and we learn at the end of the book that it comes from one of Jesus' closest

followers, called "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Now he appears many times in the story

itself and there's some debate about whether it's John the Son of Zebedee,

one of the twelve, or a different John, who lived in Jerusalem and was known in the

later church as John the Elder. Whichever John it was the book embodies his

eyewitness testimony and it's been brilliantly designed with a clear

purpose that he states near the end. John says: "the story is written so that you may

come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that by believing you may

have life in his name." John believes that the Jesus you read about in this book is

alive and real, and that he can change your life forever.

The book's design is really cool. Its first-half opens with an introductory

poem and short story that's followed by then a big block of stories about Jesus

performing miraculous signs that generate increasing controversy, and it

all culminates in his greatest sign: the raising of Lazarus which creates the

greatest controversy as Israel's leaders decide to kill Jesus. And that launches

into the book second half these chapters focus on Jesus' final night and last

words to his disciples which are followed by his arrest, trial, death, and

resurrection. The book concludes with an epilogue in this video we're just going

to focus on the first half. So the book opens with a two-part introduction.

First a poem that begins, "In the beginning was the Word" an obvious

allusion to Genesis 1 when God created everything with his word. Now a person's

words, they're distinct from that person, but they're also the embodiment of that

person's mind and will and so John says that God's Word was with God (that is

distinct) and yet the Word was God (that is divine) and as we ponder this claim we

hear later in the poem that this Divine Word became human in Jesus, then John

goes on to draw from the stories of Exodus saying that Jesus was God's

Tabernacle in our midst. The glorious divine presence that hovered over the

Ark of the Covenant became a human in Jesus, which leads to his last claim that

the one true God of Israel consists of God the

Father and the son who has become human

to reveal the father to us. Now as we consider these mind-bending claims we

then start to hear a story about how John the Baptist first met Jesus and

then led other people to meet him and become his disciples and one by one as

people encounter Jesus they say out loud who they think he is and in this one

chapter Jesus is given seven titles. Now these titles prepare us for John's love

of sevens in designing the book but altogether they also make a claim that

this fully human Jesus from Nazareth is the Messianic King he's the teacher of

Israel and he's the son of God who will die for the sins of the world.

Now that's a big claim to make about someone and John will now go on to

support it through the stories in chapters 2 through 12.

They all have the same basic pattern; Jesus will perform a sign or make a

claim about himself and that will result in misunderstanding or controversy and

so in the end of each story people are forced to make a choice about who they

think Jesus is. The first section shows Jesus encountering four classic Jewish

institutions and in each case

Jesus shows that he is the reality to which that institution pointed. So Jesus

is at a wedding party and the wine runs out and Jesus then turns these huge jugs

of water like a hundred and twenty gallons total into the best wine ever

and the head waiter says to the groom: "you've saved the best one for last,"

which is of course true, but John also calls this miracle Jesus' first sign; in

other words it's a symbol that reveals something about Jesus. So just as Isaiah

said that the Messianic Kingdom would be like this huge party with lots of good

wine, so this first miraculous sign reveals the generosity of Jesus's

kingdom. Next Jesus goes to the Jerusalem Temple (the place where heaven and earth

were supposed to come together and God would meet with his people) and Jesus

asserts his authority over it: running out all the money exchangers, stopping

the sacrificial offerings; and when the temple leaders threaten him he says,

"destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days."

Jesus is claiming that his coming sacrificial death is

is where heaven and earth will truly meet together. His body that will be

killed is the reality to which the temple building points. Then Jesus has

this all night conversation with a rabbi named Nicodemus who thinks that Jesus is

just like him, another rabbi and teacher for Israel, but Jesus says that Israel

needs much more than just another teacher with new information,

Israel needs a new heart and a new life or in his words, "no one can experience

God's kingdom without being born again." Jesus believes that humans are caught in

a web of selfishness and sin that leads to death, but he also knows that God

loves this world and so he's here to offer people a new birth, a new chance at

life. From here Jesus travels north and he ends up at a sacred well in a

conversation with the Samaritan (that is a non-jewish woman) and they start

talking about water, which Jesus turns into a metaphor for himself. He says he's

here to bring living water that can become a source of eternal life. Now in

John this term refers to a new quality of life, one that's infused with God's

eternal love and it's a life that can begin now

and last on into the future. After this, John has designed another collection of

stories that took place during four Jewish sacred days or feasts, and again

Jesus uses the images related to the feast to make claims about himself.

So Jesus first heals a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, which starts a controversy

with the Jewish leaders about working on the day of rest, and Jesus says it's his

father who's working on the Sabbath and so is he

and they catch his meaning, that he was calling God his father making himself

equal with God, and so they want to kill him.

The next story takes place during Passover (the feast that retold the

Exodus story with the symbolic meal of the Lamb and bread and wine) and Jesus

miraculously provides food for a crowd of thousands which results in people

asking him for more bread and then Jesus goes on to claim that he is the true

bread and if they eat him

they will discover eternal life; and this offends many people who stop following him.

After this is the block of stories set in Jerusalem during the Feast of

Tabernacles (which retold the story of Israel's wilderness wanderings as God

guided them with the pillar of cloud and fire and provided them water in the

desert) and Jesus gets up in the temple courts and he shouts, "if anyone is thirsty

let them come to me and drink." And then later he says, "I am the light of the world."

He's claiming to be the illuminating presence of God and the life-saving gift

of God to his people, and some people believe and follow him but others are

offended and still others try to kill him for these exalted claims. The final

feast story is during Hanukkah (which means rededication). It's about how Judah

Maccabee cleared the temple of idols and set it apart as Holy once more, and Jesus

goes into the temple area and says that he is the one whom God has set apart as

the Holy One, and that he is the true temple where God's presence dwells, and

he also says, "I and the father are one."

This makes the Jerusalem leaders so angry they set in motion a plan to kill

Jesus and so he retreats from the city. Now all these conflicts they culminate

in one last miraculous sign. Jesus hears that his dear friend Lazarus was sick,

but his family lives near Jerusalem which is now a death trap for Jesus. Now

Jesus could stay away and he would save his own life, but he loves Lazarus. So

once he hears that Lazarus has died he goes to raise him from the dead and he

calls him to life out of this tomb knowing that it will cost him his own

life. And the news of this amazing sign, it spreads quickly of course, and just as

Jesus knew would happen, the Jerusalem leaders hear about it and begin to

conspiring to murder him and so he rides into Jerusalem as Israel's King who's

rejected by its leaders. So the first half of John draws to a close with this

story about Jesus laying down his life as an act of love for his friend and

this of course is also a sign pointing forward to the cross which we'll explore

more in the next video but for now that's the first half of the Gospel of John.