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Unlocking the New Testament Part 5 - John 1
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it's the story of how God was seeking a
bride for his son each book is different
from every other book I'm trying to give
you the keys for you to unlock it for [Music]
[Music]
yourself well now we've been talking
about the Bible is a library made up of
many different kinds of books and there
are two facets of the Bible that we need
to hold in Balance first of all there's
a variety and secondly there's a unity
and the variety is due to the fact that
there are 40 different authors in the
Bible spread over a period of about
1,400 years and writing in three
languages and not one of them realized
that were writing the Bible not one but
there's a great variety because the Holy
Spirit did not use people as if they
were word processors do you understand
what I'm saying he used their
personality and their different styles
so there's a great Variety in scripture
and yet through it all there runs a
Unity that's because it had one Divine
editor so it had 40 human authors and
one Divine editor and that means we've
got variety and unity now different
groups of Christians are afraid of one
or the other
liberal Christians as we call them are
afraid of the unity of scripture they
want to be able to pick and choose and
set one part against another and tear it
to pieces and read the Bible with a pair
of scissors in their hand and cut out
what doesn't fit in but Evangelical
Christians are afraid of the
variety they're afraid of finding
contradictions or of
inconsistencies and there are apparent
differences that you need to study very
closely to resolve and we are studying
together the variety of
scripture and we're finding that each
book is different from every other book
I find that enriches the Bible for me
when you just pick texts out of the
Bible you're treating it as a Unity
almost a
uniformity as if it's all just one book
with one message in one style with one
content but it isn't it's a library of
different books and so we come to John's gospel
gospel
of course the Bible being the word of
God reflects God himself and in God
himself there is variety and
unity the father and the son are
different from each other and the spirit
is different from father and son and yet
we believe in one God there's an
incredible Unity there even with the
variety and that's reflected in God's
word there are different personalities
writing scripture each with their own
insight and their own style and yet
somehow the Holy Spirit the Divine
editor has brought a beautiful Unity to
this whole library and if you read the
first three chapters of the Bible and
the last two chapters of the Bible as
Genesis 1:3 and Revelation 21 and 22
you'll be astonished how they hang
together you'd think the same person
wrote both and was just tying all up all
the loose ends up right at the end well
now the first thing that hits you with
John is what a contrast there is to what
we call the synoptics the synoptic The
View together the first three gospels
all look at Jesus from one side as it
were Matthew Mark and Luke all look at
Jesus from one side whereas John seems
to be looking from quite a different
point of view so they are synoptic
they're all looking together but John is
looking from Another Side I'll take it a
little further these are looking at the
outside of Jesus whereas John is looking
at the inside of Jesus remember what I
said in the last talk on Matthew that
there are three phases of interest in a
great man who's lived the phase number
one their interest is in what he did
phase number two in what he said but
phase number three is in what he was and
John belongs to phase three he's looking
at Jesus from the
inside what was he like what was his
real real
person now the contrast can be drawn out
specifically in five ways first of all
John omits a lot of material that there
is in the first three gospels now is he
omitting it because it's already been
said so well and so frequently or is he
omitting it for a special reason we
shall find it's a special reason but
here is what he's omitted there's no
mention of the conception or birth of
Jesus in John there's no mention of his
baptism there's no mention of his
Temptations there's no mention of any
casting out of demons there's no mention
of the
Transfiguration when he took Peter James
and John up the mountain there's no
mention of the Last Supper of the bread
and the wine there's no mention of
Gethsemane and the struggle that Jesus
had in Gethsemane there's no mention of the
the
Ascension now perhaps you never noticed
that because when you read the Bible you
don't notice what's not there but it's
rather important to notice what's not
there why should he leave all those out
because they were irrelevant to what he
wanted to say he's said telling us
something quite different from the other
gospels and there was no point in
including all
that there are only seven miracles in
John whereas in the other gospels there
are dozens
There is almost no mention of the
Kingdom in John that is a surprise
because it's everywhere in the other
three in fact the word only occurs twice
once when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus
and says unless you're born again you
can't see the kingdom of God and the
other was to pilate where he said my
kingdom is not of this world but apart
from that never mentions the
kingdom well that's the first contrast
now look at the
second just as there are omissions there
are some very important additions of the
seven miracles that John mentions five
are completely
new only two are repetitions five are
new they start with water into wine and
they finish with the raising of Lazarus
now why has John made a totally
different selection of the
Miracles and one clue is that he doesn't
call The Miracles he calls calls them
signs and a sign always points to
something Beyond
itself and he sees the Miracles as very
significant now you see the ordinary
person is only interested in seeing the
miracle John is interested in saying
what does that Miracle point
to and he looks through the miracle
Beyond it to try and understand what
it's saying and so he calls the miracles
signs and he chooses the miracle
that are the clearest signs to what he
wants to point his readers
to so there are additions Peter and the
foot washing only occurs in the fourth
gospel that's very important story to
him uh as far as the people go most of
the stories about people in John are about
about
individuals Jesus talking one to one the
woman at the well of Samaria or
Nicodemus or whoever whereas in the
other gospels he's talking to
crowds great crowds follow him and
listen to him but in John he's talking
one to one all the time
furthermore there are these seven big
statements in John about Jesus himself I
am I am the bread of Heaven I am the
light of the world I am the Good
Shepherd I am the door I am the
resurrection and the life I am the way
the truth and the life I am
the True Vine now how come the other
writers missed those that to me is
almost incredible such important
statements and yet the other three
somehow forgot them it they just didn't
register with the other three writers
but with John those are among the most
important things Jesus ever said because
they are signs pointers to who he was
which is John's interest
then there is a change of
emphasis the other gospels based as they
are on the outline of Mark tend to use
his framework of 30 months in the North
in Galilee followed by 6 months in the
South but John is quite different almost
all of John is in the
South and interestingly enough earlier
rather than later now again there
appears to be a contradiction Matthew
Mark and Luke say Jesus spent the first
30 months of his life in the north of
his ministry in the north yet John is
saying he was in the south at that time
and again liberal Scholars love to point
to the fact here's a contradiction so
they can't both be historically
accurate but actually if you read John
carefully you'll find that Jesus did go
south from the beginning but for the
feasts like a good Jew he went up to
Jerusalem three times a year and John
concentrates on his visit South rather
than what he did in the North during
that earlier period so there's no
contradiction John is highlighting those
three visits a year to the Feast of
Tabernacles for example which none of
the others even mentions but Jesus went
up for that feast and said some pretty
important things at
it so you getting the feel of the
difference let's go to a a fourth thing the
the
style there are no short
Parables instead Jesus seems to be
involved in Endless arguments in Long
discourses instead of the simple short
stories and it does seem that when Jesus
went South he changed his style of teaching
teaching
altogether largely because in the South
he was involved in arguments all the
time with the Jews about who he
was uh John chapter 8 is a very uh good
example of this where the Jews say very
nastily to Jesus they say we know who
our father
is and then they say again and we are
not illegitimate children we're not
bastards now that was nasty wasn't it
but Jesus answered it by saying I know
who my father is you don't know him but
I know him
and the whole thing is a discussion a
dialogue a very hot argument between
Jesus and the Jews which brings me to a
very important point when we read in
John's gospel that the Jews hated Jesus
that Jesus was always arguing with the
Jews that the Jews crucified him we make
the very big mistake of applying that
phrase to the whole
nation and alas it's caused
anti-Semitism for 2,000
years and it's very sad the history of
Christian attitude to Jews you killed
Jesus but listen when John says the Jews he
he
means the
southerners the
judeans he does not mean the
galileans now do you understand what
I've just said that's very very
important John who was himself a Jew as
was Jesus as were all the apostles was
not saying we're all involved in this
what he was saying it was the judeans
were the ones that Jesus couldn't get on
with whenever he went South he bumped
into the Jews and that simply means
Judean do you follow me very very
important that you realize that John's
gospel is not
anti-semitic but Jewish people do not
like John's gospel because so many
Christians have used it to say you Jews
kill Jesus but no many Jews loved Jesus
and followed him and started the church
for us so let's be objective in our
judgments the Jews are the people in the
South so there's a difference in style
long discourses discussion of theology
rather than ethics or discussion of what
we believe rather than how to behave
there's very little in John about how
we're to behave whereas in Matthew there
was a whole lot but it's about what we believe
believe
and finally there's a big difference in
Outlook and this is a little more
difficult to
explain Hebrew and Greek thinking are
very different from each other and I'm
going to be mentioning this again and
again as we look at different books of
the Bible trouble is our Western
education is so Greek that we read the
Bible with Greek spectacles and Hebrews
are so different now as far as John's
gospel goes it's a bit of a mixture of
the two and John was writing this in a
very Greek world he was writing it in a
town called Ephesus in Western turkey as
it now is it was Asia Minor then and it
was a mixture of Greek and Hebrew there
and John mixes them a bit from this
point of view the Hebrews worked with a
horizontal line of
time in their thinking past present and
future The God Who was and is and is to
come and all that thinking is on this
timeline and time has purpose and
progress Greeks didn't think like that
they thought on a vertical line of
space above and below Heaven and
Earth now when you think in Hebrew terms
you're into a line of history and time
is important and it's traveling in One
Direction and it's going somewhere and
God has decided where it's going he
started off he'll finish it off of but
you're thinking all the time in terms of
past present and future and the first
three gospels Matthew Mark and Luke are
on that sort of
timeline but John while he doesn't leave
it behind because he's Jewish
nevertheless he thinks primarily in his
Gospel of the vertical line between
Heaven and Earth above and below no man
came can go up into heaven except he who
came down from heaven he even the son of
man who is in heaven but you see the
kind of vertical
thinking Jesus is from above and he's
come to the below he's come down that's
that's the thinking it's an up and down
gospel whereas the others are a now and
then gospel do you see the difference
now John is both but there's a big
emphasis on I came from above this other
world and that's very Greek thinking the
other world and this world that kind of
thinking and so there's a difference in
Outlook as well now let's uh go a bit
further that's that difference there the
time the horizontal line is very much
Hebrew present and future and the key
word in that horizontal thinking is age
the present evil age the age to come
which we looked at in Matthew the key
World here is heaven and The World God
so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son to come down from Heaven to
Earth to save us vertical thinking the
major emphasis of the Bible is on
this but as we shall see in a number of
books particularly Hebrews when we get
to that there's a great emphasis on the
vertical line the up and down and a
combination of the two
really well that's the differences now
let's look at the person who wrote it to
get his angle on it and it's someone
very very special a fisherman who ran
his own retail business selling it as
well as far as we know he fished in
Galilee but he clearly had connections
in Jerusalem and it's almost certain
that that he had a retail business for
selling the fish in Jerusalem once he'd
caught them in Galilee he certainly was
a man of Two Worlds he was a man of the
North and the South whereas most of the
apostles were northerners in fact the
only real Southerner in the 12 was Judas
of Kio or Judas is scariot and he was a
misfit anyway as we know Jesus found his
real support in the north but John was a
bridge between north and south and he
clearly had influential connections down
in the South now of the 12 disciples I
don't know if you ever realized that at
least five and probably seven were
jesus' own physical
relatives and that's really quite a
tribute to Jesus isn't it that he
managed to get so many of his family but
not of his immediate family until after
his resurrection none of his immediate
family believed in him none of his four
brothers or his
sisters after the resurrection they
became some of his best missionaries and
two of them wrote part of the New
Testament James and Jude but before his
immediate brothers and sisters didn't
believe but his cousins did and it was
from his cousins that he got at least
five and seven p seven of his 12
Apostles now out of those he had three
very close ones Peter and James and
John and out of those three he had one
special now Jesus didn't have favorites
but he did have these inner circles and
this one special and whenever they sat
at a meal of course they didn't sit at
chairs with their feet out of sight
under the table as we do they lay
sideways and their feet were right next
the face of the next person that's why
you had to have your feet wash before a
meal since we stick our feet under the
table we just wash our hands but they
had to wash feet but it meant that you
were leaning on someone's
chest and literally the person who
leaned on the host chest was the bosom
pal the bosom friend the closest and
whenever the disciples sat at a table
John was in that
position and in a very modest way he
doesn't name this but throughout the
gospel he says the disciple whom Jesus
loved this is the one I was the closest
furthermore he was not only the closest
to Jesus but he was the last surviving
Apostle the last one to know Jesus
personally all the others had been
assassinated by the time he wrote this
book so he had to get it down quickly
since he was the CEST and he'd known
Jesus better than any of the others he'd
been in a position to whisper to him
time and again he' had a private
conversation even when they were
together with the others so he had this
unique Insight he's now an old man and
at the end of his gospel he he retells
the story of how
Peter with typical
curiosity putting his nose into other
people's business asked what was going
to happen to John after Jesus had told
Peter you are going to be crucified
Peter and Peter lived with that
knowledge for 30
years and then dear o Peter says and
what's going to happen to John and Jesus
reply was mind your own business
Peter he said if I decide that he will
still be around when I return that's
none of your business Peter you follow
me and from that day a rumor went round
that Jesus would come back before John
died but that was not what Jesus said
and John says so at the end of his
gospel that's not what Jesus meant he
was just telling Peter to mind his own
business but John did survive and maybe
that was why Jesus put his mother in
John's charge always wondered why the
brothers and sisters didn't take Mary
over but they were killed for
Jesus and
Jesus kept John not just to look after
his mother I Think Jesus kept John from
assassination because he wanted
someone to keep the knowledge alive that
personal knowledge of
himself and ultimately obviously led him
to write it down and that's how the
gospel came to us so he doesn't hesitate
to expend jesus' words that's a bit of a
problem to some readers he paraphrases
what Jesus said to bring out the full
meaning of it
really believes he knows jesus' mind so
well that he can expand what he said for
example John 316 for God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten son
you know the verse who said
that it's it's a strange thing for Jesus
to say it's kind of a third person
talking about Jesus in a rather indirect
way for Jesus to say for God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten
son it's something that someone would
say about about Jesus and yet in chapter
3 it's on jesus' lips apparently that's
the kind of thing you'll find all the
way through John John is expanding what
Jesus said because he really understood
what it meant and he draws out the
implications almost putting it into the
mouth of Jesus but he's paraphrasing
he's interpreting for us what Jesus said
and the Holy Spirit is guiding him to do
so so I don't have a problem with that
but it does mean that sometimes you're
wondering is this Jesus talking or is it
John expanding what he said it could be
either but it's still the true word of
God and inspired for
us now we come to the purpose for which
he wrote and that's the real key and
just as Matthew gave us the purpose at
the end of his gospel about discipling
the Nations and teaching them to observe
all that I've commanded so at the end of
John's gospel as we had read earlier
this morning we have the reason the
whole world isn't big enough for the
books if everything Jesus said and did
were written down but these have been
written in other words I've selected
what I've written out of all the
material I've carefully selected these
things for this purpose that you might
believe that Jesus is the Christ the son
of the Living God and that believing you
might have life in his name now I'm
going to retranslate that for you I'm
sure you know the New Testament was
written in Greek and Greek is not the
same as English and there are peculiar
tenses of the verb in Greek it's such a
tragedy that they don't always come out
in English there is one tense of the
verb which to me is crucial and it is
called the present continuous
tense and it means to go on doing
something and to translate into English
you've got to add the tool little words go
go
on for example Jesus didn't say ask and
you'll receive seek and you'll find
knock and it will be open to you he
actually said go on asking and you'll
receive go on seeking and you'll find go
on knocking and it will be open to you
and somebody says to me you know I once
asked for the Holy Spirit and nothing
happened I say but Jesus said go on
asking how much more will your heavenly
father give the Holy Spirit to those who
go go on asking him and if you really
want something you go on asking don't
you when our children wanted bicycles
Daddy can we have
bicycles then not yet week later
everybody else has a bicycle week later
save bus feds if we had bicycle they
they go on asking and in the context of
Luke 11 where Jesus said go on asking
for the Holy Spirit he talked about a
neighbor knocking at someone's door and
going on knocking until he got them out
of bed and got what he wanted so go on
now then listen to the verse I've just
quoted properly translated these are
written that you may go on believing
that Jesus is the son of God and going
on believing you will go on having
life listen to John 3:16 it'll change it
it may wreck it for you but listen for
God so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten son that whoever goes on
believing will never perish but go on
having eternal
life that changed it for you it should
have done it's not whoever once believes
it's whoever goes on believing I'm sure
you've heard this of Ephesians 5:18 go
on being filled with the spirit that's
the same tense the faith that saves you
is the faith that goes on
believing the faith you had yesterday
won't save you today
Faith you had 20 years ago won't save you
you
tomorrow faith is to go on
believing and that's the purpose and so
John was not written so that you may
come to believe that Jesus is the son of
God but so that you will may go on it's
written for mature Christians to hold
them to their faith so that they never
depart from their understanding of who
Jesus is and Will Go On Believing and
therefore go on having life
and eternal life is both a quantity and
a quality of
life it's both Everlasting and
abundant and it's a quantitative and
qualitative adjective is eternal it's
not just to go on living it's to go on
living really living the Irish have a
greeting I love the greeting may you
live all the days of your
life now that's what Jesus came to do he
came precisely so that we could live all
our lives
and really live and have life more
abundantly but you only do that as you
go on
believing doesn't happen if you just
believed once 20 years ago you will
enjoy eternal life today if you are
believing in Jesus
today and you'll enjoy eternal life
tomorrow if you go on believing and if
you go on believing you will never
perish but go on having eternal life
this is so important because this sort
of one saved always saved thing is such
a neat cliche
and it's not to be found in the New
Testament incidentally but people are
resting on years ago when they give
their testony they can only talk about
years ago you know and they're they're
resting in a false security it's my
faith today that saves me today my faith
tomorrow that saves me tomorrow go on
believing and you go on having life
that's why John wrote his gospel so
let's look at this thing called
believing there are three aspects to
Faith in John's gospel and in his
letters incidentally but we're just
looking at John's gospel now now the
three aspects by the way this verb
believing occurs 98 times in this gospel
that is far far more than the other
three put together even Matthew though I
told you Faith was a characteristic of
Matthew nearly 100 times John talks
about believing and it's the verb he
uses not the noun he rarely talks about
faith he always talks about believing
because believing is something you do
believing is something active it's a
verb not a noun it's not something you
have it's something you do and so he's
always using the verb but there are
three dimensions to believing in John
and unfortunately many people don't
always get the three dimensions I've
given them uh rather complicated names
just for a bit of alliteration but don't
worry about that alliteration is the
province of fools poets and Plymouth
Brethren I've been told well I don't
know but let's let's look at these three
words first of all
Credence that means to believe that
something is true the key word there is
that to believe that Jesus died to
believe that he rose again it's it's
believing in certain historical
facts it is accepting the credit ability
of the Gospel accepting the
truth but of course that's not saving
Faith because uh anybody could say that
they believe that's something I know a
budar who sings
hymns belongs to an old lady in Cardiff
and can sing a whole verse of what a
friend we have in
Jesus and when visitors come to this old
folks home they hear a little voice
saying what a friend we have in Jesus
and they look around they look around
and here's this budg in a cage and they
push money through the bars of the cage
for some reason and the lady who owns it
sends the money to a missionary in
Africa now that budgie is doing more
than most church
members because it is actually praising
God every day and it's supporting a
missionary in Africa see and the old
lady has sent £175
£175
already you see it's just a budar it's
not a
Believer and the an awful lot of
budgerigars in church saying
the saying the Creed saying the Creed
and yes I believe
that and the Creed is I believe that but
see that's only the beginning of Faith
to accept the truth the devil believes
the truth too he accepts it and he
trembles at least he does that about it
he's not a Believer so believing that
something is the beginning of faith and
accepting the truth the words and works
of Jesus but then it must move into
confidence to believe in someone how
me not very great
response how many of you believe that I
exist there now you see word the appeal
properly you get a bigger
response but you see believing that I
exist is one thing that's Credence you
find that credible but believing in me I
don't even know if those who
hesitatingly put up their hands actually
do if you give me all your money to look
after I'll believe it to believe in
someone you've got to do something to
show them you trust them you follow me
that you have confidence in
them and that's to believe in Jesus
accepting the truth is the first step
doing it by trusting and obeying shows
Jesus you trust him if you do what he
tells you you've got confidence in him
but even that is not enough there is
this third dimension which I've already
mentioned which is to go on believing
and invariably this verb in John is in
this present continuous tense which
means to continue believing in both the
Greek and the Hebrew languages faith and
faithfulness are the same
word and you sometimes you don't know
which it means in other words if you
really trust someone you will go on trus
trusting them whatever happens do you
follow me if you are really full of
Faith then you will be
faithful you'll go on believing in
someone whatever
happens and whatever it costs now that's
faith in the fourth Testament it's not
just accepting the truth and doing the
truth it's holding the
truth and he says you will really be my
disciples if you hold on to what I say
and you will know the truth and the
truth will set you
free and holding is a vital dimension of
Faith because you can make shipwreck of your
your
faith many do they don't hang on there
hold in so accepting the truth is
Credence doing the truth confidence
holding the truth continuance going on
being faithful as well as full of faith
and those two words as I said are
exactly the same so we come to this
matter of
Truth and pilate in this gospel says to
Jesus what is
truth that's the question that is being
asked in our relativistic age today
people are saying what is truth who
knows you've got your opinion I've got
mine what is truth the amazing thing is
that the answer was standing six feet in
front of pilot
because truth is not a proposition truth
is a
person that's the great revelation of
John's gospel people think truth is
something it isn't it's
someone and if you want to know the
truth then you need to have personal
knowledge of this
person and therefore the most important
question you can ever ask is what do you
think of
Jesus or as the Jews said to him in
chapter 8 here in Jerusalem they said
who do you think you
are that's the most important question
you can ever ask of
Jesus well now inevitably as people died
who knew him personally rumors and
legends began to creep
in and speculation came in about Jesus
especially in the city of Ephesus where
John the elderly man was writing this very
very
gospel I don't know if you are aware
that there are many other gospels that
you don't have in your
Bible the Gospel of Thomas is one a
whole lot of them there are weird
stories in those gospels there's one
gospel that says Jesus as a little boy
was playing in the street in Nazareth
and somebody pushed him over into the
mud and he pulled himself up and he
cursed the boy with Leprosy who had
pushed him into the
mud then there's another story about him
fashioning little birds out of clay and
then blessing them and they flew away
way all of this in his childhood
actually Jesus didn't do a single
Miracle until he was 30 because he
couldn't do them without the power of
the Holy Spirit Jesus didn't do Miracles
as the Son of God but as the son of man
filled with the spirit that's why he
said what I'm doing you can do too so we
know these are false and all these
Legends and rumors that gather around
great people were starting together but
in particular there were two things that
were beginning to be said which were
false about Jesus and John had to write
his gospel to correct them and I'm not
going to tell you what they are we're
going to finish there and next talk
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