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  • The Gospel According to John.

  • In the first video, we saw that John wrote this book to make the claim

  • that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the human embodiment of God's Word

  • and glorious presence who has come to reveal who God truly is.

  • Then we explored how John design the first half of the book

  • to demonstrate this claim.

  • Jesus performed miraculous signs and make huge claims about himself

  • that He is the reality to which Israel's entire history points.

  • And this all generates controversy ; however,

  • and the Jewish leaders confront Jesus for all these claims.

  • And it culminated with Jesus laying down His life for His friend Lazarus;

  • by going near Jerusalem to raise him from the dead. Jesus sealed His fate.

  • And so once the plot to murder Jesus is set in motion we come into the book second half.

  • The first part focuses entirely on Jesus' final night

  • and last words to the disciples as He tries to prepare them for His coming death.

  • Jesus performs the shocking act at dinner:

  • He takes on the role of a common servant by kneeling down to wash their dirty feet;

  • something that in their culture a superior rabbi would never do for his disciples.

  • And Jesus says it's a symbol of His entire life purpose:

  • to reveal the true nature of God as a being of self giving love.

  • And it's also a symbol of what Jesus is about to do in becoming a servant

  • and giving up His life to die for the sins of the world.

  • And so this act leads to His great command to His disciples

  • that they are to follow Him by loving one another as He has loved them.

  • Acts of loving generosity are to be the hallmark of Jesus's followers:

  • this is what will show the world who Jesus is and therefore who God is.

  • And from here Jesus goes into a long flowing speech that's concluded with a prayer.

  • And you'll find the whole thing is unified by a few repeated themes.

  • Jesus keep saying that He's going away, which makes the disciples sad,

  • but Jesus says it's for the best because it means

  • that He will send the spirit, also known as The Advocate.

  • As a human Jesus can only be in one place at a time,

  • but the Spirit can be Jesus' divine personal presence in any place at any time.

  • And the Spirit will do a number of things, Jesus says.

  • So remember for John, the unique deity of the One God

  • consists of that loving unified relation- ship between the Father and the Son.

  • Jesus says the Spirit is that loving personal presence

  • that will come to live in His people

  • and draw them into the love between the Father and the Son.

  • And so Jesus says His disciples are the ones

  • who abide or remain in that divine love.

  • The way the branches are connected to a vine.

  • He's describing here how the personal love of God can permeate a person's life,

  • healing, transforming and making them new, and there's more.

  • The spirit will also empower Jesus' followers

  • to carry on His mission in the world.

  • To first of all fulfill the Great command to love others

  • through radical acts of service.

  • But also Jesus says the mission is to bear witness to the truth,

  • to expose and name the selfish sinful ways that we as humans treat each other

  • and to declare that in Jesus God has saved the world

  • through Him because He loves it.

  • He's opened up a new way to become human again.

  • And so finally Jesus predicts that there will be opposition,

  • just as the Jewish leaders rejected Him, so his followers will be persecuted.

  • But He tells them not to be afraid because He has already conquered

  • or gain victory over the world.

  • Now, what does Jesus mean by victory here? He doesn't say.

  • But it leads us into the final section of the book

  • where John shows us what victory looks like: Jesus' style.

  • The Jewish leaders sent soldiers to Jesus and His disciples to arrest Him.

  • And when the soldiers ask which one Jesus is

  • He declares: "I am" and they fall backward.

  • Now this is brilliant on John's part:

  • these words are the culmination of two sets of seven instances

  • where Jesus has used that very phrase.

  • And it all highlights one of John's core claims about Jesus.

  • The words "I am" are in Greek 'ego eimai',

  • the greek translation of the Hebrew personal covenant name of God

  • that was revealed to Moses back in Exodus chapter 3.

  • It was also repeated many times in Isaiah.

  • And John has strategically placed seven moments in his story

  • where Jesus says: "I Am" followed by some astounding claim:

  • "I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world;

  • the gate for the Sheep; the Good Shepherd; the resurrection;

  • the way, the truth and the life; The True Vine."

  • And John's also designed seven other stories that have key moments

  • where Jesus says simply I am, echoing this divine name.

  • And so here, this occurrence, as Jesus is arrested,

  • is the ironic climax of all of them because Jesus reveals His divine name

  • and power and victory precisely at the moment that He gives up His life.

  • After this, Jesus is put on trial for His exalted claims

  • to be the Son of God and the King of Israel:

  • first before the high priests, and then before the Roman governor Pilate

  • who has to take seriously anyone

  • who's charged with claiming to be the king of Israel.

  • And Jesus tells Pilate that: "My Kingdom is not from this world,"

  • meaning that He is a king, and His Kingdom is for this world,

  • but its radically different value system; its redefinition of power

  • and greatness; none of this is derived from this world.

  • Rather, they are defined by God's character that Jesus has revealed

  • through His upside down Kingdom, which is epitomized by the cross.

  • It's the place where the world true King conquer sin

  • and evil by letting it conquer Him.

  • And Jesus gains victory over the world, through an act of self giving love.

  • After this, Jesus body is placed in a tomb that is then sealed.

  • And on the first day of the week, Mary, and then later the other disciples discover

  • that the tomb is strangely open and then empty.

  • And then Mary, all of a sudden, she meets Jesus.

  • He's alive from the dead.

  • Now, the resurrection of Jesus connects back to another pattern of sevens in John's Gospel

  • to all the way back at the wedding party in Cana

  • when Jesus turned the water into wine.

  • John told us that that was Jesus' first sign.

  • And he also identified the second sign the healing of the sick boy in chapter 4.

  • But after this, John just lets you keep count, and if you have,

  • you'll have noticed that the sixth sign was the raising of Lazarus from the tomb

  • which Jesus performed at the cost of His own life.

  • And so that, and all of the sign, they point forward to this seventh

  • and greatest sign at the culmination of the story:

  • Jesus' own resurrection from the dead.

  • It vindicates Jesus' claimed to be the Son of God, the author of all life,

  • whose love has conquered death itself.

  • After the empty tomb, Jesus then meets up with all the disciples

  • and He commissions them by sending the spirit as he promised.

  • so that His mission from the Father can now be carried on through them.

  • After this the book concludes with an epilogue

  • that explores the ongoing mission of Jesus' disciples in the world.

  • So, a number of them are fishing and they're not catching anything.

  • And so Jesus appears to them on the shore; they don't recognize Him though.

  • And he tells them to cast their net on the other side of the boat.

  • And when they obey Him they catch a huge amount of fish

  • and it's only then that they recognize Him as Jesus.

  • Now John is offering here a picture of discipleship to Jesus:

  • His followers will be most effective in the world

  • when their focus is not on their work as such,

  • but when simply listening for Jesus voice and obeying Him when He speaks;

  • that's when they will truly see Him at work in their lives.

  • After this, Jesus talks with Peter and then commissions him

  • as a unique leader in the Jesus Movement

  • indicating that he, too, will give up his life one day.

  • But in contrast to Peter, the last moments of the story focus

  • on the author of this gospel: the disciple whom Jesus loved.

  • And unlike Peter, his job was not to lead the Jesus Movement,

  • but rather, to spend his long life bearing witness to Jesus

  • so that others might believe in Him.

  • And that's actually what he's done right here

  • by authoring this amazing story about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

  • And that what the Gospel of John is all about.

The Gospel According to John.

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