Daily Meditations on the Bible / We stand with Israel
(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”)
Adding to his own testimony about Jesus, John records the testimony of John the Baptist as he tells us who Jesus is.
Q: Explain what John the Baptist means by saying, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.”
Reading over John’s first words again, he concludes with, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son…”
Q: How does John attesting to what he has seen personally affect your understanding of his words?
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John’s grasp of who Jesus is goes well beyond the historical facts of Jesus’ life on earth. Clearly, when he wrote his Gospel account, he was completely convinced that Jesus is God, Creator, and Savior.
Q: What does it mean to you that the Creator becomes the created? What does that say about the Creator’s opinion of and love for his creation?
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
These two verses encapsulate the essential elements of the gospel narrative: If a person receives Jesus and believes in his name, he has the right to become a child of God, born not of man’s will but of God’s.
Q: How do these two verses compare to your favorite summary of the Gospel message?
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—”
To say that some people “received” Jesus is to say that everyone else either was unaware of Jesus or that they rejected him. Since verse 9 shows us that Jesus offers light to everyone, then it seems fair to conclude that people either receive Jesus or they reject him. There is no third option.
Q: Where do you see yourself in relationship to Jesus? Have you chosen to receive him? What does that mean to you?
To understand this passage it helps to remember who Jesus and John were. Both were Jews, children of Abraham. It was to Abraham that God promised descendants and the land of Canaan.
Q: When John writes that Jesus had come “to that which was his own,” what kind of reception should the Israelites have given Jesus and why?
When God finally does come to earth as the promised Messiah, many of the people if not most are so caught up in their own lives that they do not recognize Jesus for who he is. It seems to some as if Jesus, Creator of the universe, is incognito. But was he, or was the problem with those who refused to accept who he was?
Q: Is Jesus the light of your life, or do you find yourself focused on other things?
In John 1:4 we learned that the life that was in Jesus was the light of all mankind. Now we read that Jesus offers life (light) to everyone.
Q: Do you think that Jesus is capable of offering life to everyone? Explain why or why not.
In two short sentences, John gives us a lot of information about John the Baptist: Who sent him, what his mission was, and why he was sent. The third sentence explains who John is not: He is not Jesus.
Q: In your own words, briefly describe John’s mission and why he was sent.
John describes Jesus as, “the Word,” “God,” the maker of all things, the source of life, and “light.” Each of these word choices describes a facet of who Jesus is, much like turning a cut diamond under a strong light reveals the character of the diamond.
Q: What is it about light that makes the word such an appropriate description of who Jesus is?