A couple of years ago I had the privilege of speaking on the Gospel of John during my school’s weekly chapel. In contemplating what in this vast treasure trove I would pull out for the twenty-five minute talk, I decided to first consider four categories of students I encounter every day in the halls of Dayspring Christian Academy. My hope was to show the believing students the deep things of the gospel to increase their joy and love for Christ, to feed the questioning students truth to help provide the answers they seek, to challenge the students who reject the faith to formulate their judgment through a careful study of Christ and his claims, and not emotion or rebellion, and to convince those students walking in apathy to wake up to the reality of the gospel.
Since Dayspring could be considered microcosmic, I thought I would share an adapted version of my chapel talk here, to perhaps increase joy, encourage with truth, inculcate knowledge, or wake a sleeper (Ephesians 5:14).
Eye Witness
The book of John, the fourth of the four gospels, was written by an intimately close eye witness to all that Christ did and to all who Christ was. John was part of Jesus’ inner circle. Jesus’ mother lived with him from the time of Jesus’ death to most likely the time of her own death. So John had access to Mary, and could have asked her anything about her son, from what it was like the day he was born, to how old he was when he took his first steps, to her feelings when she returned and found him in the temple as a boy (Luke 2), to what Jesus’ favorite food was. John is a credible witness.
John’s gospel focuses on the last three years of Jesus’ life, and particularly on his death and resurrection. John Piper said, “John means for us to read this gospel stunned and worshipful.”
The Word
John 1:1-3 claims, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”
If you’ve ever asked yourself how you will know if God is speaking to you, look no further. Jesus is the Word. God has already spoken. The divine has already been revealed. Yes, sometimes God speaks through people, prophets, and circumstances. But God’s main method of speaking to his people is through his Word, and that Word is Christ!
Hebrews 1 says,
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Jesus doesn’t just speak words. He doesn’t just tell you things. Christ is not merely God's mouthpiece. He is the Word itself, and through him all things were created. N.D. Wilson explains, "Tree, God says, and there is one. He doesn't say the word tree; he says the tree itself. If he were to stop talking, it wouldn't be there."
Seeing Christ is Seeing God
In Christ we see the Father. We see his love. We also see his grace, patience, compassion, and his wrath.
In John 2, at the wedding in Cana, we see Christ caring about a man’s reputation. Even though Jesus explained that it was not time for him to reveal himself (John 2:4), he spared the host of the feast from disgrace by supernaturally providing the wine.
We see God’s wrath in John 2 when Jesus cleansed the Temple. He was zealous for his Father’s house, the place God designated as a “house of prayer” (Matthew 21:13). The people had made it into a for-prophet house of commerce, so Christ trashed it, exercising his authority as God.
In John 4 we see his great compassion in his treatment of the woman at the well, a Samaritan woman, whom he had no business talking to as a Jew. But he saw her, he loved her, and he took the time to bring her to himself.
He healed the lame in creative and scandalous ways. On the Sabbath. With his spit and some dirt. Touching lepers and declaring not only that they were healed, but also that their sins were forgiven. And when he performed his miracles— water to wine, healing, feeding thousands— he never failed to glorify his Father, pointing out that he and his Father are one and the same. Being God, he had dominion over sickness, nature, earthly authority, and death.
He was always teaching, creating opportunities for his disciples to learn, knowing they would be spreading his message after he was gone. When his teaching became too hard, like in John 6:54 when he proclaimed the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood was a requirement for salvation, people jumped ship (John 6:66). But not the twelve. Peter exclaimed in John 6:68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
This should be our own exclamation when the conflicting voices of the world muddle and contort our thinking. Where else should we go? Only Christ has the true words that lead to life eternal! I, for one, do not want to spend eternity without Christ. Flames or no flames, it is an unimaginable horror to consider spending every day, forever and ever, without anything good. No comfort. No encouragement. No light. No beauty. No family. No love. No Christ.
John, in verse 1:18 says “…grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” The NIV says, “he has explained him.” In John 14, Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father. Jesus, diffusing love, replied, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” Colossians 1:15 asserts, “He is the image of the invisible God.” Hebrews 1:3 exults, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”
To know Christ is to know God!
No Better News
Jesus Christ prayed for you. In John 17, after praying for his followers “whom (God) gave (him) out of the world” (John 17:6), he prayed for those who would come after:
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
If you are in Christ, you are a personal gift from God the Father to Christ the Son, the King and Creator of the universe!
The very last verses in the book of John stir the heart: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
The gospel is a story of rescue. Of all the terrible consequences of the fall, by far the worst is eternal separation from God. It is impossible to be reconciled to God the Father without an atonement for the offense of sin. Enter Jesus Christ, the perfect Son, who became that atonement for those of us who acquiesce to our need of a savior, who agree with the claims that he made, and who fall on his mercy for grace and eternal life. There is no other gospel. There is no better news.