John was the youngest of Jesus’ Disciples and the only Apostle who would live to an old age, actually several decades after Christ’s Sacrifice and Resurrection. The Apostle John makes a case to Jews and gentiles alike that Jesus IS God!
Do you believe in God?
If you believe that the heavens and earth are created, John illustrates the event which precedes all mankind in a manner similar to the Book of Genesis, then immediately makes a connection between God the Father and God the Son.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him…
John 1: CSB
We began this series with John’s ‘in the beginning’ explanation of Christ from his Gospel and some of John’s letters, then proceeded to ask some basic questions about God.
God is Spirit
John also points to the Spirit, in the same way as Genesis points to the Spirit of God having an active role in Creation.
The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
John 3:8 CSB
Jesus receives the Spirit of God
John introduces the respected Prophet John the Baptist, who testifies to the authenticity of Jesus as the Messiah.
And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. 33 I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
John 1:32-34
Signs – Proof from God
John’s Gospel presents witnesses and evidence that Jesus is the Messiah with proofs presented throughout his Gospel.
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”
John 3:2 – the words of the Pharisee Nicodemus to Jesus
Perhaps you are a skeptic and because others saw the signs and attested to them a long time ago, you need proof.
This is where faith and a reasonable logic connect the evidence of the Good News witnessed twenty-one centuries ago.
‘What are these signs that Jesus is the Messiah of Almighty God?’
Seven Signs John Records
- John 2:1-12 Jesus turns water into wine, mentioned in an earlier post in this series.
- John 4:46-54 Jesus heals the son of a Roman official in Cana
Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
Jesus to a Roman nobleman – John 4:48
Perhaps Jesus spoke these words not only for the Roman official who showed respect and faith to Him, but also to the crowds of Jewish disciples who had begun seeking signs that Jesus IS the Messiah.
- John 5:1-16 At a festival in Jerusalem, witnessed by crowds of Jewish pilgrims, Jesus asked a man who had no strength [astheneia] for thirty-eight years, “Do you want to get well?” And the Lord heals him.
What a seemingly odd question, “Will you be made whole?”
The dual meaning from the Greek, Judea’s and the Empire’s common language, implies not only receiving a healthy body once more, but also receiving teaching which does not deviate from the truth.
Would that be something the multitudes present and saints today would want? Do you want to be made whole, by the Power of God?
What is your answer?
8 “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.”
… 14 After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
Jesus asks us, “Do you want to be made well?”
Miracle of the Loaves and Fish
- John 6:1-5 Feeding of the Five Thousand
A huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was performing by healing the sick.
John 6:2
14 When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This truly is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
15 Therefore, when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
- John 6:16-22 Jesus walks on water.
Only the Twelve witnessed this directly; however note what the crowds would have realized after Jesus had left them to be alone.
22 The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw there had been only one boat. They also saw that Jesus had not boarded the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone off alone.
‘How did this Prophet get to the other side without a boat,’ the crowds witnessing a miracle the day before must have wondered? Then they got in their own boats and crossed to the other side to seek Jesus.
- John 9 Jesus heals a blind man
We will not dwell on the richness of this later sign of Jesus’ healing of a man who is blind from birth. This miracle as well becomes a sign to us that not everyone who hears the eyewitness accounts has ‘ears to hear’ the truth.
Not everyone who sees a miracle with our own eyes will ‘have eyes to see’ the wonder of God at work in the life of another mere mortal.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”
Resurrection of the dead
- John 11:32-40 Jesus raises Lazarus from death
32 As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”
33 When Jesus saw her crying,
and the Jews who had come with her crying,
he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.
This is the compassion of the Lord, love for the family as a fellow friend of the dead man, Lazarus. Jesus loves them. Therefore, God loves them all; for they have suffered in the death of a loved one – a mortal man.
34 “Where have you put him?” he asked.
“Lord,” they told him, “come and see.”
35 Jesus wept.
The proof is not yet come. No miracle to have saved Jesus’ beloved friend from his inevitable death, even when Jesus was not present. And the sign of Jesus is not just so that they might rejoice in their friendship one last time before Christ’s own suffering.
Look again to the two very different reactions to this seventh sign John provides that Jesus IS the Messiah of God.
36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
37 But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”
… 41 So they removed the stone…
“Lazarus, come out!”
44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth.
Reaction to Jesus’ Signs
What was it they had said before Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb?
“Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”
Yes. He could have. But instead Jesus showed God’s power by raising Lazarus from death.
Lazarus would be a walking witness to Jesus, conviction to those who would crucify their own Messiah and proof of not only his resurrection but witness that Jesus IS the Messiah.
Many believed in Jesus because of Lazarus. Many others followed Jesus because of their personal witness to other signs recorded by the Apostle John.
Yet others remained unrepentant. It was not so unlike those we encounter in these last days.
“What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs?
If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
John 11:47b-48 CSB
The religious leaders could never again be comfortable with Jesus. Our comfortable status-quo will change, even before the judgement which follows death.
Indeed, what will you do, now that the testimony of John has shown you the signs of Jesus?
To be continued...
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