Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: John 1:14 | Date: March 14, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

I’d like to add my note to say it’s so good to see Allie Brown here today. We prayed for that family a lot this week. We’re glad for God’s provision for them. And also it is great to see Cliff back with us today. After the heart troubles that he’s had, to see him back with the congregation, it’s great.

If you will take your Bibles and turn to John chapter 1. And today we begin the next major section of our series on the doctrine of salvation. You’ll remember that the first major section that we covered was salvation planned, and then now we move to salvation accomplished or redemption accomplished. And then after that, we’ll move to redemption applied in the experience of each individual believer.

Redemption Accomplished: The Saving Mission of the Son

We move now from salvation or redemption planned—the electing purposes of God, the sovereignty of God in salvation—and now we move to see how that salvation was accomplished. God has planned it, he has purposed whom he will save, and now you see in the saving mission of the Son how that redemption was accomplished. Now under this broad category, we’re going to be spending a lot of time. We’re going to be looking at many different specific subjects that each itemize another aspect of the saving work of Christ. These are major doctrines. They include some vocabulary that you’re going to need to learn, and I promise you, you will want to know. These are marvelous subjects informing us of what God has accomplished for us in Christ in his saving work.

Today, though, we just introduce that category. We’ll be looking at this broad subject of redemption accomplished: the saving mission of the Son. And to do that, we’ll be doing something of a survey of the Gospel of John, because that is, in large part, the story of John’s Gospel—how Christ, how God the Son, has come on this saving mission to accomplish the redemption of God’s chosen people. So we’ll be tracking that out, and I’d like to begin with John chapter 1, verses 1 to 18.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.'” And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we are grateful for this marvelous theme that we begin today to explore. We pray that you would give us eyes to see it, hearts to receive it, and we pray that you would, through this, deepen our faith, our trust in Jesus Christ alone as our Savior. We pray in his name, amen.

The Prologue: The Deity of Jesus Christ

John introduces his gospel with this, what is called a prologue in verses 1 to 18, introducing Jesus from a very different angle from what we have in the other of the four Gospels. Here he begins, “In the beginning,” clearly an allusion back to Genesis chapter 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The difference between Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 is that in Genesis 1:1, Moses starts at the beginning and works this way through time. God spoke and it was. God said and it was. God created everything and then there’s the unfolding of history. So Genesis 1:1, in the beginning—Moses starts there and begins to work his way through time in this direction.

John takes us back to that same point in the beginning and works the other direction. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word—here is his designation for Jesus or God the Son. The Word always was with God. And in fact, the Word was God. And already now at the very opening of John’s Gospel, we are into the rudiments of the doctrine of the Trinity. Here is one who was distinct from God in some way, and yet with God, and in fact himself was God, and that forever. Here’s one who is eternally God, and he calls him the Word: God’s self-expression.

Now, we saw this at some length in our recent Sunday School series, particularly when we looked at the creeds. And in Colossians chapter 1, you find this language about God the Son, that he is eternally with God. There never was a time when there was not the Father and the Son and the Spirit. They are eternal and co-equal and co-glorious and all of that. And yet, there is in the New Testament this expression of this “from-ness”—that the Son is from the Father. That’s what the language of Father and Son entails. He’s called the only begotten Son. He’s called the image of the Father. You never find the Father as the image of the Son, but the Son is somehow the image of the Father. And in Hebrews chapter one, he’s the brightness of the Father’s glory. And it’s always that direction. There’s this from-ness with the Son.

And here it’s the Word. Christ, or the Son, is the Word of God, God’s self-expression. He’s God making himself known. And that is the theme that carries us through the whole prologue, and it climaxes in verse 18: “No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son who’s in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” He is the Word of God. He is God speaking. And we are intent—John the Apostle intends for us then, as we read through his gospel, to keep this in mind. This is who Jesus is. He is God making himself known. He’s the Word of God. So in all that Jesus says, in all that Jesus does, he is God making himself known.

So that’s, in long and short, the prologue of John’s gospel. But there’s another high point in the prologue and that, of course, is verse 14: “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.” This Word who was from eternity, who was in the beginning with God, and who in fact always was God himself, if you can believe it, was made flesh. What an amazing thing. The theologians have tended always to describe this now as the state of the Son’s humiliation. Here he was in glory with the Father forever and now has been made this stuff. He’s come into human flesh. He has become what we are and assumed a human nature, a human soul, a human body. He has become what we are. Not ceasing to be God, but now both God and man. God come as man in order to reveal God to men. That’s what John has to tell us.

The Perspective of John’s Gospel

Now, each of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—has its own slant in presenting Jesus. “Four Gospels” is the way we say it, but keep in mind, actually, there’s just one Gospel, and so we don’t have technically four Gospels. We have the Gospel according to Matthew, we have the Gospel according to Mark, we have the Gospel according to Luke, the Gospel according to John. One Gospel, but each of these Gospel writers presenting Jesus from their own respective viewpoint, emphasizing one particular aspect of the glory of Jesus.

So Matthew is known as the gospel of the kingship of Christ. Mark is known as the gospel where Christ is the great sovereign servant. And then we have Luke who presents Jesus as the savior of the world, the one who has come to seek and to save that which is lost. And each of them has their own angle, slant, or particular emphasis with regard to Jesus. They’re not contradictory; they are complementary.

John’s gospel is given us—and it’s been widely recognized as this—as the gospel of the deity of Jesus Christ. He is written, in large part, to show us the deity of Christ. Now you have to be careful how you say that, because it is not the case that Matthew, Mark, and Luke present us with a merely human Jesus. That’s not the point at all. We’re having to do here with the point of emphasis. But there is more than that. There’s more of a difference in starting point. Matthew, Mark, and Luke begin on the human plane. And along the way, they tell us that this Jesus is God. And they have some of the strongest statements of the deity of Christ that you can find anywhere, including the Gospel of John. Matthew chapter 11, we have the unshared sonship of the Son, that he has a unique kind of sonship in his relationship with the Father.

So the difference is not that John presents Jesus as God and the others present a merely human Jesus. The difference is one of perspective. Matthew and Luke, for example, begin in the manger and work their way from the human plane upward and begin to show us the significance of Jesus. John doesn’t begin on the human plane. John begins in heaven. John begins in eternity. And whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke may tell us this Jesus is God, John starts out by telling us this God, the second person, became Jesus. And that is what we are to note as we begin reading through John’s gospel.

And John then picks that up throughout the whole gospel. We have this emphasis on the deity of Christ threaded through John’s gospel. And there are certain high points in John’s gospel where that’s brought up. For example, in chapter 5, Jesus says, “You must honor the Son as you honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father.” There’s a co-equal honor of the Son with the Father. You have it in chapter 8, another high point where Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Find it again, another high point in chapter 10 where Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” And his enemies couldn’t stand that because he’s claiming equality with God and so they took up stones to stone him. Find another high point, John chapter 14. Thomas says, “Show us the Father, that’s all we want.” Remember how Jesus responds? “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” Find Jesus in his high priestly prayer, speaking of the glory that I had with you before the world was.

And all of that comes to climax in the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples, and doubting Thomas comes to Jesus, who had said, “I just can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it, not unless I put my hand in his side and see the—I just can’t believe it that he’s risen.” And finally, Jesus appears before the disciples, and you remember it was Thomas himself who bows before him and says, “My Lord and my God.” And John picks up on that and says, “That’s why I’ve written this book, so that you will know that Jesus—that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.”

So we have John then with this perspective from heaven, from eternity downward, showing us from the get-go that this is God come as man. God come to reveal himself to men. And we have that in verse 14 again: “The Word became 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.”

The Sending of the Son

Now with that then, there is a strong emphasis in John on the pre-existence of the Son. The Word became flesh. His birth in Bethlehem was not the beginning of his existence. It was the beginning of his human existence. This is where God the Son, who had existed from all eternity as God, with God as the second person, now takes on a human nature and becomes a man. And in fact, Jesus talks like this many times through the Gospel of John with the language of, “I came.” I came, and often there’s a purpose clause after it. “I came that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” Or straight on, “For this purpose I came.” Reflecting his pre-existence, and he’ll even say at times like in John 8:14, “I know where I came from and where I am going.” John 8:42, “If God were your father, you would love me for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”

So again, we have this strong emphasis then, prominent in the gospel, that this is in fact an incarnation where God the Son has come, and that his birth, his arrival as a man, was not the beginning of his existence. It is the beginning merely of his human existence. And in fact, that’s reflected in the familiar verse John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” God gave his Son and he came.

Now more to our point here then today, chasing this theme of redemption accomplished, we should notice that not only is the Son from all eternity and pre-existing from eternity before his earthly life, but in fact John makes very prominent this theme of the Son being sent. That’s the word that’s used. A couple of different Greek words translate the same way: “Sent.” More than 40 times in John’s gospel we read that the Son was sent or that the Father sent the Son. So for example, John 3:17, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” God sent his Son to save the world. Or John 3:34, Jesus speaks of “he whom God has sent.”

Let’s take a sample of that. I want you to see the sending of the Son. Look at chapter five. Here in the space of a single paragraph, Jesus speaks of his being sent, having been sent by the Father, six different times. John 5, verse 23: “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” Verse 24: “Truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” Verse 30: “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge. My judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” Verse 36: “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John, for the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I’m doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me, and the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you have—and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.”

Well, there’s 30 more or so of these passages in the Gospel of John where Jesus tells us over and over again that the Father has sent him here. He has existed from all eternity, he came as a man in the flesh, and in fact the Father sent him to do that. Why did he send him? Well, that’s another prominent theme. It’s summarized in this simple expression, “the Father sent me,” but there are many passages through the Gospel of John where it’s expanded on that God sent the Son on a specific mission and with a specific assignment.

So look at chapter 4, verse 34: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” Notice: the Father has sent the Son, he has sent him with a specific task, and that’s the task he has come to accomplish. It’s the work that the Father has given him to do. Verse 30 of chapter 5: “I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” So Jesus has a task that has been assigned to him by the Father, and that’s what he’s come to do—a task that was defined for him by God the Father. Verse 36 of chapter 5: “The testimony that I have is greater than that of John for the works that the Father has given me to accomplish. The very works that I’m doing bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.” The Father has given the Son a work to do and has sent him to earth to do it.

Chapter 6, verse 38, a passage that Pastor Greg read earlier this morning: “I have come down from heaven”—this is verse 38 of chapter six—”I’ve come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” There it is again: the Father assigning a task to the Son, the Son willingly taking it up and coming to accomplish that mission. Chapter 17, a vivid expression of the same idea. Chapter 17 in verse four: Here is Jesus in his high priestly prayer, the night before his crucifixion, praying to the Father and says, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” Now here—I’ll just anticipate what’s coming—but clearly Jesus here, when he says, “Having accomplished the work which you have given me to do,” anticipates the events of the next day in his crucifixion.

Well, you see this in many other passages in John as well, where Jesus says that he has come to do what the Father sent him to do. Sometimes the language—I think about a half a dozen times in the Gospel of John—the language is that of “commanded.” The Father commanded me to do, doing what the Father has commanded. So the Father has sent the Son with a specific mission and an assigned task. Summed up for us in chapter 10 in verse 10: “I have come that they may have life, that they may have it more abundantly.” So the Father has sent the Son to accomplish salvation.

Now we have in this something of the relations of the three persons of the Godhead. We talked about this recently in the Sunday school hour, that there are the three persons of the Godhead who are co-equal and co-eternal in every sense, and yet within that relations of the Father, Son, and Spirit, there’s a “from-ness”—that the Son is eternally from the Father. The Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son. That’s the relations that distinguish them as different persons, and so when this saving mission was determined, it was naturally the Son who was sent by the Father.

Again, we’re not left to wonder what that mission was. It is a mission of salvation. “I’ve come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.” That’s John 10:10; John 3:16 and 17. God loved the world such that he sent his Son to save it. And in fact, here in what we’ve just read in John chapter six, verses 38 and 39, Jesus tells us plainly that “I’ve not come to do my own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me. And this is the will of the Father who has sent me, that of all those that he has given me, I will lose none of them.” That he has come to accomplish salvation.

“My Hour Has Come”

Now, when we see this, that the Son from eternity has come, become incarnate, become a man—he’s come on a saving mission to accomplish salvation. One of the ways that the Gospel of John emphasizes that is with this expression, “My hour” or “His hour.” And Jesus’ hour is the climactic moment in which he accomplishes the mission that was assigned to him by the Father. And we read through the gospel narrative and we find—and we’ll track this out in just a second—but keep alert to it, that we have this expression, “My hour,” but in the earlier part of the John’s narratives, it’s “My hour is not yet.” “My hour has not yet come.” “His hour was not yet.” And then finally we get to the end, around the time of the cross: “My hour has come.”

Look at that here. Look at John chapter 2. Here we have Jesus at the wedding of Cana. His first miracle, turns the water into wine. He’s talking to his mother. Jesus says to her—this is John 2 verse 4—Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” I can’t look at the passage here any more than that, but just to note here that Jesus is saying that hour for which he has come is not yet.

Look at chapter 7 and verse 30. Chapter seven, verse 30, they were seeking to arrest him. He’s here at the Feast of Booths. “They were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.” That is, they would arrest him, and yeah, that will happen, but not yet. In the providence of God overruling the hearts of men, they won’t do it yet because his hour had not yet come. Chapter 8 and verse 20: “These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come.”

Look at chapter 12. Here three times within the space of a few verses we have the expression, but notice the tense—the verb tense has changed. Chapter 12, verses 23 and following: “Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour.'” So here Jesus is anticipating the cross and actually alluding to it with this little parable of the grain of wheat going into the ground and dying and sprouting up and bringing forth fruit. That’s what his death will do. It will accomplish much. “My hour has come.” And then he uses the expression, “Glorify your Son.” And John explains for us in the following verses that this he spoke concerning his death.

Look at chapter 13, verse one: “Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world.” So there’s the hour. It’s the hour in which he will depart from this world. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” So here’s the hour to which he has come. It is the hour of his death. Chapter 16, verse 32. We’ll see it again. This is how John is tracking out Jesus accomplishing his mission. Chapter 16, verse 32: “Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” Here, speaking of his crucifixion—it’s going to be a hard moment for you. You’ll be scattered away. That is the hour for which I’ve come.

And then one more, chapter 17 and verse one: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said”—remember this is the high priestly prayer on the eve of his crucifixion—”Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you.”

So you see then that John’s narrative is shaped to drive us to the moment of Christ’s crucifixion. The whole narrative drives us to that hour, that climactic moment in which the Son will accomplish the mission on which the Father had sent him. The narrative itself is designed to drive us to that climax when the saving mission is accomplished in his death. This, by the way, is reflected in a statement in Luke’s gospel as well. Luke 23, verse 22: the Son of Man goes—and here in context, it’s going to the cross—the Son of Man goes as it was determined. The natural question, of course, is who determined that? The answer, of course, is the Father had determined that for him.

The hour for which he has come then, the hour in which he will accomplish his mission, the hour in which he will accomplish the salvation of his people, is the hour of his death. Jesus refers to this in John chapter 10. He gives that little parable about the hired hand watching the sheep, and the wolf comes, and the hired hand says—and he does the math—”You know, I make eight bucks an hour, bad wolf, this isn’t worth it,” and he leaves. And Jesus says, “I’m not like the hired hand, I’m the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” He’s not just one who’s willing to risk his life, but he stretches the metaphor all the way. He’s not just one who’s willing to risk his life for the sheep and fight off the wolf. He’s the one who actually gives his life for the sheep.

And the danger that we face, the danger that his people face, it’s not just a wolf—it’s the danger of the wrath of God. And he comes to give his life in sacrifice for his people and to stand in their place and to bear the curse of their sin. And there in his hour, he gives his life for the sheep. And in that context, in John chapter 10, Jesus says, “Therefore, the Father loves me because I lay down my life for the sheep.” The Father has given me this task. I’ve come. I will accomplish it. And he says the Father loves me for it. In John chapter 18, verse 11, another metaphor is used. This is the cup which the Father has given him to drink. The cup of God’s wrath come against the Son at the cross. This defining his death—the moment, the climactic moment of his life when he accomplishes the mission to which he was sent. It is the moment when he absorbs the wrath of God in place of his people. And it is with all of that in mind that we must understand that wonderful expression from the cross in John 19 and verse 30: “It is finished.”

The Father had sent him on a task, a saving mission—a saving mission that would be accomplished only by his death in place of sinners, taking the wrath of God. And Jesus on the cross, just before his death, says, “It’s done. I’ve accomplished the work that the Father has given me to do.” This is a marvelous thing and it’s no wonder that theologians refer to this state of the Son’s existence as the state of his humiliation. God the Son, glorious from eternity, with God, God himself, become man in human flesh, and that to go to the cross to bear the wrath of God against sinners. It’s an amazing condescension. God incarnate, for the purpose of saving sinners, and that by giving his own life in their place.

Those Whom the Father Has Given Me

Well now, this in broad perspective then is what we mean when we say redemption accomplished. The Son has come to accomplish redemption himself. And lest you think that these are just categories that theologians have dreamed up, I want you to see the broader perspective that we have in the Gospel of John—that John relates this notion of the redemption accomplished in the Son’s mission. He relates that directly back to the notion of redemption planned. I want you to see that in a couple of places, particularly chapter 6, and then chapter 10, and then chapter 17, we find some expressions defining or describing the ones whom Jesus came to save. And they are called, “Those whom the Father has given me.” “Those whom the Father has given me.” Or in chapter 10, they’re called “his sheep.”

Now notice how that works out. Let’s look at chapter 6 again. Again, this is the passage that Pastor Greg read this morning. He and I have been chasing one another in our scripture readings lately. John 6:37. Jesus has said that he’s the bread of life. He’ll tell us what to do to have it: “Just believe on me, that’s it.” But you won’t believe. But then verse 37: “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” That is: “You won’t, you’re refusing me, but all that the Father gives me will come”—not might come, but they will come. And not some of them, but all of them. “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” And there’s his explanation: “Because this is what I’ve come here to accomplish. All that the Father gives me will come to me because I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” Jesus says here, just as plainly as you could wish for: the Father has given him a people whom he would save. God has chosen a people to save and he gives them, as it were, to his Son and he sends his Son and says, “Go save them.” And the Son comes on his saving mission and he says himself, “This is why I’ve come, to secure the redemption of the ones that the Father has given to me.”

We find it in chapter 10. Here he uses the metaphor of sheep. I’ve already mentioned the passage. Verse 11, chapter 10: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” And then he says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock and one shepherd. For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life and that I may take it up again.” Notice he lays down his life for the sheep. And then he says, “I have other sheep.” Now you might think that refers to the Presbyterians. But I think more likely he’s speaking here to the Jews with regard to Gentile believers. Believers all over the world. There are people from every tribe and nation and tongue all over the globe that God has given to the Son. And I have them. And Jesus says, “God the Father has given them to me. I come to accomplish their salvation. I’ve got to go out and get them too.” And notice what’s interesting here—this is important to get it—we are not sheep because we’re saved. We’re saved because we’re sheep. He has come to secure the salvation of those given to him by his Father.

We could see this as well in chapter 17 in the high priestly prayer. Jesus on his way to the cross, the eve of his crucifixion, prays to the Father and says, “I pray for them. I pray not for the world. I pray for those whom you have given me out of the world, for they are yours.” And so we have here this link of salvation or redemption planned linked then to salvation accomplished—that the Father in love chose a people whom he would save. And in love, he gives them to his Son and assigns a task: “Go save them.” And the Son, for his part, willingly takes up the task and says, “I’ll do it.” And he comes. Having to be our substitute, he becomes a man. And then he goes all the way to the cross, as it were, with all of those chosen ones riding piggyback on his shoulders. And he goes to the cross and bears the curse of their sin and secures their redemption.

Now in time, it is still necessary for that accomplished work to be applied individually in the experience of each of those who are given to the Son. And Jesus takes that up in his upper room discourse in John 14 to 16 with regard to his work of the Spirit. The Father has chosen, he has sent the Son to accomplish, the Son has come, he’s accomplished the redemption. In time he will send his Spirit to each individual to apply the work of redemption and to bring them into the experience of salvation.

Well, there we have then this broad category of redemption accomplished: the saving mission of the Son. Now what that means for us—now we’ll work it out in all of its glorious particulars—but what that means for us simply is that the salvation that we need was accomplished for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who accomplished redemption and he did it all by himself. And the saving message of the gospel is: you need Jesus. He’s the one who did it, and you don’t need anything else. All you need is the Son who has come savingly to secure the redemption of his people.

And this is, in brief, the message of the Gospel of John, his whole purpose in writing: “I want you to see who this Jesus is. He is God come from heaven to save a people for himself. And I’ve written so that you’ll believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.” Amen.

Let’s pray together. Our Father, in this brief survey of John’s gospel, I pray that you will help us to see more clearly the greatness of the work of the Son who, almost unimaginably, has come from heaven to become one of us and that for the purpose of taking our curse and dying in our place. What a great God, what a great gospel this is. Father, we pray that you would make this the experience of every one of us here. Help us to see, every one of us, more clearly than ever, the greatness of the Son and our need of Him, and give us faith to believe, we pray in His name, amen.