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I don’t know about you, but when I read the Bible, I look from similarities between myself and the persons being depicted… I mean, the human condition has not changed in all the thousands of years since God created Adam and Eve…

Think of that; the basic human emotions, thought processes, and nature has not undergone a single, major change, since Adam and Eve caused death and corruption to enter the world through their disobedience of God and their disbelief of what He had said to them…

Did God Really Say??? Did God Really Mean??? These were the causes of the only major change to the human condition… the change was horrendous, resulting in sickness, corruption, and death…

One could argue that receiving the Holy Spirit was a major change in the Human condition and be correct by large degree… That particular change, however, is merely the harbinger for the next major change in the human condition… Transfigured into our immortal bodies… Of course, we will not longer be merely human at that point…

So, anyway, I look for traits I share with the object of the writings and description of the stories in the Bible, because I know – beyond doubt – that they were people just like me… Good mixed in with bad, sometimes happy, sometimes sad… often struggling for understanding, experiencing pain and joy and fear and hope…

So what about John and the books he wrote??? Well, John 13:23 and 19:26 tells us that he was the disciple that Jesus loved… he was present at the crucifixion… and he would later serve as pastor of a church in Ephesus, that the Apostle Paul had founded…

He wrote 20% of the New Testament; mostly to correct and preserve and to prove – through prophesy – the true plan and doctrine of Salvation.

John was the youngest disciple of the twelve. He outlived all of the others and he wrote the Gospel of John, the three epistles John 1,2, & 3, and Revelation. As the last living disciple of Jesus Christ, he was banished, imprisoned, and exiled on the island of Patmos…

Jesus charged John with caring for His mother… John 19:27.

John was a writer. He was a simple man… The Gospel of John, while profoundly deep in context, is thought to be one of the simplest to understand books in the Bible… I think John was a very simple, straightforward man, for whom the love and appreciation for Immanuel, God with Us, Jesus Christ, and His followers was extraordinary… I can see myself in John in many ways…

Oh, not as the great man of God that John turned out to be. No. But as a lover of Christ and Who He is and What He has accomplished… As a lover of the truth of the Bible and the entire plan of Salvation… As a lover of Gods people and all of mankind…

Yes. John was given insights and visions and enjoyed a very close relationship with Jesus and this was reflected in what he wrote. I think, however, the most important question concerning the Book of John is Why he wrote it.

It was the last gospel written, approximately around A.D. 100. All of the other Apostles were dead, the writers of the New Testament were all gone, and John was left alone, in a time and place where insidious poisonous doctrine was creeping into the Simplicity of the Doctrine of Christ…

During this time the Gnostics believed that Jesus was God, but not man at all… as time passed the truth of the Identity of Jesus, the Deity of the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, was being obscured, debated, and explained away.

Persecution of the church was no longer prevalent. The newness and zeal of those who had direct contact with Christ had worn off… The danger for the Church at Ephesus was not persecution, but from seduction and deceit from within its members and the pressures from the outside world to disprove the validity of Christ and the Salvation He offered… The danger then, was exactly the danger now; the inability to take Jesus at His words… the tendency to disbelieve God Almighty.

Christianity was not in danger of being physically destroyed. It was in danger of being changed into something with no saving value, through undermining the truth of God’s plan of salvation and redemption.

John’s reason for writing this Gospel was to reassert the facts of Jesus’s identity, His deity, and his Messiahship… John wrote this Gospel to correct false doctrine… He wrote it to bolster and strengthen believers; that they might hold fast to the plan, the doctrine, and their relationship with Immanuel; God with us.

Of the four Gospels, John focuses, primarily, on the spiritual aspects of the man Jesus Christ. He declares the deity of Jesus from the outset, and he reinforces the God-Become-Man dogma as the only truth acceptable…

The other three gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were written, primarily, to win believers; to convince non-believers, both Jews and Gentiles alike, that Jesus was the Son of God.

They are described as the synoptic gospels because they are very similar in chronology and in the documentation of the historical life of Jesus and the miracles, He performed… Matthew, Mark, and Luke, portray the wondrous and powerful miracles of Jesus as having been performed out of mercy.

This is not so with John’s gospel… He is intent on declaring the deity of God become Flesh, and his recitation of the miracles of Jesus are provided to prove that He is the Messiah: God become Man… Immanuel: God with Us.

While it is true that all four gospels declare that the Man Jesus is the Son of God, the first three are filled with terminology, parables, and documentation for the winning of believers and the forgiveness of sin… they focus primarily on Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World.

While the Book of John does, indeed, present the Man Jesus as the Savior of the World, it is written during a time when false doctrine, and heresy, were undermining the true doctrine of God becoming Man for the propitiation of all sin for all time…

You don’t see Bethlehem and the birth of the baby Jesus to begin the gospel of John. In point of fact, the Book of John provides more about the resurrected Christ than all of the other three gospels combined.

The other three gospels dealt with Jesus in the here and now, the there and then… John starts his book with the bang of eternity, the declaration of God, the Word, having no beginning and no end, and in the 14^th verse declares that God, the Word, became flesh and displayed His glory as the only begotten of the Father…

There are those that have declared, “If God is without beginning and without end, how could Jesus be God? He obviously had a beginning; He, therefore, could not possibly be God… They say this today. In fact, this is one of the main arguments of the Jehovah Witnesses…

This is just one example of why John wrote his Gospel for believers to stay rooted in the truth, against the pressure, insistence, and insidiousness of false doctrine… And by the way, let me take a side bar here to explain what the scriptures say in answer to this challenge of the deity of Christ…

In John 1:49-51 Jesus is given three titles: Son of God, King of Israel, and Son of Man.

Here is the answer to the challenge of:  if God had a Son, how could the Son be God without beginning or end? John starts his book (John 1:1-2) with: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

In the 14^th verse of the same chapter (John 1:14), John provides: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

As God, The Word, He had no beginning and He is without end. When He left Heaven to be born of Mary, He became human and therefore had a beginning. He was very clearly, in His humanity, the Son of God, through immaculate conception. God was His Father and Mary was His Mother, and Jesus was very clearly human.

As God, the Word become flesh, He was very clearly God, without beginning and without end… In becoming human God did not cast off His deity, rather, His humanity was an addition to His deity.

This is what John was conveying in his gospel. False doctrine, corruption of truth, was the reason for the 4^th gospel account.

John’s focus was on preserving the deity of Christ for believers in the face of those who would explain away the doctrine of salvation and belief in the truth that God became Man for the forgiveness of sin and access to the Kingdom of God via eternal life…

The proof of the fact that John was writing for and to believers is in the fact that he did not go explain the prophecy and birth of Jesus Christ –– believers already had this knowledge… John was insuring, in writing his Gospel, that believers know who Christ is… which begs the question:

Can Jesus know you, if you don’t know who He is??? John wrote his gospel that you might know who Jesus is, in spite of what the wisdom of the world says, and despite the various and myriad ways the worldly wise explain away the identity of The Word Become Flesh: Jesus Christ, the Messiah –– Son of God. Son of Man.

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John 20: 30-31 provides the proof of this as follows:

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

So, it is clear that John wrote his gospel for believers against false doctrine, which questioned the very nature and identity of the Savior: Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Word God become Flesh.

There was a need, a couple of thousand years ago, for the clarification and the understanding of Who Jesus Christ is, what the plan of salvation is, and I ask you, is there any difference today???

I think not. People explain away Christ, the plan of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, the need of God. They warp the truth until it is no longer ascertainable… So let us look to see what John says, and why we should keep it in the forefront of our minds and in the center of our hearts –– why we should stay firmly rooted and anchored in the truth of Who Jesus Is, and What He Accomplished on Our Behalf…

This, after all, is why John was compelled to write these things down.

John 3: 16-18:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

You know, it often strikes me that this most famous scripture in the world, John 3:16 is interpreted to mean that we ought to acknowledge, continually, what God has done for us.

And there is a great deal of merit in this observation of fact. Equally, however –– and this is a point that is totally lost in the pulpits –– is that God Gave His Only Begotten Son that He might spend eternity with us…

In the Book of John, he is totally focused on clarifying Who Jesus is, what the plan of salvation is, and all matters pertaining to eternal existence…

Matthew and Mark made the focal point of their stories the birth, life, and miracles of Jesus, as the Savior of the World.

Luke emphasized parables, as he viewed and presented Jesus under the microscope of a Doctor… John’s entire gospel focuses on believers not losing sight of the deity of the Son of God and the life of the resurrected Jesus…. He provides 7 accounts of sightings after the death and resurrection of Jesus…

In chapter 20, he gives the account of Mary Magdalene, He provides both upper room appearances (with and without Thomas being present). In chapter 21, he appeared to several disciples by the Sea of Galilee, He then fed them breakfast, He also appeared to Simon Peter and asked him, Do you Love me? and then He told Peter that he would be martyred…

John was focused on the eternal significance of who Christ is and what He accomplished. He was focused on the deity of Christ.

Even the miracles recorded by John are merely to emphasize great eternal principles which apply to understanding the deity of Christ… they were provided to add interpretation to powerful and eternal truths… look at the feeding of the five thousand and how it led to the discourse on the Bread of Life…

There are no parables in the Book of John, only discourses, and historical happenstance; all of which are provided to support supernatural, eternal, principles, precepts, and truths.

As focused as John was on relaying the deity of Christ to dispel false doctrine, he never lost sight of the humanity of Jesus… He describes his trip to Samaria, sitting down at the well, and being weary from his journey… John is responsible for the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus Wept… John 11:35. All very human conditions..,

Also, the name Jesus is used predominately throughout the book (as opposed to Christ) because he is focused on the deity of Christ… Deity focused; man centered: John is still proving that God became Man…

John 16:28 provides:

I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father…

Indeed. God became man for the propitiation of sin, the payment of all sin for all time… So, what is the purpose of John’s Book…

Certainly, it was to anchor believers against false doctrine… But let me ask you, who do you say Jesus is??? Are you listening to false doctrine??? Do you believe other than the gospel; the simplicity of the Doctrine of Christ???

Do you believe John to the exclusion of all other doctrine and heresy???

If not, you can fix that today. Come up front while the music plays softly and confess and we will pray with and for you… If you don’t know who Jesus is, or you don’t believe that He is Who John says He is, then you are in danger of hearing Jesus tell you the very thing He states in Matthew 7:21-23:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in the name done many wonderful works?

and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

If you don’t know Jesus, Who He is, What He has accomplished, or how to believe in Him, Come and we will take care of your eternity, right here, right now.