January 24, 2021
Jesus was the Face of the One We Rebelled Against
Okay, I know that I said that I was going to post the Luke 15 series next, however, the more that I thought about it, the more sense it made to me to talk a little bit about who Jesus was before I said anything about what He taught. You see, He said a lot of profound and radical things that, once understood in their context, challenged both the status quo of His original audience and the status quo today. In fact, He said things that frankly, no other sane religious leader has ever had the guts to say, and yet, he said them and made no apologies for it. Therefore, I believe that it’s necessary to establish who He was or, more to the point, what He was because it gives Him the authority to say what He had to say. It also forces us, I think, to take Him seriously, a lot more seriously than we would be inclined to take other ancient historical figures.
If you’ll recall from the Christmas series, one of the titles that the angels pinned on Jesus was Lord, a title reserved exclusively for God and, by doing so, they declared him to be God, and put Him on an equal plain with God the Father. In the Jewish culture at the time, that was radical, blasphemous actually. Now if the angels were the only ones who said that about Him we might be able to blow it off, however, that’s the problem. We can’t because they weren’t. Every Gospel writer also said that Jesus was God, usually quoting Jesus in the process. In fact, the Apostle John wrote his entire Gospel focusing in on that theme. What I want to do for the next couple of weeks or so is to briefly touch on what this means to us and what this reveals about Jesus’ character. Mind you, this won’t be an exhaustive series by any means but it will serve to get us started. To do this I want to look at the first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John.
The first three verses of John’s gospel go like this, “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 that was made; without Him, nothing was made that has been made.”
Two things to notice here. First off, if you compare this passage with Genesis 1:1, that’s the very first verse of the Bible, and think that the two passages, Genesis 1:1 and John 1 – 3 sound similar, that’s not your imagination. John did that intentionally. Because he wanted to present Jesus as God, he deliberately used Genesis 1:1 as a pattern for the beginning of his gospel account. Keeping that thought in mind, the second thing to note here is the word, “Word.” The Greek word that John used here was, “logos,” and both groups, Jews and Gentiles, would have understood John perfectly. In both cultures, whoever this being was who John was referring to as, “the Word,” was both God, the Creator of the Universe, and the one who governed it. Later in verses 14 through 17, John specifically identified who the Word was. It was Jesus, the baby in the manger who we talked about in the Christmas series.
So, what is the full significance of this idea that Jesus is the Creator of the universe? How do we wrap our minds around that, really? Try this. Read the entire first chapter of Genesis where it tells the story of creation and every time we read this phrase, “And God said, ‘Let there be,” at least in our minds’ eye, tweak the imagery a bit. Imagine Jesus, in His full royal glory, hovering over the earth and issuing one royal decree right after another and then watching it happen. In other words, that’s Jesus saying, “Let there be light,” and then BOOM! There was light. By the way, I’m not making this up and taking creative liberties here. That is exactly what John said happened. He said that Jesus, that baby in the manger that Luke talked about, was the Creator of the universe and an ingenious and gifted one at that.
But what’s He like? Some of the most diabolical tyrants were creative. What’s Jesus like? Is He good or is He just all powerful and terrifying? In order to get some clues so we can intelligently answer this question, let’s move ahead a couple of chapters in Genesis to Genesis 3. Moses wrote in Genesis 2:16 that God had told Adam, the first man, that he could eat of any tree in the garden except for one, (Was it an apple tree? Who knows? Moses didn’t say.) and if he did, he would die. However, in the third chapter, Adam and Eve rebelled and did just that and it has been all downhill ever since.
Now most of us, especially those of us who are familiar with the Bible, read this and just move on. We sinned against God…we know that, but we don’t put a face to any of it. To put a face on all of this, re-read Genesis 2 and 3 and every time that the word God, appears, say Jesus instead. The significance, especially as we wrestle with the question of who Jesus is and what He is like, is profound. Here’s what I mean.
If we link John 1 and Genesis 2 and 3 together as John intended for us to do, then that means that it was God the Son, i.e., Jesus, who specifically told Adam that he couldn’t eat from the one tree and, when Adam and Eve rebelled and ate from that tree, it was Jesus’s direct command that they walked all over. In other words, in Genesis 3, Adam becomes the face of the rebellion of humanity and Jesus is the face of the one who was rebelled against. Yes, that rebellion also included rebelling against God the Father and God the Holy Spirit but coming at it from Adam and Eve’s perspective, it was Jesus who Adam and Eve saw on a daily basis before they rebelled and it was Jesus who they rebelled against.
Now, stay with this train of thought and fast forward to the New Testament. The Jesus who was rebelled against in Genesis 3 is the same Jesus who chose to be born to poor parents in at best a barn, would go on to live a perfectly sinless life, (Not only did Jesus never do anything wrong, He did everything right. Big difference.) and would later choose to allow Himself to be crucified for every rebellious act ever committed. Yes, He could have stopped it at any time but He didn’t. If you want to take the position that He couldn’t, I have to disagree with you. Think about it. You’re trying to tell me that the One who could by His own volition, create the Universe at the same time couldn’t stop a Roman execution? I don’t think so. He could have put a stop to His execution at any time, but He didn’t.
Here’s what’s even more profound though, as we wrestle with that train of thought. Jesus, the baby in the manger, not only could have stopped the execution but He didn’t even have go through with it, had He chosen not to. Technically, there was another option. He could have remained in heaven and allowed the human race to spend all eternity separated from Him but He didn’t. Instead, He set aside His divine powers and became one of us. He allowed Himself to get tired, exhausted actually. He allowed Himself to get hungry. He allowed Himself to daily experience our daily experience with one major difference. The temptation we faced, us and Him, was different. His was a lot harder. All humanity had to do was stay away from the fruit of a forbidden tree in the middle of a lavish garden with all kinds of fruit trees that they could eat from and not eat the fruit from the only tree that was forbidden. All we had to do was to decline to do something. What He had to do was to agree to allow Himself to be cruelly executed and experience separation from God the Father. He had to agree to take the penalty for humanity’s sin on Himself and, unlike humanity who folded like a bad poker hand in Genesis 3, Jesus triumphed big time. The face of the One who was rebelled against paid the penalty incurred by the face of the one who rebelled and now the face of that One who was rebelled against has made a way for the relationship between God and humanity to be restored as it was intended to be. Jesus, the baby in the manger in the last series, is offering a complete pardon and full restoration to anyone who will end their rebellion and accept Him as Savior and Lord. What kind of God is this?
Serious question. What kind of God is this, really? Perhaps not like who we thought He was. Not only did He pay the penalty for the rebellion of anyone who will accept Him as Savior and Lord but He’s also, according to what He said 2000 years ago, sharing His kingdom with whoever will follow Him. He’s not calling His followers subjects or servants, He’s calling them friends, brothers and sisters, family. How shocking is that? And, bringing this right to our doorstep, that offer is being made to me and that offer is being made to you.
So, what will we do with it? The ball is in our court. We can either choose to end our rebellion and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior or we can turn Him down, stand pat in our varying stages of active or passive rebellion against Him and suffer the consequences for all eternity. It’s our call because He won’t force us.
Speaking from personal experience, I ended my rebellion against Jesus probably fifteen or twenty years ago. I haven’t regretted it. What I did was prayed and admitted to God that I had rebelled against Him and that I wanted to end my rebellion. I wanted things to be right between us so I accepted Jesus as my Savior and committed to following Jesus for the rest of my life. Has it been pretty? No. Have I done it perfectly? Please!? It’s a growing process and I am a work in progress. But I can tell you this much, and my adult kids and Dianna will tell you, I’m not the man that I was when they were growing up. I’m different. I’m a better man and a better husband than I was. My daily prayer is that God will make my character look more and more like Jesus’ character and I think that He’s answering that prayer. Like I said, I’m not perfect, but I am growing.
Next week, I want to unpack Jesus’ character as John saw it a little bit more. See you then.
Jesus Full of Grace and Truth
It was just the four of them, Jesus, the teacher, and three of His closest disciples, Peter, James, and John. Jesus had led them up to this mountain for what they had assumed would be a teaching session for just the three of them as Jesus was mentoring them for further service and for what, at least they assumed, would be more leadership responsibility. Then, it happened, one of the most trippy things these guys had ever seen. Jesus’ clothes became dazzling white and his face shown like the sun and suddenly, like that wasn’t enough already, Moses and Elijah appeared and the three of them, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, were talking. Jesus was totally in His element because, up until Bethlehem some thirtyish years prior, this was how He always looked. And the three disciples? Uh yeah, they were terrified. You see, up until that time, Jesus had done some amazing things, performed miracles and what not but, at least as far as they knew, from their perspective anyway, Jesus was still just the Messiah, the Son of God yes, but still only human. So much for that idea.
Now lest we be too hard on the disciples, in order to get a clear picture of where they were coming from, we need to go back to John’s introduction to his gospel account where he wrote, “And the word became flesh and dwelt 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.” That word flesh is a word that some commentators have described as being almost a crude word and the point that John was making strongly is that Jesus was fully human and therefore, he fully experienced everything that the disciples experienced and, for all that matters, the same things that you and I experience. As a baby, Jesus had to have his diapers changed. He had to learn to walk. He had to learn to talk. He had to learn how to feed himself. Throughout His entire life on earth, He experienced hunger, fatigue, and even death. He went from having unlimited power and freedom to having limited power and freedom. He could only be in one place at a time and, if he wanted to go from Point A to Point B, unlike before when he could just will Himself there, now He had to either walk or ride some animal. It was a much less efficient process than what He had previously been doing for all eternity. Even the miracles He performed had to be done through the power of His heavenly Father with permission from His Heavenly Father. He couldn’t do them on His own. He was human in the fullest sense of the word.
But John also believed that Jesus was God. In his introduction, John uses this phrase, “and dwelt among us.” This phrase could literally be translated as, “and He pitched His tent among us.” John’s target here was his Jewish audience and he was quite intentional in his choice of words. He was alluding back to the original temple that Moses built which was a tent but it was the place on earth where God dwelt with the human race. What John was doing was reinforcing the point that Jesus was both fully God, fully human and dwelt among His people. Now whether or not John’s audience necessarily agreed with him might have been open for debate but that was what John believed to be true and that was his point.
So, the question that needs to be asked here is what makes John an authority when it comes to Jesus? It was pretty simple really. He was an eyewitness. He traveled with Jesus every day for three years or so and had a ring side seat to everything that Jesus did. He ate with Him, He saw Him do miracles, He listened to the stories He told when He taught, He saw what made Him angry and He saw what made Him laugh. He probably even heard Him tell a good joke or two. (Jesus, tell a good joke? Duh, who do you think invented humor?) And he witnessed the Transfiguration which was likely what John was referring to when, in his introduction he wrote, “We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father.”
The other thing that John did in his gospel account is he gave us, from his perspective, a two word character analysis of Jesus that he repeated it for emphasis. In a span of four verses, John said that Jesus was full of grace and truth. I want to draw your attention to that word full. It means abounding in, completely occupied with, or covered over. The word grace means favor and by implication undeserved favor given because God wants to bless people. The word truth means not just spoken truth but rather divine truth revealed to man, reality, or straightforwardness. In other words, the two things that stood out most to John about Jesus was that Jesus was full of grace and truth.
So, what are we dealing with? We’re dealing with a being who is fully God and yet is just as human as you and me. He’s the savior of the world and He’s full of grace and truth. In terms of grace and truth, He extended both in perfect balance and, in context, what John was saying was that if we wanted to know what God was like, all we had to do was look at Jesus.
Now, pulling from other writers of the New Testament and even other things that John wrote, there is one thing that I do want to emphasize about Jesus and that is this. While He was just as human as you and me, there are a couple of fundamental differences between us. Jesus was/is also fully God. That means He’s eternal, that He’s always existed and unlike you and me, He’s not a created being. God the Father did not create Jesus. In the same way that God the Father has always existed, so has Jesus. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. The other fundamental difference between Jesus and us is that while Jesus is fully God, we will never be God, or a mini god or anything like that. He will always be the Creator and we will always be created beings. Yes, according to the New Testament, we will have a glorified body like His. I mean that our bodies will be restored as they were originally intended, but we will never be God, no one will ever worship us but we will definitely worship God for all eternity.
So, what do we do with all of this and why is it important, especially as we contemplate whether or not Jesus is worth following? Consider this. Jesus is fully God and He is abounding in grace. He loves us. He’s also fully human and He has experienced everything that it means to be human, including death, even though He didn’t have to, so He can empathize with us. And here’s the offer that’s on the table. Whoever chooses to follow Him and place their faith in Him, Jesus offers salvation, forgiveness, and full family membership in God’s family. “I came that they might have life and have it to the fullest,” is what He said during His ministry. What are we going to do about it though, because it’s the question that’s not going away. Are we going to follow Jesus or not?
Toward the end of his gospel, John wrote this. “The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones that are recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of His name. (John 20:30 – 31) In other words, John is asking us, “Are you going to end your rebellion and follow Jesus or not?” He might also add something like. “Look what He did for you? He laid down His divine powers for a season and paid the penalty for your rebellion so that you and He could spend eternity together. It’s better than anything you could ever hope for. So, how about it?”
Yeah, how about it? You know, if you’re ready to follow Jesus but aren’t exactly sure how to express yourself to God, perhaps a prayer like this might help you to express your desires. “God, I’m through fighting against you. I admit that I have rebelled against you and that I need to accept Jesus as my Savior. I believe that Jesus died for my rebellion and I accept Him as my Savior and I am ready to follow Him to the best of my ability from here on out. Thank you for forgiving me. In Jesus name, amen.” You can certainly use your own words if that prayer seems a bit “canned” to you. God isn’t worried about your words, He’s much more concerned with your attitude and your desires.
As I wrap up here, I want to give you an idea of where I am going for the next six or seven weeks after today. I want to explore how God feels about people, all people, and what He’s doing about it because Jesus told some stories that make it quite clear. I’ve already written the rough drafts and I’m really looking forward to putting the final drafts together. See you next week.
Okay, I know that I said that I was going to post the Luke 15 series next, however, the more that I thought about it, the more sense it made to me to talk a little bit about who Jesus was before I said anything about what He taught. You see, He said a lot of profound and radical things that, once understood in their context, challenged both the status quo of His original audience and the status quo today. In fact, He said things that frankly, no other sane religious leader has ever had the guts to say, and yet, he said them and made no apologies for it. Therefore, I believe that it’s necessary to establish who He was or, more to the point, what He was because it gives Him the authority to say what He had to say. It also forces us, I think, to take Him seriously, a lot more seriously than we would be inclined to take other ancient historical figures.
If you’ll recall from the Christmas series, one of the titles that the angels pinned on Jesus was Lord, a title reserved exclusively for God and, by doing so, they declared him to be God, and put Him on an equal plain with God the Father. In the Jewish culture at the time, that was radical, blasphemous actually. Now if the angels were the only ones who said that about Him we might be able to blow it off, however, that’s the problem. We can’t because they weren’t. Every Gospel writer also said that Jesus was God, usually quoting Jesus in the process. In fact, the Apostle John wrote his entire Gospel focusing in on that theme. What I want to do for the next couple of weeks or so is to briefly touch on what this means to us and what this reveals about Jesus’ character. Mind you, this won’t be an exhaustive series by any means but it will serve to get us started. To do this I want to look at the first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John.
The first three verses of John’s gospel go like this, “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 that was made; without Him, nothing was made that has been made.”
Two things to notice here. First off, if you compare this passage with Genesis 1:1, that’s the very first verse of the Bible, and think that the two passages, Genesis 1:1 and John 1 – 3 sound similar, that’s not your imagination. John did that intentionally. Because he wanted to present Jesus as God, he deliberately used Genesis 1:1 as a pattern for the beginning of his gospel account. Keeping that thought in mind, the second thing to note here is the word, “Word.” The Greek word that John used here was, “logos,” and both groups, Jews and Gentiles, would have understood John perfectly. In both cultures, whoever this being was who John was referring to as, “the Word,” was both God, the Creator of the Universe, and the one who governed it. Later in verses 14 through 17, John specifically identified who the Word was. It was Jesus, the baby in the manger who we talked about in the Christmas series.
So, what is the full significance of this idea that Jesus is the Creator of the universe? How do we wrap our minds around that, really? Try this. Read the entire first chapter of Genesis where it tells the story of creation and every time we read this phrase, “And God said, ‘Let there be,” at least in our minds’ eye, tweak the imagery a bit. Imagine Jesus, in His full royal glory, hovering over the earth and issuing one royal decree right after another and then watching it happen. In other words, that’s Jesus saying, “Let there be light,” and then BOOM! There was light. By the way, I’m not making this up and taking creative liberties here. That is exactly what John said happened. He said that Jesus, that baby in the manger that Luke talked about, was the Creator of the universe and an ingenious and gifted one at that.
But what’s He like? Some of the most diabolical tyrants were creative. What’s Jesus like? Is He good or is He just all powerful and terrifying? In order to get some clues so we can intelligently answer this question, let’s move ahead a couple of chapters in Genesis to Genesis 3. Moses wrote in Genesis 2:16 that God had told Adam, the first man, that he could eat of any tree in the garden except for one, (Was it an apple tree? Who knows? Moses didn’t say.) and if he did, he would die. However, in the third chapter, Adam and Eve rebelled and did just that and it has been all downhill ever since.
Now most of us, especially those of us who are familiar with the Bible, read this and just move on. We sinned against God…we know that, but we don’t put a face to any of it. To put a face on all of this, re-read Genesis 2 and 3 and every time that the word God, appears, say Jesus instead. The significance, especially as we wrestle with the question of who Jesus is and what He is like, is profound. Here’s what I mean.
If we link John 1 and Genesis 2 and 3 together as John intended for us to do, then that means that it was God the Son, i.e., Jesus, who specifically told Adam that he couldn’t eat from the one tree and, when Adam and Eve rebelled and ate from that tree, it was Jesus’s direct command that they walked all over. In other words, in Genesis 3, Adam becomes the face of the rebellion of humanity and Jesus is the face of the one who was rebelled against. Yes, that rebellion also included rebelling against God the Father and God the Holy Spirit but coming at it from Adam and Eve’s perspective, it was Jesus who Adam and Eve saw on a daily basis before they rebelled and it was Jesus who they rebelled against.
Now, stay with this train of thought and fast forward to the New Testament. The Jesus who was rebelled against in Genesis 3 is the same Jesus who chose to be born to poor parents in at best a barn, would go on to live a perfectly sinless life, (Not only did Jesus never do anything wrong, He did everything right. Big difference.) and would later choose to allow Himself to be crucified for every rebellious act ever committed. Yes, He could have stopped it at any time but He didn’t. If you want to take the position that He couldn’t, I have to disagree with you. Think about it. You’re trying to tell me that the One who could by His own volition, create the Universe at the same time couldn’t stop a Roman execution? I don’t think so. He could have put a stop to His execution at any time, but He didn’t.
Here’s what’s even more profound though, as we wrestle with that train of thought. Jesus, the baby in the manger, not only could have stopped the execution but He didn’t even have go through with it, had He chosen not to. Technically, there was another option. He could have remained in heaven and allowed the human race to spend all eternity separated from Him but He didn’t. Instead, He set aside His divine powers and became one of us. He allowed Himself to get tired, exhausted actually. He allowed Himself to get hungry. He allowed Himself to daily experience our daily experience with one major difference. The temptation we faced, us and Him, was different. His was a lot harder. All humanity had to do was stay away from the fruit of a forbidden tree in the middle of a lavish garden with all kinds of fruit trees that they could eat from and not eat the fruit from the only tree that was forbidden. All we had to do was to decline to do something. What He had to do was to agree to allow Himself to be cruelly executed and experience separation from God the Father. He had to agree to take the penalty for humanity’s sin on Himself and, unlike humanity who folded like a bad poker hand in Genesis 3, Jesus triumphed big time. The face of the One who was rebelled against paid the penalty incurred by the face of the one who rebelled and now the face of that One who was rebelled against has made a way for the relationship between God and humanity to be restored as it was intended to be. Jesus, the baby in the manger in the last series, is offering a complete pardon and full restoration to anyone who will end their rebellion and accept Him as Savior and Lord. What kind of God is this?
Serious question. What kind of God is this, really? Perhaps not like who we thought He was. Not only did He pay the penalty for the rebellion of anyone who will accept Him as Savior and Lord but He’s also, according to what He said 2000 years ago, sharing His kingdom with whoever will follow Him. He’s not calling His followers subjects or servants, He’s calling them friends, brothers and sisters, family. How shocking is that? And, bringing this right to our doorstep, that offer is being made to me and that offer is being made to you.
So, what will we do with it? The ball is in our court. We can either choose to end our rebellion and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior or we can turn Him down, stand pat in our varying stages of active or passive rebellion against Him and suffer the consequences for all eternity. It’s our call because He won’t force us.
Speaking from personal experience, I ended my rebellion against Jesus probably fifteen or twenty years ago. I haven’t regretted it. What I did was prayed and admitted to God that I had rebelled against Him and that I wanted to end my rebellion. I wanted things to be right between us so I accepted Jesus as my Savior and committed to following Jesus for the rest of my life. Has it been pretty? No. Have I done it perfectly? Please!? It’s a growing process and I am a work in progress. But I can tell you this much, and my adult kids and Dianna will tell you, I’m not the man that I was when they were growing up. I’m different. I’m a better man and a better husband than I was. My daily prayer is that God will make my character look more and more like Jesus’ character and I think that He’s answering that prayer. Like I said, I’m not perfect, but I am growing.
Next week, I want to unpack Jesus’ character as John saw it a little bit more. See you then.
Jesus Full of Grace and Truth
It was just the four of them, Jesus, the teacher, and three of His closest disciples, Peter, James, and John. Jesus had led them up to this mountain for what they had assumed would be a teaching session for just the three of them as Jesus was mentoring them for further service and for what, at least they assumed, would be more leadership responsibility. Then, it happened, one of the most trippy things these guys had ever seen. Jesus’ clothes became dazzling white and his face shown like the sun and suddenly, like that wasn’t enough already, Moses and Elijah appeared and the three of them, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, were talking. Jesus was totally in His element because, up until Bethlehem some thirtyish years prior, this was how He always looked. And the three disciples? Uh yeah, they were terrified. You see, up until that time, Jesus had done some amazing things, performed miracles and what not but, at least as far as they knew, from their perspective anyway, Jesus was still just the Messiah, the Son of God yes, but still only human. So much for that idea.
Now lest we be too hard on the disciples, in order to get a clear picture of where they were coming from, we need to go back to John’s introduction to his gospel account where he wrote, “And the word became flesh and dwelt 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.” That word flesh is a word that some commentators have described as being almost a crude word and the point that John was making strongly is that Jesus was fully human and therefore, he fully experienced everything that the disciples experienced and, for all that matters, the same things that you and I experience. As a baby, Jesus had to have his diapers changed. He had to learn to walk. He had to learn to talk. He had to learn how to feed himself. Throughout His entire life on earth, He experienced hunger, fatigue, and even death. He went from having unlimited power and freedom to having limited power and freedom. He could only be in one place at a time and, if he wanted to go from Point A to Point B, unlike before when he could just will Himself there, now He had to either walk or ride some animal. It was a much less efficient process than what He had previously been doing for all eternity. Even the miracles He performed had to be done through the power of His heavenly Father with permission from His Heavenly Father. He couldn’t do them on His own. He was human in the fullest sense of the word.
But John also believed that Jesus was God. In his introduction, John uses this phrase, “and dwelt among us.” This phrase could literally be translated as, “and He pitched His tent among us.” John’s target here was his Jewish audience and he was quite intentional in his choice of words. He was alluding back to the original temple that Moses built which was a tent but it was the place on earth where God dwelt with the human race. What John was doing was reinforcing the point that Jesus was both fully God, fully human and dwelt among His people. Now whether or not John’s audience necessarily agreed with him might have been open for debate but that was what John believed to be true and that was his point.
So, the question that needs to be asked here is what makes John an authority when it comes to Jesus? It was pretty simple really. He was an eyewitness. He traveled with Jesus every day for three years or so and had a ring side seat to everything that Jesus did. He ate with Him, He saw Him do miracles, He listened to the stories He told when He taught, He saw what made Him angry and He saw what made Him laugh. He probably even heard Him tell a good joke or two. (Jesus, tell a good joke? Duh, who do you think invented humor?) And he witnessed the Transfiguration which was likely what John was referring to when, in his introduction he wrote, “We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father.”
The other thing that John did in his gospel account is he gave us, from his perspective, a two word character analysis of Jesus that he repeated it for emphasis. In a span of four verses, John said that Jesus was full of grace and truth. I want to draw your attention to that word full. It means abounding in, completely occupied with, or covered over. The word grace means favor and by implication undeserved favor given because God wants to bless people. The word truth means not just spoken truth but rather divine truth revealed to man, reality, or straightforwardness. In other words, the two things that stood out most to John about Jesus was that Jesus was full of grace and truth.
So, what are we dealing with? We’re dealing with a being who is fully God and yet is just as human as you and me. He’s the savior of the world and He’s full of grace and truth. In terms of grace and truth, He extended both in perfect balance and, in context, what John was saying was that if we wanted to know what God was like, all we had to do was look at Jesus.
Now, pulling from other writers of the New Testament and even other things that John wrote, there is one thing that I do want to emphasize about Jesus and that is this. While He was just as human as you and me, there are a couple of fundamental differences between us. Jesus was/is also fully God. That means He’s eternal, that He’s always existed and unlike you and me, He’s not a created being. God the Father did not create Jesus. In the same way that God the Father has always existed, so has Jesus. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. The other fundamental difference between Jesus and us is that while Jesus is fully God, we will never be God, or a mini god or anything like that. He will always be the Creator and we will always be created beings. Yes, according to the New Testament, we will have a glorified body like His. I mean that our bodies will be restored as they were originally intended, but we will never be God, no one will ever worship us but we will definitely worship God for all eternity.
So, what do we do with all of this and why is it important, especially as we contemplate whether or not Jesus is worth following? Consider this. Jesus is fully God and He is abounding in grace. He loves us. He’s also fully human and He has experienced everything that it means to be human, including death, even though He didn’t have to, so He can empathize with us. And here’s the offer that’s on the table. Whoever chooses to follow Him and place their faith in Him, Jesus offers salvation, forgiveness, and full family membership in God’s family. “I came that they might have life and have it to the fullest,” is what He said during His ministry. What are we going to do about it though, because it’s the question that’s not going away. Are we going to follow Jesus or not?
Toward the end of his gospel, John wrote this. “The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones that are recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of His name. (John 20:30 – 31) In other words, John is asking us, “Are you going to end your rebellion and follow Jesus or not?” He might also add something like. “Look what He did for you? He laid down His divine powers for a season and paid the penalty for your rebellion so that you and He could spend eternity together. It’s better than anything you could ever hope for. So, how about it?”
Yeah, how about it? You know, if you’re ready to follow Jesus but aren’t exactly sure how to express yourself to God, perhaps a prayer like this might help you to express your desires. “God, I’m through fighting against you. I admit that I have rebelled against you and that I need to accept Jesus as my Savior. I believe that Jesus died for my rebellion and I accept Him as my Savior and I am ready to follow Him to the best of my ability from here on out. Thank you for forgiving me. In Jesus name, amen.” You can certainly use your own words if that prayer seems a bit “canned” to you. God isn’t worried about your words, He’s much more concerned with your attitude and your desires.
As I wrap up here, I want to give you an idea of where I am going for the next six or seven weeks after today. I want to explore how God feels about people, all people, and what He’s doing about it because Jesus told some stories that make it quite clear. I’ve already written the rough drafts and I’m really looking forward to putting the final drafts together. See you next week.
For those people wishing to contact me, I can be reached at [email protected]
You can also find me on Instagram. I’m sam.roach.16 and my profile pic is me wearing a Baltimore Ravens hat backwards.
Sam
You can also find me on Instagram. I’m sam.roach.16 and my profile pic is me wearing a Baltimore Ravens hat backwards.
Sam