Relevant Verses: John 1; 3

Theme: Witnesses of the Messiah

Leading Question: How comfortable are you with being a permanent bystander or witness for someone else?

A key term in the Gospel of John is the word “witness,” which appears 14 times in the Gospel. The purpose is to show that Jesus is God in the flesh and messiah. To do this, the writer marshals an impressive array of witnesses.

Question: Who are some of the witnesses in John’s Gospel?

1. John the Baptist, “He came as a witness, to testify about the Light” (John 1:7).
2. Those born of the Spirit testify, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen” (John 3:11).
3. The Samaritan woman who went throughout her town giving her witness, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (John 4:29).
4. The scriptures, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).
5. Jesus is giving his own testimony, “If I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going” (John 8:14).
6. The Father, “The Father who sent me bears witness about me” (John 8:18).
7. Jesus works, “The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me” (John 10:25).
8. The people, “So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify” (John 12:17).
9. The Spirit, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26).
10. The disciples, “You also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:27).
11. The disciple whom Jesus loved, “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24).

Question: What is the role of a witness for Jesus?

At the heart of being a disciple is to be a witness, to give testimony. John announces, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (1:29). The principal act of discipleship is to point to Christ and say, “Look, there he is,” so that others may see him. While it seems that Jesus comes after John, John testifies, that in fact, Jesus is before John because in the beginning was the Word. John realizes his place fully, that his sole role in this story is to witness to Jesus, to reveal Jesus to the world. In this Gospel, John recognizes that he is not the baptizer. He is a witness to Jesus’ baptism. In John’s Gospel to be baptized is to be baptized by God by the giving of the Spirit, who “abides” or “remains” (menõ in Greek) with the baptized Jesus. This word is used 40 times in the Gospel of John and is the essential term by which to describe the relationship between Jesus and God, between Jesus and the disciples, and between the believer and God.

The Identity of Jesus
The identity of Jesus is a critical theme in the Gospel of John. The reader of the Gospel knows that Jesus is God’s son, but there is more here, Jesus is the unique revelation of God in the flesh, the incarnate Word. The origin of Jesus is at stake, for where Jesus comes from will be questioned over and over again in the Gospel’s discourses. When Philip and Nathaneal discuss the origin of Jesus, the answer “from Nazareth” is not fully correct, unless one recognizes Jesus as from “the beginning with God” (John 1:1, 45, 46). In Gethsemane, too, when Jesus asks the soldiers who come to arrest him, “Whom are you looking for?” (John 18:7), the answer, “Jesus of Nazareth,” is only part of the truth. The question is, will the readers and the believers be able to see that Jesus is both from Nazareth and from God. The Gospel writer will not let go of either truth because at stake is the declaration: Jesus is the I AM in the flesh. To choose one, or to see only one and reject or weaken the other threatens the essential argument of the entire Gospel.

Even, the reference, “Son of Man” (1:51), used so often in Mark and the other Synoptics is a title that in the Gospel of John gets to be reinterpreted to say, God became flesh, “the Word became flesh” (1:14). Unlike in the Synoptics, the disciples do not witness the heavens opening at Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit descending on Jesus. Rather, they are witnesses to the heavens opening and God’s very Self coming down and dwell among them on earth.

Nicodemus: John 3:1–21

Question: What do you make of the setting of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus?

A striking encounter by night evokes images of a painting by Carravagio, with a dramatic contrast between darkness and light. Nicodemus, a respected Pharisaic elder, comes to Jesus, perhaps out of conviction, perhaps out of curiosity. He may evoke the stance of many of the Jewish interlocutors of the evangelist. In his dialogue with Jesus, he encounters a mysterious answer to his curiosity. Jesus tells him that he must be “born again/from above” (the Greek word anothen means both). Misunderstanding this utterance in the crudest, material form, a puzzled Nicodemus evokes further responses from Jesus that point the way in which heavenly “rebirth” occurs, by focusing with eyes that truly see on a sight that heals, the Son of Man “lifted up” like the serpent in the desert at the time of the Exodus. Through that experience, and perhaps through a ritual action (water and the spirit), a human life can be transformed, light can break into darkness.

Question: What does the image of the “son of Man” likened to the serpent on the staff of Moses convey?

Question: What is the relationship between “water” and “spirit” in the discourse? How do these terms relate to other treatments of “water” and “spirit” in the gospel?

Question: What is the context of John 3:16?

John 3:16 is part of the larger discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus. In the discourse, Jesus compares entering God’s kingdom through birth. The Spirit, like a mother giving birth, is the source of new life: humans are born “from above” (John 3:8). John’s Gospel claims that humans have lost their identity as God’s children and tells how the spiritual experience of “birth” restores this identity through the Spirit’s “labor.” The picture of birth in John 3:3-7 is similar to that of light in John 3:19-21. Indeed, birth is the journey from darkness to light.

The passage also provides the metaphor of ascent and descent (John 3:13). Jesus descended from heaven at his incarnation and will return to heaven on the cross. Just as the elevated form of the serpent healed the people who were bitten by snakes in the desert, Jesus grants new life through his “ascent” on the cross (John 3:14-15; Numbers 21:5-9). The wording links to the cross as the culmination of Jesus’ incarnation, where the complete revelation of divine glory is manifested.