The Gospel of John was the last of the four Gospels to be written (probably around AD 85). It was authored by the Apostle John, who according to church tradition was the only one of the Eleven faithful apostles not to die a martyr’s death. He was a very young man when he began following Jesus in His earthly ministry. He was one of the three disciples who was closest to Christ. The Apostle John walked with Jesus very closely for the 3 years of His earthly ministry and then he walked with the ascended Jesus a very long time. The Gospel of John is the fruit of a man who knew Jesus deeply and who had deeply meditated on the Person and Work of the LORD Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of John presents Christ in all His glory. It is characterized by long discourses of Christ as He explains the meaning of His miracles and what they reveal about His nature. For example, in John 6:1-15, we have a record of the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with bread and fish in the wilderness.
Then, in John 6::25-71, we have an extended teaching of Jesus as He describes Himself as the Bread of Life and as the True Bread from heaven. He presents Himself as the True Manna of God who can sustain the people of God much better than the manna which the Israelites fed on in their 40-year wilderness wanderings under the leadership of Moses. John 6 presents Christ as the greater Moses who has come from heaven to reveal God and the way to God. He is the fulfillment of God’s promises and dealings with the people of God under the Mosaic Covenant.
God had revealed Himself at the burning bush to Moses as the LORD, the great “I am”, in Exodus 3:14. This became the personal covenant name of Israel’s God. Most Bible translations use the capitalized form, the LORD, to designate the name “I am”. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is revealed as the “I am”. In John 8:58, Jesus says to the Jewish leaders: ” before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked stones up stones to stone him, because they believed he had committed blasphemy.
There are 7 sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel in which he adds a predicate to “I am”. They are: I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35); I am the light of the world John 9:5); I am the gate for the sheep (John 10:7); I am the good shepherd (John 10:14); I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25); I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6); and I am the True Vine (John 15:1). Each of these “I am” sayings reveal something of the glory of Christ.
Jesus is presented as the unique son of God, the only eternally begotten of the Father (John 1:14, 18). He is the God-man. Christians are sons and daughters of God through adoption (John 1:12; Rom. 8:14-16; Gal. 4:6,7), but Jesus is eternally begotten of God. The Gospel of John presents Jesus as fully human and fully God. He combines in His Person 2 natures, humanity and deity. Let us worship Christ the LORD. This the Good News of Jesus. Pastor John