The Gospel according to John. It is one of the earliest accounts of Jesus'life. We learn at the end of the book that it comes from one of Jesus'closest followers called the disciple whom Jesus loved. He appears many times in the story itself.
There is some debate about whether it is John the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve, or a different John who lived in Jerusalem and was known in the later church as John the Elder. Whichever John it was, the book embodies his eyewitness testimony. And it has been brilliantly designed with a clear purpose that he states near the end. John says, the story is written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that by believing you may have life in his name. John believes that the Jesus you read about in this book is alive and real and that he can change your life forever.
The book's design is really cool. Its first half opens with an introductory poem and a short story that's followed by then a. a big block of stories about Jesus performing miraculous signs that generate increasing controversy.
And it all culminates in his greatest sign, the raising of Lazarus, which creates the greatest controversy, as Israel's leaders decide to kill Jesus. And that launches into the book's second half. These chapters focus on Jesus'final night and last words to his disciples, which are followed by his arrest, trial, death, and resurrection. The book concludes with an epilogue.
In this video, we're just going to focus on the first half. So the book opens with a two-part introduction. First, a poem that begins, in the beginning, was the Word. An obvious allusion to Genesis 1, when God created everything with his Word. Now, a person's words, they're distinct from that person, but they're also the embodiment of that person's mind and will.
And so John says that God's Word was with God, that is distinct. And yet the Word was God, that is divine. And as we ponder this...
claim we hear later in the poem that this divine word became human in Jesus. Then John goes on to draw from the stories of Exodus saying that Jesus was God's tabernacle in our midst. The glorious divine presence that hovered over the Ark of the Covenant became a human in Jesus. Which leads to his last claim that the one true God of Israel consists of God the Father and the Son who has become human to reveal the Father to us.
Now as we consider these mind-bending claims, we then start to hear a story about how John the Baptist first met Jesus and then led other people to meet him and become his disciples. And one by one, as people encounter Jesus, they say out loud who they think he is. And in this one chapter, Jesus is given seven titles.
Now these titles prepare us for John's love of sevens in designing the book. But altogether, they also make a claim that this fully human Jesus from Nazareth is the Messianic King, he is the teacher of Israel, and he is the Son of God who will die for the sins of the world. Now that is a big claim to make about someone and John will now go on to support it through the stories in chapters 2-12.
They all have the same basic pattern. Jesus will perform a sign or make a claim about himself and that will result in misunderstanding or controversy. And so in the end of each story, people are forced to make a choice about who they think Jesus is.
The first section shows Jesus encountering four classic Jewish institutions. And in each case, Jesus shows that he is the reality to which that institution pointed. So Jesus is at a wedding party and the wine runs out.
And Jesus then turns these huge jugs of water, like 120 gallons total, into the best wine ever. And the head waiter says to the groom, You've saved the best wine for last. Which is, of course, true.
But John also calls this miracle Jesus'first sign. In other words, it's a symbol that reveals something about Jesus. So just as Isaiah said that the Messianic kingdom would be like this huge party with lots of good wine, so this first miraculous sign reveals the generosity of Jesus'kingdom.
Next, Jesus goes to the Jerusalem temple, the place where heaven and earth were supposed to come together and God would meet with his people. And Jesus asserts his authority over it, running out all the money exchangers, stopping the sacrificial offerings. And when the temple leaders threaten him, he says, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.
Jesus is claiming that his coming sacrificial death is where heaven and earth will truly meet together. His body that will be killed is the reality to which the temple building points. Then Jesus has this all-night conversation with a rabbi named Nicodemus, who thinks that Jesus is just like him, another rabbi and teacher for Israel.
But Jesus says that Israel needs much more than just another teacher with new information. Israel needs a new heart and a new life. Or in his words, no one can experience God's kingdom without being born again. Jesus believes that humans are caught in a web of selfishness and sin that leads to death.
But he also knows that God loves this world, and so he is here to offer people a new birth, a new chance at life. From here, Jesus travels north and he ends up at a sacred well in a conversation with a Samaritan, that is a non-Jewish woman. And they start talking about water, which Jesus turns into a metaphor for himself. He says he is here to bring living water that can become a source of eternal life. Now in John, this term refers to a new quality of life, one that's infused with God's eternal love, and it's a life that can begin now and last on into the future.
After this, John has designed another collection of stories that took place during four Jewish sacred days, or feasts. And again, Jesus uses the images related to the feasts to make claims about himself. So Jesus first heals a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, which starts a controversy with the Jewish leaders about working on the day of rest. And Jesus says it's his father who's working on the Sabbath and so is he. And they catch his meaning, that he was calling God his father, making himself equal with God, and so they want to kill him.
The next story takes place during Passover, the feast that retold the Exodus story with the symbolic meal of the lamb and bread and wine. And Jesus miraculously provides food for a crowd of thousands, which results in people asking him for more bread. And then Jesus goes on to claim that he is the true bread and if they eat him, they will discover eternal life.
And this offends many people who stop following him. After this is a block of stories set in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles, which retold the story of Israel's wilderness wanderings as God guided them with the pillar of cloud and fire and provided them water in the desert. And Jesus gets up in the temple courts and he shouts, If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink."And then later he says, I am the light of the world. He's claiming to be the illuminating presence of God and the life-saving gift of God to his people. And some people believe and follow him but others are offended and still others try to kill him for these exalted claims. The final feast story is during Hanukkah which means rededication. It's about how Judah Maccabee cleared the temple of idols and set it apart as holy once more. And Jesus goes into the temple area and says that he is the one whom God has set apart as the Holy One. And that he is the true temple where God's presence dwells. And he also says, I and the Father are one. This makes the Jerusalem leaders so angry, they set in motion a plan to kill Jesus. And so he retreats from the city. Now all these conflicts, they culminate in one last miraculous sign. Jesus hears that his dear friend Lazarus is sick. but his family lives near Jerusalem, which is now a death trap for Jesus. Now, Jesus could stay away and he would save his own life, but he loves Lazarus. So once he hears that Lazarus has died, he goes to raise him from the dead, and he calls him to life out of his tomb, knowing that it will cost him his own life. And the news of this amazing sign, it spreads quickly, of course, and just as Jesus knew it would happen, the Jerusalem leaders hear about it and begin conspiring to murder him. And so he rides into Jerusalem as Israel's king who's rejected by its leaders. So the first half of John draws to a close with this story about Jesus laying down his life as an act of love for his friend. And this of course is also a sign pointing forward to the cross, which we'll explore more in the next video. But for now, that's the first half of the Gospel of John.