Holy Spirit of God, and it is Jesus who, as God, can give the Spirit to make his people spiritually alive. … We see this all the more plainly when we go over to John chapter 3.
In a meeting with Nicodemus at night in Jerusalem (one of the Jewish religious rulers), Jesus tells Nic that unless a person is born again of the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (Jn 3:3-7). And in that same conversation he connects the necessity of life by the Spirit to the fact that he must sacrifice his own life to secure spiritual life (rebirth) for others:
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
We begin to see that Jesus is the only way. There is no other light, no other life, no other perfect word, no other lamb, no other means to receive the Spirit. But John wants you to see that there’s still more!
Jesus leaves the region of Judea to return to Galilee, passing through Samaria along the way. There he explains to a Samaritan woman that he has authority to grant spiritual life by the Spirit (cf. Jn 7::38-39), which Jesus describes with the metaphor of living water (4:10).
Back in Galilee he performs many incredible miracles that reveal his power and authority from God (healing an officials son who was near death, healing a man who had been lame for 38 years, which he did on the Sabbath day no less). Not only do we find out that the Jewish leaders already want to kill Jesus, but in the midst of these miracles he explains the authority he has from the Father:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Jesus speaks here of both the spiritual life he grants because of his own sacrificial death and resurrection in power, but also of the certain future resurrection of all who have died throughout history, rising either to eternal life or eternal judgment.
And he tells the Jews,
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Then after miraculously feeding a huge crowd of people from 5 loaves and 2 fish (5,000 men may have been as many as 20,000 people), he tells the people seeking him for what he can do for them physically rather than for their true spiritual need:
Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
These and other hard truths made many fair weather disciples stop following him (6:66), but when he asked the Twelve if they wanted to leave too, Simon Peter answered for the group,
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Although this truth is hard, and although it causes more opponents than adherents, Jesus continues to speak the truth about himself.
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
And to those who didn’t believe in him he gave this harsh warning:
He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
But to those who believed in him, he says,
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Add to all this truth-telling the most dramatic of all the “I am” statements from Jesus.
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
To the Jewish ear this echoes back to God’s words to Moses, I am who I am, and to tell Israel that “I am” has sent you to them. The Jews knew that Jesus was speaking of himself as equal with God, and they wanted to stone him.
With all that Jesus can do and all that Jesus teaches, John shows that the people are becoming thoroughly divided over him because some are believing in him while the religious leaders reject him. - When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? (Jn 7:31) No one ever spoke like this man! (Jn 7:46) And…
Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
That very blind man believed that Jesus is the divine Son of Man, and he worshiped him (Jn 9:35-38).
Then in the context of shepherding metaphors, Jesus taught that he was both the door/gate/entrance of the sheep, meaning that he is the only means of access to God. (Jn 10:9) At the same time he said that he was the good shepherd, who knows his sheep and willingly lays down his life for them.
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
And when the Jews press him about this saying, Jesus responds:
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
For this they again wanted to stone him.
Then his friend Lazarus took ill and died. Jesus, knowing that he would go and bring him back to life (Jn 11:11), went to Bethany. Shortly before raising Lazarus, Jesus had this conversation with his sister, Martha:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
And then in front of a whole bunch of witnesses, he brought Lazarus back to life after he had been dead four days. Who can do that?
At this point the Jewish leaders committed themselves fully to killing Jesus. Little did they know that their wicked intention would mean judgment for them, but in the providence of God it served his plan for Jesus to die for those whom God was redeeming to himself.
So in chapter 12 of John we enter the culminating week of Jesus’ ministry. The great I am and the eternal word of God is entering Jerusalem to do what he came for, to be the good shepherd who lays down his life, to be the entrance for his sheep, to be the bread of life and to grant living water (that is the Spirit), and to be the light that exposes sin and offers spiritual life.
As the time of his glorification through suffering drew near (Jn 12:27-28), still many persisted in unbelief, Jesus stated with great urgency:
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
Do you see that this revelation of God himself through Jesus Christ is for you too?
Now if you are in Christ, most of John 13-17 applies specifically to you, as Jesus prepares his disciples for his impending suffering and resurrection, as well as his subsequent departure to glory. And he prays for them and for all who will be his by faith. [We have to draw this to a close for today, but perhaps next week we will look at those chapters.]
In chs. 18-21 we have the betrayal and arrest, his trial and crucifixion, his death and burial, and his resurrection and appearances to the disciples.
One of those appearances provides John with the perfect opportunity to state the purpose of this book. Jesus had appeared to the disciples together on Sunday night on the first day of his resurrection, but Thomas was not there, and when they told him, he declared that he wouldn’t believe unless he saw the evidence with his own eyes. Eight days later the Lord appeared to them again, and Thomas was present.
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
What else can I possibly say to you about how you ought to respond to Jesus that John himself has not said? [repeat v. 31]
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