The Church of Divine Guidance Sunday morning Adult Bible Study is embarking on an exhaustive study of the book of John. Of the four gospels, John’s gospel presents Jesus as God most forcefully. John explicitly declared Jesus to be God who brought all things into existence. John’s gospel confirmed that Jesus was YHVH of the Jews . He is light and life . These are the notes of that study. Be sire to listen to the audio of the study at then end of these notes.
Last Week
Last Week
Last week in Chapter 2 we talked about the first miracle of Jesus, recorded in John, the turning of water into wine. That miracle proved that Jesus had power over nature changing one substance into another. It was not grape juice into wine but water into wine. The result of that miracle, which was not to save the bride and groom from embarrassment but to display Jesus’ glory, was that His disciples believed in Him.
John 2:11 (NKJV)11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.
He and His disciples went to Jerusalem, probably for Passover, and on seeing what was happening in and around the temple where the officials were profiting but gouging the people who came to make their sacrifices and worship, got angry and turned the place out.
John 2:14-16 (NKJV)14 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers doing business.15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables.16 And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!"
What was significant about that was that based on Jewish law and tradition the Messiah was the only one with the authority to do this so the Jewish officials wanted to know what authority Jesus had. They asked for a sign and Jesus told them the only sign would be something that was manifested in His resurrection after His crucifixion.
John 2:18-22 (NKJV)18 So the Jews answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?"19 Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20 Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?"21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body.22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
Then we talked about the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin. It was during that conversation that we get the verse that says that to see the kingdom of heaven a person had to be born again.
John 3:3 (NKJV)3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Jesus said that a person needs two births. The first is the natural birth of the body. This happens by means of one’s parents. The second birth is a spiritual birth. Only the Holy Spirit can make this happen.
We cannot get this new life for ourselves. Only the Holy Spirit can give it to us. It is a gift from God
Today
Jesus was ending His conversation with Nic by talking about that new birth and the results of it.
John 3:12-13 (NKJV)12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
Earthly things are the things already discussed, such as the nature of the kingdom and of spiritual birth and life. Heavenly things are matters which the Son of man, by his coming down from heaven, had to reveal as new and distinctive - The Wycliffe Bible Commentary.
John 3:14-15 (NKJV)14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Let’s go to 
Numbers 21:4-9 (NKJV)4 Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread."6 So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people.8 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live."9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
These verses refer to an incident in the Old Testament. The Israelites were wandering in the desert. They had complained about God. So he sent many snakes to punish them for their bad attitude. The snakes bit and killed many people. Then God told Moses to make a metal snake. He told Moses to put it on the top of a pole. When the snakes bit the people, the people had to look up at the metal snake. If they did this, they would not die.
The allusion is to the cross
John 12:32-33 (NKJV)32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself."33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die.
How does the story of Moses lifting up the snake in the desert illustrate our need and Christ's offer?
As men afflicted with the bite of the deadly serpent looked with expectancy and hope toward that which resembled the reptile that had set the virus of death flowing in their veins, so sinners must look in faith to Christ their substitute, who came in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin
A bite poisons our bodies. And sin ruins our lives. But God has provided a way to cure us. He has provided a way to save us from sin and death. Jesus said that people would lift him up, like the metal snake. He was referring to the time when they would put him on the *cross. They would lift him up on the cross for everyone to see.
We must trust him, because of what he did on the cross. We must believe that he will save us from sin and death. For the Israelites, the only way to cure the snake’s bite was to look at the metal snake. And the only way to free us from the results of our*sin is to look at Jesus on the cross. When we look at the cross, God rescues us from the results of our sins. We must trust Jesus to save us from the punishment for our sins. He died so that God would forgive us. There, at the cross, Jesus took away our sin.
John 3:16-17 (NKJV)16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.17 For God did not send His Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
John 3:16 is probably the most famous verse in the Bible. It expresses in only a few words what Christians believe in that God loves mankind so much He sent His Son who John says is not only God’s Son but God Himself. If you are confused by that I hope you won't be by the time we finish this study. I’ve also written several posts on this subject in my blog. There are several reasons why God sent His Son.
He did it because He is fair. If people do wrong things, they deserve a punishment. So Jesus suffered our punishment in our place.
He did it because He is holy. God cannot accept us, because we sin. But Jesus, who never sinned, took our place. He died instead of us. When we believe this, we receive Jesus’ righteousness as our own. So when God looks at us, he chooses to see Jesus’ righteousness instead of our sin.
What impresses you about God's supreme act of love?
This verse emphasises the main reason why God sent Jesus to die. It was because God loved us all so much.
Love is more than just one of God’s qualities. His nature is love. God does everything because he loves. God’s love always reaches out to us, the people that he has made. God’s love is never selfish. He gave to us the most precious thing that he had: his only Son.
1 John 4:8-10 (NKJV)8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The result of God’s gift of love, if we accept it is Eternal life.
The kind of ‘Eternal life’ Jesus is talking about does not mean just life that continues without an end. Many people have miserable lives. Many people are poor, or hungry, or ill; or they suffer with pain. It would be bad if this kind of life continued without an end. But the eternal life Jesus is talking about means the wonderful life that God gives to us by means of Jesus. He gives it to us now. It is our promise that we will live forever, even after our death. In eternal life, there is no more death, or disease. There is no enemy or sin. Bad things do not happen. Our life on the earth is only a short part of our life with God. After we die, we will live this wonderful life with him always.
Eternal life is God’s free gift to us. We cannot earn it. There is only one way to receive it. We must believe in Jesus. ‘To believe in’ means more than just to know that Jesus is God. Even the devil knows that! It means that we must trust Jesus completely. Only Jesus can save us from the results of our sins. We must let him rule every part of our lives completely. He has a plan for each one of us. We must believe that all his words in the Bible are true. We must obey him. We must believe that he gives us the power to change our characters. He will make us become more like him, if we let him.
John 3:18-21 (NKJV)18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."
How and why does our response to God's Son determine our destiny?
It is our choice. Some people prefer to continue to sin. They do not want to change what they do. So they do not want to know Jesus. They reject him and they reject the Christian message. However, other people become Christians because they want to change. They do not still want to hide their sin. Instead, they want to obey God so they are happy to come to Jesus.
John 14:6 (NKJV)6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Jesus claimed to be God. We have to judge his statements about Himself as either true or false.
The great British writer, C. S. Lewis, explained in his well-known book, Mere Christianity, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he'd either be a lunatic -- on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg -- or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse."
"You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
So Jesus was either a madman, a liar, a myth, or He really was -- and is -- the Son of God.
John 3:22-29 (NKJV)22 After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He remained with them and baptized.23 Now John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized.24 For John had not yet been thrown into prison.25 Then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purification.26 And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified--behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!"27 John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent before Him.'29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.
In your opinion, what motivated John's disciples to raise the issue of Jesus' ministry?
At this time, both John the Baptist and Jesus’ disciples were baptising people. But they were in different places. However, it seems that more people were going to Jesus instead of to John the Baptist. And it seems that John the Baptist’s disciples were worried about this. Probably, they did not like it because they were loyal to their teacher. Probably, they expected him to be jealous of Jesus.
But John the Baptist was not jealous. He knew that God had given him a special job to do. He had to prepare people for the time when the Messiah came. John the Baptist had to guide people to Jesus. So because people were going to Jesus instead of him, John the Baptist had been successful.
John 3:29 (NKJV)29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.
So John the Baptist said that his situation was like a wedding. Jesus was like the bridegroom because he was the most important person. John the Baptist was like the bridegroom’s friend. At a Jewish wedding, the bridegroom’s friend had many duties. For example, this friend arranged the wedding and he sent out the invitations. But he had one special duty. He had to guard the bride’s bedroom. He did not allow anybody to enter. He opened the door only when he heard the bridegroom’s voice.
How would you summarize John's view of the character and ministry of Jesus?
As Jesus became more important, John the Baptist would become less important. This did not matter to him. He had obeyed God and he had done his work well.
John 1:15, 25-7 (NKJV)15 John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’” 25 And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"26 John answered them, saying, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know.27 It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose."
John 3:30-36 (NKJV)30 He must increase, but I must decrease.31 He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.32 And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony.33 He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true.34 For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
How did John demonstrate by his attitude and actions that Jesus was superior to him?
His comments were clear that Jesus was the superior. Now that the Messiah has come his primary mission was completed.
John 1:23-27 (NKJV)23 He said: "I am 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Make straight the way of the LORD," ' as the prophet Isaiah said."24 Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees.25 And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"26 John answered them, saying, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know.27 It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose."
He emphasises clearly that God’s Son is superior to everyone, even to the greatest human teacher. Jesus called John the Baptist great.
Matthew 11:11 (NKJV)11 "Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
John the Baptist could only talk about what he knew. But Jesus knows what heaven is like. He had come from there to the world. He came to tell us the truth about God. God himself sent his Son. And God’s Son knew God’s thoughts, so he spoke God’s words.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came and remained with certain people. This was so that they could do special work for God. Now, all Christians have the Holy Spirit in them. But the Holy Spirit was in Jesus in a special way. Because Jesus was God, there were no limits to the Holy Spirit’s power in him.
John 3:34 (NKJV)34 For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.
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