Notes: John

Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

• The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world (1:9)
  • God, who everything life, was coming to earth/the world.
  • Even though he made the world, the people on earth in the world didn’t recognize Him and didn’t recei ve Him, But there were some that did recognize Him. To them he gave the right to beocme children of God (1:12)
  • God, the Word, came into the world birthed as a human, and human in every way.
  • No one has ever seen God, but His only Son, Jesus -who is Himself God and in closest relationship with the Father – has made God known to us. We get to know God through Jesus (1:18)
• God sent John the Baptist to baptize people with water, then he baptized Jesus and the Holy Spirit came down into Jesus (??). Then Jesus had the ability to baptize people with the Holy Spirit (???). Did I get that right? (1:33)
• Simon was named Cephas (Peter) by Jesus. It means “rock”. (1:42)
• Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, no enters the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gies birth to flesh, but the Spirit give birth to Spirit. (3:6)
  • Just because you’re born a human (flesh from flesh; born of water?) doesn’t mean you get to enter God’s Kingdom. You must also be born of Spirit. Accept Jesus, the Holy Spirit, into your life.
• For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever beleives in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (3:16)
• For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. (3:17)
• The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in His hands.

• To prove Jesus is God’s Son, John reports 7 signs… miracles that Jesus performs. It is the case for Jesus as God’s Son. He means to prove the deity of Jesus.
• He starts his gospel at the creation. Placing Jesus there. 
• Jesus has long discussions with people explaining who he is and why he came to earth.
• John introduces Jesus as a divine being by calling Jesus the Word, Logos in Greek.
  • Logos – Greeks taught that logos is the mysterious principle behind the universe…the eternal force that drive everything.
• John is telling the Greeks and Jews that Jesus is the divine force behind the universe. He spends his entire gospel proving it.
• “In the beginning the Word (logos) already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
• Greek philosophers used Word/logos as a name for the cosmic reason behind teh universe. They defined it (Word/Logos) as a mysterious power that always exists and tht makes all things happen.
• John calls Jesus the ‘Bread of Life”. A symbolic description that could be referring to:
  • mealtime bread – Jesus is the source of our spiritual nourishmnet, as mealtime bread is meant to nourish our body.
  • Passover bread – eaten annually as a reminder that God delivered teh Jews from Egyption slavery. Jesus delivered the Jews from their slavery to sin.
  • manna – bread that God made fall ffrom the sky to feed the starving Jews during the Exodus. Jesus came to feed a spiritually hungry world.
  • communion bread – a reminder that Jesus sacrifice his body, paying the death penalty for humanity’s sins.
  • Jesus had his cousin, John the Baptist, baptize him the Jordan River. He assembles 12 disciples/students who will travel with him, learn from him, adn help him spread his teachings.
  • At the wedding in Cana Jesus does his first miracle by turning water into wine.
  • Jesus says to Nicodemus, who is a pharisee who believes God is with Jesus… “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”  John 3:3

• Jesus says that a person must be born againb of water and the Spirit (3:5). What could that mean?
  • physical birth when the water breaks, followed by spiritual birth?
  • water baptism followed by a a life changed by the spirit’s daily guidance.
• Jesus tells the people who he is (God) in 7 different ways, pointing to God. Each statement begins with I AM, which is what God told Moses to refer to Him as wehn talking to the people/Jews he freem from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 3:14).
• I AM…
  • The Bread of Life (John 6:35). The source of every believers spiritual life.
  • The Light of the World (John 8:12). The source of spiritual insight and direction.
  • The Gate for the Sheep (John 10:7). The doorway into the Kingdom of God.
  • The Good Shepherd  (John 10:14). The one who knows his sheep and lays down his life to save them
  • The Resurrection of Life (John 11:25). The one who not only gives people life after death, but is the source of eternal life.
  • The Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one gets to the Father except through me. (John 14:6). the one who not only shows people the way to God and salvation, but is the way. No one can reach the Father except through Jesus… the bridge between heaven and earth.
  • The True Grapevine (John 15;1). The source of spiritual nourishment for everyone connected to Him in faith, just as a grapevine feeds water and nurtrients to its branches.

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