God's Loving Word
Exploring the Gospel of John
God's Loving Word
Exploring the Gospel of John
Copyright (c) 1993 by Elaine Stedman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stedman, Ray C.
God's loving word / by Ray C. Stedman with James D. Denney. p. cm.
ISBN 0-929239-79-2
1. Bible. N.T. John-Commentaries. I Denney, James D. II. Bible. N.T. John. English. New International. 1993. III. Title.
BS2615.3.S784 1993
226.5’077--dc20
93-20920
CIP
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Discovery House Publishers is affiliated with
RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49512
Discovery House books are distributed to the trade exclusively by Barbour Publishing, Inc., Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
Printed in the United States of America
0203040506/CHG/109876543
Dedication
To Robert DeVries and James Denney, whose vision and editorial skills, respectively, have combined to make possible this uncommonly rich publication; and to every reader who has a hungry heart for God's loving Word.
Elaine Stedman
Contents
Chapter 1 Who Is Jesus?
John 1:1-4
Chapter 2 Hello, Darkness
John 1:5-13
Chapter 3 The Real Jesus
John 1:14-18
Chapter 4 Call the First Witness!
John 1:19-34
Chapter 5 The Man Other Men Followed
John 1:35-51
Chapter 6 Water Becomes Wine
John 2:1-11
Chapter 7 The Temple Cleansing
John 2:12-25
Chapter 8 Born of the Spirit
John 3:1-16
Chapter 9 The Best Possible News
John 3:16-36
Chapter 10 A Woman with Modern Problems
John 4:1-42
Chapter 11 The Encourager of Faith
John 4:43-54
Chapter 12 Do You Want to Get Well?
John 5:1-17
Chapter 13 The Secret of Jesus
John 5:18-20
Chapter 14 He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
John 5:21-30
Chapter 15 The Credentials of Jesus
John 5:31-47
Chapter 16 The Testing of Faith
John 6:1-15
Chapter 17 Treading Water
John 6:16-21
Chapter 18 What Are You Working For?
John 6:22-40
Chapter 19 Life With God
John 6:41-59
Chapter 20 To Whom Shall We Go?
John 6:60-71
Chapter 21 Is Jesus for Real?
John 7:1-24
Chapter 22 For Those Who Thirst
John 7:25-52
Chapter 23 Judging the Judges
John 8:1-11
Chapter 24 The Breakthrough to Faith
John 8:12-30
Chapter 25 Straight Talk From Jesus
John 8:31-59
Chapter 26 The Choice
John 8:48-59
Chapter 27 Believing is Seeing
John 9:1-41
Chapter 28 The Shepherd and His Sheep
John 10:1-21
Chapter 29 A Mere Man--Or the God-Man?
John 10:22-42
Chapter 30 The Strange Ways of God
John 11:1-16
Chapter 31 The Conquest of Death
John 11:17-44
Chapter 32 God's Will or Our Will?
John 11:45-54
Chapter 33 Worship or Waste?
John 11:55-12:10
Chapter 34 Triumph or Tragedy?
John 12:12-26
Chapter 35 Faithful Belief--and Fatal Unbelief
John 12:27-50
Chapter 36 Servant Authority
John 13:1-20
Chapter 37 The One Commandment
John 13:18-38
Chapter 38 The Cure for Heart Trouble
John 14:1-14
Chapter 39 Another is Coming
John 14:15-31
Chapter 40 The Vine and the Fruit
John 15:1-11
Chapter 41 Love and Hate
John 15:12-16:4
Chapter 42 The New Strategy
John 16:5-33
Chapter 43 The Longest Prayer
John 17
Chapter 44 The Way to the Cross
John 18:1-19:3
Chapter 45 The Battle on the Hill
John 19:4-42
Chapter 46 The Living Hope
John 20:1-18
Chapter 47 The New Commission
John 20:19-31
Chapter 48 By the Sea
John 21
Notes
Who Is Jesus?
John 1:1-4
The Danish Christian philosopher Sören Kierkegaard tells the story about a king who fell in love with a peasant maiden. This king was the wealthiest, most respected, most powerful king in the entire region. No one dared oppose him or speak a word against him. But this king--as powerful and respected as he was--had a problem: How could he tell this maiden that he loved her? And how could he know for sure that she loved him?
The very fact that he was a king--rich, famous, and powerful--was a barrier.
He could lead an armed escort of knights to the door of her humble cottage, and he could demand, by his authority as king, that she marry him.
But that wouldn't do. The king didn't want a fearful slave for a wife. He wanted someone who would love him, someone to share his life, someone who would be happy and eager to spend her days at his side.
He could shower her with gifts and jewels and beautiful robes and--
No, no, that wouldn't do either. He didn't want to buy her love. He wanted her to love him for himself, not for his gifts and his wealth.
Somehow he had to find a way to win the maiden's love without overwhelming her, without destroying her free will. Somehow he had to make himself her equal.
So the king clothed himself in rags and went to her as a peasant. But the truly amazing thing is this: The king did not merely disguise himself as a poor man. He actually became poor! He loved this maiden so much that he renounced his throne, his wealth, and his kingly power to win her love!
This story is a beautiful parable of the story of Jesus as it is told by Jesus' friend John in his gospel. Jesus the King, the Creator, the source of Light and Life, has come to earth--not in disguise, but truly as one of us. God himself has come as a poor, humble, limited human being, subject to hunger, pain, temptation, and death. He has come because He loves us--and He has come to win our love. As we work our way through the gospel of John, we will see the love of God unfolding to us on every page.
The Intimate Gospel
Of the four gospels, John is in a class by itself. It is written in a different style and with a completely different emotional feel than the three “synoptic gospels,” Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Synoptic means “to see together.” Those three gospels are called “synoptic” because they “view together” the same story from three slightly different perspectives. Though each has its own distinctive voice and unique purpose, the three synoptic gospels are similar in the way they “report” the life of Christ.
The gospel of John, however, stands completely apart. Its style, its selection of events, and its viewpoint are all radically different from those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Most of all, it is written for a very different purpose than the other three gospels. John himself tells us his purpose in writing his gospel in chapter 20, verses 30-31:
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these [signs] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
In this passage, John tells us, first, that his method is selection. He did not set out to write a comprehensive history, but a selective profile of his Friend, Jesus. He tells us, second, that his purpose is regeneration: vital, fulfilling life in the name of Jesus, the kind of life Jesus meant when He said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”1
Another feature that sets this gospel apart from the synoptics is the firsthand familiarity of its viewpoint. John's gospel reads more like a personal diary than an encyclopedic history--and with good reason. It has such a personal flavor because it was written by the disciple of whom it was said, “Jesus loved him.” John was the closest intimate of our Lord during the days of His ministry, and the tone of the writing reflects the bond of friendship between John and his Lord. That is why this book has often been referred to as “The Intimate Gospel.”
For three months in 1950, I had the privilege of living and traveling with Dr. H. A. Ironside, the famous Bible teacher and former pastor of the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. He suffered from cataracts in both eyes and was nearly blind, so I was his chauffeur, his secretary, and his companion--and he was my mentor. During that time, we spent almost all of our time together, and I watched him and listened to him intently. I studied his example as a Bible teacher and as a man of God. I saw his human warmth and compassion and--on occasion--his human weaknesses. His impact on my life was unforgettable.
As memorable as that experience was for me, I believe my three months with Dr. Ironside are just a faint and feeble echo of an infinitely more profound experience of companionship and mentoring that the apostle John enjoyed for three and a half years at the side of Jesus of Nazareth. The momentous impact of John's close, daily friendship with Jesus can be seen on virtually every page of John's gospel.
John was an old man when he wrote this gospel. Biblical scholars believe he wrote it from the city of Ephesus sometime between A.D. 55 and 90. Following the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, John settled in Ephesus to guide and oversee the Christian community there. Ephesus was a major city of the Roman Empire, located on the west coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey).
At the time of the writing of John's gospel, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were already written and widely circulated throughout the early church. In addition, all the letters of Paul and Peter had also been written and circulated. Because it was written so late, and because there are many important events in the synoptic gospels that John does not bother to retrace, some Bible scholars suggest that John forgot some of the events in the life of Christ.
It is true that forty or fifty years have probably passed since the events John records in his gospel. But is it actually possible that John forgot any of those events? John's gospel, remember, is the record of a story John lived almost every day for more than three tumultuous, exciting, astounding years. The vivid colors and emotions that saturated those events--miraculous healings, the dead brought back to life, the Lord's triumph among the crowds, the heartbreak of the cross--how could these events not have been burned deeply and inerasably into John's mind?
Powerful emotions--joy, fear, shock, grief--burn memories into our brain as if with a branding iron. Just think back to some of the most memorable days in your life--days tinged with emotion. Could you ever forget what
you saw, heard, and felt on the day
• you were married?
• your first child was born?
• you heard that President Kennedy had been shot?
• you heard that the space shuttle Challenger exploded?
No, of course you couldn't forget such feelings, such events. Neither could John forget the powerful events he witnessed at the side of Jesus? John didn't forget a thing.
Moreover, John was helped in the writing of his gospel by the Spirit who was promised by Jesus when He said, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”2 John and the other apostles who set down the text of the New Testament were aided not only by vivid, unforgettable memories, but by the Holy Spirit himself, who brought to their minds the life-changing words that Jesus spoke. They meditated many long hours over those events, often retelling and reliving the words and deeds of Jesus among themselves.
Out of the deep reservoir of his memories and through his deep connection with the Holy Spirit, John was able to set down his unique and intensely personal story of the life of his Friend and Lord, Jesus.
The Central Question: Who Is Jesus?
John begins his gospel with an eighteen-verse introduction. This prologue is so rich in meaning and significance that we will spend this entire chapter in just the first four verses.
The central question of John 1:1-18 is Who is Jesus?
John answers this question by portraying Jesus as the central figure of human history, and the central focus of God's eternal plan. Here in these verses we encounter the crucial fact of Christian faith: Christianity is not a philosophy or a body of teachings. Christianity is about a Person. If you take the Person of Jesus out of Christianity and leave only His moral teachings (as many people through the years have tried to do), Christianity cannot stand. Trying to understand and practice Christianity without accepting the significance of Jesus himself--His birth, His life and ministry, His death, and His resurrection--is like saying, “I want to understand mathematics--but let's leave out the numbers,” or, “I want to understand why it is light during the day--but I don't want to hear any of that nonsense about the sun.” Christianity at its core is not merely about what Jesus taught, but about who Jesus is.
It is impossible for any objective person to deny that Jesus was the most extraordinary, influential, and revolutionary individual to stride the stage of human history. More books have been written about Jesus than any other figure of the past. More music has been composed, more pictures have been painted, more great drama has been written about Jesus than any other person. We mark off our history in years either before or after the birth of Christ.
Have you ever wondered why? Why does this one man occupy such a unique and unforgettable place in history? Why does He not fade into the dim past as others have? No other leader in history is even considered in the same breath with Jesus--not Alexander the Great, not Julius Caesar, not George Washington, not Gandhi. There is something about Jesus Christ which sets Him apart from every other figure in human history. Unlike all other leaders of the past, Jesus remains as much a focus of interest and influence in our society as our contemporary leaders.
Why? What marks this one person as the most powerful personality ever to appear on this planet?
That is the question John answers for us in the prologue to his gospel.
Jesus Is God
In the first four verses of his gospel, John tells us in clear and uncompromising terms who Jesus is: Jesus is God.
1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, he was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men.
Those of us who have been raised in the Christian tradition may not realize how radical and astonishing these words sounded to the first century ear. Remember, these verses were not written about some epic hero out of the mists of time, but about Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth. To John's audience, the story of Jesus was not an ancient legend, but yesterday's headlines.
And John knew this carpenter on an intimate basis, having lived with Him, talked with Him, traveled with Him, and watched His life. If anyone had the opportunity to observe any human faults or failings in this man, it was John. Yet here is the remarkable conclusion of Jesus' friend John:
Jesus is God!
How does John make his case? First, he tells us that Jesus is the Word of God: “In the beginning was the Word.” In the original Greek, John calls Jesus the logos, which means “word”--God's expression of himself.
A word is a symbol--either written or spoken--which expresses thought. Thought cannot be communicated until it is put into words. There are several Scripture passages which ask the question, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” The answer: no one. Nobody knows what God thinks until He tells us with His logos, His Word.
After all, who can know your mind or my mind unless we express our thoughts in words? The only way you can know my thoughts on the gospel of John, for example, is to read the words in this book.
In a similar way, when Jesus came among us as a man He expressed to us what was in the mind of God. As the book of Hebrews tells us, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.”3 He was God's utterance on earth, revealing to us what Paul calls “Gods secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.”4
If we want to understand reality, we must understand God's thoughts, for whatever God thinks becomes reality. God thought about a universe and the stars and the earth, and they sprang into being. God thought about the laws of physics, and those thoughts became real. He thought about animals and sea creatures and human beings, and they came into being. Everything that exists began as a thought in the mind of God. The results of His thoughts are all around us--and we are the realization of His thoughts as well.
Jesus, too, is an expression of God's mind to us. In the life of Jesus we can see and hear God's love, God's power, God's compassion, God's justice, and God's forgiveness. Jesus is the ultimate expression, the clearest Word God could ever speak to us. He came to unfold the mind of God to us in terms that cannot be mistaken.
Notice the parallels between the opening lines of John's gospel and the opening lines of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. Both begin with these sweeping words: “In the beginning . . . .” At the outset of both books, you gain a sense that the story which follows is a story of vast scope and significance. The human stories found in both Genesis and John are connected to a much larger story--the story of God's eternal plan as it is being worked out in history. This is not just a narrative of events that began 2,000 years ago or 6,000 years ago, but the grand disclosure of a plan that has been operating since the beginning of time and space itself.
In the opening lines of his gospel, John tells us that the Word has always, eternally existed: “In the beginning was the Word.” The beginning of what? The beginning of everything! We see appearances of this eternal Word even in the Old Testament, before Jesus was born. Before He came as a man, the Word was not called Jesus. Rather, you find references to “The Angel [literally, ‘messenger’] of the Lord” or “the Son.”5 Jesus was the eternal Son of God before He came to earth, even before time and the universe began.
You and I had no history before we appeared on the earth--but Jesus did.
I remember as a boy wishing I had been alive to witness some of the exciting events of World War I, but it was all over before I arrived on the scene. To the young people of today, the events I witnessed and the times I lived through--the Great Depression, World War II, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the Watergate era--are just stories of the past. These events were history before many people now old enough to vote were even born! But Jesus had a history and an existence even before He came to earth.
Three Persons--One God
In verse 1--at the very beginning of his gospel--John grapples with one of the deepest mysteries of God: the Trinity. He says, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
At this point, a problem arises. What John is saying is that the Word is distinct from the Father--two separate Persons. Yet there is a mystery here as well, for John also indicates that the Word was so intimately involved with the Father that their thoughts and their purposes were one. That is what Jesus himself said in John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
Is Jesus saying that He and the Father are one and the same? Some people are understandably confused on this point. “How, could both Jesus and the Father be God?” they ask. “How could the Son be His own Father?” The confusion lies in the meaning of the word one. Some people think that when Jesus says, “I and my father are one,” He means they are one and the same. But they are not. They are two separate persons.
What does the word persons suggest to you? Does it suggest physical bodies? The fact is, bodies are not essential to persons. Our essential nature is not that of a physical body, but that of a spirit. The essence of a person is not a head, trunk, limbs, and organs. The essence of a person is that person's “I-ness,” that person's awareness, feelings, motives, loves, desires--all the intangible yet utterly real aspects that make up a unique self, a personality.
In verse 1, John declares that the eternal Son, Jesus, was a person, and the Father was a person, and they were one in purpose and action.
The final line in that verse is a blunt and astonishing statement: ”and the Word was God.” No doubt about it! Some religious sects, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unitarians, deny this great truth that Jesus was God. They try to dilute the power of this statement by reinterpreting those words or by explaining them away. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses take the position that John is saying, “Jesus was a god,” not, “Jesus was God.” They suggest that John was introducing a concept bordering on polytheism, the belief in many gods, and that Jesus was just one among them.
Yet there is no other way to translate these words without violating the laws of Greek grammar and the theological statements of other Scriptures. John is taking great pains to make his point clear, and the point is this: There is only one God, and Jesus was one with that God, and Jesus was God.
I once attended a meeting between leaders of the Christian and Jewish faiths. Eleven prominent rabbis from Reformed Jewish congregations in places such as Washington, New York, and Chicago met with evangelical Christian leaders at a location in Los Angeles. Our objective was to discuss the differing points of view between Jews and Christians and to build understanding. It was a warm and congenial meeting, and it proved to be only the first of a series of such talks.
During the session, one of the rabbis read a statement of Christian doctrines to us and asked the evangelical Christians in the room to state whether or not they agreed with those statements. When the rabbi came to a statement that read, “We believe that God exists as three Persons in one,” he said, “I'm sure you understand we would differ with you a great deal at this point.” That was probably the understatement of the day!
The first reason Christians and Jews differ on this point is that one of the three Persons is Jesus Christ, who is not acknowledged by the Jewish faith as the Messiah. The second reason is that one of the essential affirmations of the Jewish faith is that there is only one God, In fact, that is the core affirmation of three of the five great religions of the world, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Of the other two religions, Hindus believe in many gods and Buddhists believe there is no god, that man is his own god. But Jews, Muslims, and Christians all believe there is only one God.
But there is a profound difference in the Christian view of God. When we examine the Christian definition of that one God, we find not one but three Persons.
The Jewish faith objects to the triune concept of God. It states that there is only one Person in the Godhead, and that Person is the Father alone. But because of the testimony of Scripture, the evidence of the life of Jesus, and even statements within the Old Testament, Christians have come to understand that God has revealed a complexity in His personage. We conclude that He exists as three Persons, sharing the same divine essence, so that there is one God expressed in three individual Persons.
We see the first hint of the plural nature of the Godhead in the very first chapter of the first book of the Old Testament. There God says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”6 A plurality of Persons within one God is clearly indicated right from the beginning.
This is a hard concept to grasp, and there is nothing in our everyday experience to help us. I recall the story of the mother who was ironing while her little son was sitting on the floor with a notepad and crayons, drawing pictures. "What are you drawing?" she asked.
“I'm drawing a picture of God,” said the little boy.
“How can you do that?” asked the mother. “Nobody knows what God looks like.”
The boy smiled up at his mother and said, “They will when I get through!”
Many have tried to draw a picture of God to help people understand the Trinity, our Christian God in three Persons. (The word Trinity is really just a brief way of saying “tri-unity” or “three-in-one.”) For example, C. S. Lewis, in his book Miracles; said that God “contains ‘persons’ (three of them) while remaining one God, as a cube combines six squares while remaining one solid body.”7 This picture helps somewhat, but falls far short (as Lewis himself would admit) of ever completely encompassing the incredible mystery of the Trinity.
“This is the deep end of theology, no doubt,” writes J. I. Packer, “but John throws us straight into it.... John sets the mystery [of the Trinity] at the head of his gospel because he knows that nobody can make head or tail of the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth till he has grasped the fact that this Jesus is in truth God the Son.”8
Jesus Is the Creator and Sustainer
In verses 2 and 3, John declares that Jesus is the Creator of all things. This statement accounts for Jesus’ forceful and remarkable personality. It accounts for his miraculous acts. It accounts for so many things that are simply incomprehensible apart from the creative power of God himself.
Jesus, says John, is the originator of all things: “He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
Again we see a parallel between the opening lines of John and the opening lines of Genesis. Eight times in the opening chapter of Genesis we read about God's creative activity:
• “And God said, ‘Let there be light’ “ (1:3).
• “And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water’ “(1:6).
• “And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let the dry ground appear’ “ (1:9).
• “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation’ “ (1:11).
• “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky’ “ (1:14).
• “And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth’ “ (1:20).
• “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures’ “ (1:24).
• “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’ “ (1:26).
In these lines from Genesis, we see God the Son at work, just as John describes Him in verses 2 and 3: He is the logos, the eternal Word, speaking into being what the Father had conceived and designed in His amazing, infinite mind.
Any scientist who studies nature is continually astonished when he views the complexity of life, the marvelous symmetry of energy and matter, the order that is embedded within all visible matter: the molecule, the atom, the structure of a flower or a star. As the English essayist J. B. Priestley observed, “Believing that life and the universe are a mystery quite beyond our grasp keeps you humble. And really, the arrogance of thinking it's an accident! The conceit of thinking we know everything!”
All the deep wonders of the universe were once just a thought in the mind of God. That thought never would have been expressed as physical reality if the Son had not spoken it into being. He spoke, and the world appeared.
This amazing Man, Jesus of Nazareth, in the mystery of His being, was not only a human being here on earth. He was, John tells us, the One who created the universe at the beginning. He understands it. He knows how it functions. He directs, guards, and guides the creation to this day. He keeps it going and holds it in existence.
I have always been fascinated by the great linear accelerator that runs out toward the mountains behind Stanford University. I have often thought about the immense energies which power that great scientific instrument as I have driven up Highway 280 between Palo Alto and San Francisco. This linear accelerator is, loosely speaking, a great “atom-smasher.” Using enormous voltages of electrical energy, the accelerator moves particles along a long tunnel, increasing the speed of the particles until they approach the speed of light. These high-speed particles smash into a target--the nucleus of an atom--at the far end of the tunnel.
The energies used to smash these atoms are measured in “mega-electron volts” and “giga-electron volts”--that is, in millions and billions of volts! Why does it take so much power to break apart an atom so that its component particles can he studied? Science has asked that question for decades, and the answer is still unknown. All that is known is that there is a force that scientists do not yet understand which holds all things together.
The apostle Paul tells us in Colossians what that force is: “In him [Jesus] all things hold together.”9 The book of Hebrews says, “The Son is . . . the exact representation of [God's] being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.”10 And John says, “Through him [Jesus] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” The world around you, the book you hold in your hands, and your very body itself are all held together by His word and His power.
Life and Light
The third thing John says in these verses is that Jesus is the source of life and light--two essential ingredients to our existence. “In him was life,” says John, “and that life was the light of men.”
What is life? We all think we know the difference between life and death--until we are asked to define what life is or explain where life comes from. A scientist can analyze all the elements that make up a living being--but even if he puts it all together in the proper proportions, he cannot create life. The elements are there, the chemistry is there, but something is missing. It will not grow. It will not function. It is not alive.
Life is one of the great mysteries of science and philosophy. No one knows what life is. But the Word of God declares that God the Son is the source of life.
Plants have life; the Son gave it to them. Animals have a higher term of life; He gave it to them. People have a still higher form of life, and He is the source of it. Jesus stands at the beginning and the end of every human life. Our life goes back to Him when it has ceased on earth.
And with the life of the Son comes the light of the Son. Light, as John uses it, is a symbol of knowledge, understanding, and truth. You and I can go to school and learn because we have physical life, human life. But John tells us that Jesus is the source of eternal life, a higher level, a life that never ends. As John declares in his letter, “He who has the Son has life: he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”11
So eternal life comes only from Christ. When you have life from Him, then you also have access to the source of light--the light of God's truth. That's why there is no possibility of understanding the workings of the universe in which we live without eternal life from the Son of God.
Throughout the Scriptures, we are invited to pursue the truth and to discover the wonders of the universe and the life God has created. We can pursue understanding in such fields as science, medicine, art, literature, and politics--and there is nothing wrong with any of these pursuits. But there is more, there is a deeper understanding. If we stop at the level of human knowledge and human understanding, then life is narrow and limited, and we will never truly understand the workings of God in the world. It is only as we seek that deeper level of truth, the level of divine light that is found in Scripture, proceeding from the lips of Jesus, that we can truly put all the pieces together. Only then can we understand God's purposes in the world, as well as our own meaning, our own place in God's purposes.
In the opening lines of his gospel, John introduces us to a mystery: This amazing man from Nazareth is not only a man but God himself. The Creator has become a part of his own creation. The Originator of life and light has submitted himself to death and the darkness of a tomb. The source of deepest wisdom has limited himself to learning as a little child. Not until He explodes from the tomb is the fullness of His life and light manifested in resurrection power.
Now it is clear why more books have been written, more music composed, more paintings painted, more drama presented about this Man than any other person in history. Now it is clear why this one Man occupies such a unique and unforgettable place in history. Now it is clear why no other leader in history is even considered in the same breath with Jesus. He is not only the focus of interest and influence in our society, but in history, and in the universe. He is not only the center of our faith, but the source of life and light. As the poet John Donne once wrote,
Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But that God should be made like man, much more!
Jesus is the ultimate crisis--the decision that must be made, the question that must be answered, yes or no, accept or reject--in every human life. Every human being must sooner or later deal with Jesus of Nazareth.
Hello, Darkness
John 1:5-13
Here are the words of one of the most famous and powerful people in history:
I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a mere man. Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and anyone else in the world there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by himself. I search in vain in history to find a parallel to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or to explain it. Here everything is extraordinary.
Those words were spoken by Napoleon Bonaparte during a conversation with one of his generals at the end of his career. At the time he spoke these words, Napoleon was in exile on the tiny island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. There are other remarkable statements about Christ that the exiled leader of France made in his final years. It is my opinion, and the opinion of many who have studied Napoleon's life, that he became a Christian during his exile.
Even the most amazing and forceful personalities in history--the Napoleons of past and present ages--are driven to their knees in awe and humility by the amazing reality of this one Man, Jesus Christ. Something within us instinctively responds to the words and the life of Jesus. Something within us is touched by His love, by the force of His personality, by the purity of His character. Something within us is magnetically drawn to the One who made us--and then was made like us.
In John 1:5-13, the Lord's friend John tells us not only who Jesus is eternally--the Word made flesh, God become a man--but what Jesus came to accomplish on earth.
1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood [or overcome] it.
In these words we find the first hint in John's gospel of the struggle between belief and unbelief in the world. John has said that Jesus is the light of men, the source of all understanding of true reality. He is the basis of the knowledge of truth. To a world full of darkness and confusion, John declares that it is only in the light of Jesus that we begin to see things the way they are.
Feeling Our Way in the Darkness
It is hard for many of us to accept that we live in a world of darkness. We are proud of our achievements, our social, technological, and scientific progress. We point to our impressive achievements in computers, in communication technology, in space travel, in medical science. We compare these achievements to the state of human knowledge and engineering of fifty years ago, or a century ago, or a thousand years ago, and we say, "See how far we've come!" We point to our great libraries and universities, and we say, "How can anyone say we live in darkness?"
Yet, if we are honest, we have to admit that regardless of our impressive social and scientific advances, we have made no progress whatsoever in conquering the basic ills of the human condition: Fear. Hate. Crime. Conflict. War. Racism. Injustice. Sin.
We do not know the answers. In fact, we often feel we don't even know the questions. We are like children lost in a dark wood, feeling our way around, hoping to recognize some landmark, yet despairing of ever finding our way back to the path. We don't know what we may find in the dark, behind the next shadowy tree or bush. We hope to find a rescuer--but we fear that there is nothing awaiting us but a beast or a deep abyss.
Listen to the politicians. Listen to the scientists. Listen to the economists. Listen to the news commentators. No one truly understands all the immense complexities and problems of our world today. No one is in control. Even our kings and presidents seem to be feeling their way in the darkness.
The opening line of the 1970s song by Simon and Garfunkel is still relevant today: "Hello darkness, my old friend/I've come to talk with you again." That is how millions feel today: The darkness is our constant companion, a shadow that never leaves us, and from which we have no hope of escaping.
The darkness is not only outside us, surrounding us, but it is within us as well. Some time ago in my counseling office, I actually heard a husband--a professing Christian--say to his wife, "Why are you getting so upset at me? What's the big deal? All I did was have an affair!" That is true darkness--a darkened heart, a darkened understanding. Any man who does not comprehend the pain and destruction he creates when he defiles the marriage bed is living in the darkness of self-deception.
This kind of darkness pervades our entire culture, our entire world. Easy divorce, permissive sex, a decline of moral standards in our entertainment media and our political leaders and cultural heroes--all of these factors are dissolving the glue that holds society together, destroying our families, and sabotaging a whole generation of children and young people. Anarchy and violence are on the rise and standards of behavior are on the decline. This is darkness. Clearly, the words of the gospel of John are as relevant today as when John first wrote them to the dark and evil world of the first century Roman empire.
A Witness to the Light
I believe the NIV text misses the truest sense of the word it translates "understood" (or, in the margin note, "overcome") in verse 5. Certainly, it is true that the darkness cannot understand the light, nor can the darkness ultimately overcome and defeat the light. But there is an even deeper significance to John's message in these words than either "understood" or "overcome" conveys.
The original Greek word that is translated "overcome" actually means "to lay hold of, to lay hands on, to seize." One can "lay hold" of something as a hostile act. Or one can "lay hold" of something in order to possess it. By comparing this passage with other New Testament passages, I have come to conclude that it is this second sense of the word--"laying hold" in order to possess something--that John intends in this verse. John is telling us that the darkness cannot get hold of the light, cannot appropriate it, cannot possess it. cannot apprehend it.
In 2 Corinthians 6:14, the apostle Paul asks, "What fellowship can light have with darkness?" The two are mutually exclusive. The moment you introduce light, darkness must flee. Darkness and light cannot exist together. We, who live in darkness, are incapable of possessing the light--unless it descends to us and places itself within our reach.
And that, as we shall see in the next few verses, is exactly what the light chose to do for us who live in darkness.
1:6-8 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
Here, John the apostle refers to another John--John the Baptist, whom the prophet Isaiah predicted would come to "prepare the way of the Lord." John the Baptist's ministry was to take the deep, profound truths of God and make them clear and plain so they could be grasped by the people in their darkness.
The name John means, "God is gracious." The grace of God was exhibited when He sent a man--John the Baptist--to go before the Light--Jesus--to make the light plain and clear to our understanding. John the Baptist stooped to our weakness, put the truth at a level we could understand, and placed the light of God within our grasp.
When a child is just learning to read, you do not hand that child The Collected Works of William Shakespeare and say, "Here's something to read. Get started." No, you don't start a child at the most advanced level. You start a child at the simplest level, the ABCs. And that's just what John the Baptist did. He came and began with the ABCs. Here are the ABCs of John the Baptist.
A
Admit your need.
Admit you are confused, bewildered, blind, and needy. Admit you cannot solve your own problems. That is summed up in the word John preached again and again: "Repent!" Admit the fact that you are in trouble. Admit it that you can't find your own way out. Admit it that none of the solutions you have applied by your own strength have worked in your life. Admit your need.
B
Believe.
Believe in the One who gives life and light. Believe in the One who has come to meet you right where you are. Believe in God the Son, Jesus Christ.
C
Correct your behavior.
"Correct your behavior." That is what John preached to the people in their darkness. To the soldiers and leaders he said, "Stop oppressing the people."
To the rich he said, "Give freely and generously to the poor." To all he said, "Correct your behavior on the basis of the new life and new light you have received from God."
These are the ABCs of John the Baptist's message and ministry. It was not the most exhaustive and complete truth, nor was it the deepest and most profound truth--but it was a place to start, and it was the place where John began.
The writer of the gospel of John says that John the Baptist identified the true light. He told the people who the light was, because Jesus did not have the outward appearance of light and brilliance. Jesus did not come into this world like a sunburst, or like some visitor from outer space. He did not step out of cloud or a flying saucer so everyone could see how radically different He was from run-of-the-mill humankind. Jesus came looking like us. He was one of us. That is why people failed to recognize Him for what He was. He needed a witness.
Can you think of another time Jesus commissioned witnesses on His behalf? It was in the opening verses of the book of Acts. Even though He had already demonstrated His character and His Godhood through His unique life, even after He had conquered death by rising out of the grave, He still needed witnesses. So in Acts 1:5 and 8, He stood before twelve faithful men and said,
"John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit . . . . You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
A witness makes the light plain, and encourages belief in the light. A witness does not draw attention to himself but directs attention to what is truly important. John the Baptist is that kind of witness. He denies His own importance. As the apostle John observes in verse 8, "He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light." This is the same humble, obedient spirit we see in the apostle Paul who wrote, "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake."1
One of the things that alarms me about so many television and radio programs that attempt to preach the gospel is that they often seem to focus on the witness--the preacher, his looks, his dynamic preaching style, his clever way with words--rather than on the One he is supposed to witness to. But not John the Baptist! He is a witness who preaches Christ while denying himself. As a result, people stream out of the cities, towns, and villages. They flock to the hot desert places where there is not an air conditioner or a snow-cone stand in sight.
What draws these people out of their homes and into the desert? Only this: a witness with a wonderful message about a light--a light that shows a way out of darkness!
Have They Not Heard?
The apostle John now resumes his revelation of Jesus' true nature and purpose in the world.
1:9-11 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
Here is the first reference in John's gospel to the incarnation of Jesus. He was "the true light that gives light to every man." What is this "light" that the "true light" gives to every human being? It is the light of creation. It is the witness that God's creation gives to the existence, the power, and the awesome intellect of God. Jesus is that light, because He is the Creator behind all creation. The creation speaks of God, and Jesus is the creative Word which spoke the creation into being.
This point in John's message raises a question that many people--both Christians and non-Christians--wonder about the Christian faith: "What about those who have never heard the gospel? How can you say that people who do not know Jesus Christ in a personal way are condemned in eternity if they have never heard of Jesus Christ in this life?"
What these people are really saying is, "Isn't God being unfair? We can understand how God could say that people are responsible if they have heard the gospel, if they have Bibles to read or a Christian witness to listen to. But what about those in remote places, people who have never been reached by missionaries, those who have had no opportunity to hear about Jesus? Is God going to condemn them too?"
The answer, as John expresses in this passage, is that there are no people who have not heard about God. You may find this a surprising statement, yet this is exactly the point that Paul argues so eloquently and definitively in Romans 10. After asking, "Did they not hear?", the apostle Paul answers his own question: "Of course they did." Then he quotes two lines from Psalm 19. To make it unmistakably clear what both John and Paul are talking about, let's look not only at the lines Paul quotes, but at the first four verses of Psalm 19:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
John, Paul, and the psalmist all agree: There is no one who has not heard of God. His witness is not only in the mouths of people like John the Baptist, but it is also woven throughout nature itself. Regardless of what language you speak, you can look up into the skies and read the message written among the stars: "God is!" This message goes out into all the earth, even into places where no Christian missionary has set foot.
I spent most of my ministry in the southern San Francisco Bay area--a corner of the world with probably more scientists per square mile than any other region in the world. The Stanford research facilities are practically in my own backyard. A short drive to the south is the world-famous Silicon Valley. A hop, skip, and a jump to the northeast is Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. For decades, I was surrounded by some of the finest scientific minds in the world.
I confess to you that I am amazed and a little perplexed that so many scientists--men and women who work on an intimate, daily basis with the marvels of nature, the miracles of modern medicine, and the wonders of high technology--have concluded that the universe came into existence by blind chance! Astronomers explore the heavens--the very heavens that declare God's glory and proclaim the work of His hands--yet many astronomers insist that the billions of galaxies which wheel through the heavens in orderly arrangement just happened! Biologists study the complex interactions of plant and animal life, while talking about the genetic "code" that is written in a strand of DNA--yet many biologists refuse to acknowledge the existence of a "Code-Maker."
All of this complex, fine-tuned order is the result of "blind chance," say unbelieving scientists. And they say Christians believe in miracles! To me, an atheist's faith in "blind chance" is much more miraculous than a Christian's belief in a Cosmic Designer! As someone has observed, it is comparable to having a tornado blow through a junkyard and assemble a space shuttle! What is it that blinds human beings to the testimony of nature?
John tells us that God has a witness in the form of the "light" (or revealed truth) of creation. But he also tells us that the "light" that is revealed by creation has also been personified in Jesus. The light has walked among us. The light has demonstrated God's power by commanding the wind and the waves to be still. The light has turned water into wine, has taken simple elements of bread and fish and fed thousands of people, has delivered men and women from crippling disease and blindness and death. The Creator, says John, has stood in our midst--the true light that came into the world.
He was in the world and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. This spiritual blindness--this strange darkness of unbelief--is still in the world today. Many still do not recognize their own Creator even as He speaks to their hearts today.
His Own Did Not Receive Him
What's more, the Creator came to His own people as the Messiah, the promised One, and was not received. "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him," says John 1:11. This is clearly a reference to the people and to the land of Israel. Jesus came to the place where God had put His name, to the land that had been promised to Abraham. He came to the temple that was dedicated to God the Father. Yet His own people--the chosen people who had been instructed for centuries about the coming suffering Servant of Jehovah who would take their sin upon himself--would not receive Him.
In the previous chapter, I mentioned a discussion I had in a meeting with eleven Reformed Jewish rabbis in Los Angeles. We had a very rich and cordial exchange of viewpoints. During that discussion one of the rabbis joked, "You know, when the Messiah comes, we Jews will say to Him, 'Welcome,' and you Christians will say, 'Welcome back.' But the Messiah will say, 'No comment.'"
I laughed--but I did not agree! I believe that when the Messiah returns, He will say what is recorded in the prophecy of Zechariah. In that day, says Zechariah, the Jews will ask Him, "What are these wounds on your body?" And the Messiah will answer, "The wounds I was given at the house of my friends."2 Truly, Jesus came to His own people, and they did not receive Him.
So we are confronted right away in John's gospel with the darkness of the world--a darkness resulting from blindness. The Gentiles are blind because they will not acknowledge their Creator, even though He has given a convincing demonstration of His power in nature and in the appearance in our midst of God the Son. The Jews are blind because they cannot see their own long promised Messiah--even though He has fulfilled all the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.
Does this mean that Jesus was a failure at what He set out to do? Absolutely not! God always accomplishes His purpose. Despite the world's rejection, despite the Jews' denial of His Messiahship, there were those who believed and received Jesus, the eternal Creator, as their Lord.
1:12-13 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
Here is yet another of the many strange paradoxes of Scripture: Again and again it seems that God allows everything to appear to be totally lost. (This may happen in your own life as well, so you had better be ready for it!) Just when it appears that all is lost, that all your hopes are dashed, that all your dreams are doomed to failure--that's when God starts to work! And that's what God does here. Though the Messiah was rejected and the Creator was spurned, still God was at work in the midst of that rejection, producing an entirely new creation, a whole new society of people.
It starts, as John tells us, like the old creation: with a birth. Every human being comes into the world by birth. There is no other way. And every human being who would enter the new kingdom must come in by re-birth. (Later in the book of John, we will see Jesus astonish one of the leaders and teachers of Israel with the news that he must be "born again.")
John goes on to list the many ways people mistakenly think they can come to God. He says, first, that the new birth is "not of natural descent" (some translations say, "not of blood"). That means not by inheritance, not by human ancestry. You cannot get into the kingdom of God, or be born into the family of God, by being raised in a Christian family. You can't inherit the kingdom of God like you would inherit brown eyes or a dimpled chin. You can grow up in a Christian home, attend a Christian school, spend all your life involved in Christian activities, but you are not a member of the kingdom until you are truly "born again."
Second, the new birth is not by "human decision." You cannot make yourself a Christian by positive thinking or by making a resolution or by deciding to live a good life. The kingdom has been opened to you by God's decision, by God's own sovereign will. It is a gift to you by God's grace--not something you accomplished by your own volition.
Third, the new birth is not by "a husband's will," or as some versions translate it, "the will of man." When you were born into this world, it was not your idea; it was your parents' choice. But when you are reborn into the new kingdom, there is no other human will involved. Your parents may pray with you and instruct you and take you to church every Sunday, but they cannot cause you to be "born again." Nobody can make you a Christian. No pastor, elder, bishop, archbishop, priest, or pope can make you a Christian. You cannot be reborn by a ceremony, by reading a creed, by standing up or sitting down, by going forward or by kneeling at a bench. None of that makes you a Christian.
John says that God's children can only be "born of God." It is a new birth accomplished by God within the human heart. Because it is all God's doing no one else's, it is an accomplishment beyond any human effort, any human cleverness, any human manipulation.
The new birth is available "to all who received him," says John. Not merely all who "believe" in Him, but all who receive Him. Many people say, "I believe in Jesus. I believe He lived, died, and rose again. I believe He was who He said He was." But that doesn't make you a Christian.
Only when you receive Him, yield to Him, and surrender yourself to His lordship do you truly become a Christian. "He who has the Son has life," said the apostle John in his first letter. "He who does not have the Son of God does not have life."3 It is just that simple. If you receive Him, invite him to be Lord, and ask Him to take over control of your life, you will enter the kingdom of God. You will be re-born.
The rebirth experience takes place deep in the human spirit. God accomplishes this miracle. It is not something you can do, and you may not even feel it happening. Just as a mother does not feel the moment when a baby first begins to form within her, when the egg and sperm unite and the cells begin to multiply, you cannot always sense the precise moment when the process of rebirth begins. There may not be a rush of ecstatic emotions. There may not be any sensation of change at all.
But the new life has begun, and God knows the moment and God nurtures the new life and God controls its growth. New life has sprung up within you, and with it comes light--the light of God's truth and spiritual understanding--for as John says, "that life is the light of men."
The Bible will take on new meaning for you. Once you receive new life, the Book will provide new light. It will make sense where it never made sense before. What was once dull and uninviting will take on a new radiance and fascination. That is the mark of a new birth.
In time, and by God's grace, that new life will change you and mold you into the likeness of Christ himself. It is a growth process that takes time and patience. You do not suddenly, by magic, become a new creature. You grow after your re-birth just as a baby grows after the first birth. God has designed it so. But Gods promise to you is sure: "To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."
Think of the encouraging power of those words: "the right to become. That is what God gives. He does not wave a magic wand over us and change us, like Cinderella's fairy godmother changed a pumpkin into a coach! He begins a process. At times, it is a difficult process.
We resist that process, like babies sometimes resist growing up. Sometimes I think babies are a little over-romanticized. If we parents are honest, we must admit that there are times when babies are not very nice creatures to be around. Someone once said, "A baby is a digestive apparatus with a loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other!" But babies are human beings--and eventually they grow to become mature human beings.
So it is with the new creation.
If you have never received Jesus as Lord of your life, then why not do so now? Don't wait till the end of this book! Do it now, so the rest of the gospel of John, will make more sense to you!
But most of all, receive Jesus now so that the rest of your life--including your eternal life--will make sense. Surrender to Jesus. Ask Him to take control. Experience the second birth. Apply the ABCs of faith. Begin the process of daily becoming more and more like Jesus.
Don't worry that you don't know how to be a Christian. Don't worry that you don't know how to act like a Christian or how a Christian is supposed to pray. Just talk to God, tell Him what's on your heart, tell Him you mean business and you want Him to be in control of your life. He'll hear and He'll act and He'll do all the work.
Welcome to the family of God.
The Real Jesus
John 1:14-18
"Will the real Jesus please stand up?"
If you're from the baby boom generation or older, then you probably recognize that line as a take-off from the old television show To Tell the Truth. In that show, three mystery guests would take their seats on a stage, and a celebrity panel--people like Kitty Carlisle and Orson Bean and Tom Poston--would fire questions at the three mystery guests and try to find out which was the person he claimed to be, and which two were imposters.
Imagine if Jesus appeared on To Tell the Truth! Would you and I be able to tell which was the real Jesus and which was an imposter? What if one of the men claiming to be Jesus looked exactly like all the Christ-images in religious paintings and stained glass windows--the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" image? He's inoffensive, bland, perhaps a little wimpy. Could this be the real Jesus?
Well, then, what about the next Jesus? He's a fiery-eyed radical who preaches revolution and overthrowing the establishment. His favorite one-liner is, "Woe to you, hypocrites!" Could this be the real Jesus?
Then what about the third man? What is he like? Is he the real Jesus? When the announcer says, "Will the real Jesus please stand up," will he be the one who rises?
If he is the Jesus we encounter in the gospel of John, then yes, He is the real Jesus.
Over the past two millennia, many false and contradictory images and conceptions have been built around Jesus. But here, in the gospel of John, we are encountering Jesus as He appeared and was known by a man who saw Him face to face, who traveled with Him, who heard Him teach. Like the early disciples, we can stand alongside John and see Jesus in all His deity, in all His humanity.
By examining Jesus through the lens of John's gospel, we can clear away many of the misleading images of Jesus that have been planted in our minds over the years. But it's not easy.
It's a little like restoring an antique table. When you first bring it home from the antique shop or the garage sale, you see that the wood of that old table has been darkened and obscured by time, neglect, dirt, and layers of old varnish. But if you take a rag and some varnish remover and carefully strip away the layers of grime from that piece of furniture, you will find the true beauty of the natural wood that has been there all along.
The same is true of our image of Jesus. With a little honest effort, we can strip away the layers of bias and tradition that hide the pure, unvarnished truth about Jesus from our eyes. We can remove those misconceptions we have absorbed over the years from cultural influences, or our parents, or our peers. We can return to the source, the eyewitness account of a man who walked with Jesus and talked with Him on a daily basis, face-to-face.
As we approach this gospel, let's ask God for new eyes to see His truth. Let's invite Him to open this gospel to us as if it were written yesterday, as if we were meeting Jesus for the first time. And let's ask Him to change our lives with the truth He has for us there.
Not a Bore
In his book Faith, Hope and Hilarity: The Child Eye View of Religion, entertainer Dick Van Dyke laments the way we have taken this fascinating, exciting individual--Jesus Christ--and turned Him into a boring subject for religious instruction. As an example, he cites the case of a young Sunday school student "who saw his teacher setting up the figures for a biblical story, and said, 'Don't tell me we're gonna have that Jesus stuff again!'"1
If we truly understood the real Jesus, then "that Jesus stuff' would be the most thrilling and riveting adventure ever told. Unfortunately, we Christians have somehow taken this exciting story and made it boring. As Dick Van Dyke recalls, "When I was a boy, Sunday School was the dullest dryest time of all. I never heard anybody say, 'I was inspired ...' or 'I learned something.' We would pass around the lesson for the day and each child would read a verse. We were reading from the King James Version, without understanding the grammar or half the words, and they were never explained to us."2
I think that is a crime--to take the story of Jesus and make it boring, to turn it into "that Jesus stuff." If there was one thing the real Jesus was not, He was not dull! As Dorothy Sayers wrote in her book Creed or Chaos,
The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore--on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe . . . . He was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquirers, and humble before Heaven; but He insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites; He referred to King Herod as "that fox"; He went to parties in disreputable company and was looked upon as a "gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." . . .
He cured diseases by any means that came handy, with a shocking casualness in the matter of other people's pigs and property; He showed no proper deference for wealth and social position; when confronted with neat dialectical traps, He displayed a paradoxical humour that affronted serious-minded people, and He retorted by asking disagreeably searching questions that could not be answered by rule of thumb.
He was emphatically not a dull man in His human lifetime, and if He was God, there can be nothing dull about God either.3
The Glory Within
As we have already seen, Jesus is presented to us in the prologue of John's gospel as the Word, the expression of the mind of God; the Giver of Life and Light: the Creator who said, "Let there be . . ." and spoke everything into being. Beginning with verse 14 of chapter 1, John draws us even closer, and gives us an even more intimate glimpse into this amazing man, Jesus.
1:14 The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The key phrase in verse 14 is the phrase "and lived for a while among us." In the original Greek, the word lived literally means "tabernacled." A tabernacle was a tent. In other words, John tells us that Jesus "pitched His tent" among us for a while. Jesus, said John, was a "human tent," a temporary dwelling place that came among us for awhile--then moved on. There is really nothing unusual about this idea. We are all "human tents." We inhabit these tent-bodies of ours for a time, and then we, too, move on.
To use a different metaphor, you might say that our bodies are "earth suits." Just as astronauts wear space suits to enable them to function in space, we have been given "earth suits" that are marvelously designed to enable us to function in the conditions found on this planet. The part that is intrinsically us is not the earth suit itself, but what's inside the suit. If I waved my arms at you, you would think, "There's Ray, waving his arms." But that wouldn't be me. That would just be my earth suit, functioning under my control. My earth suit--my body--is just the outer covering in which my spirit dwells. It is the earth suit, the tabernacle, the tent of Jesus that John lived with, talked with, walked with, and touched.
Yet the tent of Jesus could not hide the glory inside. It was the inner glory of Jesus that caught John's attention and made Him the amazing and unique Person He was. If you have ever been in a campground at night, then you have an image in mind of what John means when he says, "We have seen his glory." Picture it: the night is dark and moonless, and there are no streetlights to chase the gloom. But all around you are tents--tabernacles--lit from within by Coleman lanterns. They glow like jewels in the darkness, filled with an inner warmth and illumination--an inner glory--that shines through the fabric.
That's what John saw when he looked at Jesus. He saw the glory within Jesus, shining through the fabric of His "tent" and lighting the darkness of our world. Then, using four striking images, John explains to us the nature of the glory of Jesus.
God and Humanity Unite
John uses this image first: "The Word became flesh." The Creator of the universe, the outpouring of the mind of God, became a creature made of soft, vulnerable baby flesh. What a staggering thought! In the original Greek text, those two words--"Word" (logos) and "flesh" (sarx) appear side by side: "logos sarx became." The Word, the creative thought and energy of the universe, became one of the most fragile of all His creations: a human baby.
Amazingly, that is what God had in mind from the very beginning. He designed human beings to be the bearer of himself. People have a capacity for God--and that is one of the stamps of our uniqueness. No animal has that capacity. No animal has any concept of God as we human beings have. Let evolution explain that if it can!
Every human being has a capacity for God and a hunger after God. Whether we know it or not, we are longing, searching constantly all through our lives for something that will meet what philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal called "the God-shaped void" in the human heart. That capacity was designed into us by God--just as a flashlight has an empty space designed into it where the batteries are supposed to go--because God intended you and me to be His dwelling place.
In Jesus Christ, the concept of God dwelling within the human race takes on profound new meaning: God and humanity have united in a single human being.
In his letters, John the apostle says that this truth is so fundamental to our faith that a denial of it constitutes an anti-Christian heresy: "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist."4 Here is the test of heresy: If any teacher, church, denomination, or religion teaches that Jesus is not God made flesh, then that teaching is false.
The glory that John saw shining from within the "tent" of Jesus' humanity was the eternal glory of the living Word of God.
The Glory of the Son
The second image John uses to describe the glory of Jesus is the phrase "the glory of the one and only Son." As everyone knows, sons often display the traits of their fathers. A son may look like the father, may have a similar sounding voice and similar mannerisms. A son may even display some of the same character qualities and abilities as his father. You can often tell a lot about a father by meeting his son.
Dr. R. A. Torrey was the founder of the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, and the founder of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, now known as Biola University in La Mirada, California. Dr. Torrey was an associate of D. L. Moody, and was one of the great Bible teachers of the past generation. I never met Dr. Torrey, but some years ago I had the privilege of meeting his son. Everyone who knew both Torrey Senior and Torrey Junior agreed that the son looked exactly like the father. Even his expressions, his personality, and the timbre of his voice reflected his father. Because I knew his son, I have always felt that somehow I knew Dr. R. A. Torrey.
That is what John is saying here: the glory that he saw in Jesus was an exact reproduction of the glory of the Father, because the Son reflects the Father.
Full of Grace and Truth
The third image John uses to describe the glory of Jesus is the phrase "full of grace and truth." The glory that shone in Jesus, that was recognized by most of the people with whom He came in contact, was the same glory that characterized God the Father: grace and truth.
There are many good definitions for the word grace. Someone has defined it as "that which God does within you--without you." Another helpful definition is that famous acrostic: G-R-A-C-E--God's Riches At Christ's Expense. Perhaps the simplest definition of all is that grace is "the generosity of love." The greatest evidence of grace in the Bible is contained in the words, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."5 That is grace: Love giving itself.
Truth is the manifestation of reality, the unveiling of what is actually there, the stripping off of all the facades, illusions, and phoniness. Jesus was full of both grace and truth. He was the ultimate revelation of what is real. And He is the fullest expression of love giving itself, pouring out, reaching out to others. That is the glory that John saw in Jesus.
These words connect with John's words in verse 4: "In him was life, and that life was the light of men." Grace and truth are really nothing more than life and light. Life is a revelation of the love of the Creator, His gracious gift to all His creatures.
And light is the comprehension of reality, the illumination of truth. Have you ever said, "I wish I had more light on this subject"? By that you mean, "I wish I understood it better. I wish I could see the truth of this matter more clearly." Truth is light. The glory that shone from within the tent of Jesus was grace and truth, life and light. And in Him it was full; He was "full of grace and truth."
"He Who Comes After Me"
The fourth image John uses to describe the glory of Jesus is taken from the words of Jesus' forerunner, John the Baptist.
1:15 John [the Baptist] testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'"
The scholars differ as to how to translate these words. Notice that John's words seem to be carefully chosen to suggest Jesus' place in time relative to John the Baptist: "He who comes after me . . . he was before me." In other words, John the Baptist said, "This one who comes after me in time was before me in time." To the people listening to John the Baptist, this must have sounded like a riddle or a puzzle, designed to make his listeners think.
Have you ever wondered why crowds of people were attracted to the message and the personality of John the Baptist? I have been to Israel six times and have traveled all through that desert region where John preached. Having felt the extreme heat of the desert, and having seen the barrenness of the landscape. I have always been amazed that people would walk great distances from the cities of Jerusalem and Jericho to listen to this shaggy, rugged preacher with the strange eating habits. What was his secret?
I believe the secret of John the Baptist was that he had a message that was targeted at the deepest needs of the human heart. He talked about a dramatic change that was coming to Israel--a change that would be brought about by an amazing Man, a change that would affect the lives of everyone who heard his words. People were hungry for what John had to say, and he said it in such a captivating, challenging, enigmatic way that they had to think deeply about it. They had to wrestle with it. They had to come to grips with it.
John's riddle in verse 15 is actually a profound statement of the truest, deepest nature of Jesus: "He who comes after me," John the Baptist says, in effect, "is actually the Eternal One, the One who came before me and before all that is." Here is John the Baptist's image of the glory of Jesus Christ--the glory of God himself, come to live as a suffering and limited member of the human race.
In his prologue, the apostle John is weaving together several strands of imagery into a tightly braided cord. There is the imagery of life and light, of grace and truth, of the Word who became flesh and who lived--tabernacled, pitched His tent--among us. This imagery spoke very clearly to the culture of John's time. It resonated with Old Testament imagery of a God who came and tabernacled among the people of Israel in the wilderness. If you turn to the book of Exodus, you will find the story how the entire camp of Israel wandered through the desert for forty years, and during their wandering, the Lord God pitched a tent--a tabernacle--in the midst of them.
That remarkable tabernacle was a moveable building made of animal skins and beautiful woven cloth. It was constructed with rods of silver and decorated with gold. The tabernacle was divided into two rooms, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. To show how remarkable and how different it was from anything the Israelites had ever seen, there hovered over it a cloud-- misty and vaporous by day, fiery and brilliant by night. This pillar of cloud and fire marked the tabernacle as the dwelling place of God. It was a foreshadow, an indicator of a time to come when God would come as a man and tabernacle among His people as a "tent" of flesh and blood.
In verse 15, John the Baptist is introduced to us, proclaiming and preparing the way for the One who will come after him, but who was also eternally before him--God in His tabernacle, dwelling among His people, the God-man Jesus Christ. I believe the apostle John underscores these words of John the Baptist because this is how the apostle first discovered who Jesus was.
For some Christians, the conversion experience was a gradual process of emergence into the full light of a relationship with God. But many Christians can look back to a moment in their conversion experience when the truth about Jesus burst upon them like a flash of lightning. We know that John the apostle was first a disciple of John the Baptist, and later became a disciple of Jesus Christ. So it may well be that John the apostle includes these words of his first mentor, John the Baptist, because these were the words which first revealed the truth of Jesus to his heart.
Law and Grace
In verses 16 through 18, John goes on to tell us what it means to each of us that the eternal God has become a man and dwelt among us.
1:16-18 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
Notice the reappearance in verse 17 of the words "grace and truth," and the contrast which John draws between "grace and truth" on the one hand, and the law and Moses on the other. Whereas grace is the generosity of love, the law is hard, cold, unyielding, and without mercy. In short, the law makes demands; grace releases us from the demands of the law.
Perhaps the most apt symbol of the law in our own society would be the Internal Revenue Service. Every April 15, every American citizen must file a tax return and hand over what the law requires. If we fail to do so, we are subject to a penalty. "Do this and thou shalt live," saith the IRS.
In a similar way, the law of God, which was given by Moses, is cold and unyielding. Moses did not originate that law. It is God's law, and He entrusted it to Moses, then Moses handed it down to the people. Thousands of years after Moses was laid to rest, the law remains. It makes demands. It shows no mercy. Ours would be a grim fate if the law was the end of the story.
But, says John, "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." He is the grace channel and the truth channel. Take Jesus out of the picture and there is no more grace, no more truth. What John is saying in these verses is that the Principle of Supply and Demand operates within God's economy. The law represents demand. But grace represents supply. It is the grace of Jesus Christ that supplies and fulfills the demand of the law. Grace releases us from the demands of the law--demands which are nothing less than absolute perfection.
Many people think that law and grace are contradictory, that they are opposing principles. The fact is, law and grace complement and supplement one another. Law makes its demands, rightfully and justly, and no one can meet them, but grace and truth are given to meet that demand.
Exodus 20 tells the story of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Read that account and you will see that the law came to mankind amid fire, smoke, thunder, earthquake, fear, and trembling.
Immediately after the law has been explained in Exodus 20 to 25, we come to Exodus 26, where the Lord gives His people detailed instructions for building the tabernacle--God's gracious provision to meet the demands of the law. Many people think that the Old Testament is about the law and the New Testament is about grace. But here we see that Jesus and His grace are clearly foreshadowed in the Old Testament. That tabernacle is a picture of Jesus, the meeting place where God's demands are fully met in terms of the sacrifice of blood, of a life poured out, of costly grace being expended on our behalf.
In Jesus, the apostle John saw the fulfillment of the tabernacle--so much so that he described Jesus as having "tabernacled" among us. He has come among us, bringing grace and truth, so that the demands of the law over our lives have been met. Now we can say with John, "From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another," or as some translations put it, we have received "grace upon grace."
And not only have received grace upon grace, blessing after blessing, but as verse 18 tells us, Jesus has given us a parallel gift: truth. "No one has ever seen God," John explains, "but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." No one has ever seen ultimate reality, but Jesus the Son has come to reveal the truth behind all things.
Deep Truth
In our society, we have collected an enormous amount of knowledge, yet the profoundly deep truths--the answers to the ultimate questions that human beings have pondered for thousands of years--continue to elude the philosophers of our time as completely as they eluded the philosophers of ancient times. You might think that as scientific knowledge has increased, as we have gained a deeper understanding of physics, astronomy, and cosmology, we would be closer to understanding who designed the universe, why, and what our place is in it. Yet it seems that the more scientists learn, the more they find out they don't know!
For example, scientists are constantly pursuing truth about the fundamental nature of the material universe. When I was in high school I was taught that the atom was the smallest particle in the universe. It was considered indivisible. Today, of course, "splitting the atom" is a part of our everyday jargon, and many of us run our household appliances on electricity that was generated by atomic power. Scientists have discovered that the atom is made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons, and that there are still more exotic particles such as in the nucleus of the atom. They have discovered other particles too, with exotic names like quarks, leptons, mesons, gluons--a whole "particle zoo," as physicists facetiously refer to it. The list of particles grows year by year as physicists conduct their high-energy experiments. Clearly, the more knowledge we accumulate, the more we realize how little truth we really know. Our ignorance of deep reality and deep truth is like an endless regression, stretching to infinity.
When I think of the endless regression of our ignorance about the fundamental nature of reality, I am reminded of a simple experiment you can conduct with a video camera and a television set. Use a cable to hook up the camera to the TV so that the TV displays a live picture of what the video camera sees. Point the camera at the TV, and you will see a picture of a TV screen displaying a picture of a TV screen displaying a picture of a TV screen--on and on to infinity! Our minds cannot even grasp what we are seeing--certainly there must be an end to these images somewhere! Theoretically, however, this regression of images can go on and on forever.
In a similar way, it seems as if the more we know about the universe, the less we know about deep truth. No wonder John says that no one has seen God at any time. He "lives in unapproachable light," as Scripture says.6 It may well be that this "unapproachable light" refers to the deep truth about God which cannot be discovered by science or any other form of human inquiry. It is only revealed by Jesus Christ.
The one and only Son of God who dwells at the heart of reality, who lives in the bosom of the Father, has made God known. Jesus has exemplified and expressed and explained the Father. Through His words and His life, He has revealed God to us. When we come to Him through Jesus Christ, we discover a loving Father; around us are a Father's arms; a Father's wisdom guides our way; a Father's power protects us and guards us; and a Father's insight warns us of the dangers that surround us. Like an earthly father teaching his little child to walk, our Heavenly Father takes delight in us as we take our tentative steps of faith. That is the Person Jesus reveals to us when we come to Him.
The real Jesus Christ is the eternal Word, the Creator, the Life-Giver and the Light-Bringer--and the most thrilling and profound story ever told is the story of the Word made flesh. He has tabernacled among us, illuminating our darkness, and fulfilling the demand of the law with His grace.
No one has seen the Father, but John lived side by side with the Son. The more we understand of the real Jesus Christ, as He is portrayed for us by His close friend and disciple, John, the more we will understand of the ultimate loving reality that is God the Father.
Call the First Witness!
John 1:19-34
A remarkable religious phenomenon emerged in the United States in the year 1948. That was the year a young evangelist began preaching under a tent near the Hollywood area of Los Angeles. Though sparse at first, the crowds quickly grew. Among those who attended were prominent Hollywood celebrities, many of whom made public professions of faith in Jesus Christ.
At first--as so often happens with events of this kind--the press totally ignored the revival that was proceeding from the big tent in southern California. But when some of the well-known names of Hollywood became involved, the media began to take an interest. Reporters were sent to investigate and interview this dynamic young preacher, who dressed in pistachio-colored suits, wore flaming red ties, and spoke with a pronounced Carolina accent. The reporters discovered that God was doing something astounding through this man, and thousands of lives were being changed.
That was the beginning of Billy Graham's career. Soon, he was invited to preach in cities all over the nation, and eventually all over the world.
The Billy Graham of the first century A.D. was a man named John the Baptist. Though he didn't wear green suits and red ties, John the Baptist was as colorful in his era as Billy Graham has been in our own era. John wore animal skins and lived on a peculiar diet of grasshoppers and wild honey. Like Graham, this young man had a very powerful message, which seemed to attract many people. At first they came out by the dozens to hear him, then by the scores. Soon, crowds numbering in the hundreds and thousands were streaming out of the cities of Judah and Galilee to hear this remarkable preacher in the desert.
Eventually, the response--and John's popularity--became so immense that even the religious establishment of Jerusalem had to take note. They sent a delegation to investigate. In John 1:19-23, John the apostle records the moment when the religious leaders of the Jews first confronted John the Baptist.
1:19-23 Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ."
They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"
He said, "I am not."
"Are you the Prophet?"
He answered, "No."
Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'"
The people who confronted and questioned John the Baptist were an official delegation from the Sanhedrin, made up of priests and Levites, who had been sent by the high priest himself. The leaders of the Jews were not very happy with John. They regarded him as an outsider and a troublemaker. He had never gone to seminary, had never been authorized by any responsible body, and had never been ordained. He had simply arisen out of the desert, from among the common people--and suddenly crowds were flocking to hear him preach! He was a threat to the establishment, and the establishment could no longer ignore him.
The delegation asked John the Baptist, "Who are you?" It is not hard to imagine an implied sneer in the tone of these words. It may well be they were asking John, "Who do you think you are, anyway?" It is clear they had asked him about the popular rumor that John the Baptist was in fact the Messiah. John's reply, which John the apostle emphatically underscores: "He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, 'I am not the Christ.'"
John Is Not Elijah
So the religious leaders tried again. "Then who are you?" they pressed. "Are you Elijah?" They asked this because the last two verses of the Old Testament--Malachi 4:5-6--contain a promise that Elijah would come again: "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." Elijah would have a special ministry of turning the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to the fathers--that is, a ministry of rebuilding the homes of a decadent nation. That prophecy had been written four hundred years earlier, and throughout those four centuries there had been a sense of expectation in Israel that Elijah--that rugged, fearless prophet of old--would return. No wonder so many people, when they saw John with his rugged countenance and his bold message, asked, "Is this Elijah?"
John's reply is clear: "I am not."
This is an important statement, because those who believe in the New Age doctrine of reincarnation often refer to New Testament passages which seem to refer to John the Baptist as if he were Elijah. They hold that John was really the reincarnation of Elijah. But there is nothing ambiguous about John's reply in verse 21: "I am not Elijah."
Reincarnation, of course, is a nonbiblical doctrine--what the Bible calls a "doctrine of demons"1--a false religious notion concocted by deceitful spirits trying to mislead people. Though belief in reincarnation has become widespread in our culture, we must recognize it as Satan's substitute for the doctrine of resurrection. You cannot believe in both the resurrection of the body and in reincarnation. They are mutually exclusive concepts.
Why, then, do some passages in the gospels treat John as though he were Elijah, and refer to him as such?
The answer is given very clearly in the opening chapter of Luke's gospel, where Luke records the visit of the angel Gabriel to John's father Zechariah. The angel predicted that this old couple, who were long past the days of childbearing, would have a child by a miraculous birth. His name was to be called John, meaning "God is gracious." God, not Zechariah, selected that name. The angel said of John, "He will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah."2
Here is the fulfillment of the Old Testament predictions that before the Lord would appear, Elijah the prophet would come. John's ministry was like Elijah's, and he went before Jesus in the spirit and the power of Elijah--but he was not Elijah.
A Voice in the Wilderness
After John the Baptist had denied he was the Messiah and denied he was Elijah, the delegation of religious leaders asked him, "Are you the Prophet?" This question was a reference to the popular expectation that one of the prophets was going to return--an expectation based on the statement of Moses in Deuteronomy 18:l5--"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers."
Some thought the Prophet would be Jeremiah. Others, because they did not know which prophet would return, called him, "that prophet." To this question, John's response is simply, "No." Notice the increasing bluntness of his answers. "I am not the Christ." Are you Elijah? "I am not." Are you the Prophet? "No."
Finally they say, in effect, "Who are you, then? We've been sent to find out who you are. We can't go back to Jerusalem without an answer." We can discern a lessening of their belligerence here. They began by saying, "Who do you think you are?" but they end up saying, "Come on, give us a break. We need to tell them something about you."
To this John replies, in the words of Isaiah, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'" In other words, "If you want to know my job description, read the prophet Isaiah. It's written there for you." This indicates that John had learned about who he was and what he was to do by reading and studying the prophecy of Isaiah.
Undoubtedly his parents had told him the wonderful story of his birth, and the predictions of the angel. He knew from childhood that he was a chosen vessel of the Lord, that he was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. But when he asked himself--as he must have as a young boy--"What does God want me to do?", he found the answer in the prophecy of Isaiah: "Make straight the way for the Lord." In other words, John discovered that he was to be a highway builder, preparing a straight highway in the desert for God.
It is important to note that this highway was not intended to enable human beings to travel to God, but for God to reach us. Isaiah tells us how highways are built: "Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain."3 Ask a modern transportation engineer and he will tell you that is exactly how a highway is built: the low spots are filled in, the high spots are leveled, the crooked ones are straightened out, and the rough ones are made smooth.
This vivid and descriptive word-picture of John's ministry to people is still an apt description of the way repentance works in the human heart today. If you feel worthless, depressed, and insignificant, if you feel your life is meaningless, if you are in a valley--then look to God and He will lift you up! "Every valley shall be raised up." God will meet you there.
If you feel proud and self-satisfied, perfectly sufficient to handle your own affairs, then you need to come down in order to find God: "Every mountain and hill made low." God will meet you there, and nowhere else. If you are handling things in a crooked manner, if you are devious in your business dealings and untrustworthy in your relationships with others, then repent. That is what John preached: "Repent!" Straighten out your life. God will meet you right there.
That is the kind of highway God used John to build in the desert places of human lives. That was John's ministry throughout his life. And the symbol he used was water baptism--a symbol which depicted a life being washed clean of the old ways.
"Why Do You Baptize?"
In verses 19 through 23, John the Baptist clarifies his own role and identity. Beginning with verse 24, John goes on to accomplish the mission for which he was born: To present and announce Jesus Christ to the world. In the centuries since John the Baptist lived and died, many men and women have served as witnesses to the person and character of Jesus. But when God called John the Baptist, He said, in effect. "Call the first witness!" John the Baptist was the first among thousands to bear witness to Jesus Christ. In fact, he was the forerunner and herald of Jesus.
1:24-25 Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"
Baptizing was a new thing in Israel. No prophet or religious leader had ever baptized before. Under the law there were certain washings provided for those who were unclean or who had defiled themselves in some ceremonial way, and new converts were required to wash themselves before entering the ranks of Judaism. But nobody went around baptizing as John the Baptist did. When they asked him, "Why do you do this?" they were emphasizing the rite of baptism that John the Baptist performed. John's response is recorded next.
1:26-27 "I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."
John takes the question, "Why are you baptizing?" and turns it around to point to Jesus, to elevate Jesus--and to humble himself. When John begins by saying, "I baptize with water," you naturally expect him to go on to speak of the one who will baptize with the Spirit--but he doesn't do so at this point. That will come the next day, as we will see.
In the construction of the original Greek text, the emphatic word in this verse is not water but I. "I baptize with water," he says. And implied in the emphasis John gives to these words is a sense that John is saying, "I am simply dealing with externals. That is my ministry. But there is one standing among you"--and here John uses the present continuous tense--"there is one standing among you right now whom you do not know, whose dignity, whose person is such that I am not worthy to untie His shoestrings."
He Stands Among You
John the apostle records that this event took place at a very significant location.
1:28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The old name for Bethany is Bethabara, which means, "the place of passage." Tradition held that this was where the Israelites entered the promised land under Joshua. John the apostle identifies Bethany as a significant location, and it was there that John the Baptist first pointed out who Jesus was. Joshua was a symbolic type of Jesus--a forerunner of the true Leader who would lead His people into the Promised Land.
It is clear from this passage that Jesus was physically standing in the midst of the crowd--a fact which helps us to determine when this event took place. By comparing John's gospel with the other gospels, it is clear that the incident recorded here took place at least six weeks after Jesus had been baptized by John in the Jordan River. (John will say the next day that it had already taken place.) According to the other gospels, Jesus left immediately to go into the desert for that remarkable experience of forty days and forty nights, tempted by the Devil.
All of these events took place before the delegation came from the Sanhedrin to investigate John the Baptist. By the time of the event in John 1:19-28, Jesus had come back from the desert and was now standing in the crowd. John recognized Him and said to the delegation, "Among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."
How did John know that? He undoubtedly learned it from his studies in the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah. John's words--"among you stands one you do not know"--must have sent chills up and down the spines of those present. Can't you see them craning their necks and looking around to see who he was talking about? John does not identify Jesus any further at this point.
Read through the prophecies of Isaiah and you will see what John learned. Isaiah predicted the coming of one who would be born as a babe to a virgin. He would grow up and "the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."4 He would be the one to emerge in Isaiah 53 as the bearer of all human sin: "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." He would be the one in Isaiah 63 who would come out of Bozrah with crimson-stained garments, the one who had been treading out the winepress of God's judgment.
John the Baptist learned all of this from Isaiah. He says, in effect, "Like Isaiah, I am merely a voice in the wilderness, listen to what I say--not because of who I am, but because I am talking about one who is far greater than I. He is so far above me that, compared to Him, I am like a servant--such a lowly servant I am not even worthy to untie my master's shoes." In other words, John is pointing to the long-awaited Messiah!
Someone Is Coming!
From the very beginning of the Old Testament, there is a sense of hope and expectation, like the sound of approaching footsteps: Someone is coming! To Adam and Eve as they are driven out of Eden, there is the promise that someone is coming who will one day bruise the serpent's head. That hope increases throughout the prophetic record as prophet after prophet declares yet another tantalizing hint: Someone is coming! By the time the book of Malachi is written and the old Testament canon is closed, that mysterious Someone has not yet come, and the Old Testament remains a book of unfulfilled prophecies.
But then, out of the wilderness, comes John the Baptist. He comes preaching and baptizing--and he makes an astounding announcement: Someone stands among you, and He is the long-awaited fulfillment of the prophecies of Scripture! And he goes on to proclaim a second and even more astounding truth about Jesus.
1:29-31 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel!"
If you read through the Old Testament, you will find it a record of unexplained sacrifices. Abel, the son of Adam, offered a lamb to God and God smiled upon that sacrifice. Abraham made offerings unto God. The children of Israel were taught at the foot of Mount Sinai to slay and offer certain animals to God. Morning and evening and on great feast days, animals were sacrificed in the temple in Jerusalem. A river of blood runs all through the Old Testament--but nowhere is the need for these sacrifices explained.
Many people are offended by the pervasive presence of animal sacrifice and the spilling of animal blood in the Old Testament. Some ask, "Why does God demand the shedding of blood?" The answer is that every sacrifice was a testimony that Someone was coming who would supply that explanation! With the coming of Christ, at last there is an answer to the cry of Isaac, as Abraham his father was taking him upon the mountain to offer him, "Father, where is the lamb?" Remember Abraham's reply to his son? "God will provide a lamb."
Centuries later, as John saw Jesus coming toward him, knowing who He was, having baptized Him six weeks earlier, he announced to the crowd, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" John saw in Jesus the fulfillment of all the previously unexplained sacrifices of the Old Testament.
The Baptism of the Spirit
When John says, "I myself did not know him," he means, "I did not know him as the Messiah, as the Lamb of God." John was Jesus' cousin; they must have known each other as boys. In those tightly knit Hebrew families it would have been unthinkable that they did not know each other. But even Jesus' own brothers did not understand who He was, though they grew up with Him. John says, "I didn't know who He was. I had heard some strange things about Him, as I had learned some strange things about myself, but I didn't know who He was until I came baptizing with water. I was sent to baptize in order that I might come to know who He truly is--the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."
1:32-33 Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'"
Baptized by the Holy Spirit of God himself! Here was a promise of the fulfillment of one of humankind's oldest longings--the longing to experience God's indwelling presence, the longing after inner righteousness and holiness, the longing to seize that evil, self-centered tendency within ourselves and eliminate it. Have you ever experienced that longing? I certainly have!
There have been times I wished I could have a "sin-ectomy"--a surgical operation to remove my tendency to be sharp, critical, and caustic. But there is no way to cut sin out of the human heart with a knife. It takes God himself to do that. It is the work the Spirit was sent to do.
Here John is saying, in effect, "I deal with the externals. That is as far as I can go. But when I baptized Jesus, I saw the One who can change us internally--the Spirit of God--come down like a dove and light on His shoulder. The One who sent me to baptize told me, 'When you see the Spirit come down, you will know that Someone has come to baptize men and women with the Holy Spirit and change them from the inside.' When that happened I knew who that Someone was--my own cousin, Jesus of Nazareth."
Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, picks up the same refrain when he writes, "For we were all"--ALL!--"baptized by one Spirit into one body . . . and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." You cannot be a Christian and not be baptized by the Holy Spirit. You may not feel differently, because this baptism doesn't take place in your emotions, but in your spirit. It is a change that takes place deep within your inner self--a change that God does when He uproots you from the family of Adam and implants you in the family of God.
Later in John's gospel we will hear Jesus say, "If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." And then comes John's commentary on Jesus' words: "By this [Jesus] meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive."5 That is the baptism of the holy Spirit!
The Son of God
In this passage, John the Baptist has identified Jesus as the Someone whose coming has been foretold and awaited throughout Old Testament times; as the sacrificial Lamb of God; as the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And in verse 34, John the Baptist identifies Jesus with one more title.
1:34 "I have seen and testify that this is the Son of God."
Jesus, says John the Baptist, lays rightful claim to deity. Every Hebrew would understand that if you say, "He is the son of peace" or "the son of encouragement," you are saying he is characterized by peace or by encouragement. You are making a statement about that person's intrinsic nature. So if Jesus is the Son of God, then He is God himself! That is what John the Baptist claims.
"Among you stands one you do not know," John said to the crowd. Jesus stood among that crowd, and he stands among us, too. The God and Creator of the universe has come into our world as one of us--subject to our pain, our sorrows, our poverty, and even death itself. He has come from the Father to bring us His love, forgiveness, and healing. Twenty centuries after John presented Jesus to the people who thronged the banks of the Jordan, the truth of His words still resonate in our own hearts.
He is God in the flesh. And He stands among us.
The Man Other Men Followed
John 1:35-51
There is an ancient proverb that says, "To plant for a year, plant wheat. To plant for a decade, plant trees. To plant for a century, plant people."
As we come to the concluding portion of John chapter 1, it will be clear that Jesus Christ planted not just for a year, nor a decade, nor even so much a century. Jesus planted for the millennia, and indeed for all time. In this passage, we will see Jesus call men unto himself, and He will plant them at the crossroads of time, and these few men will change the course of history the next twenty centuries.
The First Two Disciples
John tells us that Jesus began with two men who had already been training under John the Baptist.
1:35-40 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.
It is clear from this account that John the Baptist intended these two disciples to leave him and join Jesus. In chapter 3, John the Baptist makes that well known statement, "He must become greater; I must become less,"1 and he has already begun living out that statement here. John knew that his role was to announce the Messiah, then step aside. Once the Messiah appeared, his own ministry would fade.
John the Baptist had already gathered a band of men around him as his disciples. Now he indicates to his followers that the time has come for them to follow the Messiah--and he does so in a vivid, impressive way. We have already seen that he had introduced Jesus to the people in a four-fold manner: as Messiah, as the Lamb of God, as the One who baptizes with the Spirit, and as the Son of God. Of those four he now chooses one, and it is interesting to see which one. He does not say, "Behold, the Messiah." He does not say, "Behold, the One who baptizes with the Spirit." He does not even say, "Behold, the Son of God." He says, "Behold, the Lamb of God."
John understood that the first problem--and the most difficult problem--people have to settle with God is the problem of sin. The only access we have to the Living God is through the forgiveness of sin. Only when we recognize and confess our sin and accept the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf do we have an open door into the Kingdom of God. We will never truly know Jesus until we encounter Him as the Lamb of God, the sacrifice that was slain because of our own sin.
Two of John's disciples heard him call Jesus the Lamb of God, so they left their old mentor, John the Baptist, and began to follow Jesus. One of these disciples was Andrew, the brother of Peter. But who was the other disciple? We are not told. His name is not given here. Ironically, the very anonymity of this disciple is the strongest clue to his identity.
As you read through the gospel of John, you will notice that nowhere does the apostle John ever mention his own name. He always refers to himself in an indirect, oblique way, such as, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," or similar words. Since he does not give the name of the other disciple who left John the Baptist and followed Jesus, Bible scholars overwhelmingly agree that this second disciple must be John himself.
The Crucial Question
When John and Andrew heard John the Baptist identify Jesus as "the Lamb of God," those words must have struck a responsive chord within them, for they immediately followed Jesus. Whereas John the Baptist inspired their interest in Jesus, it was Jesus himself who inspired their allegiance. He drew them to himself, first of all, by asking them a question: "What do you seek?"
Those are the first words of Jesus in the gospel of John and they are profound, remarkable words! They are quite probably the very first words Jesus uttered in His public ministry. Like so many of Jesus' most profound words, as recorded in Scripture, they come in the form of a question.
I have always been fascinated by the questions God asks of human beings. The four simple words of this question go right to the heart of a human life. "What do you want?" Or, put another way, "What are you looking for in life?"
Have you ever asked yourself, What am I looking for? Why am I here? What do I really want out of life? Those are the crucial questions of your life and mine, and the answer to those questions will govern the way we live our lives and face our deaths.
What do most of us want out of life? For many people, life is a matter of climbing out of bed, eating breakfast, going to work all day, coming home in the evening, having dinner, reading the paper, watching TV, going to bed--and reliving the same dreary cycle the following day. Why are so many people content to spend their lives this way? Is that all we want out of life?
What do you want out of life? That's the question Jesus asks you today, just as He asked those two disciples two thousand years ago. As you ponder your answer, let's see how this question affected Andrew and John.
The Disciples' Answer
The answer these men gave Jesus was a very cautious answer. They replied not with an answer but with another question. They said, "Rabbi, where are you staying?"
I suspect it was probably Andrew who asked that question, because he appears throughout the gospels as a warm, friendly, approachable human being. He is the one who received the little boy who had five loaves and two fishes when Jesus fed the five thousand. He is the one who brought Peter to the Lord. He is very approachable--but he is also cautious.
No wonder Andrew is revered as the patron saint of Scotland! In that Hebrew body there dwelt the soul of a canny Scotsman! He does not give his allegiance easily or too quickly--but when he does, he is loyal to the hilt!
In my years as a minister in a community located on the San Francisco Peninsula, I have experienced my share of earthquakes. Many of those earthquakes were centered around a great geological fault that runs along the coast of California. There are few people in this country who have not heard of the notorious San Andreas Fault! But did you know what San Andreas means? It is Spanish for "Saint Andrew"! It is well named.
The disciple Andrew, the brother of Peter, was much like that fault. He was deep and quiet. There was not much action on the surface--but when he moved, something happened!
Jesus' response to Andrew's question shows how well He understood Andrew. When Jesus was asked, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" he replied. "Come and you will see." That is an invitation to investigate. Jesus welcomed the seeker, the inquirer, the one who hungered to dig deeper and know more. What a fitting response to the kind of men John and Andrew were! They were men of curiosity and keen interest, men who were not easily convinced--but once convinced, they were passionate about their beliefs and convictions. Jesus was instantly--and sensitively!--responsive to their need.
I've met many people like John and Andrew. They have open minds and they are willing to learn about Jesus Christ--but they cannot be pushed or persuaded against their will. They need to examine the claims of Christ on their own merits. They need time to investigate and make up their minds, if they become convinced of the truth of Jesus' claims, then they will commit themselves, body and soul, to the Lord and His message. I respect people like that, and I believe they should be given the time and the freedom they need to make up their own minds. That is the way Jesus dealt with Andrew and John.
According to this account, the two disciples went and stayed with Jesus all day. What they found was so fascinating they could not tear themselves away. According to John, it was the tenth hour when they went. It is somewhat difficult to know just what time that was. If it was Jewish time, then it was four o'clock in the afternoon. If it was Roman time (as I think it was, because John wrote his gospel for a wider world than the Jews), then it was the same as we count, ten o'clock in the morning.
During the time that Andrew and James spent with Jesus, they became absolutely captivated by the person of Jesus. We are not told what they asked Him, nor what He said to them. But the words Jesus shared with them and the personality He disclosed to them were so riveting and appealing that they ended up spending the entire day with Him. At the end of this encounter, Jesus has won His first two disciples.
Enter Peter
Now another major player in the gospel story makes his entrance--Simon Peter.
1:41-42 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). Then he brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter).
Peter, without question, is the best-known disciple of all. We all feel close to Peter--the man who suffered from hoof-in-mouth disease! Someone has said that whenever Peter appears in the gospel story, he always comes in with a thud! There are three words which make it easy to remember the process by which Peter came to Jesus: sought, brought, and caught. Peter was sought by his brother; he was brought to the Messiah; he was caught by what he saw and heard.
There may be a third man involved here, too. Notice that it says, "The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon . . . ." The original Greek, in fact, is a little more emphatic: "He first found his own brother Simon." There is strong manuscript evidence for interpreting it this way: "He was the first to find his own brother." This implies that John also hurried to find his own brother. It is almost as though John and Andrew raced--each attempting to be the first to find his own brother and bring him back to Jesus.
John had a brother named James. (James and John were both sons of Zebedee.) Andrew and Peter, James and John, as we learn from the other gospels, were all fishermen from Galilee. On this day they are down in Judea, east of Jerusalem, by the Jordan River, where John was baptizing. But their home was in Galilee, seventy miles to the north. Undoubtedly they had brought their fish to market in Jerusalem, where they sold most of their catch. There they must have heard of the ministry of John the Baptist. Perhaps the fishing was slow, so they went out and joined John and became his disciples for a while. This speaks of the spiritual hunger and searching after meaning these men felt in their own hearts.
Andrew's first words upon finding his brother Simon Peter were, "We have found the Messiah!" Can you imagine the excitement in Andrew's voice as he called out those words? And can you imagine Simon Peter's astonishment at that news?
Andrew has spent one afternoon with Jesus, and now he comes running full-tilt to find his brother with the news that the Messiah--the One whose coming the Scriptures have prophesied for centuries--was among them right now! Obviously, Jesus made quite an impression in a short time!
Andrew brought his brother to Jesus and introduced him. "Rabbi," Andrew might have said as he pulled his brother into the Lord's presence, "I want you to meet my brother Simon." So Jesus looked this burly young fisherman up and down. "So you are Simon, are you?" said Jesus, immediately seizing on the meaning of his name--for Simon means "listener," "hearer," one who is constantly attentive to what is going on around him. "Well, from now on, you shall be called Cephas (or Peter)." Simon's new name--Cephas in Aramaic or Peter in Greek--means rock.
Perhaps what Jesus is saying to him is, in effect, "So you are Simon, a listener. You are tuned in to what everyone around you is saying. You are easily affected by the opinions and attitudes of others." Remember the actions of Peter when Jesus was being tried before the crucifixion? He was warming himself by a fire when a young woman came up to him and said, "Haven't I seen you with him?" Immediately Peter was affected by what this woman said and he denied his Lord. This is the natural temperament of Peter. He is easily influenced, impetuous and impulsive, running after every word he hears.
Jesus read his heart instantly and said, "Your name is Simon, but you shall become a rock." Peter is going to be an anchorman, an immovable foundation upon which others will build, a steadying influence to everyone around him. Imagine Peter's astonishment as he was introduced to this Man for the first time--and the Man looked directly into his heart and read his weakness and also recognized his potential and possibilities. Peter's heart was instantly captured.
I've met many people like Peter. They have a capacity for great strength of character, but that strength is often undermined by their impulsiveness and undependability. They have never learned to listen to the right voice, so they listen to everybody. They putter through life and restlessly change from this to that until they fritter their life away. What they are looking for is a cause to which they can commit themselves.
In the hands of Jesus a person like Simon Peter can become as solid and steady as a rock. When such a person hears the right Voice and follows that Voice above all other voices, he or she takes on the character of a Cephas, a Peter. That person becomes--like the famous insurance company symbol--as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar!
The Invisible Man
1:43-44 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.
Notice that John specifically says that Jesus found Philip. Philip didn't find Jesus--he was found. Philip came from the same city as Andrew and Peter (and, presumably, James and John, since they all came from the same area).
One of the exciting things about studying the Bible is asking yourself questions about it. The questions that naturally occur to us as we read this passage are: Why does John tell us where Philip was from? Why does he tell us that Philip came from the same town as Andrew and Peter? Why does he say it this way?
The answer to these questions may be found in asking the obvious return question: Why didn't Andrew and Peter bring Philip to Jesus? They all lived in the same small town and probably were acquainted with each other. Andrew and Peter had just found the most exciting person they had ever met, the Messiah, the Promised One for whom the nation had been waiting or centuries. Why didn't they bring Philip to Jesus?
The answer: Philip is the kind of man nobody ever remembers to bring. He is quiet and shy--the kind who is easily overlooked, ignored, or forgotten. The only record of Philip's actions is found here in the gospel of John. The other gospels simply list him as one of the disciples. To read the other gospels, you might think that Philip is something of a "nobody." But, of course, in God's sight, nobody is a "nobody." Everybody--even quiet, shy Philip--is somebody.
This passage reveals Philip to be intelligent and perceptive. Later in John's gospel, he asks some very keen questions of Jesus. Yet he is virtually invisible. He should be the patron saint of all the quiet, shy people! Perhaps you identify with Philip--the man no one thought to invite. Because no one ever thought of Philip, Jesus went out and found him. If you are feeling forgotten and ignored by the people around you, then you can be assured that Jesus is seeking you. and He will find you.
"Follow Me!"
Once, I was speaking on the campus of Biola University in southern California. After my talk, while the audience was dispersing, a young man came up to me with a very serious, earnest expression on his face. Looking into his eyes, I recognized a hunger there.
He asked me, "How can I become a spiritual man?" I could sense in that question a deep longing in his heart to have spiritual power, to be the kind of man God wanted him to be.
"That's not your responsibility." I replied. "You don't make yourself into a spiritual man: nobody does. The words you need to hear are the words that Jesus said to His disciples: 'Follow me.'"
Those are the words Jesus spoke to Philip. Nobody really gave much thought to Philip. He was an invisible man. Yet he was intelligent, sincere, and spiritually hungry. Jesus saw him and addressed to him the words that captured Philip's heart: "Do you want to be a spiritual man? Do you long for spiritual power? Then you do the following, and I'll do the making. Come Follow me!"
In the other gospels it is recorded that Jesus said to certain fishermen when He called them to action in Galilee, "Come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men." He didn't say they would do it. He said, "I will do it." One of the encouraging things about being a Christian is that you don't have to plan what you are going to do or be in life. You do not have to run through a computer all the ingredients it takes to become a spiritual person and then program yourself for it. All you have to do is follow your Lord and obey Him. Read His Word. Do what He requires, put aside those things He tells you to put aside. He will make you a spiritual person, just as He made Philip a spiritual man when he followed his newfound Lord.
"Come and See!"
We have already seen that Andrew became the first evangelist among the apostles when he ran to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to his brother Peter. Now we will see Philip became the second evangelist.
1:45-46 Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.
"Come and see," said Philip.
If you have studied the lives of the twelve apostles, as recorded in the four gospels, you may have noticed that the name "Nathanael" does not appear in any of the lists of the Twelve, That is because in those lists he is called "Bartholomew"-- Bartholomew being his "patronym," which is like a surname, the name that indicates who his father is. Bar is Aramaic for "son of." Nathanael Bartholomew is the son of Tolmai, and Bartholomew is the English standardization of the Aramaic term meaning "son of Tolmai."
When Philip brings the good news to Nathanael, he bases his appeal to Nathanael on the authority of the Scriptures. "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law," he says, "and about whom the prophets also wrote." Then Philip identifies Jesus in a local context: "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
Well, that was too much for Nathanael! He had come from Cana of Galilee, a little village just over the hill from Nazareth. Having grown up just two miles from Nazareth, Nathanael knew the place well.
On my own visits to the Holy Land, I have been through both Cana and Nazareth. Today, Cana is a tiny village, out of the way and off the beaten track, whereas Nazareth--due to its fame as the home town of Jesus--is now a large city which covers the hillsides that used to encircle it. In those days, however, the situation was reversed. Cana was a center of commerce while Nazareth was a dusty little village with a bad reputation.
Nathanael's voice drips with scorn as he says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
But Philip wisely avoids arguing with Nathanael. Instead, he simply replies, "Come and see." Philip knew that Jesus could stand on His own feet and make His own case. It didn't matter where He came from. If He was the Messiah, people would recognize it just by meeting Him.
The Man with X-ray Vision
1:47-51 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."
"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you."
Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.
Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Do you see a pattern developing?
Every time someone is brought to Jesus, He seems to look right through that person--almost as if He had X-ray vision! And He makes a penetrating pronouncement upon that person's character. Jesus knows what is in people. He reads the mind and heart and character. As John says elsewhere in his gospel, Jesus "did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man."2
Many people view this passage as an example of Jesus exercising the omniscience of deity--the capacity that God has to know all things. While I dearly believe in the deity of Jesus, I do not believe He exercised omniscience in His earthly ministry. There are specific times in the gospels where Jesus says that He did not know a certain fact. I believe that when He came as a human being, the Son of God set aside many of the prerogatives of deity, including the prerogative of omniscience.
I am convinced that when Jesus "X-rayed" the souls of these men, He was so aware of the makeup and nature of humanity that He could accurately read the signals we all use to telegraph information about ourselves. He could "read" body language and the subtle cues of inflection in a voice. He could read a man's demeanor and the emotions revealed in his eyes. We all telegraph information about ourselves, even if we do not mean to. An astute judge of human nature and human behavior--as Jesus certainly was!--can tell many things about a person from a single glance, a handshake, or a word.
Jesus could read people instantly and accurately in a way no one else could. And when He saw Nathanael coming to Him, He read the character of Nathanael like a book: "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." There was no deceitfulness in Nathanael, no tendency to hide or be devious.
Nathanael's immediate response was, "How do you know me?" Clearly, Nathanael felt that Jesus had hit the nail on the head. He was a man who worked diligently at building both a reputation and the consistent inner reality of integrity and honesty.
Jesus replied, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you."
Again, many Bible scholars feel this is a sign of Jesus' divine ability to see beyond the natural. The assumption is that Nathanael was over the hill, hidden from natural sight--yet Jesus saw him in some divine way. I don't believe this to be the case. The reason I do not is because of the word saw John uses when Jesus says, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree. . . ." The word in the original text is not the Greek word for "saw"--meaning to visually observe or see. The word really means to perceive, to understand.
If we amplify this text by using the best sense of the original Greek words, what Jesus truly says to Nathanael is: "I saw you with my eyes, visibly, over there, talking with Philip. I saw Philip telling you something, and I saw your response. I could not hear your words but I saw you. And in that I understood who you are, I grasped the kind of person you are." This is the evidence that convinces Nathanael. This honest man of integrity, Nathanael, had finally encountered someone who can see the truth that is inside people--and Nathanael was drawn to a man of such insight and perception.
Nathanael's response confirms his own forthrightness: "Rabbi," he replies, "you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel"--that is, the Messiah. Jesus commends him for that simple, immediate response of faith: "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." He is saying, in effect, "Do you believe because I said I saw you under the fig tree? That's wonderful, Nathanael. But faith like that is going to be shown greater things yet."
And Jesus goes on to describe the "greater things" Nathanael will see: heaven opening, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is a reference to the dream the Old Testament patriarch Jacob had centuries earlier. Genesis 27 and 28 tell us that Jacob left home, fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau. He was headed for his uncle's home in far-off Aram. On the way, at a place called Bethel, he had a dream in which he saw a ladder reaching up to heaven. On the ladder he saw the angels of God ascending and descending.
Jesus said to Nathanael, in effect, "You will understand that dream when you learn of me. You will understand that I am the way to God for man, and the way for God to reach man. I am the bridge spanning the gulf between God and humanity." Jesus used an image from the Hebrew Scriptures that would be understood by all His disciples.
Four Observations
In this brief account we encounter the first disciples Jesus called unto himself. In closing this chapter, there are four observations to make from this passage that apply to our lives at the end of the twentieth century.
First observation: The Twelve that Jesus called to Him and instructed and poured His life into were men, not women. I realize this observation runs counter to the spirit of the age in which we live. It may even make some readers upset. But as I have studied the Scriptures, I see that our Lord consistently called men into places of ultimate leadership in His church.
This is not because men are smarter, or better, or more gifted than women, because they are not. God has given gifts of ministry to both men and women, and our Lord employs them both in His church. Yet the ultimate positions of leadership and authority in the church are, according to Scripture, reserved for men.
Clearly, Jesus treated women with a kind of respect and value that was unheard of in His time and culture. Jesus elevated the status of women in a culture where women were often treated as property and as second-class people. You see it in His dealings with His women followers, with the woman at the well, with the woman caught in adultery. Often, He taught women about matters that some of His male hearers were too spiritually blind to hear and understand. Indeed, women were the first evangelists, the first to return from the empty tomb with news that Jesus had risen. So there is a tremendous recognition of the value and worth of women in our Lord's ministry and in the Christian tradition. But the roles of leadership and authority are reserved for men.
I don't pretend to understand all of God's reasons for this. But I do know that, through the centuries, whenever this principle has been forsaken there has been weakness in the church. When men are true to what they are called to be, strong churches result.
Second observation: These were ordinary men. There is nothing unique about them. They were not the makers and shakers in their society. They were not unusually gifted, intelligent, respected, or powerful. They were ordinary. Jesus could have called His disciples from any group He happened to be with and they would have been successful apostles, just as He made these men to be. That is because the secret does not lie in the men but in the Lord who understands men, who uses them and empowers them to be what He wants them to be.
Third observation: Jesus never treated any two people alike. Andrew was cautious. Peter was impetuous. Philip was shy. Nathanael was guileless. Jesus spoke differently to each of them. He understood them. He treated them as unique individuals. He did not try to force them into a mold or crank out twelve identically xeroxed clones as we so often do to people today. He treated them differently because He understood who they were.
Final observation: Just as He called those men so long ago with the words, "Follow me," Jesus calls you and me today. Men and women alike are called to be His disciples, His followers.
And as He calls us to follow Him, He X-rays our souls and sees the strengths and the weaknesses within us. Just as Jesus knew what was in people in the first century A.D., He knows what is inside you and me today. He knows what to send into our lives. He knows what experiences will best shape our character and strengthen our faith. The people He wants us to be with, difficult and obnoxious as they may be, He has allowed to cross our path.
Following Jesus means accepting where He takes us and what He gives us. We trust Him, we obey Him, we put ourselves in His hands. His promise is that He will act in love for our best interests, for our good, and for His eternal purpose. He will accomplish whatever He sets out to do, making each one of us complete in Him, so that we can fulfill the potential and possibilities He created in us.
That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Water Becomes Wine
John 2:1-11
The German composer Johannes Brahms was invited to the home of a great wine connoisseur for dinner. After dinner, the connoisseur had some of his choicest bottles brought up from the cellar. He dusted off one cherished and well-aged bottle and carefully dispensed a few ounces into the composer's glass. "I want you to know," the host said as he poured, "that this is the finest bottle I own."
Brahms lifted the glass to the light, examined its clarity, inhaled the bouquet, then took a sip.
The connoisseur waited for Brahms' comment--but Brahms set the glass down without a word.
"That wine is the Brahms of my cellar," the host added, intending to compliment both the wine and his distinguished guest. "How do you like it?"
"You'd better bring out your Beethoven," Brahms replied.
As we open chapter 2 of John's gospel, we find the well-known event when Jesus took ordinary well-water and miraculously transformed it into wine-and not just any old wine. but a wine worthy to be called the Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach of anyone's cellar! As famous as this story is, there are new depths of meaning in this story that we can apply to our lives today.
The Third Day
2:1-5 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine."
"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come."
His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Thus begins the story of the first miracle of Jesus. The scene has shifted from Judea, where John the Baptist was baptizing in the river Jordan, to the town of Cana, seventy miles north, in the region of Galilee. Jesus and His disciples have walked this entire distance.
John begins his account of this miracle with the words, "On the third day. . . ." It is rather significant that John mentions the "third day." John is referring, of course, to the third day after Jesus left Judea. It was a two-day walk to Galilee, and they would have arrived on the morning of the third day. John made particular mention of the third day because it had symbolic meaning. Remember that John the apostle wrote his gospel much later than the other gospels were written--some thirty or forty years after these events took place. By then he had opportunity to review the events that he had been teaching and preaching about for all those years and to select from his memories those things that were the most significant. There is a great economy of language in John's writing, and we can be sure that if he includes a fact or detail in his gospel, he does so for a reason.
John's reference to the third day suggests an allusion to the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Even in the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament there is a reference to the third day as the day Israel would be spiritually healed and returned to her Lord.1 Here, then, is the first hint in this account of the significance of the first miracle--the miracle when Jesus changed water into wine. It was to be a miracle of transformation, a miracle which symbolized bringing life out of death.
Here Comes the Groom!
The occasion of this miracle was a wedding--a Middle Eastern wedding. Weddings in the Middle East are very different from our Western affairs. In Western weddings, the bride is the prominent figure. When she enters, clad in all her glory, the whole congregation stands and the organ thunders, "Here comes the bride" and every eye is focused on her.
But in Middle Eastern weddings, the theme is, Here Comes the Groom! The groom is the featured attraction, and the bride merely shows up for the Wedding. Not only is the groom the featured person, but he also pays for the whole affair! (As the father of four daughters, I have been trying to introduce that custom into our culture, but it has not taken hold yet!) Some Middle Eastern Weddings go on for two or three days, or even a week, and the relatives on both sides of the family join together for a big, long, loud--and expensive!--celebration. That is the kind of wedding John is talking about here.
As Mary figures rather prominently in this story, it may well be that this was the wedding of one of Jesus' younger brothers or sisters. It may have even caused a bit of a complication when Jesus showed up at the wedding with five disciples who weren't on the guest list! He had just called these men to himself, and they had then walked two days from Judea. Obviously, Jesus had no way to phone or fax word that He was bringing a few friends to the party. So they just showed up.
As is usually true in the culture of the Middle East, no one seems to mind a few extra guests. Hospitality is a cardinal virtue in that society, and people are always willing to put a little more water in the soup and see that any unexpected guests are well cared for. So the disciples arrived with Jesus as unexpected--but welcome--guests.
That explains, of course, why the wine ran out. A two- or three-day celebration calls for a fair amount of wine, and five or six extra people can put a strain on the supply. Mary seized the occasion to say--very significantly!--to her son Jesus, "They have no wine." She does not ask Him to do anything about it. She simply informs Him that the wine has run out.
Some Bible scholars suggest that what she meant is that Jesus and His disciples ought to leave. In other words, Mary may have been hinting that the disciples were unwanted additions to the marriage feast, that they had strained the hospitality of their hosts and ought to leave.
Others say that Mary did not expect any miracle at this time because Jesus had never done any miracles before. And that, of course, is quite true. There are apocryphal gospels (that is, fanciful accounts of Jesus' life which were not accepted into the canon of Scripture, and with good reason) and some of these apocryphal gospels speak of Jesus doing miracles as a boy. In one story, for example, the boy Jesus and His friends were making toy pigeons out of clay. But when Jesus finished His pigeons and waved His hands, they flew off into the sky. There is no question that this and other such apocryphal stories are pure fantasy, for John clearly says that this is the first miracle Jesus performed.
However, this account demonstrates that Mary expected Jesus to do something to help. Personally, I believe she did in fact expect Him to do something startling and supernatural. Certainly, by this time, Mary's expectations had been greatly awakened. She had probably been told of what happened in Judea--how Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, how the heavens opened and a dove lighted on Jesus' head, and how a voice uttered those remarkable words, "This is my beloved Son." She remembered the promises that were given to her by an angel, when she was told that her son would be the Messiah.
A Mother's Expectations
So, as the stage is set for Jesus' first miracle, His mother Mary expects Him to act. Perhaps she doesn't know exactly what she expects Him to do, but she expects something. Along with all the other Jews of that day, she probably expects Him, as the Messiah, to claim the throne of David, to drive out the Roman oppressors and to fulfill the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. (Those prophecies predicted miracles of healing, of peace, of the lion lying down with the lamb, of the desert blossoming like the rose.) Now that Jesus has taken the initiative and called His own disciples, she naturally expects Him to assume His Messianic role and fulfill His destiny.
The fact that Jesus clearly understands her can be seen from His answer: "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" That is not a rude or disrespectful answer. In that phrase which in English is translated, "Dear woman," Jesus uses a common title of respect. It is the same term He uses from the cross when He says to Mary, "Dear woman, here is your son."2
When He says, "Why do you involve me?" that is simply a Hebrew way of saying, "You don't understand." So what He is saying is not that He will not act, but that when He does act, it will not be in way that she expects. He is telling her, in effect, "What I do will not accomplish what you are hoping for. It will not persuade the nation that I am the Messiah." Miracles were indeed part of God's plan. Miracles would be performed, but they would not convince the nation.
Mary seems to be satisfied with His response, and says to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." I have a number of Catholic friends who pray to Mary, asking her to intercede with Jesus on their behalf. I often tell these friends that there is only one time in Scripture that Mary ever interceded with Jesus--and in the end, her message to the people around her was. "Do whatever He--Jesus--tells you to do." That is good advice!
A Quiet, Dignified Miracle
The miracle is about to take place. As always, Jesus begins with whatever is at hand.
2:6-8 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet."
They did so.
Notice the simplicity of this account. Everything was done with a quiet, simple dignity. Jesus said, "Fill the jars with water." And the servants filled them to the brim with a total of 120 to 180 gallons of clear, pure water. Then Jesus said, "Now draw some out, and take it to the master of the banquet."
There was no prayer, no word of command, no hysterical shouting, no laying on of hands, no binding of Satan, no hocus-pocus or mumbo-jumbo. Just a simple command and a simple action. Jesus did not even touch the water. He did not even taste it afterward to see if a miracle had occurred. He simply said, "Take it to the master of the banquet." The water simply became wine.
How did this happen? I believe it happened within the limits of a natural process. Let me explain with an illustration.
During the Depression of the 1930s, when everybody in the country was trying to make their meager earnings go as far as possible, many people were easy prey for con-men. A common fraud that was perpetrated on the gullible was the Gasoline Pill. The con-man would demonstrate how the pill worked by letting the "mark" (the person to be defrauded) drink from a jug of water. Then the con-man would drop a Gasoline Pill into the jug and would launch into his patter about how this amazing little pill was going to put all the oil companies (which were charging the extortionate rate of 20 cents a gallon for gasoline!) out of business forever.
The con-man would then fill the "mark's" car with gasoline from the "water jug"--and the car would run! What the "mark" didn't know was that, during the con-man's patter, the water jug was switched for one containing real gasoline. Many people who bought the phony Gasoline Pills ruined their engines when they filled their gas tanks with water!
The point is this: What the Depression-era con-man claimed to do was far more miraculous than changing water into wine. Chemically, water and gasoline have absolutely nothing in common. Gasoline is a volatile, flammable, man-made liquid--a complex chemical distilled from crude petroleum, rich in carbon atoms. By contrast, water is a natural, abundant, simple compound made of two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen. Regardless of what magical pill you put into it, a gallon of water does not contain the raw materials to make gasoline. There is no magical pill that can turn hydrogen atoms or oxygen atoms into carbon atoms.
But the miracle that Jesus performed when He turned water into wine is a miracle that goes on every day in nature. Visit any vineyard in any part of the world, and you will see this miracle going on. The grapes grow month by month as they take water up from the soil. As the grapes ripen and swell with water, they add natural sugar to the water. When the grapes are gathered and crushed, the sweet flavored water--called "juice"--is released so that it can be fermented by the actions of natural yeasts. The result is a beverage--clear and fragrant--that is anywhere from 86 to 92 per cent water.
This is characteristic of the miracles of Jesus.
In his book Miracles, C. S. Lewis has pointed out that every miracle of Jesus is simply a short-circuiting of a natural process. At Cana, the natural miracle that normally involves water, vines, grapes, sun, and fermentation over a period of months was compressed into a special miracle involving nothing more than stone jugs full of well-water. Lewis says, "Each miracle writes for us in small letters something that God has already written, or will write, in letters almost too large to he noticed, across the whole canvas of Nature."3
That is what Jesus does at Cana: As the Lord and Creator of all nature, He overleaps the elements of time, growth, gathering, crushing, and fermentation. He takes water--a commonplace inorganic substance--and without a word or gesture, in utter simplicity, the water becomes wine, a sparkling organic liquid, a product of living processes, belonging to the realm of life. Thus He demonstrated His authority--as God!--over the processes of nature.
Now, there are some who claim that Jesus didn't change water into real wine, that all He did was change it into very good grape juice! I consider that claim so ridiculous as to be hardly worth answering. They do not serve Welch's grape juice at Jewish weddings! They never have and they never will!
Elsewhere in the New Testament, we find warnings against the overuse of wine and against drunkenness--a clear indication that the wine of that day was indeed an intoxicating alcoholic beverage. Wine was a commonplace drink, one that believers partook of along with everyone else in that culture. Our Lord certainly did change water into real, genuine wine.
The Best for Last
The real force or "punch" that this miracle packs is not so much in the fact that water becomes wine, but that the water becomes a very good wine. This miracle is not just a gosh-wow special-effects miracle from a Steven Spielberg movie. It is a graceful, artistic triumph, a demonstration of the creative genius and elegant flair that the Lord of Nature lavishes upon His miracles. We see the Lord's stylish and tastefully prepared miracle at work here.
2:9-10 And the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now."
Can't you just see the master of the banquet taking a wine glass and sipping it, then swirling it around, inhaling its fragrance, tasting again, and pronouncing, "Ah Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1966! And here I thought we were getting down to the dollar-a-gallon Muscatel!"
The servants, according to John's account, were smiling to themselves. They knew what had happened--but it was not their place to say anything. Still, they confirmed the fact that out of stone jugs of plain water had come wine--and an excellent vintage at that!
The account even hints at the bewilderment of the bridegroom. After tasting the wine, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said, in effect, "Usually, people serve the good stuff first, while the guests still have enough wits about them to taste it. But you've saved the best for last! Bravo!"
What did the bridegroom reply? Perhaps he said, "We will serve no wine before its time." But I think not. The fact is, John does not record any reply--and perhaps that was his reply: total speechlessness! The bridegroom knew that all his best wine had already been served and consumed. Now--out of nowhere!--an even better wine appears! He must have been bewildered by this turn of events, yet he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and to take credit for the good wine.
Miracles with Meaning
The significance of this miracle is recorded in one verse.
2:11 This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
Three factors in that verse demand our attention. First, John says that the miracle was a sign. That is, it was a parable acted out in real life. Signs are not merely miracles. They are miracles with profound meaning. They are intended to convey truth that would not otherwise be known.
While a student in seminary, I visited the battlefield outside the city of Houston, Texas. There, at San Jacinto, General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army and won independence for Texas. The Texans have erected a huge memorial tower on the site and with typical Texas humility they placed a sign on the front of the tower which reads. "This tower is ten feet taller than the Washington Monument."
That is what signs are for: to tell you something that you wouldn't otherwise know; to manifest a significance that might otherwise be hidden. That is what John means when he says that this miracle was a sign. It illustrates the normal result of the combination of human and divine activity. Men can fill water jars but only God can turn water into wine! Men do the ordinary, the commonplace--but when God touches our deeds, He brings
them to life and gives them flavor, fragrance, and effect.
The meaning of this miraculous sign is that it is an indication of what the ministry of Jesus is going to be like whenever he touches a human life--not only during His lifetime on earth, but also throughout the centuries to come. Thus it affects us today as well. Allow God to touch your situation and all the humdrum, commonplace activities of your life can be charged with a new power that makes them fragrant, flavorful, enjoyable and delightful, giving joy and gladness to the heart.
The second factor John notes regarding this sign is that it "revealed his glory." In chapter 1, John told us what the glory of Jesus is: It is grace and truth. Here in this event we will see both His grace and His truth. His grace is manifested in the fact that He brought with Him five unexpected guests to the wedding. They had no gifts to bring, so He seized on the fact that there are six stone jars waiting. That is why He had them filled to the brim with water and then changed that water into wine. In doing so, He gave the most generous gift of anybody at the wedding: the best wine in the whole countryside--one jar for each of His five unexpected guests, plus one for himself, six jars in all. What a gracious touch that is!
But with His grace comes His truth. In this, His first miracle, Jesus manifested the truth about himself: He is the Lord of Nature. To quote again from C. S. Lewis's Miracles,
If we open such books as Grimm's Fairy Tales or Ovid's Metamorphoses or the Italian epics we find ourselves in a world of miracles so diverse that they can hardly be classified. Beasts turn into men and men into beasts or trees, trees talk, ships become goddesses, and a magic ring can cause tables richly spread with food to appear in solitary places . . . . If such things really happened, they would, I suppose, show that Nature was being invaded. But they would show that she was being invaded by an alien power. The fitness of the Christian miracles, and their difference from those mythological miracles, lies in the fact that they show invasion by a Power which is not alien. They are what might be expected to happen when she is invaded not simply by a god, but by the God of nature; by a power which is outside her jurisdiction; not as a foreigner but as a Sovereign. They proclaim that he who has come is not merely a king, but the King, her King and Ours.4
We humans have a strange habit of ascribing the wonders of the natural world around us to some undefined power or force that we call Nature. People say, "What a wonderful thing is Nature, which can produce such beautiful scenery." Or, "Nature has produced an amazing array of wonders in the animal kingdom." We look at a redwood tree and say, "Isn't Nature amazing!" But that is a tautology--a nonsensical statement that chases its own tail. The redwood tree wasn't produced by Nature, it is part of Nature. To say that Nature made the tree is to say Nature made Nature--or that the tree made itself. Ridiculous!
Someone has well said, "Nature is the glove on the hand of God." Imagine you are in your garden, spading the earth or pulling weeds with work gloves on. Somebody strolls by and notices how beautiful your garden is, and the comment this person makes is, "Isn't it marvelous that your glove can create such beauty! Imagine a glove being able to spade up a garden, and pull up weeds!" You would reply, "Glove, nothing! It was my own hand, at the end of my own arm, that did this work! My hand just happened to be wearing this glove!" Commenting on the wisdom and creativity of Nature is like commenting on the gardening skill of a work glove.
The third element of this miracle John calls to our attention is this: "his disciples believed in him." They believed that here was the Son of God, with authority over all the works and forces of God's hands. That is the meaning of this miraculous sign. The disciples were already following Him--but when they saw this miracle, they believed even more deeply than before. They saw that here was One who could handle life. Here was One who could take a commonplace thing and make it a source of joy and glory.
The Best Is Yet To Be
You've heard the expression, "the days of wine and roses." This world is constantly telling us, in one way or another, that youth is the time when one can drink the wine of life. Youth is the time we can really experience excitement, adventure, and passion. But when I sit at our table for the evening meal with my family--my dear wife (who becomes more beautiful with each passing year), my daughters, and my grandchildren, we experience together the best that life has to offer. We enjoy a family time of laughter, of sharing memories, of enjoying one another's company, of sitting in a comfortable home experiencing God's goodness in our lives and our hearts. At such times, the richness of God's love comes over me and I find my heart lifted to Him. And I whisper, "Father, you have kept the best wine until last!"
I think so often of Robert Browning's words,
Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be,
The last of life
For which the first was made!
This is the significance of this sign for us. Our Lord--the Lord of Nature, the Lord of Life--has taken the commonplace, ordinary moments of commonplace, ordinary people like you and me, and with His touch He gives them full flavor, fragrance, strength, and beauty. He transforms the mere water of our lives into wine--and an excellent vintage at that!
He will do this in the life of anyone who will faithfully walk with Him, follow Him, and believe in Him. If you think you have missed Gods blessing for your life, just wait! Follow Him. Listen to Him. Obey Him. Live for Him. And remember: He saves the best for last!
The Temple Cleansing
John 2:12-25
Joanie was a teacher and a dedicated Christian, very involved in her church. She had been raised in a Christian home and had known Jesus Christ as her Lord, Savior, and Friend for as long as she could remember.
Soon after Joanie's Bible study group began digging into the gospel of John, it became clear to the rest of the group that something was troubling Joanie. "What's the matter, Joanie?" asked Helen, the group leader.
"Well, it's chapter two," said Joanie. "I just wish we didn't have to study that part."
"What?" replied Helen in puzzlement. "You mean the miracle at Cana?"
"No," said Joanie. "The other part. Where Jesus gets angry and chases people out of the temple with a whip."
"You'd rather not study that part of John?"
"No," said Joanie. "I love Jesus, and I love the stories of how He heals people and loves the children and forgives people's sins. But I just don't like to hear about how He becomes angry and violent. That story always makes me feel bad."
Joanie is not alone. Many people have a hard time reconciling the love and grace of Jesus with the anger of Jesus. Yet the story of His cleansing of the temple is a crucial element in understanding the truth of Jesus. It is a story with profound implications for our lives today.
A Refiner's Fire
John organizes his account of the clearing of the temple around three factors: (1) where Jesus was; (2) what Jesus did; and (3) what the disciples learned by watching what Jesus did. Here John condenses about a week of time into two short verses regarding the whereabouts of Jesus.
2:12-13 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
We can easily fit into verse 12 some of the other gospel accounts of our Lord's second calling of the disciples. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record that as Jesus was walking along the sea of Galilee, He saw the brothers, James and John (the sons of Zebedee, and Peter and Andrew (the sons of Simon), fishing. And He called them to follow Him.
This second calling must have occurred when--after the miracle at Cana--Jesus moved down to the north end of the Sea of Galilee and stayed for a while with His mother and His brothers in Capernaum. Then, having called these disciples to a more permanent relationship with himself, He left with them for Jerusalem to celebrate His first Passover in the role of the Messiah, the Promised One of God.
Jesus had been in Jerusalem many times during the years before His public ministry began. He had been to the temple and had often seen the corruption there--the money-changers and vendors who turned the House of God into a carnival side-show. But in all of His previous visits to the temple, He had never taken any action against this corruption. This trip to Jerusalem, however, was different. This time He was going as the Messiah--and He was going to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah:
"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the Lord Almighty. . . .
He will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness.1
When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, He came as a refiner's fire, to purify the Levites, the temple priests, so that the people could bring their offerings to the Lord in righteousness. This is the background for what our Lord did when He cleansed the temple.
The First of Two Cleansings
John has told us where Jesus was. Now he goes on to tell us what Jesus did.
2:14-16 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
Jesus was clearly angry at what He found in the temple. He immediately began cleansing it--not only of the trafficking in money-changing and selling animals, but also of the extortion and racketeering that went along with it. The other three gospels record that our Lord cleansed the temple at the end of His ministry, in that momentous last week before His betrayal and crucifixion. Some of the scholars feel that John's account is of the same event, but John records it as having occurred at the beginning of our Lord's ministry.
These apparent discrepancies are difficult to reconcile with our belief that the Scriptures are without historic error. It is hard to understand why John would use language that sounds as though this event occurred at the beginning of our Lord's ministry. The answer, of course, is that there were two cleansings of the temple: Jesus cleansed the temple both at the beginning and at the end of His ministry.
A close look at the other gospel accounts reveals that there is a considerable difference in these events. In the synoptic gospels, a different Old Testament scripture is referred to. There is no mention of a braided whip. And Jesus makes a different claim for himself in that cleansing of the temple at the end of His ministry. On that final occasion our Lord made a great and final pronouncement in regard to the nation of Israel. Standing in the temple, having for the second time driven out the merchants and the money-changers, He spoke these dramatic words: "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. You shall not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Then He went out to the Mount of Olives, and from there to the upper room, to the betrayal, and to the crucifixion the next day.
Here in John's gospel, however, is an account of anger and violent action on the part of Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry.
Extortion and Racketeering
John records the fact that this cleansing occurred at the time of a Passover feast. He undoubtedly wants to remind us that at the Passover, every Jewish household spent the day before the feast meticulously going through the house, seeking out any kind of yeast or substance that could cause fermentation, then cleansing every such manifestation from the home. This was absolutely necessary to properly celebrate the Passover.
So when Jesus enters Jerusalem, He enters a city in which every household is involved in a process of cleansing. By contrast, when He arrives at the temple, the very House of God, He finds it filled with clutter and noise, dirty-smelling animals, money-changers and merchandise. No one in the temple seems to be concerned that the House of God is itself in need of cleansing!
So Jesus became angry.
He was not only angry about the confusion, the clutter, the noise, and the smells. He was most particularly angry at the extortion and racketeering that was going on. Here is how the extortion racket worked:
Once a year at Passover time, every Jewish male was required to go to the temple and pay a half-shekel temple tax. The tax could not be paid in Roman or Greek coin but had to be paid in a special temple coin. So it was necessary to change the secular coins for temple coins. Money-changers were allowed to use the temple grounds as a convenience for those who had only secular coins to pay with. The problem was that the exchange rate they charged was outrageously high--often nearly 50 per cent above the face value of the coins being exchanged! The temple collected enormous revenues from this practice.
Another exploitative practice was the selling of animals for Passover sacrifice. If people had an animal of their own to bring, they didn't have to buy an animal at the temple--but the animal they brought had to pass inspection by the priests. The animal could not be sacrificed if it had a blemish or imperfection. Since the priests profited from the sale of animals by merchants in the courtyard, the priests had a built-in motive for rejecting as many animals as possible that were not sold by the temple merchants. You can be sure that if a Priest looked hard enough, he could find some tiny imperfection on almost every animal!
As a result of these practices, even people who brought their own animals usually had to buy one of the approved animals from the temple herd, which were sold at inflated prices. It was barefaced extortion--legalized robbery, using religion as a gun. The victims were frequently the poorest of the poor. No wonder our Lord's anger was inflamed! So great was His anger that He made a whip out of the cords that held the animals together and He drove the swindlers and extortionists out of the temple.
Anger Under Control
Here we see a different Jesus than most people like to think about. We are comfortable picturing Him as the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild," the loving, understanding, forgiving Jesus. We'd prefer to serve a Jesus who lets us get by with anything, who winks at our sins and says, "Hey, you're not so bad. Don't be too hard on yourself."
But the real Jesus is not an indulgent, permissive Santa Claus-type character. The real Jesus of the gospel of John is a Jesus who demonstrates anger and who drives out oppressors and thieves.
Yet, even while we squarely confront the fact of Jesus' anger, we should recognize that His anger is not like our own anger. His anger was under control. He didn't rage and strike out blindly. His lash may have stung, but He didn't wound anyone.
He didn't even deprive anyone of their property. The animals He drove out could easily be collected again. The money He poured out on the temple floor could be gathered up and recounted. He didn't open the cages of the birds and let them loose, but ordered them taken away. He didn't destroy. He made a point: Don't turn God's House into a flea market. Don't use religion to
make a fast buck.
Consuming Zeal
John has told us where Jesus was and what He did. Now John tells us what the disciples learned by watching Jesus as He cleansed the temple. In verse 17, we see the first of three lessons that were burned into the disciples' minds as they watched the Lord cleanse the temple--Jesus has a consuming zeal for purity.
2:17 His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
Can you imagine what the disciples felt while their newfound Master was lashing the money-changers and animal vendors out of the temple? Were they shocked? Awestruck? Embarrassed? They had not been with Him very long and they did not know Him well. Though they were attracted by the magnetism of His personality and the miracle they had seen at Cana, and though they were convinced He was the Messiah, they had not worked out all the theological puzzles surrounding this amazing Man. He was full of surprises.
What did they think when their Master strode into the temple as if He owned the place and began driving out the people whom the temple priests themselves allowed to do business there? No doubt, the first question on their minds was, "What will the authorities do about this? "Certainly Jesus doesn't expect to get away with this!
But as they watched Him lashing out at the swindlers and racketeers in the temple courtyard, a fragment of Scripture floated up into their minds--a verse from Psalm 69: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
For centuries, this psalm had been regarded as a Messianic psalm, a prophecy of the coming Messiah, and of His suffering. This verse--"Zeal for your house will consume me"--speaks of the fact that the Messiah would be seized, driven, and compelled by a zealous love for worship of the one true God, and respect for His house of worship. When that line from God's Word came to their minds, they suddenly understood that the One they had chosen to follow would never compromise with evil.
Herein lies one of the great paradoxes of our Christian faith. Throughout John's gospel, we see that anyone--anyone!--can come to Christ: murderers, prostitutes, swindlers, liars, alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, cynics, snobs, religious hypocrites, and anyone else as long as he or she realizes there is something wrong with his or her life and wants God to come in and change it! Anyone who wants to be free can come to Jesus.
But as the disciples saw Jesus cleansing the temple, a realization must have dawned on them: Suddenly they understood--perhaps for the first time--that if you come to Jesus, be assured He is not going to leave you unchanged. He is not going to settle for clutter, compromise, dishonesty, and racketeering in your soul and your lifestyle. Whatever defiles and corrupts the "temple" of your body and soul will be purged. This purging may not take place immediately. In His love, He deals with us patiently. But equally according to His love, He never lets us remain complacent with sin and inner corruption. If we mistake His patience for indulgence and acceptance of our sinful habits, then we are in for a surprise.
When we commit ourselves to the lordship of Jesus, He receives us in love. But we dare not forget that He also comes into our lives with a zeal for purity. Many of us, like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, maintain an outer appearance of righteousness. But within our lives, hidden from public view, is the clutter of sinful habits: a lust for pornography or adultery: a lack of integrity in business dealings; an addiction to rage or indulgence or abuse. These habits have been a part of our lives so long that we think God will just wink at them and accept them. But God loves us too much to allow these sins to continue forever. If we do not wish to experience the chastening, loving lash of His righteous zeal, then we must clean house ourselves.
Delayed Reaction
The second lesson the disciples learned when Jesus cleansed the temple was that Jesus operated in a much longer time-frame than the rest of us do. Many of His statements and actions involved a delayed reaction rather than immediate implementation. We see this principle in the dialogue between Jesus and His Jewish opponents.
2:18-22 Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
The Jews replied "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words Jesus had spoken.
It's astounding how blind everyone was to the meaning of this event! For centuries, the Jews had expected their Messiah to come and fulfill certain prophecies, including the prophecy that the Messiah would come and purify the temple. The Messiah came and did just that--and the religious experts didn't even recognize Him! Instead, they asked Him, "What sign can you show us? How can you prove you are the Messiah?" Our Lord's answer was to give them a future sign, a cryptic sign--the sign of His death and resurrection.
Jesus gave the Jews a sign--but it was a sign with a delayed reaction. The meaning of Jesus' sign would not be clear to the Jews, not even to Jesus own disciples, until after He was crucified and raised again.
The True Temple
"Destroy this temple," said Jesus, "and I will raise it again in three days." The temple Jesus spoke of was His own body. In this statement He gives us a profound truth that we dare not forget. God does not live in buildings. The true temples of God are human beings. Jesus was the prototype among human temples, but your body and mine are temples of God too.
All around the world are churches, cathedrals, edifices of stone and steel and glass--some costing millions of dollars. Pick any one of those buildings and odds are you can find a brass plaque somewhere on a wall that says, "Erected to the glory of God." I find such plaques irritating. Scripture teaches that God is not glorified by buildings. Even when Solomon dedicated the great temple in Jerusalem, he acknowledged this fact: "The heavens, even the highest heaven," he said, "cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built."2
A building merely symbolizes the dwelling place of God. The real temples of God are human beings, composed of body, soul, and spirit. That is why Paul said, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?"3 You do not have the right to defile that temple, says Paul, because it does not belong to you. "You are not your own," he continues. "You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."4 It couldn't be more clear: Your body is a temple, and that is where God is glorified.
When I was a little boy I was told, "Behave yourself in church! Don't whisper or squirm in church!" Years later I made an amazing discovery: A believer in Christ is never out of church! A Christian in the body is always in the temple of God.
Looking Beyond the Facade
The third lesson the disciples learned is recorded next by John.
2:23-25 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.
Following the first miracle in Cana and His assuming of the role of Messiah by cleansing the temple, Jesus launched into a public ministry involving miraculous signs: healing the sick and lame, and restoring sight to the blind. Many people were attracted to Jesus because of His miracles--but Jesus did not entrust himself to the masses. He knew that the masses were fickle. Many would come and believe and ask Jesus to be their Lord--but their lives would not change, and eventually they would drift away. Jesus knew that, because He knew what was in the hearts of men and women. Jesus was not fooled by outward professions and appearances. He had a penetrating understanding of the workings of the human heart.
Nothing has changed from that day until this day. We are still dealing with a God who cannot be fooled. If we honestly confess our sin, He will deal with us with loving forgiveness. If we defend and minimize our sin, we can only expect to receive His chastening, cleansing lash. God knows what is within you and me.
As the disciples watched the cleansing of the temple, they learned some astonishing, wonderful truths about God. They learned that even though God is loving and forgiving, He is a God to be revered and feared. Though He is a God of mercy, He is also a God of majesty. The disciples first experienced the warmth and acceptance of God's grace, but after the cleansing of the temple, they had a deeper and more solemn understanding of God's justice and purity.
May you and I take away the same solemn truth from our encounter with the real Jesus--the Jesus who not only loves and forgives, but refines and purifies and stakes His claim upon the totality of our lives. The Jesus who calls the little children to himself is the same Jesus who braids a whip out of cords and is consumed with a zeal for the purity of God's rightful worship. Let us, as believers and disciples, give all of who we are to all of who He is.
Chapter Eight
Born of the Spirit
John 3:1-16
After his public repentance and spiritual awakening following the Watergate scandal, Charles Colson wrote a book--the first of many books he would someday write about living the Christian faith in the rough-and-tumble arena of the real world. That first book became a best-seller and launched a new ministry for the former Nixon White House "hatchet man," ministry of prison reform and prison evangelism. The title of Colson's book: Born Again.
Largely because of the success of Born Again, the election of the "born again" President, Jimmy Carter, and the rise of televangelism during the 1980s, the term "born again" moved beyond the confines of evangelical and fundamentalist Christian circles and into the vernacular of secular society. In recent years, the print and broadcast media have seized upon the label "born again" as a term of scorn and derision. It's no longer fashionable to call yourself "born again," because the anti-Christian media has redefined the term to mean a narrow-minded religious bigot.
Despite the abuse and distortion the phrase "born again" has suffered over the past few years, it remains a term filled with powerful spiritual significance and meaning. I love the words "born again" because of what those words have meant in my own life and experience. It is a beautiful word picture that was coined by Jesus himself to describe a radical spiritual transformation that has taken place in my own life and in the lives of every person who has truly committed his or her total self to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
And we find that term used for the first time in John chapter 3, in the famous story of the night visitor who came to Jesus in search of the truth.
A Ruler of the Jews
In the first three verses of John 3, we meet a man named NiGodemus. Although he is a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews--and as a class, the Pharisees were the mortal enemies of Jesus--NiGodemus came as one who was spiritually seeking and intellectually honest.
3:1-3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named NiGodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
John notes two important facts about NiGodemus: who he is and what he says.
First, NiGodemus was a powerful man in Jerusalem society--a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy men who ran the religious affairs of the nation and who had religious authority over every Jew anywhere in the world. That council was almost entirely made up of Pharisees.
If ever there was a group which deserved the label "religious fanatics," it was the Pharisees. They were a select group, never numbering more than 6,000. Each had taken a solemn vow before three witnesses that he would devote every moment of his entire life to obeying the Ten Commandments as a way of pleasing God.
The Pharisees took the Law of God very seriously. They sought to apply the Ten Commandments in every area of life. Those commandments, of course, speak about worshiping the true God and avoiding idols, honoring parents, and refraining from lying, adultery, and various other sins. They are written in a rather general way. The Pharisees, however, liked to have things defined in very specific terms. So a group of people arose within the Pharisee order called the Scribes, and it was the Scribes' job to study the Law and spell out how the Ten Commandments applied to every specific situation in life.
The Scribes took their work very seriously and compiled a very thick book, which the Jews still have today, called the Mishnah. To give you a sense of just how detailed and specific the Mishnah is, it devotes 24 chapters just to the subject of not working on the Sabbath! But there's more! In addition to the Mishnah, the Scribes also wrote a commentary on the Mishnah, called the Talmud. The Talmud devotes 156 pages to the subject of the Sabbath alone!
Clearly, the Pharisees were very zealous and serious about keeping the Law of God. In their interpretation of the commandment which forbids work on the Sabbath, the Scribes decreed that any form of labor which a man engaged in to make his living was forbidden. For example, a farmer or a fisherman could not tie a knot on the Sabbath, because knots are used in tethering farm animals and handling fishing nets. There were, however, certain exceptions to the knot-tying rule. If it was absolutely necessary to life, you could tie a knot on the Sabbath. Knots that could be tied with one hand were permitted, but not two-handed knots. A woman could tie a knot in her girdle or in a scarf that she tied around her neck.
In time, people began to look for loopholes in the laws of the Scribes--and many of these loopholes were incredibly silly! A man might need to draw a bucket of water out of a well, but he was not permitted to tie a rope onto the bucket because that would be violating the Sabbath. But if he tied the rope to a woman's girdle and then tied the girdle to the bucket, he could draw up water!
These meticulous, rigid--and often ridiculous!--interpretations constituted the whole life of the Pharisees. And this is the religious climate that produced a Pharisee named NiGodemus.
"Unless a Man Is Born Again..."
Once you understand the rigid, legalistic system of the Pharisees, it is amazing that NiGodemus would come to Jesus at all! The Pharisees regarded themselves as spiritually and morally superior to other men because of their inflexible adherence to the Law of God. Yet this particular Pharisee and ruler of the Jews came to Jesus with a heart full of astonishing humility and sincerity.
John tells us that NiGodemus begins with a courteous, respectful introduction. "Rabbi," he says, "we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." This is an amazing statement. Notice the word "we"--"we know that you are a teacher." NiGodemus is probably speaking for himself and other members of the Sanhedrin. He is admitting that the Pharisees--who vehemently oppose the spiritual freedom Jesus represents--know in their hearts that Jesus really is a teacher from God.
NiGodemus regarded Jesus as a teacher with authority, because God put His seal of approval on Him by doing miracles through Him. None of the other members of the Sanhedrin could work miracles. This was something new in NiGodemus's experience.
But even more alien to NiGodemus's training and experience was the reply of Jesus: "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." According to everything NiGodemus had been taught, being accepted by God depended entirely upon adhering to an exhaustive body of rules and regulations. Now this miracle-working teacher appears, dispensing with that entire body of legality, and claiming instead that to be accepted by God, one must be "born again."
Born again?!
With a single sharp and penetrating phrase, Jesus has sliced through all the layers of rules and legalistic attitudes that have accumulated around the mind of NiGodemus. Like a sword, those words have pierced this Pharisee's heart.
Notice the words Jesus opens with: "I tell you the truth," or as it is translated in other versions, "Truly, truly," or, "Verily, verily." In the original language, Jesus says, "Amen, amen," an emphatic idiom used to underscore the importance of what is to follow. Jesus is saying, in effect, "I am about to reveal to you a fundamental reality of life. Listen carefully."
After highlighting His statement with this verbal neon light, Jesus goes on to say that the new birth is absolutely essential in order to enter the kingdom of God. The Greek word John uses that is translated again conveys several profound shades of meaning. It means to do something a second time; to begin something in a radical and totally new way; and to do something from above. So when Jesus says, "born again," He is saying many things at once: to be born a second time, to be born in a radical and totally new way, to be born from above, from God. Jesus is telling NiGodemus that the new birth is radical and transforming, and it is something that God does, not we ourselves.
To be in the kingdom of God, of course, is to belong to God. It means to be under His rule and lordship. Paul speaks of being rescued "from the dominion of darkness and brought ... into the kingdom of the Son."' Thus, Jesus was referring to a transfer of citizenship, a radical departure from what we once were.
Jesus sensed in NiGodemus a deep hunger, a spiritual emptiness. Here was a man who was doing his level best to obey what he thought God wanted. Yet he had an empty and unsatisfied heart that led him to seek out Jesus by night, at the risk of the displeasure of his peers. Jesus--who we learned in previous chapters possessed a keen and penetrating insight into the hearts of people--sensed what was going on inside this seeker of truth. So Jesus did not waste any time in telling NiGodemus that he was operating on a false premise, and needed to make a radical change in his life. "You are wasting your time," He said, in effect, "if you think you can enter the kingdom of God the way you are. You cannot do it by keeping rules and regulations. You must be born again."
The third chapter of John was the favorite text of John Wesley, the great Anglican evangelist who cofounded, with his brother Charles, the Methodist movement. He used to travel throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, preaching, "You must be born again." Someone once asked him, "Why do you always preach on the words. 'You must be born again'?" Wesley's answer: "Because ... you must be born again!"
That is what Jesus is saying here.
But Nicodemus misunderstood. With an obviously puzzled look on his face, he asked Jesus to explain what He meant by the words "born again."
3:4 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
Clearly, Jesus' strange phrase "born again" has had its effect: He succeeded in upsetting the normal course of Nicodemus's thinking. Taking Jesus literally, Nicodemus now wants to know, "How can I go back into my mother's womb and start life already? I'm already old and gray!" Of course, Nicodemus's befuddlement and misunderstanding give Jesus the perfect opening to explain the reality behind His symbol of being "born again."
Jesus was laying the groundwork for a radical and profoundly disagreeable truth: It's not enough to change what we do. Keeping the Law and the rules of the Mishnah and the Talmud are not enough. The reason we fail to do what is right is that there is something wrong with who we are. So it is what we are, not just what we do, that must be changed. This is a fundamental truth, the basis of the doctrine of sin, the doctrine that says that we all, as human beings, are a lost race.
Admit Your Need
Jesus once again prefaces and underscores His words with the phrase, "I tell you the truth . . . ."
3:5-8 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
How can a man be born when he is old? Jesus' reply: By water and by the Spirit.
What does Jesus mean by "water"? Some have thought it to be a reference to the bag of waters that breaks just before a baby is born, and thus a reference to physical birth. According to this view, Jesus is saying we must be born both physically and spiritually, of the water and the Spirit. I cannot agree with this view. Why would Jesus say something so absurdly obvious as, "To enter the kingdom of heaven, you first have to be physically born"?
It is clear from the context that when Jesus talks about water, He is referring to baptism. John's baptism was the sensation of the nation in those days. Everyone was talking about it. In John chapter 1, you recall, the Pharisees had sent a delegation to ask John why he was baptizing. Now Jesus indicates to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, what water baptism signifies: Water baptism is a symbol of repentance and an honest admission of need.
I have roughly half a century in the ministry, and I have observed that the one barrier that prevents most people from being born again is their own unwillingness to admit their need. They don't want to admit that they are sinful and helpless, and that God must come into them and completely transform them. They cling to the idea that there is some good within them that God ought to accept. They see their lives as balanced on a set of scales. If they do more good things than bad things, the scales will tip in their favor and off to heaven they go!
But God says no, you need a total renovation. You need to repent. And baptism is a symbolic acknowledgment of that repentance. When we repent and receive the Savior, then we are born of the Spirit. And when we symbolize our repentance by baptism, we are born of water.
Jesus goes on to draw a clear and unmistakable distinction between the old and new birth. He says, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." Everyone knows what physical birth is all about. Jesus came to reveal to us what spiritual birth is all about. It is the Spirit of God who produces spiritual birth, not our own works, not our own observance of the Law. If we are trying, in our unchanged, fallen nature, to please God, then we will fail. But if we allow God to recreate us through the new birth, we will become citizens of the kingdom of God. That is Jesus' message to Nicodemus.
The Wind Blows
Jesus uses yet another symbol to demonstrate that the new birth will result in a totally new lifestyle. Once born again, that person will never be the same. Perhaps as they were talking, Jesus and Nicodemus could hear the wind blowing through the narrow streets of Jerusalem. In any case, He said to Nicodemus, "The wind blows wherever it pleases." The wind is sovereign. No one can direct it.
Despite all the scientific and technological advances of our age, Jesus' statement is still true today. Weather forecasters can track a hurricane and warn people in its path to take cover. But even the United States government with all its military and scientific might, cannot deflect a hurricane one degree from its course. It will blow wherever it wants to, we are helpless to control it. The will of the wind is sovereign over the will of man.
In the same way, we cannot control the purposes of God in an individual life. The Spirit of God will direct that life. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
The Astonishment of Jesus
Nicodemus is puzzled by Jesus' reply. John records his response next.
3:9 "How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.
Now it is Jesus' turn to be astonished! He responds to Nicodemus for the third time with the emphatic phrase, "I tell you the truth . . . ."
3:10-12 "You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"
Jesus is astonished because He is speaking to a man who is a teacher and leader of Israel, a man who has given his life to studying the Old Testament--yet Nicodemus still doesn't get it! Surely, Nicodemus should know that Isaiah spoke about new life from God; that Jeremiah had predicted a new creation that would be given; that Ezekiel had said that God would take out the old heart of stone and give a new heart of flesh. Throughout the Old Testament there are statements about a new birth, a new beginning, a new creation, a new life that would come as a gift of God to those who would humbly receive it, acknowledging their need.
So Jesus says to Nicodemus, "How can you, a teacher of Israel, not know about these things?" This was a gentle rebuke to Nicodemus that he ought to have known better. Jesus continues: "I have spoken to you of earthly things"--that is, in symbols of birth and water and wind--"and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"
The Incarnation
Jesus then plainly reveals who He is and where He comes from.
3:13 "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of man."
Here, Jesus speaks of the incarnation. God has visibly appeared on earth as a man. It is an accomplished fact. The one who came down from heaven, Jesus, has witnessed to the truth of God.
Then Jesus cites another manifestation--this one from the Old Testament.
3:14-15 "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
Here is an unmistakable reference to the cross. In Numbers 21, when the people of Israel were being bitten by hundreds of poisonous snakes in the wilderness, Moses was told by God to take a pole and set on it a brass serpent. The serpent would, by itself, do nothing whatsoever for the people. It was merely a symbol. But the people were told if they would look at it--and thus make a personal application of its symbolic meaning to their own lives--they would find themselves healed from the bite of the poisonous snakes.
From Genesis to Revelation, a serpent is always a symbolic representation of sin. Jesus says, in effect, "When Moses lifted that serpent in the wilderness, he was displaying a symbol of me. I will be made sin for the sake of the healing of the people. When that happens, if you will look at me hanging on the cross and believe that I am dying for your sake, God will forgive your sins and heal you."
How To Be Born Again
This brings us to the greatest and most treasured verse in Scripture, John 3:16.
3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
That is how to be born again.
A totally new life is available to you, and to everyone. If we acknowledge our need and receive Jesus as Lord, God himself will perform that transforming miracle in our lives. Nicodemus needed to understand that. So do you and I. There is no other way into the kingdom of God but through faith in Jesus Christ.
Our own efforts to earn our way to God are futile. Nicodemus had tried to earn his way to God all his life, and the result was emptiness. It was that sense of emptiness and futility that brought him into the presence of Jesus under the cover of darkness. There he learned how to fill the emptiness of his life with truth and freedom and friendship with the living God:
Believe in Jesus.
Receive Jesus.
Be born again!
Chapter Nine
The Best Possible News
John 3:16-36
You and I are on Death Row.
We have lived lives of crime and sin. We have been apprehended, brought before the Judge, tried, and convicted. The Judge has pronounced sentence: Death.
Now we await execution. Just a few yards from our cell, at the end of the corridor, is the gas chamber. Time is dragging us inexorably, moment by moment, to the fate we have earned.
But wait--! Do you hear those footsteps? Someone is coming down the corridor! And listen--! The footsteps have stopped outside the solid steel door of our cell! The key is turning in the lock. The door creaks open. There in the doorway stands--
The Judge himself!
What is He saying? Can we believe our ears? Yes! He actually says to us, "You are free. You can go now. You are no longer under a sentence of death."
We walk out of the cell, hardly able to believe what is happening! But as we step into the corridor, another man walks into the cell. His eyes meet ours, and His gaze burns deep into our souls.
"Who is that man?" we ask, turning to the Judge. "And why is He going into that Death Row cell? What did He do that He deserves to be executed?"
"Why, that is the man who volunteered to take your place in the gas chamber," says the Judge. "He hasn't done anything wrong at all. He's a good man, the best man I've ever known." Tears well up in the Judge's eyes and He turns away. "I should know. That man is my son."
"For God so loved the world," says John 3:16, "that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
A Mountaintop Perspective
John 3:16 is undoubtedly the most famous verse in all of Scripture. It was the verse which capped and concluded our discussion of what it means to be "born again" in the previous chapter. And it is also the verse which introduces the subject of the Good News of Jesus Christ in this chapter. That's why we are spending parts of two chapters in one verse of Scripture. When a verse is as rich and powerful as this one, it deserves additional attention!
There is a debate among Bible scholars as to whether the words of John 3:16 were actually spoken to Nicodemus by Jesus, or whether this verse marks the end of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus and the beginning of John's own commentary. The original Greek text contains no punctuation marks, such as quotation marks, so it's easy to see why there might be confusion.
It seems to me, however, that the first word of John 3:16--the word "for"--ties this verse into the verses before it. That would mean that John 3:16 is part of the transcript of the words that Jesus himself spoke to Nicodemus. If so, then Jesus' discourse to Nicodemus continues on to verse 21, after which John changes the scene and begins a new narrative. The English text used in this book, the New International Version, agrees with this view, and puts the entire section from verses 16 through 21 within quotation marks.
This entire section presents to us two contrasting ways of life, two choices we have to make. On the one hand, we can choose belief, resulting in eternal life--not just an eternally long life in heaven after we die, but a glorious quality of life on earth, as we live for Him. On the other hand, we can choose disobedience, which results in living under the wrath of God, both now and forever.
The problem most of us face is that disobedience often seems like more fun than belief. Certainly, disobedience seems to be the approved and accepted choice in our fallen society. Some of us wonder, "If God made life, why did He make it so hard to be good and so much fun to be bad?" If that is our view, it is easy to take the next step and say, "Obviously, God is not fair. What a mean old crab He must be to make life that way!"
I've heard people say that, and you probably have too. But when people accuse God of being unfair, of being a cosmic killjoy, notice how far they have moved from the truth of John 3:16. John's gospel does not describe a hard cruel God who is indifferent to our feelings and our sufferings. Rather it speaks of a God who loved us so much He would send His only son to take our place on Death Row. If that isn't love, what is? The negative perspective so many people have about God shows how confused and distorted our perceptions are as human beings.
Dr. Billy Graham tells the story of a friend of his who stood on a mountaintop in North Carolina, looking down on the road below. It was a winding load that twisted along the side of the mountain, and there were many blind curves along its course. The man could see three cars on the road, all approaching a blind hairpin curve, two from one direction, one from the opposite direction. One of the two cars pulled out to pass the other, unaware that a third car was approaching just around the bend.
The man on the mountain could see what was going to happen. Because of the narrowness of the road, there was no room for any of the cars to escape. He cupped his hands and shouted a warning, but it was hopeless. The drivers would never hear him. In seconds, there was a clash of grinding metal as all three cars met in the middle of the curve. It was a horrible, fatal crash.
That is the difference between God's perspective and ours. We are like drivers on a mountain road, approaching a blind curve. We know that God has warned us not to pass on the curve, not to take the curve too fast, not to drive recklessly. But we say, "God just wants to limit my freedom. He just wants to ruin my fun." And we proceed to our doom.
God has the mountaintop perspective, and He can see what lies around the bend. He has called out a warning to us--but it is a warning that we, in our own free-will, are free to ignore. And if we choose to ignore it, the results can be fatal.
When God looks at our world, He sees many things we try to ignore: He sees the hurt in people's lives, the shame that fills their hearts, the misery they are going through. He sees those who are living lives of meaninglessness and quiet desperation. He sees the murder, violence, hatred, bitterness, and anger. He sees the greed, oppression, child abuse, famine, death, and fear of every kind.
He sees the destruction and anguish we call down upon ourselves by ignorantly trying to find fulfillment in everything but himself. He sees the painful consequences we reap from the choices we make--choices to avoid and deny the truth about ourselves: choices to pursue selfish goals rather than pursuing God and righteousness; choices to exploit others to advance our own ambitions; choices to seek revenge rather than forgiveness. God sees that so much of the suffering and agony we feel is a result of what we are as fallen people, slaves to sin.
He could say, "They made their bed. Let them lie in it. Let them reap every last grain of suffering they have sown by their disobedience." But no, God's response to us is not anger or ruthless justice. According to this wonderful verse, God responds to us with compassion. He is moved with love for the whole world. He loves every race. He loves rich and poor. He loves the powerful and the powerless. He loves those whose hearts are broken and whose backs are bent by toil and suffering. He loves the Mother Teresas of this world, and He loves the Saddam Husseins. He loves the whole world, every human being, without exception.
True, not everyone whom God loves will take hold of the gift God has given and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. But that does not change the fact of Gods love. John 3:16 is a statement of God's love, a statement which flings its arms wide to embrace the people of every continent and island, every color and race, every background and status. "God so loved the world."
The Best News of All
"God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son." That word gave is rich in meaning. God gave His Son to us in the incarnation, when Jesus came among us as a human baby. And He gave us His Son for us when He sacrificed Jesus on the cross for our sakes. God, seeing our agony, wanted to rescue us--but the rescue would be costly. It cost pain, thirst, blood, and death. It cost darkness, separation, and unspeakable shame, when Jesus was made sin for us in our place.
But God accomplished what He set out to do for us through His Son. The grip of sin was broken. And that is the best news ever heard on earth.
This is the truth that underlies our greatest hymns. One of my favorites is the hymn of Charles Wesley which rejoices,
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
That is a beautiful, poetic restatement of the meaning of John 3:16. God is not angry with us. He loves us. He proved it in the most powerful way possible: by sending His Son to take our place in the execution chamber.
No Condemnation
The next verse gives us a crucial insight into how we should approach others with the good news of Jesus Christ.
3:17 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
I have seen many people try to "evangelize" others through condemnation. But this verse makes it clear that we should approach those who do not know God the same way God has approached them--with love, compassion, and understanding, not with a wagging finger of condemnation and accusation, not by telling people how terrible they are.
In every gospel vignette which shows Jesus' dealings with people--including people who were open, blatant sinners--He came sensing their hurt and need, their shame and loneliness. That is the way God feels and that is the way we should feel too.
Take, for example, the woman at the well in Samaria. She had been married to five different men, and was even then living with a man outside of marriage. Jesus recognized her sin, of course, but He also was able to look beyond it, to the throbbing, hurting human soul within this woman. Jesus was courteous to her, even while He spoke to her about her need and her lifestyle. There was no tone of shock or accusation in His voice--only compassion. And she responded to Him gratefully and joyfully.
Paul puts this very beautifully in his second letter to the Corinthians: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them"1 Obviously, this does not mean that God is indifferent to sin. He knows we cannot be free until the sin issue has been solved in our lives. Throughout Scripture, we are reminded that Jesus came not to leave us in our sins, but to free us from bondage to sin. The point is that sin does not prevent us from coming to Him. God is always ready to receive us.
I once read a story about a young man who had quarreled with his father and left home. He moved to another city, but he continued to keep in touch with his mother, and wanted very badly to come home for Christmas. His mother repeatedly asked the boy's father to forgive him. His father, however, would not forget the things his son had said to him and would not allow him to come home.
As it grew closer and closer to Christmas, the son called his mother several times. "Has Dad changed his mind?" the young man asked. "Will he forgive me? Can I come home?"
Each time, she sadly reported, "No, son, your father is still angry. Don't come home--just yet."
Finally, it was just two days before Christmas and the boy called his mother. "Can I come home yet?"
"Let me talk to your father one more time," said his mother. "Meanwhile, you take the train home. If he has forgiven you, I'll tie a white rag on the big elm tree beside the railroad tracks by the house. You can get off at the station and we'll be waiting for you."
"But what if there is no rag on the tree?"
"Then you'd better stay on the train, son."
So the young man set out on his journey. As the train drew near his home, his stomach was knotted with anxiety. Would the rag be tied to the tree? He watched all the familiar landmarks come and go. Soon, he knew, the old elm tree would come into view.
It was getting toward dusk, and he began to worry. What if it was too dark to see the rag?
But just then, the tree came into view. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Could it be true? Yes! The old elm tree looked like a cherry tree in spring! It was "blooming" all over with white rags of forgiveness. The young man was home, truly home, at last.
That story resonates with the truth of John 3:16 and 17. God has removed all condemnation. All is forgiven. We are free to come home to Him.
The Choice
Yet, even though God has given His Son for us, there is still a response, a choice that we have to make. Jesus tells us about that choice next.
3:18-21 "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
Verse 18 says that whoever does not believe is condemned already. The condemnation is not deferred until the end of life; it is already going on. The Bible takes the position that humankind is living under the wrath of God all the time. Psalm 90:9 states it plainly: "All our years pass away under your wrath." The wrath of God is the anger, anguish, and emptiness we feel when we go our own way rather than God's way. We do not have to wait for wrath. If we do not choose to follow Jesus, then we are already under that wrath.
If you are traveling on a wrong road and every so often you see a signpost that points the way to the right road, what should you do? Reason dictates that you follow the signposts to the right path. But you can still choose to stay on the wrong road--and many people do just that. They choose to ignore God's signposts and they follow the path of destruction. Why? Why would anyone want to follow the wrong road, knowing that the signposts point the way to God?
Verses 19 and 20 give us the answer: "Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." When the passage says, "Men loved darkness," it doesn't mean men as opposed to women (though my wife has sometimes read it that way!). Nor does it mean, "Some people love darkness rather than light." When the Bible uses the term "men," it generally means "humankind," the human race--that is, everyone, without exception.
We all dislike being shown to be wrong. I feel that way myself. I do not even want to be corrected in the way I pronounce a word. If you tell me that I have mispronounced a word, and prove me wrong from the dictionary, I will challenge the dictionary! We don't like to be proved wrong. That's just part of our fallen nature--and that's why we find it so hard to change. We defend what we are to the death, and we resist change with our last ounce of strength. We fear the light of God's truth, and the exposure of the evil within us, because that truth forces us to change.
Verse 21 is the hinge on which this passage turns: "But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." In other words, if we are willing to begin obeying the truth--even when that means that sin will be exposed in our lives--then change will take place, our lives will be brought into alignment with God's own character, and the deeds we do will increasingly be the kind of deeds that are done through God.
This process begins with a recognition, a conviction deep within us, that our lives are not right, and we do not like the way we are. We want to change, and we recognize that the only one who can change us is God himself, through Jesus Christ. If we pursue the truth, courageously and relentlessly, we will find ourselves drawn like a magnet to Jesus. In John 6:44, Jesus puts it very plainly: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." The sense that God is drawing you to Jesus is the desire within you to be free of your old self--a desire for change.
This must have come as a great encouragement to Nicodemus' heart. Here was a Pharisee who prided himself on his sincere and serious efforts to please God, yet he came to Jesus an empty, confused, and unfulfilled man. To do right, Nicodemus chose to risk the displeasure of his colleagues by coming to Jesus by night and talking with Him. Jesus encouraged him by telling him that those who do what is true will come to the light, that it may be clearly seen that their deeds are being worked by God. God was drawing Nicodemus to Himself.
"He Must Increase, I Must Decrease"
In verses 22 through 26, John the Baptist appears for the last time in this gospel (his imprisonment--which ultimately led to his death--is alluded to in John's gospel but not related in detail as in the other gospels, especially Matthew and Mark). John reappears as a confirming witness to what John the apostle has recorded about Jesus.
3:22-26 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where He spent some time with them, and baptized. Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. (This was before John was put in prison.) An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan--the one you testified about--well, he is baptizing and everyone is going to him."
Some of John's disciples saw Jesus as a rival, and clearly experienced a sense of rivalry and jealousy. They were upset that Jesus--whom John had introduced--had set up a camp just a mile or two down the river and was winning more people than John the Baptist.
Competition is one of the most toxic forces to enter the family of God. Rivalry between ministries is one of the wedges Satan uses to break up the church and impede the progress of the gospel. The rivalry in this passage arises because the crowds that once flocked to hear John the Baptist are now following Jesus. John's followers had fallen victim to the numbers game: Who has the bigger following? Who is more popular?
There was also an argument over baptism. Evidently, a Jewish man questioned the meaning of Jesus' baptism, feeling that John's baptism was but an extension of the Jewish rite of purification, which was mentioned in the law. But now Jesus was baptizing--or, more accurately, His disciples were. John's disciples could not understand that, so they came to ask John about it.
3:27-30 To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when He hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less."
What a beautiful example of Christian humility!
Here, John the Baptist gives us a three-fold reply to his disciples' concern over John's "rival," Jesus. First, John the Baptist declares that all position comes only from God: "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven." This is true whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian, and it has always been true. "The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts," says 1 Samuel 2:7. "No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man. But it is God who judges; he brings one down, he exalts another," says Psalm 75:6-7.
We like to think we can take credit for our accomplishments, yet who was it that gave us our intelligence, our health, our ability to work, and the good fortune that enabled our hard work to pay off? All credit goes to God, who humbles and exalts according to His own will. John the Baptist understood this principle. He knew he had been given a role in which he could find satisfaction and fulfillment by glorifying the Messiah. But John also knew that he himself was not the Messiah.
The second dimension of John's reply to his disciples: He reminds them that he knew his own role from the start. He says to them: "You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ [the Messiah] but am sent ahead of him.'" In other words, "If you think I'm greater than Jesus, if you think I'm the Messiah, then you are departing from what I have always taught you. I am like the best man at a wedding--not the groom himself! Jesus is the groom, and He has come to claim His bride. My job has been to stand next to Him and give Him glory--not take the glory for myself!"
The third dimension of John's reply is this: John is actually joyful and glad that he is being eclipsed by Jesus! He tells His disciples, in effect, "When I see crowds of people leaving me and going to Jesus, I think, 'That's great! That's what I came to do! My whole purpose has been to point people to Him--and look at them go! What more could I ask for?'"
Then John makes a statement that should be echoed by every Christian: "He must become greater; I must become less." Or, as the King James Version puts it so elegantly, "He must increase; I must decrease." That kind of humility doesn't come naturally to the fallen human spirit. Our tendency is to look for every opportunity to increase ourselves in any way we can! We all know people who are so hungry for attention and the glare of the spotlight that they want to be the baby at every christening, the bridegroom (or bride) at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral!
But not John the Baptist. He says, "Point the spotlight at Jesus. Let me just fade into the shadows. I'm on the way out, and that's the way it should be." As a young preacher, I read a line of advice given by the Scottish theologian James Denney, and that advice has always stuck with me: "You can never at the same time convince people that you are a great preacher and that Jesus is a great Savior." It is one or the other. I hope that my own heart echoes this humble sentiment of John the Baptist: Jesus must increase; I and every other preacher and author and servant of Jesus must decrease.
"Whoever Believes ... Has Eternal Life"
Finally, John the Baptist declares Jesus to be the ultimate Person in the universe, who speaks the ultimate truth.
3:31 "The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all."
John is saying, in effect, "The word of Jesus is far greater than mine because He has come from the invisible realm, from heaven itself, where He sees all of life from an ultimate, eternal point of view. The truth He speaks comes from the storehouse of all truth--the heavenly mind of God. I, however, am from the earth. I see only a limited range of truth, but Jesus is truly unlimited!"
John goes on to speak from his own personal experience.
3:32-35 "He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands."
Jesus has seen and heard all that is within the mind of God. He personifies the wisdom and love of God. He is the eternal Word, calling into existence everything that is. Everything and all authority has been placed in His hands by the loving Father. And when Jesus speaks, the Spirit of God, whom God gives without limit to people, acts within people to confirm the word of Jesus.
I believe that if we could have been in the crowd when Jesus spoke, we would see that the mass response of the crowd would be, "Yes! Amen! That's right! That's the truth!" Something within the hearer confirms the word. Jesus did not need experts, authorities, or endorsements from the leading minds of the day to affirm His message. His words spoke to the heart and were confirmed by the inner witness of the Spirit.
3:3 "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
The wrath that John speaks of is the natural condition of human life on earth, apart from God. Every individual who rejects Jesus Christ makes a choice to continue living in--and choking on--a gray smog of emptiness, depression, anger, pain, and death. That is the wrath of God--and it is not something God inflicts on us, but something we choose for ourselves when we reject His Son. God has made it possible for us to escape the wrath and step into the light of His grace and truth. It is up to us to choose life--or the wrath.
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. If we believe in Him and follow Him, we will not perish, but receive eternal life. God has demonstrated a love for us that is beyond compassion. What is our response?
Wrath or eternal life: The choice is ours.
Chapter Ten
A Woman with Modern Problems
John 4:1-42
An American actress was once asked if she was not embarrassed to have been married seven times. She replied, "Why should I be embarrassed about all my marriages? All my friends are running around, having dozens of affairs, and never getting married. At least I marry my affairs!"
In John chapter 4, we encounter a woman very much like that American actress: a woman who has gone through marriage after marriage in a fruitless search for love. Though her story comes to us from an alien culture and the long-ago past, the woman John introduces us to in this chapter is someone we can relate to. She could easily be the woman who lives next door to you, or the woman who works at the reception desk in your office. She could be sitting next to you in your Bible study group, support group, or church pew. She could be a relative of yours, or that old college roommate you've been meaning to call. She could even be you.
In terms of her lifestyle, her spiritual needs, and her emotional pain, the woman in John 4 is as contemporary and relevant as any American woman of the 1990s. She is a lost, empty woman searching for love, and her story is rich in implications for our own lives--and for the lives of people we touch and talk to every day. In his encounter with this woman, Jesus will display for our instruction the Christlike method of evangelism. And as we watch Jesus reach out to this woman, we will be struck time after time with the issues of our own modern age--issues which include racial inequality, prejudice, the status of women in society, the decline of moral standards, human loneliness, and the hunger for love and acceptance.
An Encounter at Jacob's Well
4:1-6 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
In these verses, John calls to our attention three factors which set the stage for Jesus' encounter with a woman with modern problems.
First: The reason Jesus left Judea was to avoid a growing controversy. The Pharisees were upset over the apparent rivalry between the baptism of Jesus and the baptism of John. They could not understand it. They were choosing sides, and a conflict threatened.
This kind of controversy remains a major issue in the church today. Many denominations and individual Christians separate from each other over the mode and meaning of baptism. But Jesus walked away from this controversy--a silent, eloquent statement of His feelings on the matter! In fact, when John says Jesus "left" Judea, the original Greek word is even stronger, conveying that Jesus forsook or abandoned Judea. He would have nothing to do with petty, legalistic controversies over baptism.
Second: John calls attention to the route Jesus took on His journey to Galilee. He chose the most direct route, traveling through Samaria, which lies between Judea and Galilee.
What was once called Samaria is today a very famous and much-contested tract of land known as the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan and has occupied since the Six Day War in 1967. It is interesting that, while prime minister of Israel, the late Menachem Begin, reintroduced the practice of referring to this section of the Holy Land by its ancient name--Samaria--rather than "the West Bank."
Most Jews of Jesus' time, if they wanted to travel from Judea to Galilee, would take the long way around: eastward along the hot desert road from Jerusalem to Jericho, then north up the Jordan River valley, then turning east again toward Galilee, north of Samaria. This would take about five days, even though there was a direct route from Judea to Galilee that was only about 70 miles long--about two and a half day's walk. The reason most Jews chose the longer route rather than the more direct route was prejudice, pure and simple. The Jews did not want to associate with the Samaritan people, and would rather endure the hot, long uncomfortable road than let go of their bigotry.
Jesus, however, chose to take the short-cut through Samaria. In so doing, He also cut through the ignorant, narrow-minded prejudice of His day and actively demonstrated the inclusiveness and unconditional acceptance of God--the same acceptance He expressed to Nicodemus when He said, "God so loved the world," the whole world, including that corner of the world called Samaria.
Third: John calls attention to the place where Jesus stopped. It was a historic site called Jacob's Well, at the foot of Mount Gerizim. There, about a half mile west of the village of Sychar, at the well which Jacob had dug for his flocks and herds more than 1,700 years earlier, Jesus sat down to rest.
I had an interesting experience at Jacob's Well a number of years ago. I was traveling alone in a rented car through the West Bank, and I gave a ride to three Israeli soldiers carrying submachine guns. Though their camp was located right outside of town, they had never been to Jacob's Well. They didn't even know it was there.
When I told them I was going to visit the well, they were very interested and wanted to go along. I pulled up the car near by the Syrian Christian monastery that is maintained at the site of the well, and my three heavily-armed friends and I got out. When the Syrian priest saw an American approaching with a contingent of armed "bodyguards," he mistook me for an important dignitary! I have never been so royally treated in my life!
It was an awesome experience to stand on that ground and realize that I stood on the very place where Jesus met the woman at the well, nearly two thousand years earlier.
John records that it was about the "sixth hour" when Jesus stopped at the well. By Jewish reckoning, that would be noon, but John probably uses Roman time throughout his gospel. That would mean that Jesus stopped at about six o'clock in the evening. No wonder He was weary after a full day of foot-travel under the hot sun of Palestine. He was thirsty, so He sat beside the well to rest while the disciples went into the city to find something to eat. This gives us a beautiful picture of our Lord's humanity.
Living Water
In verses 7 through 26, John gives us an account of perhaps the most remarkable conversation our Lord ever had. As a Samaritan woman approaches the well to draw water. Jesus seizes the opportunity and initiates a conversation.
4:7-10 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews did not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
Already we can see how this story touches the exposed nerves of our own age. We see the prejudice of this society, which treats certain people as second class citizens because of their ethnicity and their sex. Here we see Jesus--the One who spent so much of His brief public ministry in a fight to break down barriers of injustice--as He shatters yet another barrier, a barrier between men and women, a barrier between divided cultures.
Jesus came as a teacher, which is why He is frequently called "Rabbi" (teacher) by those who approach Him. According to Jewish law, rabbis were never to talk to a woman in public--not even to their own wives or sisters. In fact, rabbinical law said, "It is better to burn the Law than give it to a woman." In that culture, women were regarded as totally unable and unworthy to receive and understand such lofty concepts as theology and religion. The status and regard in which women of that culture were held was abysmally low.
Ever since the days of Nehemiah, 450 years earlier, the Jews had regarded the Samaritans as a despised pseudo-Jewish cult. The Samaritans had been brought into the region by the Assyrians to populate the area after they had removed the Jewish population to captivity. The religious practices of the Samaritans were abhorrent to the Jews. The Samaritan scriptures consisted of only the five books of Moses, and the Samaritans had mingled idolatry with the Law of Moses. They had even erected a temple on Mt. Gerizim as a rival to the temple in Jerusalem. So the Jews regarded the Samaritans as heretics and defilers of the Jewish faith, and hated them even more than they hated the Gentiles.
No wonder the Samaritan woman is surprised when Jesus speaks to her!
But notice how Jesus treats her, how He is able to read her heart by reading her circumstances. Although there is another well in the village, this woman must come all the way out to Jacob's Well, a half mile away. Why? Because she is a moral and social outcast! Seeing her approach, Jesus instantly sized up the situation and understood that she was a sinner whom the Father had chosen to call to repentance. As Jesus himself said on one occasion, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."1
Jesus probably knew more about this woman's history than the language of John's narrative suggests. Later, He tells her some facts about herself that He evidently knew in advance. He had been through this small village several times, and had probably heard about her. Now, as she approaches from the village, He probably recognizes her and sees this as an opportunity, arranged by God the Father, for Him to reach out to her and minister to her needs.
So, as He always does when dealing with people, Jesus seizes whatever is at hand to make a connection--and make a point. Seeing a thirsty woman coming to draw water, He says these remarkable words: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and he would have given you living water."
The "gift of God" Jesus refers to is the Holy Spirit. Later, in Acts 2:38, Peter addresses three thousand or more Jews on the Day of Pentecost and says, "Repent and be baptized . . . and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." So Jesus is saying to this woman, in effect, "If you knew about the Holy Spirit and who it is that is talking to you, you would have asked Him to give you living water."
Whoever Drinks Will Never Thirst
But this woman misunderstands, just as Nicodemus misunderstood when Jesus said, "Be born again." He is speaking figuratively. She takes Him literally.
4:11-12 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
In her puzzled response, she reminds Jesus that the well is deep--and it is indeed, sixty feet in depth or more. If you do not have a bucket and a lo-o-ong rope, you cannot get the water out. When Jesus says "living water," she thinks of running water--that is, water from a fountain or stream as compared with still water from a well or cistern. She is saying, "You don't have anything to draw the water with, and there's no fountain or stream around, so where do you expect to get this 'living, running water'?"
Perhaps Jesus' words, "If you knew . . . who it is who asks you for a drink," sound arrogant to her ears. Perhaps she resents the way the Jews have looked down on her and her people for hundreds of years. If so, then her next question may have been asked with a note of skepticism--or even outright scorn: "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" Jacob was the great founder of the Jewish faith. The Samaritans, who had the five books of Moses, looked to Jacob as their father as much as the Jews did.
If there was sarcasm in the woman's question, then Jesus clearly looks past it and responds to her with aggressive compassion.
4:13-14 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Jesus' image of "living water" has gotten the woman's attention. Now He goes on to make His message more clear. He says, in effect, "I am not talking about the water in the well. Drink of that water and you will be thirsty again. I'm talking about a different kind of 'water' altogether."
The woman knows what it means to drink and be thirsty again. She has been coming to that well for years. Day after day, a half mile to the well and a half mile back home again, all for a single jug of water.
But Jesus says He has the gift of water--what He calls "living water"--and once you receive this gift, you will never thirst again. Jesus does not mean, of course, that a single drink cures your thirst for life. He is not saying that those who drink of this gift will never again experience a thirst in their souls. Rather, He is describing a situation that we Americans are so familiar with we take it for granted: piped-in running water!
We Americans have no idea what it means to be truly thirsty, to be surrounded by dry, cracked land without a drop of water in sight. Why? Because we have indoor plumbing and city water departments and viaducts and reservoirs--an efficient, twenty- four-hour-a-day water delivery system. At the slightest whim, you can turn a tap and--voila!--the water comes out!
That is the kind of situation--in a spiritual sense--that Jesus is describing. If you want to keep from thirsting, just have the water piped in--a constant, continuous flow of spiritual refreshment. Take a drink anytime you want, and you will never know true, parching thirst. Many Christians never seem to learn this truth. They never realize that there is a place where their inner thirst--their sense of restlessness, their desire for fulfillment--can be met instantly!
Jesus makes it clear that the source of this water is within--because when the gift of the Holy Spirit is given, the Spirit dwells within: "The water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." As you drink of the Spirit, you experience a quality of life which the Bible calls eternal life. The term eternal life means much more than everlasting life. Eternal life more than just life that goes on and on chronologically. It is life that has the quality of eternity: a rich, refreshing, profoundly meaningful, infinitely exciting life! Life that is saturated with God's own love, joy, and peace. Here is a beautiful picture: a well springing up to eternal life.
(By the way, notice that when Jesus addresses this woman, He does not change the pronoun to "she"; He uses masculine pronouns because that is a generic pronoun referring to both sexes. Whenever the Bible refers to the human race as "men" or individuals as "he" or "him," the feminine gender is always included.)
Piercing Her Darkness
The woman is still confused. She wants to know where she can find this "living water" Jesus has described to her.
4:15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirst and have to keep coming here to draw water."
She doesn't understand--and that's no criticism. Would you or I have understood any better than this woman, given the cultural context and that radically new message Jesus was sharing with her--a message of "living water"? Her understanding is hindered. She is living in darkness. And Jesus must find a way to penetrate her darkness. He must find a way to apply this
message of "living water" directly to this woman's life and her needs. He will have to shake her up and open her eyes so that the light of His truth can enter her being.
So Jesus aims His next arrow straight at this woman's heart--and He scores a perfect bull's-eye.
4:16-18 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
How did Jesus know this? I don't believe it is due to divine omniscience, because I am convinced He didn't exercise divine omniscience during His earthly life. The likelihood is that Jesus had learned about this woman during previous visits to the area. Perhaps her lifestyle was so scandalous that she was a notorious and much talked-about item of gossip. Jesus had never met this woman before, but He knew she had been married five times, and that she was now living with a man without being married--and she was no doubt regarded as a moral pariah in the village.
Why did Jesus confront her with His knowledge of her lifestyle? It was not because He wanted to embarrass her, shame her, or condemn her. He had one purpose only: To help her face the central problem in her life.
The gospel tells us that the steps to redemption are twofold: (1) Repentance and (2) Belief. Repentance is a human act. Belief and regeneration are an act of God. Until we admit our need there is no way of releasing God to act and to regenerate.
Jesus knows that the woman must come to the place of repentance, so He proceeds to deal with the hindrance at the core of her life. "Go call your husband," He tells her. She claims she has no husband--which is technically accurate, though clearly disingenuous. She is trying to create an impression that she lives alone. Jesus responds with a twist of irony: He says, in effect, "Yes, you are speaking quite accurately when you say you have no husband--at the moment. Of course, there are five ex-husbands you neglected to mention, and there's also the matter of the man you are living with who is not your husband. But what you said is quite true--technically speaking."
With these words, Jesus penetrated the woman's denial, evasion, and defenses. In an instant, this woman knew she could not hide from this man and His keen, prophetic insight. He knew all about her--and yet when He told her about herself, He didn't seem to condemn her or ridicule her. He actually accepted her! Even her own people in the village didn't do that!
Jesus had reached this woman's innermost being. He had exposed the emptiness and the thirst in this woman's heart. Her defenses dropped. Her heart fell open like a book. This man had something that she wanted, something she needed. She was now prepared to hear the gospel truth.
A Woman Finds True Love
What is it that causes a woman to marry five different men in succession, and then to live with a man in an unmarried state? What was she looking for? What drove her so relentlessly from relationship to relationship?
It's clear now, isn't it, why the story of this woman rings true today. This woman could be someone you know. She could even be you. This woman is thirsty for love.
Perhaps she was raised by parents who rejected her or who broke down her sense of self-worth. Or perhaps her emotional wounds were inflicted during a difficult adolescence or a troubled marriage. Perhaps one or more of the men she married was an abuser. Perhaps she was emotionally and spiritually empty simply because she had no relationship with God. For whatever reason, this woman had a thirst for love and acceptance which had never been quenched. She had tried--and failed--to find love and acceptance through a succession of relationships with men.
Like so many in our own culture, this Samaritan woman knew what it felt like to "fall in love." She had experienced that sensation again and again--that sense of light-headed euphoria, the flutter in the heart, the throbbing of the pulse. Most of the popular music written throughout this century is written in praise of this powerful sensation called "falling in love."
But though she had "fallen in love" again and again and again, the Samaritan woman had not found true love. She had learned that heady intoxication of "falling in love" only lasts so long--and then something deeper and more real must take its place. If not, the relationship will die. This woman craved a secure and binding kind of love--a love to last a lifetime. But with each new relationship, with each new marriage, that hope became bleaker and more remote.
Finally, she had reached a point where she had given up on the commitment of marriage. She was just hoping to salvage some love from an unsanctioned relationship--a relationship with a typical "man of the '90s," the type of man who wants a relationship but is afraid of commitment!
All of this, Jesus saw in the woman at the well. He understood her loneliness. He sensed her fear--the fear that she was growing older and still had not found the security and sanctuary of an abiding, true love. He knew that her search for acceptance and self-worth and love had led her to seek the wrong kinds of love. In her desperation to find romantic fulfillment, she had made herself a moral outcast. Jesus made a decision to gently confront this woman with the very thing that was destroying her and ruining her life and her reputation. He took this opportunity to point her to true refreshment, true fulfillment, and true love. That was what she was thirsting for, and He had the gift of "living water" which alone could quench her thirst. Gently, simply, compassionately, and without the least hint of condemnation, Jesus pointed her to the truth.
"You Are a Prophet!"
4:19-20 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
The woman's response is revealing.
Most of the commentators take her response to be an evasion on her part, an attempt to change the subject in order to deflect further probing by Jesus. I once thought so myself, but I have come to see her response in a different light. I believe she is admitting that Jesus is right about her. She says, in other words, "You must be a prophet. You've seen me, you know my life, and you know my heart." Later, she will go into the village and call out, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!" By her response, she is confessing that Jesus has spoken the truth about her.
I believe her next question, far from being an evasion, is an honest plea for help. She now understands that this talk about "living water" was a revelation of spiritual truth. Now she wants to know how she can have this spiritual water herself. She wants to know what she should do, where she should go, how she should sacrifice and worship in order to receive "living water" from God. And Jesus' reply is absolutely fitting to her searching, sincere question.
4:21-24 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
Here, Jesus makes three remarkable statements. First: He says, in effect, "Your question about where to worship is soon going to be entirely irrelevant. The hour is coming when geography will no longer be an issue. Temples or buildings will not be necessary to worship God. You yourself--your body and spirit will be the temple of God, and that is where you will worship Him." Jesus knew that, by His death and resurrection, He would abolish all mere symbols of earthly worship so that the reality of true worship could break through. Temples, buildings, and mountaintops would be irrelevant once God came to dwell within men and women.
Second: He said to her, in other words, "You worship what you do not know. Your knowledge is incomplete. You have some truth, but it is mingled with error." This often happens. Most cults teach a garbled version of Christian truth, mingled with error. But Jesus says, "The Jews at least know where to carry out proper symbolic worship, because they are the race by which God is carrying out His plan. They are the race which has produced the Savior."
Third: Jesus says, "Here is what true worship is: true worship is done in your human spirit." True worship comes from the heart, and it is honest, not put-on. It is not something you do with your body while your mind is somewhere else. It is not just showing up for church and mouthing hymns and closing your eyes during prayer while you think about the Forty-Niners game or the preparations you have to make for Sunday dinner. In every congregation, God is looking for those who mean what they are singing and what they are praying. He is seeking true fellowship with those who have put their trust in Him--not a lot of empty rituals performed in buildings with stained glass windows.
God is spirit, and so are we, at the innermost core of our being. Therefore, worship is the joining together of Spirit with spirit.
The woman still cannot quite believe that such a radical change is coming in the way people meet and worship their God. Certainly, this man must be referring to some distant time, such as the long-predicted time of the coming of the Messiah. John records the climactic moment of their dialogue next.
4:25-26 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am He."
I cannot read this passage without feeling a shiver down my backbone. Some critics say that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, but the claim could not be made any plainer than it is in this verse: "I who speak to you am He." He has revealed himself unmistakably to her: He is the One foretold by the prophets. He is the One awaited and hoped for by generations. And He has come to Jacob's Well to talk to her. He is the Messiah!
"Come and See!"
In response this woman immediately forgets her water jar and becomes an evangelist!
4:27-30 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking With her?"
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Here we see the Spirit of God at work through this reborn woman. "Come and see!" she calls. "There is a man at the Well of Jacob who told me everything I ever did!" Called out of their homes by a woman they have considered an outcast, the people stream out the town and toward the well where Jesus waits. Why would they listen to this woman they have always ignored, even despised? Because there is a power in her--the power of "living water," the power of the Spirit of God--and that power energizes her words, drawing people out of their normal routines, overcoming their prejudices, drawing them toward Jesus.
A Lesson for the Disciples
The encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well became an invaluable object lesson for Jesus' own disciples.
4:31-38 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
But He said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
The first thing Jesus taught them was that there is a deep satisfaction in obedience to what God wants--a satisfaction so rich it is like food! It fills you, it satisfies, it builds you up.
Then Jesus goes on to describe the spiritual harvest that awaits them. He uses a parallel out of everyday experience in that culture: planting seeds and harvesting crops. In a growing season, He says, four months elapse between sowing and harvesting--but in the spiritual realm the harvest can arise instantly, without warning! Time is irrelevant in the realm of the spirit. Though the order is the same--first planting, then harvest--the spiritual crop can sprout up in a wink, in a heartbeat. And when that happens, the sower and the reaper can rejoice together.
Another lesson Jesus gave the disciples was the joy of sharing labor, of ministering together. Jesus labored by teaching the woman and calling her to himself. Then she labored, going into the village and spreading the good news. The disciples--who were out grocery shopping while all this exciting ministry was going on!--arrived in time to baptize the new converts and reap a harvest where Jesus and the woman had sown.
All of these people--Jesus, the re-born woman, and the disciples--were in ministry together. They were an evangelistic team, and through the division of their labor, with each fulfilling his or her unique role, a village was evangelized. That is the way the gospel is spread: Some sow, others reap, but all labor together under God and can rejoice together.
A Changed Town
The story closes with a picture of an entire town that has undergone spiritual transformation.
4:39-42 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
Here we see a thrilling process of spiritual growth taking root in this Samaritan village. Many came to Christ by believing the testimony of others. They saw what God did in the woman's life, or in the life of someone who believed her testimony. They were affected by what they saw, and they too believed.
But their Christian walk did not end there. They began to experience the power of God's active presence in their own lives. They experienced a deep new level of personal growth and faith.
After two days with Jesus, the whole city was beginning to believe. Jesus had never experienced such an outpouring of repentance and belief among the Jews. Seeing these Samaritans--people whom the Jews despised, ignored, and walked two days out of their way to avoid--believing and responding. Jesus was uplifted and strengthened. Like the Jews, the Samaritans had seen the Messiah as a political liberator who would someday overthrow Roman rule But now these new Samaritan believers saw the Messiah as the Savior of the world, the redeemer of all men and women who place their trust in Him.
What happened in the Samaritan village of Sychar can happen in our lives as well. The fountain of living water flows freely within every believer in Jesus Christ. Eternal life and abiding love are there for each of us. The lesson of the story of the woman at the well is as profound and relevant today as it ever was: Taste the living water! Worship in spirit and in truth! Drink deeply of One who has come and has proved himself the Savior of the world!
Chapter Eleven
The Encourager of Faith
John 4:43-54
Tom Landry, former head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, is an encourager. He once said, "My job as a coach is to make men do what they don't want to do, in order to achieve what they really want to achieve." Every football player wants to win the championship and earn his Super Bowl ring--but to get to the Super Bowl, a player has to do a lot of things he doesn't want to do: grueling, exhausting, boring, repetitive training. He has to absorb a lot of pain before he achieves the gain. And the job of a coach is to encourage his players--often at the top of his lungs!--to keep on doing what they don't want to do, so that they can win games and achieve their goals.
In the second half of John 4, we will see that Jesus was that kind of encourager as well. He was sometimes blunt, sometimes confrontational--but only because he loved people enough to give them what they truly needed in order to have saving faith. Jesus, as we are about to see, was not only the Object of faith, but the Encourager of faith as well.
Back to Galilee
Jesus and His disciples have just come off an enormous spiritual high, having seen an amazing spiritual awakening take place in a Samaritan village, beginning with the conversion of the woman at the well. It has been a time of rejoicing over an unexpected spiritual harvest.
I believe that even Jesus did not know for sure that something like that was going to happen. He is our model for Christian living and ministry, and I believe He lived in dependence upon God's leading, taking one day at a time, because He wanted to teach us how to do the same. Though He was fully God, I believe Jesus set aside the prerogatives of God--such as omniscience--when He became a man so that He could fully identify with us, and we with Him.1 Jesus was showing us that the Christian life is a life of adventure and anticipation of what a creative God will do in our lives. We cannot guess what will happen next, but if we rely upon God, we can be sure that whatever happens will certainly be exciting!
A Prophet Without Honor
After two days of ministry among the people in the Samaritan village, Jesus is ready to move on to Galilee, the northern province of Israel. The towns of Nazareth, where Jesus had spent most of His life, and Cana, where He performed His first miracle, were located in the central part of Galilee.
4:43-45 After the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also had been there.
Here John explains why Jesus went to Jerusalem in the first place. He had performed His first miracle in Galilee--yet His reception in Galilee was lukewarm. Why? As John notes in verse 44, "a prophet has no honor in his own country."
Jesus is stating a truth that many people have discovered: It is hard to gain acceptance and recognition in one's own home town, but if you make a hit somewhere else and return home, the folks you grew up with will see you in an entirely different light. That's just human nature, and that's why Jesus went to Jerusalem--not to gain fame, status, or popularity, but to gain wider audience for the message of truth. He knew the people of Galilee would be more receptive to His message if He returned triumphantly from Jerusalem.
So Jesus left Galilee and went to minister in Jerusalem, beginning by cleansing the temple, and continuing by doing miraculous signs throughout the time of the Passover Feast. Then He returned to Galilee by the direct route leading through Samaria. He returned to His home region with a greatly enhanced reputation. As John notes in verse 45, "When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him." They had never welcomed Him before. In fact, as Luke 4 records, when He identified Himself as the Messiah in the synagogue of His home town of Nazareth, the people rioted and attempted to kill Him by throwing Him off a cliff.
But now, the people of Galilee--like people from all over Israel--had gone to Jerusalem for Passover and there they witnessed Jesus in action: cleansing the temple, healing the sick and the blind, making the lame to walk. Now, as He returned home to Galilee, the Galileans saw Him in a different light--and they welcomed Him.
4:46-47 Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
I believe Jesus selected Cana as His next stop for an important symbolic reason. Cana was the place where He had performed His first miracle, turning water into wine. That miracle was a revelation of Jesus as the Lord of Nature. It demonstrated His authority to command the forces of Nature.
It is in Cana that Jesus again takes up His ministry.
A Father's Fear
At the same time, just twenty miles away in the city of Capernaum, an anguished father stands at the bedside of his young son, watching the boy slowly succumb to fever and disease. If you are a parent, you may have experienced the helplessness this father felt--the cold clutch of fear that grips your heart as you watch the suffering of your child, who means more to you than your own life.
The return of Jesus to Galilee apparently made quite a commotion, and the news reached the ears of this father, who was a royal official. He immediately rushed to Cana--possibly riding on horseback to save time--and located Jesus. He pleaded with Jesus to come to Capernaum and heal his son, who was lying at death's door.
After seeing the compassion with which Jesus responded to the woman at the well, you would expect Jesus to immediately drop everything and help this distraught father. But that's not what happens. What Jesus says next is almost unbelievable!
4:48 "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe."
What a harsh word to give a man who is on the verge of losing a child! Where is Jesus' compassion? This doesn't sound like Jesus at all! In fact, it Seems He is turning a cold shoulder to the man's plea.
But all is not as it seems at first glance. Notice that Jesus addresses the man in the plural form. He says, "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." Many English translations fail to convey the plural nature of the word you, and make it seem as if Jesus is only scolding this one poor, distraught man. But the NIV is very true to the original text at this point, making it clear that Jesus is not chiding the man, but is rather making an observation on a group of people--that group being the class to which this father belongs, the privileged class. It was the privileged class which, for the most part, treated Jesus with skepticism and opposed His work.
The NIV calls this man a "royal official," and the King James Version calls this man a "nobleman." In the original text, he is literally a "king's man," a member of Herod's retinue and a part of the governing class of Galilee. It is to this class that Jesus addresses this word of rebuke.
Why does Jesus rebuke those who demand signs and wonders in order to believe? Isn't that what miracles are for--to inspire faith? We would all like to see miracles--supernatural events that demonstrate God's direct intervention in nature and in human affairs. And yet this hunger for the wondrous and miraculous can often hinder rather than help our faith.
People are drawn by the thousands to the meetings and television broadcasts of so-called "faith healers," because these people have an insatiable craving for signs and wonders. Their faith depends on a regular dose of emotional and sensational healings: the eyes of the blind being opened, people jumping out of wheelchairs, people tossing their canes and crutches aside. Those who continually seek these kinds of signs and wonders are the prime candidates for being fleeced by the religious racketeers who offer "healing from God" while taking in millions of dollars in donations. These "healers" are generally accountable to no one for the money they receive, and they live the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
An Unexpected Answer
This father came to Jesus, pleading for healing for his son. Jesus' immediate response was to lecture the man on faith. Why?
I believe that, like Tom Landry at the beginning of this chapter. Jesus was acting as a "coach." He was encouraging this man to have faith--not the kind of faith that demands signs and wonders, but the deeper, truer faith that trusts God even without the demonstration of miracles.
What was the man doing when he came to Jesus, pleading with Jesus to heal his son? He was praying, of course! And one of the truths this man had to learn about prayer--and one of the truths you and I have to learn as well!--is that while God answers prayer, He doesn't always answer it in the way we expect. Our faith must be deep enough and wide enough and strong enough to embrace and encompass the answer God gives us in whatever way He chooses to give it.
Jesus was willing--as we will soon see--to heal the man's son. But He didn't say so right away--because He wanted to do something greater in this man's life than merely heal his son. He wanted to transform this father's life and faith. He wanted to coach this man toward a stronger, more durable faith. As the Savior and Shepherd of the human race, Jesus loved this man too much to allow him to leave his presence unchanged.
As part of the process of tempering and hardening the man's faith, Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." The anxious father, however, was in no frame of mind to discuss miracles and faith with Jesus. All he could think about was the welfare of his little boy.
4:49 The royal official said "Sir, come down before my child dies."
In the original language, the man uses a very plaintive and affectionate word for child. In other words, he is saying, "Come before my dear little boy dies." There is agony in his words. His heart is being stretched to the breaking point.
He has a kernel of faith--faith that this unknown miracle worker has powers that no one else has. He is desperate enough to leave his son's bedside and seek out the miracle worker. But it is not a strong faith. It is not a trust in the power of God. Rather, it is a last-ditch hope in an unknown stranger with reputed powers. He pleads with the miracle-worker to return to Capernaum with him, and if the miracle-worker refuses to come in person and touch the boy, this man thinks that all will be lost.
But Jesus doesn't want him to merely believe in a traveling miracle-worker. He wants this man to trust, completely and confidently, in the power of God.
4:50a Jesus replied "You may go. Your son will live."
A more accurate translation would be, "You may go. Your son is living, he lives right now." Notice that in these words, Jesus both answers the father's prayer--and denies it at the same time! The man has not only prayed for his son to be healed, but he has unwittingly attempted to dictate the terms of that healing, I'm sure he didn't mean to dictate to Jesus; he simply couldn't conceive of Jesus healing his son without physically going to him and touching him. But Jesus refused to go with the man. He answered the man's prayer for healing, but He answered it on His own terms. He dismissed the man, saying, "You may go. Your son will live."
Does this seem harsh to you? The mercy of God often seems to us like a severe mercy. Once we understand what God is about, then His seeming harshness comes into focus as an even greater goodness and loving gift than we imagined!
Jesus was not being unkind to the man by refusing to go with him. He was giving him a rare and wonderful gift. He was giving him the privilege and opportunity to believe at a deeper level of faith. He was "coaching" this man into experiencing a stronger, more durable faith. The message of Jesus to this father was, "Don't just believe in what I can do for your little boy. Believe in who I am."
Not What You Feel But What You Do
To summarize this conversation in modern English, it would be fair to say the exchange between Jesus and the official from Capernaum went something like this:
JESUS: "Are you one of those 'seeing is believing' kind of people? Or do you have a genuine faith?"
THE FATHER: "Sir, I'm just a desperate father. I don't want to argue with you or talk about what class I belong to. My poor little boy is dying and I need your help."
JESUS: "Then go back to your son. I don't have to go with you. He's already healed now. You don't have to see to believe. First believe--and then you will see."
Is Jesus a man who keeps His word? Is He a man with power to heal by His command, even from twenty miles away? These are the questions this father has to face and answer. And He does answer them.
4:50b The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
He let go of his demand that Jesus heal according to his own dictates. He trusted Jesus to keep His word. Personally, I suspect this man did not feel at ease. I imagine he went home with many doubts and questions on his mind. Perhaps, as he journeyed home, he said to himself. "Why did I leave Him? If I had just pressed Him a little more, perhaps He would have come with me. What if I get home and my boy doesn't get well? What if I get home and he's already gone?"
True faith does not mean an absence of questioning, any more than true courage means an absence of fear. Courage is the will to act in a positive, proactive way despite your fears. Faith is the will to act in a positive, proactive way despite your uncertain feelings. The man acted. He did what Jesus told him to do. Though he was uncertain, he obeyed the word of Jesus. Faith is not what you feel, it's what you do! Faith is obedience.
You probably know what it means to come to Jesus with a request--perhaps a desperate request. "Lord," you pray, "please answer this prayer, and answer it in this way. Lord, come here, do this, supply that, and do it all within this time frame." We all do this, I'm afraid. Out of the anguish of our hearts we can think of no other way for Jesus to respond than the way we have in mind. We say, "Come, Lord." But He does not come. And so, we doubt.
Jesus, our coach in the game of life, has something larger in mind for us than merely answering our prayers within the limited scope in which we pray them. He wants to do something greater in our lives than merely say "Yes" to our prayers. He wants to transform our lives and our faith. He wants to coach us toward a stronger, more durable faith. He loves us too much to allow us to remain unchanged.
The Rest of the Story
In verses 51 through 53, John gives us what radio commentator Paul Harvey calls "the rest of the story."
4:51-53 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, "The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour."
Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he and all his household believed.
One detail in this story tends to verify my suspicion that this man was plagued with uncertainty, even while he acted in faith and obedience to Jesus: He checked the hour when his little boy began to improve. If he hadn't felt at least some nagging doubts, he wouldn't have bothered to ask! He was looking for verification that Jesus really did what He said He would do--and everything checked! The fever left the boy at the precise moment Jesus said, "You may go. Your son will live."
Now the man understood--not merely what Jesus could do, but who Jesus was. This amazing man had authority over all illness, and He was not limited by distance or time. When the man came to this realization, says the apostle John in verse 53. "he and all his household believed."
But didn't he already believe? Didn't Jesus heal his son in response to the man's faith?
Yes--but the little kernel of faith this man began with was being nurtured by Jesus. Once the man arrived home and the miracle of his restored son became real, the man broke through to an even deeper level of faith. Suddenly, this man understood that he could trust God, and he could rely upon God to work out all the issues and crises in his life in ways far beyond what he himself could engineer or anticipate.
There is an interesting footnote to this incident. Some scholars believe that this royal official later became a leader in the early church, and that he is mentioned by name in Acts 13:1--"Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch)." In other words, he was the foster-brother of Herod the king, which would make him a "king's man," as he is literally called in John 4. We can't be certain that the royal official of John 4 is indeed Manaen, but if so, then we have just witnessed the moment Manaen came to Christ.
The Meaning of the Sign
In the closing verse of this chapter John affirms that this was more than just a miracle; it was a sign, which pointed out something significant about Jesus.
4:54 This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.
The first sign was the changing of water into wine. As we have seen, there was an important meaning embedded in that sign. It pointed to a truth about Jesus that we would otherwise not have known--the truth that Jesus is the Lord of Nature.
The second sign, the healing of the official's son, also points to a new truth about Jesus: He is the Great Physician, with authority over illness that is far beyond the ability of human beings.
Another profound truth about Jesus in this story is that He is the Encourager of our faith. He is our coach. Just as Tom Landry said, the job of a coach is to make us do what we don't want to do in order to achieve a larger goal. We don't want to have to wait for answers to our prayers. We don't want to have our prayers answered in any other way but the way we ask them. But Jesus, our coach in the game of life, is looking to that larger goal, and He is encouraging us to grow our faith.
That is why Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith. He is the Source of our faith, and the Object of our worship--but He is also helping us to grow and perfect our faith in Him. Jesus, the Encourager of our faith, puts us through circumstances we don't want to go through, and makes us face things we do not like to face--but He does so because of his great love for us, so that we can achieve what we have always wanted with all our hearts: the strengthening of our faith.
Chapter Twelve
Do You Want To Get Well?
John 5:1-17
For hundreds of years, the pools of the village of Bath, England, have been considered to have healing properties because they are fed by natural mineral springs. To this day, thousands of people flock every year to bathe in the waters of Bath.
Nearly two hundred years ago, a famous English doctor, Sir Walter Farquhar, prescribed a three-week visit to the pools of Bath as a curative for one of his elderly female patients. The woman had complained for years of an ailment that had never been clearly diagnosed, so--unable to do anything else for her--Dr. Farquhar suggested that a stay in Bath might do her some good.
"But Doctor," the woman protested, "I wouldn't want to be out of your care for three weeks! You know how ill I am! What if I took a turn for the worse? Who could I trust to take care of me?"
"Ah, but there is an absolutely wonderful doctor in Bath," said Dr. Farquhar. "A very competent man. I guarantee that Dr. Lewis will give you the best of care. I'll give you a letter of introduction to take to Dr. Lewis. The letter will give him your complete medical history. It will be just as if I were treating you myself."
So the woman set out with a companion on the carriage ride to Bath. As they rode, the old woman's companion asked just what sort of ailment she was being treated for. "Well," the woman said, "Dr. Farquhar has never actually told me. But he gives my entire medical history in this letter to Dr. Lewis. Perhaps I should read it and find out--"
"Oh, no!" said her companion. "You mustn't do that!"
But the woman's curiosity was too strong. She took out the letter, ripped open the envelope, and read:
"Dear Dr. Lewis: The illness is all in her head. Keep the old lady in Bath for three weeks, then send her back to me. Truly yours, W. Farquhar."
In John chapter 5, we are going to visit--along with Jesus--another natural pool, where many who sought healing were convinced of its healing powers. It is the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem.
5:1-3 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
[Note: The best and most reliable of the ancient manuscripts do not contain verse 4, which reads:
From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.]
Verse 4, which was probably not written by the apostle John, may have been inserted later to explain why the people had come to the pool of Bethesda. The people maintained a superstitious belief that whenever the water of the pools was "stirred"--that is, when it rapidly rose, then sank again--it was the result of an angel visiting the pool. According to the superstition, the first one to enter the pool after the "stirring" would be healed.
This is similar to the legends that have grown up around similar sites in our modern world. In the village of Lourdes in southern France, for example, there is a spa which many people believe has divine healing properties. And at the shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico City, thousands of crutches are stacked along the walls to mark that site as a place where people receive a healing from God.
Do people actually receive divine healing at places like the spa at Lourdes, the shrine of Guadalupe, or the pool of Bethesda? Let's examine the pool at Bethesda more closely and see what evidence we find. The pool of Bethesda, like many similar pools in the Jerusalem area, is fed by an intermittent underground spring. At various times, water is released in surges from hidden underground reservoirs under the city, causing these springs to rise and fall suddenly. This activity of the water--which was completely mysterious to the people of that time--gave rise to the superstition about an angel troubling the pool.
Undoubtedly, healings did occur there. Even today, healings take place in Lourdes and Mexico City when people go to such places in the belief that they can be healed. But most of these healings can be explained psychologically. In some cases, the "illness" may have been nothing more than a case of hypochondria--which, of course, was the diagnosis Dr. Farquhar made of the lady he sent to Bath.
But even more fascinating is the fact that researchers have shown that many genuine illnesses and ailments of the body can actually be healed when people believe strongly enough that healing is taking place. This is called the "placebo effect," and that is why whenever a new drug is tested, half the test group is always given a "placebo"--a fake "drug" such as a sugar pill--while the other half is given the real drug. If the real drug is no more effective than the "placebo" drug, then researchers know the drug doesn't work. The "placebo effect"--the power of mind over illness--is often so strong that the sugar pills frequently out-cure the real drugs!
So the fact that healings may have taken place at a site such as the pool of Bethesda doesn't mean that the healings were actually the work of God or angels. The pool might have been nothing more than a huge, water-filled placebo! In any case, the pool had established a reputation as a place where people could be healed at the time that Jesus paid a visit there in John chapter 5.
For many years the site of this pool was lost, buried under the debris of the centuries, but it was discovered and excavated in the 1960s. The pool is located to the north of the Temple Mount, near what is now called St. Stephen's Gate (which is built on the site of the Sheep Gate mentioned in verse 2). In these porches which were built around the pool, many of the people of our Lord's times used to gather during feast days, hoping for a healing miracle.
"Do You Want To Get Well?"
Now John introduces a man who needs the touch of the Great Physician.
5:5-6 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?
Many people read this and assume that the disabled man has been at this pool for 38 years. But that's not what the passage says. It says he has been ill for 38 years. We don't know why. He is not referred to in this passage as "lame." Rather, he is weak, feeble, and unable to stand. He may have been stricken by some wasting disease such as polio, tuberculosis, or multiple sclerosis. Whatever his diagnosis, this man has been infirm for a very long time.
He is one among scores of lame, blind, paralyzed, and sick people, all waiting for the waters of the pool to heal them. Out of this entire crowd, Jesus selected this one man. He did not heal everyone. He didn't speak to everyone. He didn't preach to the multitude. He went only to one man.
This is an important point, for this story is intended to show us how God deals with human need and weakness. Undoubtedly, it was the helplessness of this man that drew Jesus to him. Perhaps you can identify with this weak and helpless man who lay beside the pool of Bethesda. Perhaps you know what it means to have a hurt that lingers and aches and won't go away. Perhaps you feel paralyzed in some area of your life. You are stricken by a sense of failure. Or sorrow. Or physical affliction. Or the cruel mistreatment of someone close to you. Or an addiction. Or a sinful habit such as lust, pornography, or adultery. In some sense, in some area of your life, you know how this invalid man feels.
It is to people such as this man--and people like yourself--that Jesus is drawn.
A Strange Question
Now notice the question Jesus asks the man: "Do you want to get well?" What a strange question to ask a man who had been sick for 38 years! Yet we know that Jesus never asked a foolish or pointless question in His life. Obviously it was important for this man to answer--at least to himself--this question.
As strange as it may seem, there are many people today who do not want to be healed. They do not want to receive divine help in their problems. They do not want to be helped out of their weakness. Outwardly, they may complain about their condition, but inwardly they love their weakness. They cling to the "victim" role, the "poor me" role, because they crave the attention that other people give them because of their problems and suffering.
Another reason some people do not want to be healed is that they fear change. They have become comfortable with their pain and their problems. To be healed would mean making changes in their lives and assuming responsibility for their lives. They could be delivered if they really wanted to--but it's much easier to stay mired in a trough of familiar unhappiness than to be healed and delivered and have to make major changes in their lives.
The question Jesus asked this man is the same question He asks you and me: "Do you want to be healed?" Do we want to be healed of that addiction? Do we want to be healed in our marriage relationships? Do we want to experience emotional and psychological healing? Do we want to be spiritually healed? Before we glibly answer "Yes," let's acknowledge that healing in each of these areas calls forth a commitment and some hard work and a willingness to change.
"Do you want to be healed?" I believe that if this man had said, "No, Jesus, to be honest with you, after 38 years I've become rather comfortable with my affliction," then I suspect Jesus would have gone his way and left the man in his weakness. You cannot help somebody who doesn't want to be helped. You can't help people who will not admit their need, who insist that they are doing all right and don't need anyone's help.
Jesus came to help the helpless, not the self-sufficient. He is the Solution for those who have given up trying to solve their problems in their own strength and wisdom. But Jesus can do nothing for those who are determined to make it on their own. If the Lord says to you. "Do you want to be healed?" and you answer, "Not yet," or, "I'm doing okay," or, "I'll let you know if I can't handle it," then He can do nothing more for you.
"Yes, But . . ."
The man at the pool of Bethesda answers Jesus' question.
5:7 "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
The man's answer to Jesus' question is, "Yes, but . . . ." In other words, "Yes, I want to be healed, but I cannot. I've tried, I've done everything I know how. I want to get into that water, but I lack the ability. No one will help me. I've given up. I have no hope."
Many people are like that. They've given up all hope of being healed. They have resigned themselves to their pain or their weakness or their addiction.
It is amazing to me how many people casually feel they are in control of something that really controls them. They are like the person who says, "It's easy to stop smoking. I've done it hundreds of times!" What they are really saying is, "I give up. I've tried to change my situation, but it's hopeless."
A young pastor once told me that his problem was that he loved to read pornographic magazines. That's right, a pastor! Outwardly, he gave the impression that he was one of God's most dedicated servants. But inwardly, he was living a lifestyle of sin. He told me he could not pass a magazine store without going in and looking at filthy magazines, buying them and taking them home with him, and hiding them from his wife and children. He told me he had tried to stop but he could not. "What will I do?" he asked me.
I asked him if he really wanted to change, if he really wanted to be healed of his lust for pornography. His answer was like that of the man at the pool of Bethesda: "Yes, but . . . ." On one level, he hated what he did and was afraid his wife or someone else would discover his hidden sin. But on another level he was unwilling to give it up. Many people are right where this pastor was--wanting to be set free, yet on some level feeling either helpless or unwilling to fully make a break with the sin or the circumstance that is holding them down.
Asking the Impossible
So what is Jesus response to a person who has lost all hope, who has given up on himself or herself! We see it in His answer to the man at the pool. Jesus didn't say, "I'll help you into the pool the next time the water moves." He could have, but He didn't.
He could have said, "Hang in there. Keep coming to the pool and you'll make it some day." But no, He didn't say that either.
He could have said. "Let's at least make you comfortable. Let's get you a new mattress to lie on and get you something to snack on while you wait." But no, He didn't do that either.
What does Jesus say, then? Notice His method: First, He asks the impossible. Second, He removes all possibility of a relapse. Third, He expects continued success.
5:8-9a Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
First, Jesus tells the man to do what he has not been able to do for 38 years: Get up and walk!
What went through this man's mind when Jesus told him to do the impossible? Perhaps he thought, "If this man tells me to walk when I obviously can't walk it must mean that He intends to do something to enable me to walk." Thus his faith is transferred from his own efforts to Jesus. Obviously, it was Jesus' will that this man should obey Him, and the moment the man's will agreed with the Lord's will, the power was there.
We don't know whether the man felt anything as the healing took place. There is no mention of any sensations of warmth or power flowing into him or anything melodramatic. All we know is that strength came into his bones and nerves and muscles. Before he couldn't stand. Now he could.
Second, Jesus commanded the man, "Pick up your mat and walk." Bible teacher G. Campbell Morgan has said that the reason Jesus ordered him to take up his mat was "in order to make no provision for a relapse." The man might have said to himself, "I'm healed now--but I'd better leave my bed here in case of a relapse. I may need it tomorrow." Jesus didn't want to leave this man a back door through which he could escape back into his illness and his old ways.
Jesus is saying something important to all of us who need His healing: Don't make any provision to go back on your healing. Burn your bridges behind you. If you are giving up alcohol or cigarettes, don't keep a bottle or a pack in the basement. Say no to friends who have been luring you into evil. Don't go within ten blocks of the store that sells the magazines that tempt you. Cancel that cable channel with the sex-oriented movies you have trouble resisting. Cut off any possibility of going back. Let somebody know the new stand you have taken, and ask that person to check on you and hold you accountable. Find a counselor, support group, or recovery group that can keep you moving forward, not backward, in your healing process.
Third, Jesus says, "Walk." Don't expect to be carried. Get on your feet and walk. Many people want to be carried after they are healed. They expect everybody to gather around them and keep them going--and this is a common source of failure. If Jesus gives you the power to rise. He can certainly give you the power to walk daily and keep going--not looking to your friends or to anyone else to carry you, but looking only unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith.
Mounting Rejection
This chapter marks a major division in the gospel of John. In the first four chapters, Jesus has been presented to us as the Son of God, and He has presented Himself to the Jews as the promised Messiah. But now in chapter 5, John begins to trace a mounting climate of rejection toward the claims of Jesus. There is a growing mood of hostility in official circles against the ministry of the Lord. This rejection will gather around three remarkable acts of healing by Jesus: First, the healing here in John 5 of the man at the pool of Bethesda. Second, the healing of the man born blind in John 9. Third, the greatest of all His miracles, the raising of Lazarus from the dead in John 11. This mood of hostility toward Jesus will grow until it culminates in His death by torture upon the cross.
5:9b-11 The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."
But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'"
Jesus has healed this man--but He has also gotten him into trouble with the authorities! He has told him to do something which violates the Sabbath restrictions. At first glance it might seem that the Jewish leaders were right to criticize a man carrying his bed on the Sabbath, for the Law of Moses did say that the Jews were to keep the Sabbath and not do any work on that day. After studying that law, the teachers of Israel had--perhaps with good intentions--spelled out 39 different ways by which the Sabbath could be violated by certain types of work. One of the ways was carrying any kind of a load on the Sabbath day. Jeremiah 17:22 specifically warned, "Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers." So on the surface there appears to be some justification for their intervention in this case.
But the true motive of their hearts is about to be revealed. The healed man answers them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" The Jewish leaders' intentions ar