There ar three keys for our appreciating John's Gospel.

Wednesday, 4/6/16

There are three keys for our appreciating John’s Gospel.

The first key for appreciating John’s Gospel is in seeing how he copies the Exodus story of how God through Moses led the people to the Promised Land. Like, in Chapter Forty of Exodus we read how when Moses set up God’s meeting tent it was filled with God’s glory. In Chapter One of John’s Gospel, verse 14 we read, the Word “set up his tent with ours, and we saw his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son.”  

John has incident after incident echoing “Exodus.” Jesus is the bread come down from heaven. He is the light leading us through the darkness. If anyone thirsts, let him come to him to drink.

The second key comes at the end of John’s Chapter Twenty where he wrote, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. These are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through this belief you may have life in his name.” Every story in John’s Gospel demonstrates that Jesus is the Messiah Son of God, and how we come alive through believing in him.  

The third key is the way that John, instead of following the other Gospels in telling the stories of Our Lord’s many miracles, describes what he calls six “signs” through which he shows us that Jesus is the Messiah who gives life to those who believe. 

The first example of that follows the turning of water into wine where John wrote, “Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana of Galilee, revealing his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.”