Individual Entry: Thoughts on John
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April 02, 2008

Faith : Thoughts on John

We are very near the end of our Tuesday study on the Gospel of John (and I have finished my own preparation through the ned of teh book). Given that, I thought I’d write up some of my thoughts on what I have learned.

Classically, people usually talk about how each of the Gospels presents a different facet of Jesus – each contains the whole picture but each tends to focus on one aspect of Jesus’ nature. Matthew presents Jesus as King, Luke as Man, Mark as Servant, and John (any first year seminary student will tell you) presents Jesus as God. Each of the Gospels includes indications of Jesus’ divinity; but John has the clearest and most unambiguous presentation of that fact (just read the first chapter if you have any doubt).

What I found interesting in preparing for this study was that while it is true that John makes it quite clear that Jesus was God, that was not the primary message I got out of the book. If you look at what Jesus actually says most often in the book, you get a very different picture.

John 5:19: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

John 5:30 By myself I can do nothing

John 8:26 I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.

John 8:28 I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.

These are just a few of the places where Jesus makes clear that while He was in fact God (established in Chapter 1, and confirmed many times thereafter by Jesus own words), during the time He was working on earth as man he was completely dependent on and submitted to The Father. He did nothing on his own – only what The Father told Him to do. He said nothing on His own (although as 8:26 indicates there is much he could have said) – only what The Father told Him to say. What’s more, he couldn’t do anything without The Father if He had tried.

So in many respects, John presents Jesus as a servant even more clearly than Mark does.

Where this takes an interesting turn is when we get to Jesus final teaching (what he said on the last day before being arrested) as recorded in John 13-17. There Jesus turns the table and says quite literally – the relationship you have seen between me and The Father, you will now all have with me. The same way you have seen me be dependent on and submit to The Father, you are be dependent on and submit to me. As Jesus says “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5); but “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12)

The point is that Jesus life on earth was meant to be an example to us. As Paul writes in Philipians 2:6-7 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Jesus lived for 30+ years as a human being without all of the advantages of His divinity so as to show us how we are supposed to live as normal human beings – be being completely dependent on and submitted to God. Then He provided us with His Spirit (another key piece of the final teaching in chapters 13-17), so we could have access to Him in the same way He had access to The Father when He was living as a human.

While there were certainly other things I learned while doing this study, that was the main theme I understood from the book as a whole.

Posted by Steven at April 2, 2008 05:00 AM