John

I'm just coming to the end of a preaching series in 1 John. (11 sermons down, 1 to go on 1 John 5:13-21). This short letter will get another outing in September in a different context.

As I've preached through 1 John chapter 5, it has increasingly felt that this chapter has a summing up and drawing together function. The main threads of the letter come together.

I've been re-reading John 16:12-15 again. To remind you, here's what it says:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 8:12 is a familiar verse. It's one of Jesus' famous "I am" sayings. “I am the light of the world”, or   ̓Εγω εἱμι το φως του κοσμου.

Given which, Matthew 5:14 is a massive shock, is it not? I've read both passages many times, but never realised what a significant statement that makes Matthew 5:14: “You are the light of the world”, or   ̔Υμεις εστε το φως του κοσμου.

One of the statements in John, that we take to be one of Jesus' unique and momentous claims concerning himself, is applied to all his disciples. He is the light of the world, "I am", … and so are we!

People sometimes worry that the 4 Gospels don't tell the resurrection story in exactly the same way. This is to worry needlessly. If the 4 Gospels told the resurrection story in contradictory ways, that would be a different matter. As it is, we simply have a difference in perspective. Look at the story from different angles, you include different details and stress different things. It couldn't be otherwise. The four Gospels are not an assortment of favourite deeds of Jesus, thrown together haphazardly.

There is a really helpful paragraph in Carson's wonderful commentary on John expounding John 2:21, where Jesus speaks of his body as a temple. I've grasped the general idea expressed in John 2:21 for some time, but Carson's paragraph is very helpful for its clarity.

Psalm 69 is David praying to God about his enemies that are more numerous than the hairs on his head. He is fearful lest others who love God suffer because David is known to love God and is in disrepute. It is because of his zeal for God that he suffers.

Verse 9, quoted in John 2, comes in that context. David has zeal for God’s house, and because of that zeal he is suffering as he is. So, “consume” does not just mean “absorb”, in the sense that he is consumed with passion for God’s house. Rather, his zeal for God’s house is eating him up; it is leading to his mistreatment.

John 2:16 reads, "Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade."

In the parallel incident in Mark 11:15-19, Jesus says “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” He quotes Isaiah 56:7, but the cross references in my ESV point me to Jeremiah 7:11 for the latter half of that verse, “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

If, like me, you’ve ever read that verse and puzzled slightly over what those “greater works” are, then it’s time to visit Doug Wilson’s blog over at Blog and Mablog.

Yesterday he posted an entry entitled Greater Works which sheds a lot of light on that verse.

Picking up, again on this CHN article. The Bible is quite clear that it’s a fair question. Jesus did die for the sins of the whole world. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”.Just a small exegetical observation.