Prayers

John 1

Eternal God, You and Your Son were in the beginning, together with the Holy Spirit.  We rejoice in You, the Triune God of Creation.  We thank You for Your Word of truth through the prophets, now recorded for us in the Scriptures.  We receive Your Son this day.  We believe in the name of the One who is full of grace and truth, who became flesh and dwelt among men for our salvation.  Your Son is now at Your right hand in glory.  We thank You for this great Messiah.  Announced by the prophets, Jesus the Christ is our Savior and Lord.  Teach us to follow the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of people near and far.  He is full of the Spirit, and He has sent forth the Spirit.  We seek You, Lord Jesus Christ.  O Father, grant to us a holy regard for Your great Son.  Cause us to stand on this Cornerstone of Your church.  He is good and kind.  He is wise and full of truth, for He is the God at Your right hand.  He has made the way to heaven for us.

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John 2

Merciful Father, Your Son is a great husband for the church.  We will enjoy the greatest wedding feast when He returns.  That day will arrive by Your power and love, and we will rejoice with the fullest happiness, for we long for His appearing.  We thank You for the signs that Your Son gave of His glory.  He will come with justice as well as salvation.  Grant that we would mourn for the state of Your church, yet that we would have confidence that You make all things new.  Your Son has built a new Temple, for He raised up His body in divine power, and we are now united in that great Temple of the Holy Spirit.

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John 3

Glorious Lord, we must be born from above.  We must have life that can only come from You.  Help us to embrace the wonderful miracle of regeneration by the effectual calling of Your Holy Spirit.  Send Your Spirit to Your people in greater fullness.  We will not resist You, O Lord.  Please forgive us and help us.  We look to Your Son, O God, and we are alive in Him.  We do believe in Jesus Christ, and now we live, for You have promised that we have eternal life through Him.  We hate our wickedness.  Please expose our sinful deeds, and forgive us.  We turn toward You again that we might pursue the righteousness that can only come as a gift from You.  Cleanse us in that water that comes from above.  We rejoice at the voice of the Son of God.  Speak to us through Your Word.  Our Savior has come from heaven.  We receive His testimony, for He is the Truth.  We believe in Your Son and will follow Him.  Be merciful to us, for we trust in Your holy Name.

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John 4

God of Truth and Mercy, Your Son manifested a wonderful fullness of all Your divine attributes even during the days of His humiliation.  He knew what was in every heart.  He had great mercy upon the weak.  He pronounced the truth of new life boldly and with great compassion.  We want the living water that can only come from You.  You know the truth of both our sin and Your eternal plan.  We must worship in Your Son, for He is the new Temple.  We must worship in Him, for we are called to worship in Spirit and in Truth.  He is the only Messiah.  Will You save the unworthy?  We know that You will.  There is hope for us.  The harvest is plentiful.  Send forth workers for the preaching of the gospel.  Help us each to do the part that You have for us, that Your body might testify to the truth and live in love.  Your Son had great mercy upon the weak.  By His Word we shall live forever.  There is power in His voice.  One day He will call forth the dead from their graves, and there will be a glorious resurrection.

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John 5

Father God, we thank You for the healing power of Jesus Christ.  Here we have a great help for us today, and a great hope for the future.  We need You now.  We trust You forever.  Thank you for the forgiveness of sins.  Your Son has perfectly fulfilled the Law.  He is our Sabbath rest.  In Him we have the rest that is to come.  We honor Your Son just as we honor You, for You sent Your Son.  We long to hear His voice and to see the coming resurrection of the dead.  Your judgment is just.  You have demonstrated with great clarity that salvation is in Your Son.  We have never seen You, but we gladly receive Your Word.  Your love is in us, and we rejoice in Your Son.  We believe the Scriptures.  They confirm to us that Jesus is the Christ.

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John 6

Sovereign Lord, You have provided for us in our great need.  You sent Your Son, the Bread from heaven, that we might be fully satisfied in our souls.  Thank you for using us as Your disciples as You continue to testify to Your Kingdom and Your glory throughout the world.  Why should we live in darkness, when Your Son is a bright and shining light?  He has demonstrated His authority over creation.  Who could He be if not the expected Son of God?  You have set Your seal of approval on Him.  We need to believe in the One You have sent.  He is the Bread of Life.  We come to Him.  All that You give to Your Son shall surely come to You, and You will keep us and will raise us up on the last day.  This is our confident expectation.  You have drawn us to Him, and so we come.  We need this Living Bread from heaven.  He has given us His flesh and blood that we might have eternal life.  He will raise us up on the last day.  We abide in Your Son, and He abides in us.  What can it mean that we abide in Him and He in us?  Your Son speaks words of life.  Help us to understand these great spiritual truths.  He has the words of life.  Though others may turn away, we want to stay with You forever.  Have mercy on us even when we doubt.  We are so weak in our understanding and our courage, but You will never abandon Your children.

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John 7

Lord God, even the brothers of Jesus did not believe in Him.  Our own faith is far from perfect at present.  Surely You will bring us to a perfect trust in Your Son when we see Him.  Now we know in part, and we still struggle with sin.  Please forgive us.  Your Son will grant us a full obedience when we go to be with Him.  How foolish we are when we act as the judge of the Son of God.  We need to receive Your Word as the truth.  We know You and we love You.  Thank you that the news of Your Son has reached our land.  We hear and believe.  According to Your Word, out of our hearts will flow rivers of living Water, even the Holy Spirit.  Your Son is the Son of David, born in Bethlehem, but He surely is more than a human deliverer.  He is the Son of God, eternally from heaven.  Help us to rest in Him today and forever.

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John 8

Our Father, Your Son faced such controversy as He moved toward the cross.  Why do men not acknowledge the Light of the world?  Our sin nature is so powerful in evil.  Only You can move us toward the hope and joy that is ours in Christ.  Your Son suffered for us.  He came from above in order to face many trials for us here below.  He was lifted up on the cross after bringing the Word of truth to His disciples.  The truth that He has spoken still sets men free today.  Grant that we will abide in that Word forever.  If Jesus sets us free, we will be free indeed.  We do not want to return to the way of the devil.  We desire to know You day by day as our Father, and to follow You.  Protect us from the dangers that come from the Father of lies.  Your promise is so wonderful.  We shall not see the second death, though our mortal bodies may rest in the grave.  Your Son is the great “I AM” forever.

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John 9

Father God, we need to see the truth about You day by day.  We cry out to You for spiritual sight.  We do not want to pretend that we understand all that we should understand by this time.  Grant us more sight from Your Word.  Your Son gave sight to a man who was born blind.  What a wonderful day of Kingdom wholeness it was when such a miracle was performed!  Yet those who sat on Moses’ seat had distorted Your Law into a system of angry self-justification.  Is it a violation of Your Law to open the eyes of a blind man on the Sabbath?  How could we get so far off track and yet be so sure of our rightness?  One day we shall see Jesus.  We long for that greatest of all Sabbaths.  Keep us from the undue influence of those who promote destructive and man-centered religious philosophies, lest we abandon the clarity of sight that Christ has already granted to us.

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John 10

Lord God, You have granted to us the Good Shepherd.  He knows us, and we know Him.  We hear His voice, and we love Him.  He is the Door to heaven.  We enter into Your Kingdom through Him.  He has given us the fullness of life.  Protect us from vicious wolves, and from under-shepherds who would abandon us in times of danger.  Unite Your church together as one flock under our one true Shepherd.  Your Son laid down His life for us, and He picked it up again in His resurrection.  He has revealed Himself as the Christ, but many who saw and heard Him did not believe.  We believe.  Keep us in Your hand forever.  You and Your Son are One.  He is fully God and fully man, and He is our Redeemer.  You consecrated Him and sent Him into the world.  He performed many great works which clearly fulfilled all true expectations of the coming Messiah.  We thank You for the wonderful gift of Your Son, the great Shepherd of the Sheep.

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John 11

Sovereign Lord, we struggle with our mortality in this dark world.  The ones we love live and die.  Grant us faith to believe in the resurrection.  Your Son is the Resurrection.  On the last day He will awaken those who sleep in Him.  Their souls are alive and awake with You even now.  Whatever Your Son asks of You, You will surely give Him.  He is our life.  Grant us more and more life in Him day by day.  Comfort us in our grief and loss.  Console us in a day of distress.  Remind us of the truth, that though we weep, Your Son is the Resurrection.  He loves us.  We do not want to grieve Your Holy Spirit today with our unbelief.  Grant us a fuller assurance.  We do believe, but we seem to ignore the power of the resurrection.  You sent Your Son to save us.  He will come again to call our resting bodies from the grave.  He will not be stopped.  It was most necessary for this one Man to die, so that we might live as Your people.  We are Your children who were scattered abroad, but now we are being gathered together into Your church.  Grant us all a great delight in worship as we anticipate together the glory of the coming Day.

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John 12

Great God, thank You for the hope that we have in Christ, a hope of resurrection life.  Help us to testify to this great hope by giving ourselves to the work of the Kingdom even now.  We know of the death of Christ for sinners, and we believe in His resurrection.  Your Son has come in Your Name as the King of Israel.  What kind of King is Your Son?  Gentiles find their place in this great King of the Jews.  This could not happen without His death.  He gave His life for us, and we now have life.  You have glorified Your Name in Your Son.  He was lifted up on the cross, defeating the power of evil and drawing many people from all the nations to Himself.  Today we walk in His light, for He has made us to be sons of light through faith in Him.  We have believed the report that has been revealed to us by Your Word and Spirit.  Help us to be courageous in our testimony to Your Son.  Let us love the glory that will come from you more than the glory that men give.

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John 13

Holy Father in Heaven, what is love?  Your Son demonstrated to us the way of love.  He was willing to take the place of the lowest servant in order to work our redemption.  He did more than wash the feet of His disciples.  He became the lowest sinner on the cross and won for us the kingdom of heaven.  In this He has also set an example for us.  He is our Lord and Master.  Shall we run away from the cross that we are to bear?  Strengthen us in faith, so that we will never betray Your Son and His people.  What we do against Your church, we do against Your Son.  Forgive us Father, and help us to resist the devil.  We seek the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is our pledge and intention to love Your disciples, but will we really do it?  Lord, have mercy upon us.  Keep us from arrogant presumption, and glorify Your Name among us.

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John 14

Lord God, You have given us a great assurance of eternal life.  Your Son is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.  When we Know Him, then we know You.  You are in Your Son and Your Son is in You.  His works testify to His own divine nature.  What an amazing thing that Your Son has called us to do an even broader work in bringing the message of life to the whole world!  Because He lives, we also shall live.  Teach us to love His commandments and to keep them.  Make Your home with us, O Lord.  Fill us with Your Spirit.  Help us to learn the truth through His great ministry.  Your Son is with You, and in Him we are with You.  He faced the most devastating loss for us.  Help us to walk faithfully in His ways.

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John 15

O God, we do not want to ever walk away from Jesus.  We do not want to resist Your Spirit because of the pain of Your pruning work.  We need to abide in the vine.  Apart from You we can do nothing.  We ask You now for the blessing of much fruit.  Enable us to abide in Your love and to keep Your commandments.  May our joy be full.  Your Son has laid down His life for us, and we are His friends.  He has chosen us.  He has a plan for godly fruit that will come from our lives.  We are not of the world.  We have been chosen out of the world.  Help us to have courage to do the work that You have for us in the world, though the world may hate us.  Grant us a fuller measure of the Spirit of truth, that we may bear witness to Your greatness and Your love.

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John 16

Lord God, grant to us the strength that we need in order to face the persecution that will come against Your church.  Help us to embrace the sorrows of the present age, that we might have the fullness of joy even now, a joy that comes from the assurance of the age of joy that is yet to come.  We ask that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth.  May Your Word be boldly declared to us, and may we have ears to hear the greatness of Your message.  Your Son’s days on this earth were brief.  He was here for a little while, and then He was gone, yet His disciples did not have sorrow.  No one could take away their joy.  Help us to believe in resurrection life in the way that they did. Help us to ask and receive from You.  You desire that we should not only seek, but find.  Help us to stay firm in the faith through every tribulation, for Your Son has overcome the world.

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John 17

Father, surely You heard the entreaties of Your Son when He prayed on earth.  You have glorified Jesus.  Through Him we have eternal life.  Grant that we will keep Your Word day by day.  Protect us from the lies of our adversary.  Help us to hold fast to the truth by Your grace.  Your Son has prayed for us.  What a tremendous source of confidence to Your people in times of trouble!  Even now He intercedes for us.  Thank You for this great gift.  Sanctify us in the truth.  Bring others to us who will hear of Jesus Christ through our words.  Grant that we will be one in Your Son forever.  May the love with which You love Your Son be in us, and may He Himself be in us.

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John 18

Great God, we seek You.  In former days we used the Name of Your Son in vain attempts to tear Him down.  Forgive us, O Lord.  Now we approach You with fear and joy through Him who loved us with an everlasting love.  He has forgiven our sins.  Even now, though we want to serve You, we speak rash words and do things that are not in accord with Your holy will.  Would we even deny You under some awful temptation?  Father, we do not want to overestimate our strength.  We turn away from all sin.  Your son died for us.  We ask for Your help immediately, lest we bring some disgrace upon Your Name.  We are so easily moved by those who observe us and by our own foolish thinking.  Help us to see You only, to love You entirely, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Grant that we will be faithful through many attacks and trials.  Fill us with the power and love of Christ, who endured the assaults of men for our sake.  He is our King.  There was no guilt in Him at all.  Grant us ears to hear His voice through the Scriptures, that we might believe the truth, and bear witness to Him, now and forever.

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John 19

Father God, give us strength for the work of prayer and service that You have appointed for us this day.  We don’t want to give up, but we are so weak.  Your Son faced such brutal attacks for us, yet without sin.  Let His heart and mind be in us now so that we will serve You with integrity and zeal.  He is the man above men, yet He took the lowest place in history when He died for our sins.  He is the King of kings, but His crown was a crown of thorns, and His royal robe the gift of those who mocked Him.  He is the Son of God, but the people of His creation demanded that He be crucified.  Father, we know that You govern all things, and that the day of the death of Your Son came by Your express plan and foreknowledge.  Will we still resist You in some area of our lives?  Your Son is the fulfillment of every hope and expectation of Your Word.  Thank You for the gift of Your church.  In Your household we find a family that will live forever.  The death of Your Son has won for us eternal life.  Through the events of His burial we know of the certainty of His death.  Though our bodies may one day rest in the grave, we shall be alive forever in Christ.

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John 20

Lord God, we marvel at the empty tomb.  We consider the placement of the linen cloths lying there, cloths that once covered the dead body of Your Son.  We think of the other cloth that once covered a lifeless face, now folded in a place by itself.  We believe.  Then we consider the familiar voice of Jesus calling His friend by her own name, the voice of a risen Man who walks in the presence of angels.  Yes, we believe.  He is risen.  He is the firstborn of many brethren.  As He is, so shall we be.  Though we die, there is no point in anyone clinging to our flesh, for our spirits shall ascend on high, and when the Son of Man calls us out from the grave, we shall rise again, not with mortal flesh, but with immortal bodies.  We long for Your coming, O Lord!  Your Father is our Father.  Your God is our God, and we have peace.  Father God, fill Your church with Your Holy Spirit.  As You sent Your Son, not to be served, but to serve, send us forward in Your love.  Use Your church to declare the forgiveness of sins.  Grant us a very secure faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in our coming resurrection.  Though we have not yet seen, we do sincerely believe.

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John 21

Father God, Your Son has revealed Himself to us through His Word and Spirit, and also in the breaking of bread together as Your church worships You through our Redeemer.  Your Son is full of blessing for us.  He continues to serve Your church with unexpected joys according to Your great plan.  We feast together at Your table with confidence in Him.  You use us as fishers of men according to Your Word.  You know our defiling sin, and You restore us again with forgiveness and a call to serve.  We do love You.  We will feed Your sheep.  You know all things, and our lives are in Your hands.  If we live, we live for You.  If we die, we go to be with You, and our lives are still in Your hands.  Teach us to trust You with our own lives and with the lives of everyone around us near and far.  We thank You for the testimony of Your apostles regarding our great Savior.  We hear the truth recorded for us in the Scriptures, and we rest in Your love.

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Devotionals

John 1

The Greek translation of the Old Testament begins with these words (translated), “In the beginning.”  John starts his gospel with these same words.  Not only are the actual words the same, but they are referring to the same beginning, not the beginning of Jesus’ ministry on earth as a man, but the beginning of the world.  John tells us that the divine Voice of God, the Word, the eternal Son of God is the same divine Person as the man who was baptized by John the Baptist.  He was in the beginning.  He was with God, and He was and is God.  Everything that was made was made through Him.  It would be completely correct to say that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and He did this all through His divine Voice, and that this Word is none other than the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  He is the divine Light that gives light to men, first by their nature in Adam as those created in the image of God, but then secondly in their souls by the second Adam, who gives spiritual life to men, and finally at the resurrection of the dead.  Sin, death, and all the darkness that comes with them came through one man, Adam, but all light and life have come to us through Jesus Christ.

God sent John the Baptist to be the forerunner of the One who is the Light of the World, Jesus, the Builder of a great kingdom of light.  John was a prophet, and was surely a great man, but he was not the Son of God.  His testimony was very valuable, but Jesus was more than one who brings testimony.  He came as God incarnate.

When the Son of God visited us, He was not gladly received by everyone.  The Jews rejected their Messiah, and even those within His own family were not ready to embrace Him as Lord or Savior.  Yet by the will of God, there were some few before His death and resurrection, and many more after those important events, who would receive Him as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  To embrace Christ in this way is not first a matter of our natural heritage, or even primarily of our own decision.  We are enabled to believe in His Name.  We are made to be new creatures in Christ, and even children of God, with all the rights that go with such an exalted position.  This is much more than Moses or the Law could have given to us.  This is a gift of the One who was before John, even from before the beginning, One who was with God, and who is God, Jesus Christ.  He came from heaven.  He has seen God.  He is the only God who is at the Father’s side, and is the One who was chosen to make God known to us in person.

The forerunner, John the Baptist, was consistent in his testimony that he, John, was not the Christ.  Though he was something of an Elijah, and certainly was a prophet, yet he did not consider himself to be the Elijah or Prophet that people had wrongly come to expect.  He knew that he was a voice crying in the wilderness in fulfillment of Isaiah 40.  He was baptizing Jews with a baptism of repentance, which was a very bold thing to do.  Yet he consistently was testifying to the great superiority of Jesus Christ.  Jesus would bring about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the church in a far greater baptism than John’s baptism of water.

God confirmed to John that Jesus was the One, the Lamb of God, the Sacrifice appointed who would take away the sin of a new world.  Pointing out Jesus to Israel was the purpose of even John’s ministry of water baptism.  Here was the Lord, full of the Holy Spirit, and marked by God through a visible manifestation of His presence from on high, such that John the Baptist was definitely convinced that Jesus was the One.

The disciples of John were given another Word of testimony by the Baptist the day after He pointed to Jesus in person.  He again said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”  Two of the men did begin to follow Him at that moment, but they did not seem to know what to say or do.  They would spend time with Him over the next three years, years that ended with the tumultuous events of the cross and the resurrection.

There would be others who would be chosen by Jesus as His most intimate followers.  They seemed to have an almost immediate awareness that Jesus was the Messiah, but very little concept of what this would actually mean.  They knew that He was the fulfillment of what was written about Him in the Law and the Prophets, but they did not seem to understand what all that testimony actually said.  They would learn now by following Him.  They would see many amazing things, unexpected things about a Messiah who seemed to come from the wrong town, even the wrong region of the ancient nation of Israel, but who also seemed to know things that He could not know unless He possessed capabilities beyond those of normal men. 

This Teacher who took it upon Himself to assign a name to a grown man, was truly the Son of God.  He was the King of Israel, but He was also much more than they realized Him to be.  They did not yet understand that this King would be victorious through His death.  They did not know that the power of that death would open up a way for people to have bold access to God in heaven through Him.  He would be the stairway to heaven.  He was the one encountered by a sleeping Jacob so long before.  He would be the ladder between heaven and earth that Jacob had seen in his dreams.  He was the Way, the only Way, who would bring about the reunion again of heaven and earth.  He was the glorious Son of Man spoken of by the prophet Daniel.  He did not live for the praise of men, yet millions would praise Him.  Here was the Light of the world.  Here was the Source of resurrection life.

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John 2

A wedding is supposed to be a great celebration.  God is in favor of the idea of one man from one family and one woman from another family being united together in marriage, such that the two are somehow made one.  He invented the concept, and He has made it one of the responsibilities of societies and their governing authorities to protect the interests of people as it relates to this good gift of marriage.  There are many great advantages that come to us as a result of this great blessing, but paramount among them is that marriage is to be a display of God’s love for His people, and our submission to Him as a Husband.

Jesus came to bring about a great wedding.  He gives His life for His bride, and she is to be purified by Him to be holy, spotless, and without blemish.  That final wedding marks the end of a long period of decay and mourning.  Finally things will be right again, and we will celebrate.  It is particularly because of this great story of the best of all weddings, that the commencement of any blessed marriage should be a cause for rejoicing.  This is one of the reasons that God has given wine among men, that we might more readily have our hearts appropriately gladdened.  In this very important and surprising episode, even before the appropriate public commencement of Jesus’ ministry, there was a problem that came up at a wedding that He attended.  The poor couple had run out of wine.

It is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who brings this need to the attention of her Son.  She must know that He is able to take care of this problem.  After He makes the point that His hour has not yet come, she gives this wonderful instruction to the servant, “Do whatever He tells you.”  Jesus was under no compulsion to work this miracle, and he certainly faced no absolute necessity to do what He did the way that He did it.  It is interesting that He chose to bless a wedding, but even more interesting that He chose to do this by using large jars that were normally used for Jewish rites of purification.  These customs of purification would soon be a matter of some controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees in the months ahead.  This action is suggestive of the ministry that Christ brings.  The traditional ceremonial customs that have become such a large part of Pharisaic Judaism must give way to the joy of the most delightful wine on a most wonderful occasion. 

One other detail is worth seeing here.  The steward is not aware of the fact that Jesus has turned the water into wine, but he is aware of the fact that this new wine is the best wine.  The marriage that is coming is a heavenly marriage, and the wine that is provided at this wedding in Galilee is a heavenly foretaste of a celebration to come.  The one who is the Bridegroom has provided the blessing.  The celebration is beginning even now, in a way.  This is the first of seven signs in John’s gospel, signs that show us the divine Christ and the kingdom of heaven.

This transition from the old ways to the new ways shows up not only in our Lord’s miracles, but also in his teaching and his actions of judgment.  We are used to thinking about the cleansing of the Old Testament temple in Jerusalem as an event that took place at the very end of Jesus’ ministry, just prior to the cross.  John tells us that Jesus began His public ministry with a similar episode, so that the two form important bookends for our understanding of what He was doing. 

It was not that Jesus hated the temple or the sacrificial system that God had appointed for His people in His Word.  He loved these things, though He knew that it was time for the old ceremonial laws to be completed, and for a new way of worship to begin.  What He did hate was the abuse of God’s ordinances.  He loved His Father’s house, but He hated the fact that men had perverted the things of God for their own selfish gain.  In the words of Psalm 69, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  Jesus is the “Me” that the psalmist refers to.  He loved the Old Covenant place of the presence of God, and He loved the New Testament temple of the Holy Spirit, the Messiah and His church.  He loved that new temple so much that He was willing to be consumed for that love, in a sense, on the cross.  This was necessary in order for us to be a part of the temple of God.

Those who thought of themselves as in charge of the temple area were taken aback by the boldness of Christ’s actions.  They asked for some sign that would justify His words and deeds.  He spoke of the coming destruction of a temple, a temple that would be raised again in three days.  This was a very unusual thing to speak about.  They naturally thought that He was referring to the temple building on the top of Mt. Zion.  After the cross and the resurrection there can be no doubt that He was referring to those important events, and to His only position as the true Temple of God.  This was a somewhat veiled reference to the ultimate sign of Messiah.  His disciples only understood what He was speaking of after the events themselves took place. 

These great events were spoken of in the Scriptures, but they could only be understood as the central events of God’s plan of redemption after they had taken place.  Yet there was One Man who understood the Scriptures and Himself.  In fact, He knew what was in man.  He knew our need for the gift of faith, and for the miracle of spiritual life.  He knew about our sin, and our need for an atoning sacrifice, and He came as the one who was prepared to do the will of His Father, despite the tremendous cost of our salvation in His own flesh and blood.  After He had won victory over sin and death, the church began to see more clearly that He was the new Temple and the great Husband of His redeemed bride.  We see these things now, and have great cause for celebration.  Yet we are aware of the fact that the best wedding reception is yet to come.

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John 3

Nicodemus was an important man in the circles of religious power in Judea.  He was a ruler of the Jews, one of the elders of the nation, and a leader in the religious and political party known as the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were known for their seriousness in attending to the Law, though their understanding of God’s Law was deeply flawed, and their expectation of what would come to them through their supposed keeping of that Law was greatly inflated.  Because of these problems, it was very difficult for someone committed to the Pharisaic way to appreciate the ministry and purpose of Jesus Christ, and the good news that He came to bring.  A right understanding of Jesus and the gospel is built upon the fact that we are all guilty sinners according to the Law of God, rightly condemned for our disobedience.  This was something that the Pharisees as a group could not fully embrace.  Therefore, it is easy to see why they would have no place in their system for a Messiah who would atone for the sins of Israel through His own obedience and death.

Nonetheless, this Nicodemus was attracted to Jesus, and came to Him at night, and he spoke to Him some words of approval.  Yet Jesus Christ did not receive his compliments.  It is true that Jesus was a teacher from God, and that the signs that He performed displayed that fact, but Nicodemus needed to see more than this.  It is not enough for us to recognize our Lord’s good qualities and gifts, or even to consider Him to be the best of all prophets.  We must see Him as the Messiah who takes away our sins, and to see this requires a work of God in our souls that Jesus calls here being “born again,” or “born from above.”

The kingdom of God is the kingdom of heaven, and to be a part of that kingdom is greatly to be desired.  The way into that kingdom is by birth, not the physical birth that seems to be the only birth that Nicodemus can think of, but by spiritual birth that can only come from heaven and heaven’s God.  It is by God the Holy Spirit that people are brought into heaven’s world.  He is a wind from another land that cannot be observed with the eyes entirely, and cannot be controlled by even the most well-connected, influential, and pious people.  The fact that there would be a coming age of the Spirit of God could have been known from many passages in the Law, the prophets, and the writings of the Old Testament Scriptures.  This is something that any true religious teacher in Israel should have known.  Yet they did not seem to know, and even though Nicodemus had some respect and admiration for Jesus, he also did not seem to know these things.

The way of the kingdom of heaven on earth has come through the One who came from heaven to earth, and who ascended back to His heavenly abode after completing His work that He came to accomplish.  The way for someone to experience heaven’s birth in his soul is to look to Him and live.  As the people of Israel dying in the wilderness because of their sin and rebellion needed to look to the serpent lifted up upon the pole, the people of every time and place on earth need to look to Jesus and the cross in faith in order to live, in order to be born in heaven.  This is why Jesus first came into the world, not to condemn, but that people who are already condemned might find eternal life through believing in the name of the only Son of God.

Nonetheless, when the Son of God came with such mercy and salvation, just as when God provided the serpent in the wilderness, not everyone would look to Him and live.  The Light came into the world, but those who were not yet born from above showed that they loved their evil more than their God.  They turned away from the Light of the world instead of embracing Him.  They may have insisted on their good standing with God, and their excellence in keeping all kinds of religious traditions.  They would not see their depravity and find life in Jesus.

Those who rejected the way to peace with God through the works and atonement of a Substitute, rejected both John the Baptist and Jesus.  They believed that their standing with God had to do with things like purification rituals of cleansing oneself from the stain of a dirty world, rather than admitting the sin that is within, and turning away from that sin.  The rituals of Jewish purification were one thing, the baptism of repentance as preparation for the coming of the Messiah was another, and the baptism of union with Christ as a spiritual reality was yet another, better, thing.  This final baptism is well connected with the kingdom of heaven, and with the celebration of a marriage between Christ and His church.  The purification rituals would go their way, and even John and his baptism of preparation for the Messiah would decrease, but Jesus Christ and the reality of our engagement to be the Lord’s people will increase forever.

The amazing thing about Jesus is that He is from above.  Prophets and godly men were entrusted with messages that were from above, but He Himself is from above, and He is above all.  The testimony that He gives is the testimony of the One who has seen and heard the reality of the kingdom of heaven.  It is somewhat understandable when those who do not accept this reality of the pre-existent Son of God reject His testimony concerning the facts about heaven.  What is harder to understand is when we who believe in Jesus still insist on treating heavenly realms as a complete mystery, though He has revealed to us so much.  We need to receive His testimony.  God is true, and Jesus is God.  Set your seal of approval on the person of Jesus and on His teaching about heaven and earth.  He is an unending Source of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Father has given all things into His hand.  We need more than purification ceremonies and even our own thoughts of repentance if we are to have honest evidence that we are no longer under the wrath of God.  We need to believe in the Son of God, and to obey Him by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

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John 4

One of the most important realizations that can overtake a soul is that in all the vastness of the universe, the God who created and sustains all things knows and loves me.  To believe such a thing can change a life.  A woman of Samaria met Jesus at a well, and from the progress of the dialogue between them, we are left with the distinct impression that she is known and loved by God.  It all starts with a drink of water, but it ends with a large number of people, Samaritans no less, apparently convinced that Jesus, a Jew, is the Messiah.

It is rather surprising to the woman at the well that Jesus would be talking to her at all.  The region of Samaria, in between Judea to the south and Galilee to the north was populated by a people who rejected large sections of the Hebrew Scriptures.  They were a mixed multitude, ethnically and spiritually diverse as a result of foreign settlers during centuries of occupation by outside empires, yet with a strong identification with the heritage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They knew that Jews generally did not have dealings with them, but here was a Man who actually asked for a drink.  She questions this, and He speaks of Himself and something He calls “living water” that He claims He can give to her.

The woman can see that Jesus is in some way asserting greatness, and she questions this.  To her He appears to be poorly equipped to give any kind of water to anyone.  Jesus clarifies His message some by speaking of “living water” as greater than physical water, which has such temporary benefits.  The water that Jesus is speaking of has something to do with forever, and a life that Jesus says is eternal.

The woman claims to want this living water, though she is still thinking of water that only satisfies daily thirst.  Jesus tells her to call her husband, and to bring him to the well.  He then gently exposes some central facts about this woman’s life that He could not have been expected to know.  She has had five husbands, and the one she lives with now is not her husband.  This is where we begin to see the intentionality of divine love.  Jesus knows this woman.  He has engaged her in this conversation.  His purpose is not to expose her, but to bless her.

This Samaritan woman is aware of one of the great areas of contention between the Jews and the Samaritans, the issue of the place of worship.  According to portions of the Bible that the Samaritans reject, the followers of Yahweh are to worship Him in the temple in Jerusalem.  The Samaritans have an alternate holy site.  Jesus reveals that something major is happening in the story of God’s saving work that will soon make this question unimportant.  The true worshipers of the Father will worship in some different “place,” called here “in spirit and truth.”  Though this statement is not explained, there can be little doubt that the place is a Person, that Jesus Himself is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and that the church becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit when we worship in Him.  It is at this point that the woman reveals that she is waiting for Messiah to come, and Jesus plainly reveals Himself as the Messiah.

At this point the disciples return, and the woman, leaving her water jar, goes back into the town and gathers many people to come out and see Jesus.  She draws their attention to His special knowledge of her own life story, and then asks them something like this, “This can’t be the Christ.  Could it be?”  At the same time, as the people are coming toward Jesus, He speaks to His disciples of a future harvest that is beginning even now.  This is a companion piece of important theological information, fitting well with the revelation that the temple in Jerusalem will not be the most important spiritual place in the world anymore.  The time is almost here for a gospel harvest, and the disciples will eventually be very much engaged in that operation, that will involve sowing of the Word of God, and gathering a new kind of temple, involving the labors of many over some period of time.  The imagery of the final age of blessing is quoted from the Hebrew prophets.  This great age is now upon us, somehow sneaking ahead in front of the cross and the resurrection in this amazing encounter in a Samaritan town.  The harvest is now, and it turns out that God loves Samaritans, and many from that town come to believe in Jesus, that He is the Savior of the world.

As our Lord returns to Galilee, He performs the second of John’s revelatory signs, healing the son of an official at a distance.  This too is a display of the coming of a new day of resurrection.  When that age has fully arrived, we will all see with our eyes what we are called to believe with our hearts now.  Until the fulfillment of this in the return of Christ, this resurrection age is lived out in a preliminary stage, the era of the proclamation of the gospel.  In the Word of the gospel we are told to believe that we will live, though we cannot yet see the fullness of that life. 

The true announcement of the healing of this boy is a fitting display of the coming of this exciting time of spiritual opportunity.  Now the Word goes forward with divine power, and not only Jews, but also Samaritans, and Gentiles from the uttermost parts of the earth hear the message of the divine love of God supremely displayed in the cross of Christ.  To hear this message, to understand that God knows us and loves us, to believe that our sins have actually been atoned for through the blood of this Jewish Messiah, this is life-changing and powerful.  Until the Lord returns in glorious splendor, it remains a fact that the fields are still white unto harvest, and that the message that we have been given to communicate is strikingly good news.

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John 5

The world is full of false answers to our deepest problems. We know that we have brokenness in us and all around us.  Some of it is so serious, that it prevents those who are deeply troubled from having anything close to normal lives.  As people attempt to cope with trials, they can easily become trapped in systems of recovery that are only false solutions to their tragedies.  The pool of Bethesda was a place dedicated to one of these false systems.  There apparently was a commonly held belief that the waters there, when they were agitated in a certain way, were some kind of conduit for angelic powers of healing.  It was there where our Lord spoke to a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  He said, “Do you want to be healed.”

The man did not answer the question, but launched into an explanation as to why this false spirituality had not yet delivered for him.  The system at the pool was one where the first shall be first.  If you were fast enough, you would win the benefit of the magic waters, and then all would be well.  This is what we want, and we expect that it will come through some use of our own abilities.  Jesus cut through this explanation with these simple words, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”  The power came from the Word that was spoken, and not through anything in the man who received the Word.  He was healed.  Then he took up his bed and walked.

This taking up of a bed and walking was no small issue.  It drew attention to the healing that had taken place and it violated the false understanding that many Jews had concerning the Sabbath commandment.  Both healing and picking up a bed were understood by many followers of Jewish rituals to be violations of God’s Law if they happened on the Sabbath day.  By instructing this man to pick up his bed, Jesus was confronting the false spiritual way of man-made Jewish traditions.  He added to this conflict by His answer to those who questioned the things that He was doing on the Sabbath.  “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”  They understood from this kind of statement that Jesus was making Himself equal with God, and they took such offense at this that they wanted to kill Him.

Jesus did not back away from His contentions concerning both the Law and His own person.  He explained that His connection with the Father was even greater than anything of which they had accused Him.  Jesus knows all that the Father does, and He does what the Father does.  This includes even the raising of the dead.  Furthermore, it is the Son who is the One who will execute all divine judgment.  Anyone who claims to honor God must honor the Son just as they honor the Father, which must mean that they should worship the Son, since that is the way that we honor the Father.  To ignore this duty to honor the Son of God is an insult to the Father.  Jesus says that it is through His own Word that eternal life is experienced now, and through His own voice that the dead will be raised forever.  This is because the Son has life in Himself, just as the Father has life in Himself.  The Son is the great I-AM, just as the Father is the great I-AM.

The fact of the resurrection of the dead should surprise no one who claims to be following the Scriptural answer to the problems of sin and death.  Instead of being offended by Jesus, and seeking to kill Him, the righteous hearer of His Word should have marveled at the grace of God in the provision of a Messiah who had the power to speak words of life to the dead, and to bring forth a resurrection kingdom.  It is a plain Scriptural fact that there will be a resurrection of the dead and a separation of the righteous and the wicked.  What should have caused a righteous man to fall to the ground before Jesus was the fact that the central figure in this great salvation of the unworthy was before Him in the flesh.

But what was the testimony to Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, which should have been conclusive.  It was not what He said about Himself alone.  They also had the word of John the Baptist, who pointed to Him as the Lamb of God.  More than this, Jesus had the approval of the Father which was displayed in the works that He performed.  Even these might have caused people to question what was occurring before their eyes, but they should have turned to the Scriptures for confirmation that the signs that were being performed before them were the signs of the Messiah.  It is the Scriptures that are such a solid testimony to the fact that Jesus is the One we should come to for eternal life.

Jesus spoke about Himself not in order win their approval, as if He needed to be glorified by men in order to believe in His own worth.  He is God in the flesh, and they needed to be approved by Him.  It was clear to Him that they did not have the love of God in them.  He is the giver of divine glory, a glory that can only come at the cost of His life.  Instead of receiving the great gifts that He has for His people, they were showing their rejection of God by their refusal to receive Him.  Moses did not do this.  Moses looked for the coming of One who was greater than Him.  Moses longed for the days of the Messiah.  They claimed to be followers of Moses, but they rejected his words, words that testify to the truth about Jesus Christ.  Their trust in Jewish traditions was just as false and as powerless as the supposedly magical waters of the pool where an invalid had waited for healing for so many years without any good result.  The only way to receive the resurrection is to receive it as a gift from God, a gift where the unworthy are given the greatest divine kindness, and where some who are the last, end up being first.

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John 6

By this time in the ministry of Jesus there were great crowds following Him, particularly because He was performing signs of the coming resurrection age, when a new life beyond the life of decay and mortality that we are so used to now will be here upon the earth.  That life can be known now through the preaching of the kingdom, and will be known even more when we are in heaven.  The crowds did not connect the signs that Jesus was doing to the new heavens and the new earth promised by the prophets, nor did they connect the signs to the Messiah as the key figure in bringing about the resurrection world to come.  They certainly did not see the connection between the role of Jesus as the Passover Sin-Bearer and the coming of the fullness of God’s promises.  What they did see is that people were being fixed now, and they wanted that.  So many people wanted those blessings, and so many were following Him, that there was nothing approaching an adequate supply of food to meet everyone’s needs.  Jesus cared about this, and though He knew what He would do to solve this problem, He put the question to His disciples, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat.”

Part of the correct answer to that question would be the inability of the disciples to do this task.  They could not provide bread for thousands, but this is only part of the correct answer.  The other part of the correct answer is that Jesus could do this, and that His performance of this miraculous feeding, providing bread from heaven, would be another confirming sign of His identity.  As the Messiah would bring the Word of life to millions through the use of His disciples, He used them that day to give bread to thousands.  He then instructed them to gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.  The baskets of fragments they gathered was a public display of the extent of this miracle, but His direction to gather the fragments may have had another point.  The use of the imagery and vocabulary of lost bread  and perishing people mentioned later in this chapter, makes us suspect that there was something more here in this surprising command after this sign of resurrection fullness.  God does not like things to be permanently out of place (See Luke 15).  Someone saved through the blood of Christ must not remain scattered abroad as if lost or perishing.  Such a person should be gathered into God’s kingdom.

The people saw the sign that Jesus did, even though He was working through His disciples.  They concluded that He was the great Prophet that they were expecting, and they determined that He should be King, and that they could make that happen their way.  Therefore, He went away by Himself, which created the occasion for another miracle, this one seen only by His disciples, who were travelling by night on stormy seas.  As He walked upon the rough waters with a memorable display of His sovereignty, He spoke amazing words of self-identification often translated, “It is I.”  Our Lord used the words here that God used for His own name in the Old Testament, “I-AM.”  Given the fact that He was walking on the water and that they quickly arrived at their destination once He came on board, it seems clear that Jesus was providing the reassurance to His disciples that would be a comfort to them through their proclamation of the Bread of Life to a world that often rejected Him and them.  I-AM is with us.

The people were determined to find Him because they wanted more bread.  They kept on speaking about bread, and He kept on speaking about Himself.  They knew what they wanted, and God knew who they needed.  They needed His Son, the Bread that came down from heaven.  They did not believe this, and He knew it.  He also knew two facts of salvation that are still just as true today as they were back then.  1. Everyone who looks on the Son, and believes in Him, will have eternal life, raised up gloriously by Jesus on the day of His return. 2. No one can come to Jesus, unless the Father draws him.  The point of this second fact is not that we should be passive or resigned about our eternal state.  We are to believe in the one that the Father has sent and labor to have Him, for He is the bread from heaven, the only One with the Father’s seal of approval.

There were many who did not like the idea that Jesus was saying that He came down from heaven and Jesus knew it, but He did not back away from this important truth at all.  He is the preexistent, eternal Son of God, and He holds the key to resurrection life.  Those who are being drawn to Him by the Father will eventually vigorously desire Him.  He spoke of them eating His flesh and drinking His blood, which then further offended those who were rejecting His Word.  He said that those who want eternal life must feed on Him, and many of the larger group of His disciples were so offended by this that they no longer followed Him.  The twelve remained with Him, though even one of them would eventually betray Him.

Jesus was using the imagery of eating His flesh, because He is the peace offering and the Passover Lamb.  These were sacrificial offerings that the people of Israel were permitted to consume.  Jesus is our peace and our rescue from certain judgment.  The profit for us is not in His physical flesh, it is in His Word, which is Spirit and life to the one who will eagerly desire it and receive it.  Something like this is surely happening when we rightly partake of the Lord’s Supper, which had not yet been instituted when the events of John 6 took place.  Today we receive the Word from heaven gladly.  There is no other place for us to go.  We listen eagerly to the Word of God, knowing that this Word is alive and powerful.  We long for Him, and we receive Him, for He is the bread who came down from heaven to give us life.

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John 7

As Jesus moved toward the cross, the controversy around Him grew.  A major turning point in the opinion of even many of those who had once considered themselves to be His disciples came when He told them they needed to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life.  This was an escalation of a conversation where people who were already offended by His statement that He came down from heaven, now frankly admitted that His difficult words were too troubling for them to remain associated with Him.  Nonetheless, it was not yet time for the cross.  He escaped some of the day to day dangers of being too near Jerusalem by travelling around Galilee, not because He was afraid of death, but because His time had not yet come. 

One problem with avoiding Jerusalem is that Jewish adult males were commanded by God’s Law to gather in Jerusalem for three major religious feasts every year.  One of these feasts was the culmination of the annual calendar, the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, which is rightly associated with the idea of God dwelling with His people in a world of perfection forever.  That feast, we are told, was at hand, so as a true worshipper of the Father, He eventually went to Jerusalem.  His brothers were trying to push Him to go to the feast for another reason, to make a name for Himself, to attend with the idea that this would be a way to prominence.  They did not believe in Him, or they would have trusted Him to know the pathway to the fulfillment of His destiny.  They thought as the world thinks.  The way of Jesus and His kingdom is different than the way of the world.  Jesus came to glory through the cross, and the time for that had not yet fully come.  He did go to the feast, but He went first as a private worshipper.

There was much discussion about Him at the feast.  Somewhere in the middle of the eight days of Tabernacles, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching.  His teaching came from His Father.  In this way He was very different from celebrated rabbis who studied the opinions of other teachers from the past and showed that their understanding was based on their research and their assent to the traditions of scholarly Jews.  Jesus had an immediate Word from God in His teaching, and seemed to even possess an immediate understanding of the opinions and motives of those who were listening to Him.  He forthrightly confronted those who would not receive His Word as violators of God’s Law who were actually seeking to kill Him, an innocent Man, and this because of His healing people on the Sabbath.  Everyone agreed that to circumcise on the Sabbath was necessary work, and yet to heal the whole man was not allowed.  Though the religious leaders taught based on tradition, they had full trust in their own opinions, even when those traditions and opinions were at complete odds with the bold teaching of One who was performing the signs of the Messiah from the Scriptures.

It is easy to imagine that this situation was not only awkward, but full of significant tension.  A Man was openly teaching who was generally known to be opposed by powerful people, and yet He was not being arrested.  His miracles seem to be well known to everyone, but as the people judge Jesus, some find Him lacking in some detail of what they expect to be signs of Messiah.  For example some apparently expect that Messiah will come in such a way that people will not know where He came from.  Others insist that He will be known to have come from Bethlehem.  In addition to all this, Jesus is talking about going away to Him who sent Him, and some of them are getting the distinct impression that it is the intention of Jesus to go to other Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire.

In the midst of all of this, on the last day of the Feast, Jesus stood up and cried out one of the most dramatic and meaningful sayings of His entire ministry.  “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”  We are told by the gospel writer that Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, whom those who would believe in Him were to receive. 

The story of a healing river that is connected with the presence of God is a story that starts in Eden, and finds its perfectly secure fulfillment in the new heavens and the new earth, described at the very end of the Bible.  Along the way, the prophet Ezekiel is given a vision of what has to be a heavenly temple where God dwells.  Proceeding out from under that temple is a healing river.  Jesus is that Temple, and those who believe in Him are united with Him in His designation as the temple of the Holy Spirit.  This heavenly hope is what Tabernacles was all about, and Jesus is saying to all who would hear, “If you want the glory of the life to come, come to me and drink.  Not only will you get heaven’s river, that river will proceed from you, for you will be the temple of the Holy Spirit, together with all the church, of which I am the Cornerstone.”

This was a very appropriate declaration by just the right Man, at just the right time, in just the right setting.  It did not take away all of the trouble that was already swirling around His Name.  Instead it caused the conflict to grow, since it was a conflict that could only end at the cross.  Eventually His time would really come, the time of His atoning death on the cross for us, the time for His resurrection from the dead, the time for His ascension into heaven, where from the right hand of the Father, the Spirit of God would be poured out upon the church, and the New Testament temple of believing people would be born and would grow.  This growth of the temple would happen with still more controversy.  There would continue to be men like Nicodemus who would question the rightness of persecuting the innocent, and there would continue to be those who would be ready to hurl curses and insults at anyone who showed any weakness in the direction of faith.  Above all of them, there would be the true Rock of our salvation who will not be moved.  He is an ever-determined Source of life-giving waters to His people.

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John 8

In the previous chapter of John’s gospel, at the Feast of Tabernacles, that feast that celebrates God dwelling with His people, our Savior cried out in the temple in Jerusalem, that whoever would believe in Him, out of his heart would flow rivers of living water.  It is from the heavenly temple of God that a river of life flows.  Jesus is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and He has promised that in Him we shall truly be the temple of the Holy Spirit, of which He is the Cornerstone.  Here in John 8, Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world.”  He also says that His being the Light of the world will mean something to those who are united to Him.  We will walk in light, and have the light of life through our union with Him.  In saying these things, Jesus identifies Himself publicly as much more than a teacher, or even a prophet.  He is instructing anyone with ears to hear, that they should be spiritually united with Him, in order to share in the benefits of intimate connection with the One who is not only fully man, but is also fully God.

When the Son of God came to save, He came to a world that was not universally willing to receive Him.  As His claims concerning His identity became clearer to people, the antagonism of those who would not believe also became more obvious.  At root, Jesus claimed to be true, and especially that He was true to the Father in the fullest meaning of those words.  Those who rejected Him insisted that He was just plain false.  He claimed that what He was saying was precisely what the Father would say, because these two are one.  Their agreement was not a compromise by two differing parties, but the perfect eternal determination of the one voice of God.  The mind of Jesus is the heavenly mind, the divine mind.  He told those who were disturbed by His words, “Unless you believe that I-AM, you will die in your sins.”  He also spoke of His being “lifted up,” without saying what those words meant on this occasion, though we learn exactly what they mean in John 12:32.  What is clear here is that Jesus is definitively asserting that He always does the things that are pleasing to the Father.  It is this sinless Son of God who would be lifted up on the cross to die for our sins.

There were some, we are told, who believed in Him as He was saying these things. His instruction to them was clear and wonderfully simple.  “Abide in my Word, and you are truly my disciples.”  Many people may be interested in the Word of this Man who makes such great claims of connection with the Father, but some stay with that Word, and live in that Word, they settle their lives upon that Word, and they are called disciples, learners, followers of Jesus Christ.  To them, Christ made a great promise.  “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  We were created to be free, but sin has made us slaves, and foolish slaves at that.  Foolish slaves of sin think that they have reached the height of freedom when they are perfectly autonomous, free to choose what they want.  Yet when they choose sin, they are not free at all.  Real freedom comes through finding our place as servants of God, and even sons of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and then in pursuing the fullest obedience to God’s commandments from a heart that has been freed by God to willingly and eagerly do what we were created to do.  The agent of such a change of life in a human being can been none other that God Himself, but He indicates here that He does this work through people coming to know the truth as they hear and even abide in the Word of Christ.

It is very plain that Jesus was insisting that God was His Father.  Those who rejected this Word, made two claims about themselves.  They first claimed that Abraham was their Father, and then insisted that God was their Father.  Both of these claims were part of a larger effort to deny the claim of Jesus, that through His Word they could become free.  Their response was very direct.  As children of Abraham, and even children of God, they did not need this Jesus to make them free.  They already were free.

The problem with this claim of freedom is that our sin is a plain fact, and the one who sins is not free, he is living a life against the will of the Father, because He is sinning against the Father.  We can call that freedom, but it leads only to God’s judgment, and to be eternally judged by God is not to be free.  By this understanding of freedom, there is only one Man who is free in Himself, and that Man is Jesus Christ, because Jesus did not sin.  This free Man became the Servant of the Lord to win our true freedom.  He died for sin that was not His own.  But in that death, He won for us freedom in Him, just as we are the temple of God because He is the Temple of God, and we are the light of the world because He is the Light of the world.

If the enemies of Christ were really sons and followers of Abraham, and sons of followers of God, then they would have done what Abraham did.  They would have heard the Word of God and believed.  They showed themselves to be sons and followers of the devil, who rebelled against the Word of God.  They needed the Son of God, the only One who was so radically free of sin, to become a sin offering for them, to atone for their sins, in order that they might truly be free, but they would not hear Him and believe.  They could not bear to hear His Word.

Abraham did not hate the Messiah to come.  Abraham did not resent Melchizedek, this mysterious Christ-like figure, the King of Righteousness, and the King of Peace who seemed to come out of nowhere.  Abraham did not reject the Voice of God when God provided a Messiah-like ram in the thicket as a substitute for His Son Isaac.  Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Jesus, because He knew that the Messiah was greater than Him.  He believed and it was counted to Him as righteousness.  When our Lord said to those against Him that day, “Before Abraham was, I-AM,” He stood on the truth that He not only knew Abraham, and that He knew God His Father, but that He was and is God forever.  They knew He was saying this, so they picked up stones to stone Him as a blasphemer.  We hear His Word, and we rejoice with Abraham.  We are content to be united with Jesus Christ and to honor Him forever.  Because He is the Son of God, we are sons of God through Him, for He was lifted up on the cross for our transgressions, and He was raised for our justification.

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John 9

Much trouble has come into the world because of sin.  Nonetheless, sin is not the first and highest cause of anything, even trouble.  There is something bigger in the eternal purposes of God going on, something above sin, and above trouble, something that is so important that it in some sense necessitated sin entering into the world through Adam, and necessitated trouble coming into the world with sin.  This great intention of the Almighty is that the works of God be displayed before the eyes of men, and even somehow within men.  In order for a blind man to be healed by the son of God, displaying some resurrection kingdom truths, it was necessary for there to be a blind man.  In order for any kind of trouble to come into the world, including blindness, it was in some sense necessary for there to be a fall, and consequences of that fall.  A son’s blindness is not all about his sin, or his parent’s sin, or even Adam’s sin.  It is first about the work of God being displayed, the work of a God who intends to provide the perfect conclusion to a book of life with many chapters about brokenness and misery.  On that day so long ago when Jesus healed a man who was blind from birth, He displayed the work of God in that man, giving further proof for all who could see, that the Messiah was the Light of the world.

The healing of the man born blind was not the end of his story.  It seemed to be the beginning of controversy, and also the beginning of a progressively clearer yielding of this one man’s life to a Messiah who gives sight to the blind.  When he was asked about the healing, he first said that it was the work of “the man called Jesus.”  Then when he was questioned by the Pharisees concerning the agent of this Sabbath healing, he said, “He is a prophet.”  When he saw Jesus again at the end of the chapter, he acknowledged Him as the Messianic Son of Man, he called Him Lord, and told Him that he believed.

The progression of the Pharisees was different.  First they acknowledged the difficulty that a man who did not keep their understanding of Sabbath traditions was able to do such amazing signs.  Some of them seemed to entertain the possibility that Jesus might be from God, while others reacted vehemently against and show of weakness toward such a position.  Then they questioned the man’s parents, apparently hoping that this would prove to be a false miracle, and that the man had not actually been blind before.  By this point they had already agreed that any who confessed that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.  Finally they questioned him, and in something of a rage, they cast the healed man out and pronounced their own judgment upon him, that he was born in sin.

The two questions that seem to be most troubling for them were the question of where Jesus came from and the question of whether or not He was a sinner.  Both of these things are very serious to consider.  Jesus was sent by God from heaven to earth in order to achieve the will of God for us.  If He was to fulfill His destiny, He could not sin, since to bear the weight of our sin effectively He could not have any of His own sin.  Was the making of mud and applying it to the eyes of the man a violation of the Lord’s commandment to do no work on the Sabbath day, or was it the perfect fulfillment of this day of testimony, pointing to the coming eternal Sabbath rest in heaven, when the blind shall certainly see?  The Pharisees took the first position and Jesus the second.  On the second question, was Jesus a Galilean of questionable heritage, perhaps even the illegitimate child of very poor parents, or was He the Son of God made flesh?  The two questions were connected.  If Jesus was truly the Messiah, then His understanding of what it means to keep the Law of God was correct, and the traditions of the fathers concerning Sabbath-keeping and many other matters were wrong.

Those Pharisees who were firmly against Jesus were hoping to pressure the healed man to support them in their contention that Jesus was a Law-breaker.  This proved to be difficult.  This man had been blind, and now he was able to see, and the reason for the change was obvious.  It seems amazingly arrogant that the Pharisees imagined that this man would be a good witness against Jesus.  They seemed to be unusually blind to such a gracious and miraculous sign of the resurrection Kingdom, as if their own wrong interpretations of the Law of God should be considered more glorious than sight being granted to the blind.  They were convinced that they had the most wonderful spiritual vision as the self-authorized disciples of Moses, but they were strikingly blind to the truths and proofs of the kingdom of God.

Their attempt to trouble Jesus was a sign of another spiritual truth: that the leaders of God’s own people had a surprisingly powerful hatred of His Son.  With each episode in John’s gospel we are getting closer to the cross.  To see the cross in all its healing power does require some spiritual vision.  It is necessary for us to see our own sin, and to see the perfect holiness of the Lamb of God.  It is required that we take Jesus at His Word, that He has come from the Father and is going to the Father, and that He will be victorious in His Messianic work.  Those who are able to see their own need, and to see the glory of God in the atoning work of Christ, however blind they may seem to the world, are actually seeing things rightly.  But those who imagine that they have peace with God through their own Sabbath-keeping, however scrupulous they may be in all of their religious tradition-keeping, are actually blind to the truth of God, and to the wonder of His power.  For those who reject the Lord’s Messiah, it is a sad fact that their guilt remains, but for those who are granted eyes to see the Christ as their only hope, it is a happy truth that their sins are forgiven, for they have believe in the One who is the Light of the world.

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John 10

Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we who hear His voice gladly are His sheep.  One of the features of this life is that His voice is not the only one that we hear making a claim to be our shepherd.  In fact there are those who claim to be serving the world and even the church who are nothing but thieves and robbers.  They would go into the sheepfold of the church by some other door than Christ, their path to glory would be something other than the cross, and their hope for the sheep is not the fullness of love, but to turn them away from the Good Shepherd, and even to devour them, dragging them down with themselves to eternal judgment.

The first fact for us to consider is that Jesus is the Door to the blessedness of the eternal kingdom.  He is the only One who could ever serve in that capacity.  Fully God and fully man, He was sent by the Father in order to meet the just demands of God’s holy Law for us, and then to take our debt upon Himself on the cross.  Because He has done this, the way of salvation has been opened for all who will enter the sheepfold through Him.  This requires some spiritual discernment which God must supply. 

There are so many who have such a strong intuition that all doors will eventually lead to safety and blessing.  If that intuition is correct, then Jesus was wrong.  We have many intuitions that are not correct, chief among them is that almost everyone is good, and that we are good too (pretty much).  This intuition is strongly contradicted by reason, experience, and the Scriptures.  These two false intuitions are related to one another.  If we are basically good, and are already acceptable to God just because, then we do not need a Savior to come to earth, to live in perfect holiness, and then to die as a Sin Offering for us.  It is not possible for the all-doors-are-safe intuition and the claim of Jesus to be the only Door to safety to both be correct.  Christ came that we might have an abundant life that could only come to us through His death and resurrection.

Not only is Jesus the door to heaven, He is also the Shepherd who leads us there.  While He does that now by His Word and Spirit, during His time on this earth He led His sheep by walking in a certain direction, and by continuing on that journey all the way to the cross.  He laid down His life for the sheep.  If we are all fine with God without Jesus Christ, then He made a horrible mistake that cost Him His life.  But He is to be trusted far more than our own intuition or any false advisor.  His work for us was very necessary, and He knows how to lead us away from wolves and from false shepherds who are only interested in themselves.  This Shepherd leads us in the way of suffering, a way that we follow with joy because we are convinced that His suffering was different than ours, and His power is well beyond us.  He accomplished something very great by laying down His life, and then taking it up again from the tomb.  This was the charge that He had through His eternal covenant with the Father, and He kept that charge for us. 

Just as our intuitions falsely tell us that we are actually good and that we face no eternal danger, these same intuitions can convince a person that Jesus is the problem, that He is the bad one, He has a demon, and He is insane.  Yet can some demonic force work resurrection miracles, such as giving sight to the blind?  That question troubles our otherwise settled intuitions.  Jesus knew well that to reject these false ideas, to see the signs that He was performing with Biblical clarity, and to embrace Him as the Messiah required a work of God in the souls of men.  To hear the voice of Christ in this way is to be given to Christ by the Father, such that no one is powerful enough to steal such a person away from Jesus.  Those who are given to Him are His sheep.  They hear His voice, they know Him, and they follow Him.  The Father’s purposes are identical with the purposes of the Son.  Just as Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”  Here we have the great mystery of the prophets plainly revealed, that the Servant of the Lord, the Christ, would actually be the Lord Himself, that Christ and God are one.

This clarity was not universally appreciated.  They picked up stones to stone Him, though He had done many good works from the Father.  They claimed that He, being a man, made Himself God, and that the anger that they felt against Him and their desire to even kill Him was righteous indignation, and a zeal for the honor of the Lord.  Jesus then quoted from the Scriptures exposing their hypocrisy, since the Bible itself used the term “gods” to speak of people in positions of authority.  If that kind of word was acceptable to use for important human beings, what about the pre-existent Son of God whom the Father had set apart and sent into the world? 

The issue was not really a defense of the honor of God, but a deep hatred for God and His Anointed One.  Yet there were many who did believe in Him, and many have believed in Him over the centuries.  We have found Him to be the Christ, the Son of God, God Himself, the Door to Heaven, and our Good Shepherd.  We are blessed to be His sheep.  We have come to hear His voice in the Scriptures, and we follow Him.

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John 11

Jesus came to bring life.  The very best sign of His mission came in His own resurrection to immortality.  Prior to that great Sunday morning there were many other signs of what was to come, but surely among the most wonderful of these was the resurrection of His friend Lazarus from the dead.  Jesus knew that Lazarus was very ill, and he loved this man and his sisters, Mary and Martha, yet He stayed for two days longer in the place where He was rather than come quickly to save Lazarus prior to his death.  The reason for this is now clear, that the Lord had determined that this illness would not have the final victory in a sad loss of life, but that it would instead lead to an amazing display of God’s glory.  Jesus had determined to glorify Himself through this display of raising His friend back to mortal life.

Lazarus lived in Bethany, a town near Jerusalem in Judea, and Judea was now a dangerous place for Jesus to travel.  His disciples were curious about His willingness to go there, but Jesus Himself displayed an awareness of Himself, and a trust that the timing of God in His approaching death would be perfect.  He is the light of the world, and He knew why He was going to Bethany, and what He would do there.  The disciples did not share this awareness.  When Jesus told them that Lazarus had fallen asleep, they assumed that this was a good sign of His eventual recovery.  Jesus knew what they did not know.  Lazarus was dead, but Jesus was going to Bethany to call him forth from the tomb.  At least one of the disciples, Thomas, imagined that Jesus and His little army would fall in battle there as noble soldiers of a good dream, a dream of a Messianic Kingdom that just could not be.  How else can we understand His resolve that they should all die with Jesus?  It would appear that He was counting on a noble defeat, but His Master was actually walking toward a great display of victory over death.

What they found when they arrived in Bethany was a sight that was far from victorious.  Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.  His sisters were grieving deeply, especially knowing that if Jesus had been there when Lazarus was sick, our Lord could have healed him.  Jesus first spoke with Martha, who said, “Even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”  We cannot suppose that Martha was suggesting an immediate bodily resurrection for Lazarus, since her conversation with the Lord seemed to preclude such an amazing possibility for a man who had already been in the tomb for that length of time.  Instead she may have been thinking about the existence of Lazarus beyond death, about their own comfort in the midst of grief, and about all of the normal requests that we might bring to God at a time when we lose someone we love.  Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”  She naturally assumed that He was comforting her with the hope of the coming resurrection at the end of this age, an important fact that she firmly believed in.  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection.”  What she did not seem able to fathom at that moment was that the presence of the Christ, the Son of God, the One in whom we must believe in order to live forever, the One who is coming again into the world to bring the great resurrection of humanity, that this presence could actually mean resurrection right then and there for her brother.

Martha returned to Mary and told her that Jesus was calling for her.  She went quickly and she said the same hard words that Martha had spoken, “If You had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Those who were with them comforting the sisters had the same question in their own minds, the obvious question.  “Why were you not here?  Why did you let this happen?”  His disciples knew that His waiting to come to Bethany was intentional.  What were they to think?  Jesus clearly loved this man and his sisters.  He wept at this loss and at their grief, even knowing the great miracle that He was about to perform.

And then it happened.  “Lazarus, come out.”  Jesus is the Resurrection!  He has the power to speak to a dead body, and to return that body to life.  This is a shockingly wonderful display of His glory.  It is a display of the coming fact of His own resurrection.  It is a display of the truth that the Father hears the Son, a display that caused some to believe in Him.  And it was one display too many for some of the Pharisees.

They did not know what to do.  As the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together to make a determination, there was one man who knew what had to be done. He said something very true, “Do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”  What he meant by this was that the danger of Jesus to the political stability of the Jewish nation was substantial, and that it was better for Jesus to be put to death rather than to face the might of Rome coming against them and their Messiah.  God meant something different by this special pronouncement, that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.  Elect Jews and Gentiles, the true Israel of God, would live, because Jesus would die for them.  They were concerned about Roman armies coming against this vassal state of the empire.  Jesus was thinking about the wrath of God coming against the elect because of our sin.  The result was the same, both Jesus and His enemies knew what had to be done.  He had to die.  The angry group of leaders was operating out of envy, fear, and hatred.  The true King of the Jews was operating out of the fullness of divine holiness and love.

Through it all, the One who declared Himself to be the Resurrection was in charge.  Finally now the time was at hand, for the Passover was coming.  The great miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead would set in motion the events that would bring about the most amazing death in all the sorry history of decay upon this planet.  One Man would die for the nation, and the nation of God’s people throughout the world would live forever.

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John 12

When Jesus brought back Lazarus of Bethany from the dead, the chief priests and the Pharisees met to consider what could be done about Him.  There was something about that miracle that seemed to move these adversaries toward action.  But Jesus would not only face murderous opposition from outside His circle of followers, there would also be a betrayer who would come from among those with whom He shared His daily bread.  Just six days prior to a Passover that would be forever associated with the death of Christ, Judas Iscariot faced something of a rebuke from the Master concerning the actions of Lazarus’ sister Mary.  Mary had testified to her belief in the coming death of Jesus by taking some expensive burial ointment, and pouring this on Jesus’ feet.  Judas corrected Mary, and Jesus said something to Judas.  “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”  The death of Christ at this time was a certain reality, and it was more important to testify to this, even at great cost, then to give money to the poor.  The stir over the resurrection of Lazarus was growing, and there was tension inside and outside of the close circle of the followers of the Messiah, so that plans were being made not only to kill Jesus, but to have Lazarus put to death as well.

The crowd that had come to Jerusalem for the Passover was full of expectation, and they, together with Jesus, fulfilled things written about the Messiah from Old Testament passages like Psalm 118 and Zechariah 9.  It was not just the crowd that did their part in crying out “Hosanna” or “Save us!”  It was not just Jesus who came into town on a young donkey receiving the praise of men.  It was that both Jesus and the crowds were doing these things and many others that the Scriptures had long ago predicted would take place.  Yet all of this was not leading to the coronation that some surely expected, but to the killing of the Passover Lamb to rescue the people from the cruel bondage of sin and death.

The crowd was not without reliable outside testimony concerning the public Messianic signs that the Messiah had performed.  In particular, people were made aware of the recent resurrection of Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb.  Not only were Jews interested in Him, but in what might have been an anticipation of the progress of the gospel among God-fearing Greeks in the early decades after the resurrection, there were some Greeks who had come to the Passover who wanted to meet Jesus.  The time had now come for something different than meetings like that.  It was time for the Messiah to be glorified through His death.  It was time for the one Seed of the Kingdom of God to die, so that He might bear much fruit.  It was time for Jesus to lead the way for all who would follow, though in His giving of His life on the cross, He would accomplish what no follower could ever have done.

This fact of the atonement was a deeply troubling thing for our Lord to anticipate, yet He knew that it was for this one death that He had come.  He knew that the pathway to the fullness of the Father’s salvation for men had to pass through this narrow road where only one man could go.  Along that road a voice from heaven was heard, a voice that some thought was thunder, a voice that was not for Jesus but for us, assuring us that the Father had glorified the Name of the Son, and that He would glorify His Name again.  The defeat of Satan was at hand.  The Seed of the woman would soon crush the head of the serpent, and people from all over the world would be drawn to Him.  Both this great victory over the angel of evil, and the subsequent gathering of the people of salvation, would come from the great event of the lifting up of the Son of Man on the cross.  These two divine projects, requiring such power and wisdom beyond the scope of the strongest empires, would actually be accomplished by an event with the appearance of the most wretched weakness.

The time had come and gone for any further explanation of such mysteries.  All of this would soon enough be made clear, but it would only be embraced by those who were being drawn into the church by the Father.  That project would have to wait for another feast some weeks away, the Feast of Pentecost.  For now, the Light of the world was walking toward the day of darkness for us.  What His followers needed to do now was to believe in the light, so that they would become sons of light.  But what did all that mean?  He had already done so many signs, and yet so many people did not believe in Him.  What is so dark within us that we insist on hating the light, and running from the light?  Isaiah was given a glimpse of this light so many hundreds of years before, and he was also told that the eyes of men have a spiritual blindness that comes from the judgment of God Himself against us.  Do you understand all of that?

Believing in the Messiah is not all about understanding, or believing would just be for those who were the best thinkers; and anyway, even the best of them could never come into the kingdom that way.  As it is, all kinds of people are given the gift of faith, and all kinds of people are also left in unbelief.  We need to believe Him and receive Him.  It is a plain fact that we cannot fully understand Him.  What He has brought to us is exactly in accord with the will of the Father, and it means eternal life for all the humble poor children of God who are given ears to hear, and who therefore believe. 

The Pharisees were deeply concerned about Him, and they were quite sure that He was wrong about many things.  Even one of the twelve, Judas was ready to turn against Him, so he must thought that he knew better for some reason.  But Mary gave Him her life, and trusted Him as a child trusts with everything that she could not know.  She saw the evidence of her brother’s resurrection, but more than that, she received the Word of her Teacher’s death, and now she lives where He lives.

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John 13

It is not easy for a great king to do some lowly act in the view of others, even if it is just for a moment.  He expects others to show their humility before him by their willingness to perform the lowest acts of service.  But what if a king were completely committed to some great act of humble service that was far more than a ceremonial show?  What if this king would willingly give his life for his people with a full and steady heart?  In that case, He would be glad to perform any ceremonial act that might communicate his love for them in advance of that death.  It is with the fullness of divine love in His heart, that Christ, knowing that one of them will betray Him, takes the position of the lowest servant of the house, and washes the feet of His disciples. 

The disciples did not understand what He was doing, and Peter had the boldness to question the Lord on this, and to say, “You shall never wash my feet.”  Jesus replied, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”  The washing that we need most comes through the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, but this spiritual blessing could never come to us without the blood of Christ.  It is the death of Christ that speaks a word for us that alone makes us acceptable to the Father.  If we are not united with Jesus in His death, then we can have no share in His life.  There was one who would soon be exposed to everyone as the betrayer.  He would not be clean. Somehow the cleansing that can only come from above was not for him.

Beyond the story of our purification through the true Passover Lamb, there was another message in this foot-washing ritual leading up to the cross.  This way of humble service was a pattern for the church.  The King has led us in this way.  No one who is His follower should think of lowly service as beneath his dignity.  In particular, we should give ourselves away in the service of others within the body of Christ.  This is something that we should both know and do.

What must it have felt like for the one who would betray Him to have Jesus wash his feet?  What would it have felt like to know that the words of Psalm 41, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me,” were actually referring to him?  We cannot know, but we do know this, that Jesus did know everything that was happening, and He quoted the Psalm as an aid to the faith of His disciples, that when everything happened as He had said it would, they would remember and, as He said, “believe that I-AM.”  The way for us is through Christ.  We need to receive Him, and in receiving Him to receive the One who sent Him, but there was one there who would not receive Him.  Even prior to the actual betrayal of Jesus, around the table of fellowship, Judas was identified as the man who would turn against the Lord. 

But what does it actually mean that someone would “receive” Jesus Christ.  John speaks of this receiving here and in other places in this gospel as believing in His Name, believing His message, welcoming Him as the person He claims to be, and happily taking possession of all that He gives, including God’s Spirit.  It is this last thought that the Lord refers to when He says that, “whoever receives the One I send receives Me.”  To receive a superior, is not only to put off all hostility and enmity toward that person, but also to eagerly follow the instructions that the person gives.  This is not what Judas did.  It is on this occasion that we hear that Satan entered into Judas.  We must not think that what happened next was under the ultimate sovereignty of Satan.  Remember that the cross was God’s idea, and He receives the glory for it.  All the guilt goes to those who with wicked intentions participated in everything connected to the rejection of Jesus and His death.  All the Glory goes to God, who ordained this for His great purposes. 

This was the day that the Lord had made.  Concerning the great injustice of what was about to transpire, and concerning the horror of the sinless Son of God facing the reality of eternal hell, these four words of John well express the ugly truth of this event, “And it was night.”  Concerning the electing and saving purposes of God and the great display of both God’s justice and His mercy, this was a glorious and God-glorifying moment. 

Jesus was going where no one else could go.  No one else could take away our sin, because everyone else already had sin.  For the cross to work, the Victim could not have any sin of his own.  If a man of sin were to die on the cross, he would only be receiving what he already deserved.  But if a sinless Man would die willingly in this way, His sacrifice could atone for others.  Only a sinless Man could rise from the dead after such an ordeal.  Only a sinless man could enter into heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father, governing all of the events that would necessarily take place for the completion of the Lord’s plan for us.  Only Jesus Christ could do all this.

In response to the salvation that He has purchased for us, we must do what He says, and He says that we need to love one another.  That love is more than a feeling.  As Jesus warned Peter, love is costly.  Peter could not go where Jesus went now, but he would follow Him afterward.  He could not follow now because the death that He died as our Substitute He had to die alone.  Peter and many others would follow afterward because they were called to love God and one another sacrificially, even being willing to give their lives for one another and for the truth that they had come to believe. 

Peter could not see this all yet.  He thought He was ready to be part of a team of death at that very moment, yet that was not the sovereign will of God.  Christ alone would suffer and die for sinners.  Before the period of the dawn signified by the rooster crowing, Peter would deny Jesus three times.  Nonetheless, He was not the betrayer.  He would be kept for a greater purpose than that.  He would give His life in service and love for the One who washed his feet, and who cleansed his soul from the stain of sin.  Our King went very low for us, and because of His willingness to love that way, we have the privilege of humble service for Him today and the hope of great glory with Him forever in heaven.

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John 14

Is there a bigger issue than death for any human being?  Death came into the world through sin.  To deal with death, one must first deal with sin.  As the one with complete mastery over both sin and death, Jesus speaks with full confidence to His disciples as He prepares to take our sins on the cross.  He is able to say, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” and we are able to know that this is something more than a self-help positive motivation lecture.  Instead of giving in to worry, we are to trust.  We trust in God.  We can trust in Jesus Christ.  He has a plan for us beyond death.  He has a place in the current heavens that He refers to as His Father’s house.  Is that the whole of heavenly realms, or just some part of it?  So many questions…  We do know that in God’s house there are many rooms, and that Jesus, now in the present heavens, is preparing a place for us.  We don’t know whether He is doing that by Himself, or using the means of men and angels who have gone before us.  We do know that when the right time comes for our days here to be over, the Lord will somehow come and take us to be with Him.  That is enough for us.

But Jesus says that we know more than this.  We know that He is the way to the Father’s house.  If we want be there, no other pathway exists.  We must come to the Father through the Son.  He is not only the way, but He is also the truth and the life.  These are three vantage points from which we can gaze at the perfect mediation of the Son of God.  He is the only pathway to God’s house.  His Word is the perfect truth that we need to hear and believe.  Through hearing that Word and traveling along that Way, we will arrive at a place that is the purest and fullest life in the presence of the one who is Life.  Jesus is the Key to our life with our heavenly Father. 

Even though we know these things, we still face doubts.  In this way we are like the disciples.  One of them asks to see the Father, perhaps hoping that this will chase away all remaining unbelief.  But seeing Jesus is seeing the Father.  It must be enough for us to see Him with the eyes of faith, and to trust His Word, and to be used by Him as the church throughout the centuries, proclaiming His Word throughout the world in so many places where the physical feet of our Savior never walked.  It is in this sense that the church does greater works than her Master.

Jesus is not only the solution to life beyond the grave; He is also the solution to life prior to the grave.  We want to live well now, not merely to live at ease and to have pleasure, but to know that we are serving the Father.  This has become our desire.  We want to love God.  Jesus tells us that we can show our love for God by obeying the commandments of the Son.  To assist us in this life of love, God Himself will grant us a Helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.  This Spirit lives in the one who believes in Jesus Christ.  It is in this way that Christ is with us, through the gift of His Spirit.  He will not leave us as abandoned orphans, and He will do great works even through us.

The life of communion with God is a life of knowing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  There is one God, existing eternally in three persons, and these three persons exist in the most perfect communion.  To love God is to love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is in the Father, and when we are in Jesus and He is in us by His Spirit, then we do know the Father.  When we love the Son, we are loved by the Father.  This life of communion with the Triune God is not something that the world knows, but we have been granted this inestimable privilege of knowing God, keeping His word, and experiencing the presence of God in this life and the next.  Anyone who does not love Christ and His Word, does not have this kind of life.

This teaching of Jesus is essential for the life of the church.  He entrusts it to His disciples, and He assures them that He will bring to their remembrance everything that He has said to them.  It is because of this special gift to them that we have been granted the New Testament accounts of Christ.  We have a strong assurance that God has brought about a reliable record for us of the life and teachings of our Messiah and King.

This message must be heard and believed.  This is the only way that we can have real peace.  This is why Jesus can say, “Let not your hearts be troubled.”  His love is stable and sure.  There is life for us in that place where Jesus is at the right hand of the Father.  Any glories of spiritual attainment that the most eminent believers experience in this life come to them from above, from the place that is the source and original of Love, from God Himself.  When Jesus goes to the Father, He is not less of a blessing to the church, but more of a blessing if that is possible.  We truly do not need to worry.  We can safely rejoice in the love of Christ.

Our Lord is able to teach these important truths knowing that He will soon take our hell upon Himself.  The one He calls the “ruler of this world,” is surely only operating underneath the sovereign plan of the Almighty Ruler of heaven and earth.  That one has no claim on the Son of God.  It is the Father that Jesus loves and serves, and not Satan, and it is the justice of the Father which is satisfied for us in the work of the Son.  Let not your heart be troubled.  Jesus is victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil.  He has conquered sin and death for you.

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John 15

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”  If we are ever to grow in spiritual fruitfulness, we must make our peace with, and eagerly celebrate the first principle of Christian growth.  Jesus is the vine.  That is a pride-killer for people who imagine that we are the source of our own well-being.  Without a heavy dose of God-reliance, we will never be fruitful.  Whatever comes from our own homemade root cannot be the true Kingdom of God. 

There is a second principle that goes with it and may be even harder for us to embrace.  Our Father in heaven is the vinedresser.  He will use His pruning sheers as the expert Gardner He is in order to bring about the best result, but it is normally going to hurt.  The question that the Father asks us is this, “Do you trust Me?”  The people of God are His plant, and He knows how to take away the unfruitful branches, and how to work out His providence to produce a greater result.

To abide in the vine must be the same thing that Jesus spoke of in an earlier place as abiding in His Word.  It is His Word that makes us clean, and it is His Word that makes us fruitful.  Apart from Him and His Word we have no beginning in spiritual things, and apart from Him and His Word we will never grow in spiritual usefulness.  When we abide in Him, and His Word abides in us, we ask Him for things that are an expression of godly desires, and we can trust that it will be done for us.  (Remember that everything agreeable to His perfect decrees will come to pass, yet there are many answers to prayer that we will not see here and now.  We do have Him with us according to His promise, and having Him we have everything.)

If we want to abide in the Father and the Son, and to continue in His Word, we should obey that Word.  To do this is to abide in His love.  This is the way to have the joy of Jesus in us, that our joy may be full.  He tells us the sum of what it means to obey His commandments, that we are called to a life of love.  That love proceeds first from the vine.  It is the fruitfulness of divine love that we receive and then respond to with love for God, and then especially with a love for one another that is the fruit of the love that we have received through Jesus Christ. 

The supreme display of love has come for us in Jesus laying down His life for us, His friends.  When He went to the cross, He went for those who would be His friends.  He did what we could not do for ourselves.  Only His atoning sacrifice could have cancelled our guilt.  In a small way, we do something like the cross out of the great resource of divine love expressed for us in that cross of Christ.  We lay down our lives for one another.  This is the fruit that we should be seeking in our lives now.  This is what we can ask for with confidence, and we can know that He will give us what we need, so that we will love one another.

We must admit that we do not do this loving of one another very well in this world at this time.  This world is not a place characterized by love right now, but an environment where it seems so natural to be filled with hate.  We find that we are the objects of the hatred of others who may hate us because they first hate our Master, Jesus Christ.  To the extent that our way of living is not the world’s way of living, we may attract the animosity of the world.  Even when we too easily fit into the patterns of life all around us, we may be surprised by the trouble that comes to us from others for no good reason.

We are reminded at such times that people hated our Savior without a cause.  In some sense, Christ has taken us out of this world.  When we try to fit back into it too easily, we may wonder why it does not really seem to work.  We look all around us for reasons why we are dissatisfied, but it may be that the first cause of our troubles is that we are trying to fit too neatly into a world system from which we have already been delivered.  If we would set our affections on Christ and His Kingdom again, we may feel like we are suddenly closer to home.

We need to stay close to our Master as His faithful servants, even if this means some suffering for us for a little while.  Our primary association is with His Name.  We have been brought into the family of the Father and the Son.  In His Day, Jesus did many great works and spoke very impressive words, but this did not change the fact that He was hated. 

We have a divine Helper as we travel through this life.  He is the Spirit of truth, and He bears witness about Jesus Christ.  The apostolic witness is recorded for us in the pages of the New Testament, through which we have been made aware of the amazing words and works of our Lord.  Yet it is because of the work of this Helper that we have come to love the One that the world hates without a cause.  It is because of this Helper that we have come to be united in the Vine.  It is because of the Holy Spirit that we have been given the blessed privilege of bearing the fruit of divine love for our Lord’s sake in a world that may treat us with unjustified hostility.  This is all part of the Father’s plan of pruning for those who are His beloved children.  No matter what the cost may be, it is a great blessing to be united in the Vine.

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John 16

To fall away from Jesus Christ is an appalling idea.  When we consider the greatness of our Savior, His unique qualifications to be our Mediator, and His great works in accomplishing our salvation, when we think of the fullness of all divine attributes in Him, and His wonderful sympathy for us in His perfect humanity, we should readily admit what a shocking thing it is to turn away from Him.  Yet it is only by the power of God that anyone is kept in the faith.

There have always been powerful internal and external pressures moving men away from the Lord.  It is shocking when these pressures come from those who gather together in the Name of God.  Think of these words: “They will put you out of the synagogues.”  Why would the followers of Jesus be excluded from the places of Jewish worship?  The disciples would believe that this Jesus was the Messiah, and that was not allowed.  Even worse than casting them out, there would be some who would be so zealous in their presumed service of God in this perverse direction, that they would imagine that killing one of the followers of Jesus was an act of devotion.  Such people would be greatly deceived.  They did not know the Father or the Son.

Jesus was approaching a great turning point.  He would soon continue His role as our Prophet, Priest, and King at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  From that place of power He would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to His church.  This would be a good and necessary gift for the progress of the church throughout the world.  This New Testament age blessing of the Spirit does not imply that the Holy Spirit was uninvolved in the life of Old Testament Israel.  He is always necessary for any real faith.  Yet in the gospel age something bigger would spread throughout the world and would find its great fulfillment in the resurrection of the dead.  This began in a fresh new way with the gift to the New Testament church that Jesus spoke about here.

It would be by the work of the Holy Spirit that the world would see the truth of sin, of the need for a righteousness that can only come through Christ, and of the coming judgment from God.  These are deep topics, but we cannot understand them as we need to all at once.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to the truth on these and other matters at a pace that we can bear.  Working in complete agreement and common purpose with the Father and the Son, the Spirit would guide the church into all truth, particularly concerning things that are to come.

When Jesus speaks of things to come, they do not yet seem to really understand.  In a little while they will see Him no longer, and then again in a little while more, they will see Him.  When He is gone, they will mourn, but the world will rejoice.  When He returns, their sorrow will turn to joy.  At the time these words were spoken they were very mysterious.  Even now they admit of two meanings.  The first and most likely is that He is referring to His imminent death and resurrection.  The second possibility is that He is referring to the long period after His ascension, finally culminating in His glorious return.  The reason why it appears that He is somewhat mysteriously referring to His death and resurrection is that the behavior of His disciples recorded in the Scripture in connection with the death of Jesus best matches the Lord’s prophecy here.  The disciples do not mourn after Jesus’ ascension.  They know where He is, and they are filled with joy.  But prior to the resurrection they are frightened and dejected.

The resurrection of Jesus will be the beginning of a great age, an age that we are in even now during the time of the gospel.  Already we are encouraged to ask for things in the Name of Jesus Christ our Mediator.  When we go to the present heavens and when Christ returns, then we will have the fullness of joy and the fullness of asking and receiving.  In that day we will know of the Father’s love, but we do not need to wait for that day in order to believe in His love and to experience His love. The love of the Father for us is a fact that has ample evidence in the history of our redemption.  The cross tells us a story, and the story of our individual lives shows the personal mercy of God to us in drawing us to the One who died for our sins.

Even though we know these things to be true, this does not change the reality that in this world we will have tribulation.  For the disciples that Jesus spoke with that day they were about to face a horribly wrenching experience.  The Shepherd would be struck down, and the sheep would all be scattered.  Even after the ascension of Christ, the progress of the church in her early decades would be very challenging.  The church would face opposition from the Jews and from civil authorities.  The men that Jesus was speaking to would all suffer for His Name.  They would be imprisoned, beaten, ridiculed, and even put to death. 

Throughout that great trial, they would be able to know that Jesus was not alone.  He would be with the Father.  Meditating upon that fact can bring us great peace.  Jesus, our Mediator, is with the Father on high right now.  He has overcome the world.  In the strength of His resurrection love, we are given the power to walk through this world of tribulation, knowing that in Him we too have overcome the world and have certain resurrection glory.  We lay hold of this fact, and we lay hold of Him, and we are kept in the faith by the power of our resurrection God, so that we will not utterly fall away.

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John 17

Jesus is heading toward the cross.  He has told His disciples as much as they can bear about what He is doing, and about what is coming soon for Him and for them.  Now He lifts up His eyes to heaven, and He prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.”  Jesus has revealed to His disciples, and even to those who would not abide in His Word, that He has come from the Father, and that He is going to the Father.  The pathway back to heaven will be through the cross.  There have been times when His enemies wanted to arrest Him and to kill, but His time had not yet come.  Now the time has come.  He asks the Father to glorify Him, so that He might glorify the Father.  Through the great events of the cross and the resurrection, Jesus of Nazareth will obey the Father to the fullest extent possible, and He will give eternal life to all those given to Him by the Father.  All of this will be supremely great and supremely revealed.

This eternal life that we have been given begins now.  Even now we can know the Father and the Son.  We can glorify the Lord in the life He has prepared for us here on earth.  But this cannot be everything.  There must be more.  The Old Testament prophets insisted that there was more to come.  Jesus taught about a better life to come, a life of the richest happiness and blessedness.  That life requires our entrance into glory, and ultimately, our own glorification in body and soul.  For Jesus, His glorification is a return to a glory that He set aside for a time in order to work our salvation.  For us, it is a new experience of glory that we have only just begun to taste.

The life of sacrifice for the Son of God began before the cross.  He gave Himself to His disciples in His life before He gave Himself to them in His death.  It cost Jesus something to manifest God’s Name through His person and works to the disciples that the Father had given to Him.  He came from above, and lived here below.  He was a Teacher who cared about the people that He taught.  He faithfully brought them the message, and He patiently demonstrated who He was before their eyes, even performing great signs before the world.  He did what needed to be done in order to prepare them for the ultimate sign of the Kingdom in His own resurrection.  He would soon be glorified in them as the message would go forth everywhere.

Jesus would be going to the Father, but these disciples would remain, except for the one who is called here the son of destruction, Judas, who would betray Him.  The Lord prays for these disciples, that the Father would keep them in the Name that He had been given, that they would be one in the Name of Jesus the Christ.  He sought the fullness of joy for them, a joy that comes from being in Him.  They would remain in the world for the job that had been reserved for them according to the decree of God.  They would be guardians and teachers of their Master’s Word.  To do their job, they needed to remain in the world and to face the world’s hatred, because this great Word needed to be brought to the world.  They needed to be set apart for the Word, for the truth, and this is what Jesus asks the Father to do.  Jesus would be set apart on the cross, and these disciples would be set apart for the preaching of Christ crucified.

Having asked the Father to bless the eleven, Jesus asks God to bless us.  His prayer was not only for the remaining disciples who would have such an important foundational ministry in the New Testament church.  He explicitly prays for all those who would believe in Him through their word.  The message of the faithful ambassadors of Christ has not changed throughout the centuries.  It is a settled Word that was delivered once for all time, for all generations to come. 

Jesus prays that we would be one, one in Him, one in the truth of the Word that He had taught His disciples, one in the presentation of that truth to the world over the years that would follow, one in the Father and in the Son.  All of this oneness was for the purpose that the world would receive this settled Word of Jesus Christ, so that people would believe and find life in Him.

The task that Christ gave to us in proclaiming Him, His cross, His resurrection, His kingdom, is a heavenly task, a glorious task.  Our destiny is a heavenly destiny and a glorious destiny.  We have a taste of that glory and a glimpse of that glory as we go forth with the precious gospel of Jesus Christ, regardless of how the world may react to that Word in one place and time or another.  If we suffer for the Word and seem to have little fruit, the privilege is still ours.  It is a glorious gift that we have been given to suffer for the Name.  And we know that we are in the Father and the Son, and that we are loved by the Father and the Son.

Nonetheless the fellowship and communion that we enjoy with Jesus now in the gospel is not enough for the Son of God.  He desires that we would be with Him where He is going, and that we would have the joy of beholding Him in His glory, that those who suffer with Him below, would be glorified with Him above.  The whole of Adam’s world will not have that privilege, but we who know God, and who know that He sent Jesus Christ to be our atoning sacrifice, we will know His Name now and forever, and we will have His love in us, because He will be in us. 

All these things Jesus stated before the Father in this great prayer.  All of these requests of the Son of God have surely been granted.  They can be received by us as certain promises.

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John 18

In every account of the death of Christ given to us in the gospels, the fact of the betrayal of our Lord is central.  When we consider the Lord’s suffering for us, we are supposed to remember that it was not outsiders who turned Jesus over to those who would kill Him, but a particular insider, who knew His habits and plans, and thus knew where Jesus could be found that night.  He did what He did by using the weapons of civil power that were in the hands of religious authorities in Jerusalem.  The Romans allowed these religionists to have a band of soldiers at their direction.  Judas went to the chief priests and the Pharisees so that this kind of force could be used against the King of kings, as if they would have the power, and Jesus would be taken against His will.

This plot, and the events that were about to transpire, were known to Jesus.  We are reminded that He willingly went to His death, as Isaiah 53 had revealed many centuries before.  He understood the necessity of His death for us, He understood the role of the various parties involved in that death, and He understood that all of this would be a fulfillment of the Scriptures and of His own earlier words.  His behavior from this moment on is an exhibition of settled trust and clarity of determined purpose as He willingly humbles Himself for our salvation.  The behavior of everyone else is very different from this.  How are we even to understand what the soldiers are doing here?  They have weapons, and they have their target in view, and He is identifying Himself and apparently surrendering to them immediately.  Is this so unusual a thing that they need to draw back and fall to the ground?  They do not appear to be in control at this point.  Yet we are reminded that the words that Jesus uses to identify Himself, “I-AM,” are the same words that God used to identify Himself to Moses.  While the soldiers may not have understood that, they are obviously affected by something that we cannot entirely see.  The calm determination of Jesus shines forth in stark contrast to this unexpected terror on the part of those who were sent to take a man into custody who is willingly surrendering to them.

This calm resignation to be the Lamb of God exhibited by Jesus is also quite different than what we see from Simon Peter.  He has to be corrected immediately by His Lord as He enters into battle against the soldiers, injuring one of them.  Jesus is ready to drink the cup of God’s wrath for us.  Peter puts His sword away, and Jesus is taken as a bound prisoner to the religious authorities.  Jesus will willingly die for the people of God.  Peter does not know what to do.  Joined apparently by the gospel writer, the apostle follows the action almost as if he were some kind of undercover spy.  He denies that He is a disciple of Jesus when he could have easily said nothing.  Jesus seems content to say almost nothing, despite great provocation.  Once again, though He is the prisoner, He is in charge, and He is in control of Himself.  What He has done during these three years has been done publicly, and He has done nothing wrong.  There is no need for spies.  Jesus is not a terrorist.  Nonetheless He is struck by an officer.  Now He has not only been bound, He has been beaten, and there is much more to come.

Peter is again overwhelmed by the inquiries of those who seem to recognize Him as a disciple.  For the second and third times, He denies it, and the rooster crows, fulfilling the earlier prediction of the Lord.  Peter has now lied and denied His Savior three times.  Jesus, on the other hand, will not lie at all.  He is soon brought before the civil authorities, and is even interviewed by Pilate, the Roman governor, as this religious mob, trying to stay ceremonially clean, is clearly determined to see an innocent man put to death.  As the Jewish Messiah is questioned directly by Pilate, Jesus will not defend Himself.  He does admit that He is King, but tells Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world.  Everything that Jesus is doing is about the kingdom of God.  This is why He was born, this is why He taught what He taught, and this is why He would die.  He is establishing a kingdom from God, a kingdom from heaven, a kingdom that will last long after the fall of the Roman Empire.  This kingdom is a gathering of those who listen to His voice, a gathering of those who are of the truth.  This is the testimony of Jesus, but not a word of it is designed to avoid the cross.

Pilate is not willing to consider the truth claims of Jesus and His kingdom at that moment, but He does make this important statement of the truth: “I find no guilt in Him.”  Pilate perhaps meant only that Jesus was not guilty of breaking any civil law that would even remotely justify His execution.  More than this can be plainly said.  There was no guilt in Jesus of any kind.  Even the secret sins of our hearts that show us to be deficient in our love for God and for others, even these secret sins were completely absent in His soul.  He had no guilt.  That sinless perfection was necessary in order for Him to be the Lamb of God for us.

This is truth.  We are guilty men, like the robber Barabbas, but the sinless Son of God has taken away our horrible guilt, and has paid our overwhelming debt.  Yet the crowd preferred a Barabbas to God the Son, the true King of the Jews.  This is betrayal.  Yet it will do us no good to condemn Judas, the soldiers, Peter, the chief priests, the Pharisees, the crowd, and Pilate, unless we are also willing to see our own guilt.  He stood condemned in our place.  He sealed our pardon with His blood.  We were the guilty ones.  We may have even been insiders to His circle of followers when we spoke against Him and sinned against Him.  We certainly have denied Him.  Yet He has accomplished what only He could do.  He is our effectual Savior.  He was sovereign over His own suffering, and it was His will to give us eternal life through His blood.

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John 19

When Jesus was being questioned by the priestly authorities, He was slapped by a guard.  The thought of something like that happening is so jarring, because of who Christ is and what He has done for us.  He is the eternal Son of God who was willing to take our hell upon Himself in order to bring heaven and earth together again.  The mission that He accomplished is so big, and He is personally so far from having any fault in Himself, that it is repulsive to think about a person deciding to lift His hand against Him and actually strike Him in the face.  But that action was only the beginning of revolting indignities perpetrated against our holy King.  And though Pilate had Jesus flogged, and the soldiers mocked Him and caused Him pain, we cannot forget that He was in this spot because of us.  He was there to atone for our sins.

There was no guilt in Jesus Christ.  Pilate knew at least a part of what these words meant.  Yet somehow he permitted this all to take place.  Did he imagine that this kind of humiliation and degradation would satisfy those who were against Jesus?  If so, he was wrong.  The chief priests and officers demanded His crucifixion.  The governor was trying to avoid any responsibility for whatever the crowd might do, yet he seemed to permit the worst, though He knew Jesus did not deserve the cross according to the rules of Roman law.  The Jews knew this as well, but they first tried to make the case that He deserved death as a blasphemer according to Jewish law since he claimed to be the Son of God.

The use of this title was somehow alarming to Pilate.  He went back into his headquarters and spoke to Jesus again, attempting to question him further without any real success.  He said to Jesus, “Where are You from?”  This is just the matter that caused such controversy among the Jewish leaders earlier, that Jesus said He came from heaven, from His Father who reigns in that place.  But Jesus would not speak to Pilate about this.  He had previously stated that His kingdom was not of this world.  The governor was puzzled by Jesus’ lack of interest in any answer that might induce Pilate to free Him.  This kind of behavior had to be very unusual.  Pilate had the power of life and death over people.  Yet Jesus testified to the truth that Pilate was under the sovereign authority of Almighty God.  That point was proven soon by the fact that Pilate was trying to release Jesus, and was unsuccessful in his efforts, since someone greater than Pilate was in charge here.

The way that the leaders of the Jews seemed to achieve their aim to have Jesus put to death according to Roman authority was by making the case that Jesus was a threat to Roman order.  This did move Pilate, since there were those who were clearly willing to make the case that unless he consented to this death by crucifixion, he was no friend of Caesar.  Their reasoning was interesting.  Jesus was clearly presenting himself as some king.  This seemed to be generally accepted.  Any unauthorized king in Palestine was by definition a threat to Roman authority there.  Therefore, Jesus was an enemy of Caesar, and if Pilate was a friend of Caesar, he would agree to the crucifixion of Jesus.  The error in this argument is that Jesus was not leading a rebellion against the civil authority of nations.  As He had stated, His kingdom was a different sort of kingdom than the kingdoms of this world.  Pilate delivered Jesus over to be crucified.

Then it actually happened.  Jesus was put on a Roman cross.  Psalm 22 was fulfilled, a psalm that described this crucifixion with some definite but veiled details centuries before such a punishment was apparently used by any nation.  Pilate’s inscription stood.  Here was the King of the Jews, punished for us on a Roman cross.  Even the detail of the dividing of His clothes among the soldiers took place according to that Scripture, and this was done by soldiers, not by followers of Christ trying to make Him look like the suffering hero of Psalm 22.

Jesus took care of one remaining detail as a son of Mary, and further fulfilled other passages from the Hebrew Bible in His words and actions, and then it was all over.  The Son of God, the great Teacher, the powerful Healer, the hope of the world, was dead.  He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit.  He was gone.  There can be no doubt about this.  The soldiers confirmed it.  There were observers of these events who testified to them.  John saw blood and water come from His side, which had been pierced by a soldier’s spear.  Reliable witnesses from the ranks of Jewish leadership, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, saw to the burial of His body with the permission of Pilate, and they laid the body of the Son of Man in a borrowed tomb. 

Here we mourn, at least for a time.  Though we have come to rightly boast in the cross, we cannot help but feel that what was happening here was horribly wrong.  He was innocent.  He could have stopped this.  He was powerful.  But now He was gone.  It is the resurrection that reassures us that He was right in allowing this greatest of all disgraces to be committed against Him.  This was what was necessary for our salvation.  It was not enough for Him to be slapped, beaten, mocked, stripped, and pierced.  He had to die, because the wages of sin is death.  It was the will of the Father that the Son would pay those wages for us.  It was, in some sense, the will of the Lord to crush Him, according to Isaiah 53. 

Much good came from this one death.  We could never have known resurrection without the death of Christ occurring first.  The blood that showered forth from this Lamb has now become for us a fountain of cleansing water.  We are healed. We are clean.  We are restored.  We are forgiven.  We are alive.

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John 20

The Old Testament teaches us, in places too numerous to mention, about a coming resurrection from the dead.  One of the most obvious passages is at the end of Daniel, where we read, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2)  This doctrine of a general resurrection was accepted by many Jews, including the Pharisees, Mary and Martha of Bethany, and the disciples of Jesus.  What people did not yet understand from the Scriptures was the doctrine of a singular resurrection of the Messiah well in advance of the general resurrection.  This too was taught in places like Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 69, and in a more subtle way by prophetic books like Zechariah and Jonah.  To see this teaching we need to look for a singular figure who is connected to a group, where the fate of the one person is determinative for the fate or encouragement of the larger congregation, and where the victory over death experienced by the One is said to be a source of help to the many as they face their own lives of difficulty.  If the One is already victorious, but the many are waiting in faith for the fulfillment of their deliverance, then we have a doctrine of the resurrection of the Messiah well in advance of the general resurrection.  It was this point of truth that the disciples had not yet understood from the Bible, a point that Jesus had already predicted and had clearly taught to the twelve.

Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John were among the first eyewitnesses to this amazing happening.  The proof was presented in God’s characteristically humble manner.  We are told of a stone that was out of place, and a tomb that was not entirely empty.  The body of Jesus was not there, but it was what remained in the tomb that was presented by John as most impressive.  The linen cloths were lying there that once wrapped the dead body of the Messiah.  These must have been arranged in such an amazing way that they told a story by themselves, a story of a body risen out from them.  The placement of the smaller face cloth to the side must have been one of the first actions of the risen Lord.  Perhaps it would have been impossible to reconstruct the entire fact of resurrection just from this evidence, but John recorded this as decisively impressive for Peter and himself.  They saw the way that that linen cloths were lying there, and they saw the way that the face cloth was folded up by itself, and they believed.

The disciples went back to their homes, helping us to focus on what happened to Mary Magdelene, who finally saw evidence more powerful than the linen cloths.  She saw Jesus.  She did not recognize Him immediately.  Like the two men in Luke 24, for a time she seemed to be prevented from seeing our resurrected Messiah, presuming Him to be the person in charge of the burial garden.  It is when He said her name, “Mary,” that she became aware of this exciting fact.  He had risen from the dead, and He was alive.

Jesus instructed Mary, “Do not cling to Me.”  The reason that He gave had to do with the fact that He would not be remaining forever on the earth, but would soon depart for the heavens.  This fact requires our further consideration.  One day, the resurrected Jesus will walk the earth again.  He did this for a brief time after His resurrection, but then He departed in what He refers to here as an ascension to the Father.  There is another realm beyond what we see on this earth.  The Father reigns from that realm, and that place can receive a physical body.  It is from that place, the present heavens, that Jesus showers us with great blessings, including the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Mary brought the word of her encounter with the Lord back to the disciples, but they were huddled together behind locked doors for fear of the Jews.  Then Jesus, somehow travelling inside that locked room, appeared physically to them.  Naturally there was much about this that is very shocking and even confusing to us.  Here we have a body risen to immortality walking upon the earth.  This is something that we have never seen.  What we need to hear is that He spoke words of peace and commissioning to His apostles.  They had peace with God, and they would be messengers of this great divine shalom and the forgiveness of God to thousands of others.  Heavenly gifts would come by the work of the Holy Spirit, poured out from on high by God.  The emblems of the death of Christ, by which our blood-bought peace was won, were still visible.

These vivid proofs that the One before their eyes had to be the same man who was so recently nailed to a cross were seen by those who were in the room, but one of the twelve was missing, and He was skeptical of the report of the others.  He needed to see with his own eyes, and eight days later he did see.  He was not corrected when he responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus is Yahweh risen from the dead.  He is the God of creation and providence, through whom all things were made.  He gladly receives our worship, and we should bring to Him this worship, for it is what He deserves.

We are not yet allowed to see what Thomas saw, but we do have the great privilege of hearing the Word and believing.  As an aid in this we have this and three other gospels, as well as many New Testament letters, and the whole of the Hebrew bible.  We have ample proof not only of a coming general resurrection, but we have come to believe with certainty that can only be a gift from above, that the Son of God has already risen.  Because of these facts, we are encouraged through our life of trials even now, knowing that as He is, so we shall be.

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John 21

There were several resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ.  Even in the previous chapter our Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples without Thomas, and then to the disciples including Thomas.  Each of these appearances is offered as proof of one central miracle, the resurrection of Christ from the dead.  In the final chapter of John’s gospel we read of a final extended interaction between several of the disciples and the risen Lord, providing us with important direction for the ministry of the apostles, and for the progress of the church throughout the centuries to come.

It is amazing to think of the disciples returning to their previous lives, at least to some degree, after Jesus had already shown Himself to them as risen from the dead.  Here we find them fishing, not for men, but for fish, and that without success.  They caught nothing all night long.  Jesus, unknown to them at first, instructs them to cast the net on the other side of the boat, and they then caught more fish then they were able to handle.  The Savior, who earlier in His ministry had walked on the water, is in charge of all the creatures in the sea, but more than this he also rules over the hearts of men.  He intends to employ His church as fishers of men.

This Lord Jesus Christ, now the first man resurrected to immortality, is certainly known to them, but He is also mysterious in His being, so that, in some sense, it would appear that they do not seem to know Him.  This Jesus cooked breakfast for them.  Even in this glorious condition, He is serving the church, just as He was before His death when He washed their feet, and especially when He went to the cross to die for them. 

If we remind ourselves that it is our glorious King who gives these men bread and fish, it should not surprise us that we are being called to humble service, a service that we should not presume to be only a part of our brief time here on earth as mortal creatures.  Jesus defeats death for us, not service.  There is no reason for us to conceive of eternity as devoid of opportunity to express our care for God and for each other.  We begin that care now, care that is based on our love for Jesus Christ.

Peter is asked three times with some slight variation this question: “Do you love me?”  Prior to the cross, Peter had denied the Lord three times as Christ had predicted he would, and now he affirms his love for him three times.  The task that He is given, in order to show forth the love that he professes, is the feeding of sheep.  People are the sheep referred to here, and the Word of God is the food for which our souls hunger.  Jesus is not above giving physical food to His disciples, yet the primary way that Peter, and all of the ministers of the Lord’s church, are to feed the flock of God, is as servants of the Word.  We need food for our bodies, but we also need sustenance for our souls.  Ministers of the Word need to bring the Word of God to the people of God.  To do this well they must love Christ, love His church, love the message of the gospel, and love the Scriptures; and they must be willing to devote themselves to bringing the whole counsel of God to hungry people.

This is what it means for such men to follow Jesus Christ.  They must love Him more than their own lives, or they will always choose their own respect before men and themselves above Him.  Peter is being called to give Himself over to Christ, the church, the gospel, and the Word, as a dead man in the eyes of the powers that be in this world, but as a living lover of Christ in the eyes of heaven.  This is the way for such a man to glorify God, and this is the way that the risen Lord of the church directs that His Name would be made known.

The specific pathway for any one minister of the Word or any one member of the body of Christ belongs to the secret things of God.  It is beyond us to know how long we will live, exactly how we will suffer, and what the precise outcome of our efforts will be.  It is enough for us to find our identity in the One who serves, and to love the One who first loved us.  How long John will live compared to Peter, and how either one of these men will die is not their business.  We need to obey God and trust Him with all the unknowns of our existence.

The final chapter of the four gospels ends with these words: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”  This is a fitting conclusion to these four blessed accounts of the life of our Lord.  We do not know everything about Him, just as we do not have exhaustive knowledge of ourselves, but there is far more to be known in Him than there is to be known in us.  What we do know is enough for us to give our lives to the Son of God who gave His life for us.  It is our privilege to rejoice in Him always, and to serve Him through whom grace and truth have come to us, knowing that these words were written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we would have life in his name. 

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