JOHN073 - John Says Jesus Is God

John 1:29-34

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Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour Podcast. And right now, we're in the middle of a two-day conversation where we're summarizing all the big, bold, remarkable claims that John the Baptist has made about Jesus. He says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John the Baptist says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world, not just Israel. Big claims. He says that Jesus is more powerful than John the Baptist. John the Baptist says that Jesus predates him, even though John the Baptist is in biological terms older than Jesus. And with that in mind, I'm going to have my friend Jeff play some music in just a second, and then we're going to pick up with that list. But we're also going to note that there's one claim that John the Baptist maybe isn't quite overtly making yet, but that John, the author of the Gospel of John, is overtly making. We'll talk about what that is and why. Next. Okay, Jeffrey, music time. Perhaps the boldest testimony of John the Baptist happens right here at the end of this scene that you and I have been working on for whatever, two or three weeks. And it goes like this verse 34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God. That's very, very bold. That might be enough right there for some people in that original audience that you'll recall had become very sensitive to anything that even resembled idolatry. If you turn the Bible back about this many pages and somebody made a claim like that, a lot of people from Judah and Israel on any any given day might have been like, yeah, whatever. There are lots of lots of gods, lots of sons of gods, you know, whatever. That's that's fine. Sometimes people say stuff. But everything after the reforms of Nehemiah and Ezra in the 440s BC looks a lot different. It's not to say that the Jewish people get everything right between there and the New Testament. They don't, but they don't dip back into idolatry and they're hypersensitive about idolatry after that point. The claim that John the Baptist is making here in John 134, I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God. Hmm, that might have got John in some hot water. I mean, probably the thing that ultimately got John in the most trouble was him challenging secular authority. But I bet there were some people who heard that line right there, that sort of conclusion of John's testimony. And they were like, ah man, that's too much. I feels like blasphemy. Feels like a violation of the second commandment. Feels like we would be worshiping someone other than God. Ah, I'm edgy about that. I bet some people put their hands up, like I intuitively have mine up right now, and kind of backed away and made the little double chin thing. I don't know. But as we read forward in John 1, we'll see a bunch of other people leaned in and we're like, what now? The Son of God? All right, I've seen enough that I'd like to learn more. And they were looking for Jesus, and when they got called by Jesus, they went with them and they never looked back. In fact, pretty much everybody who heard John the Baptist make that claim and then immediately thereafter got called as a disciple of Jesus, they all were with him not only to the end, but they all died going out, proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God and God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. So some people surely would have retreated, some people leaned in. But what is very interesting to me is that we have two levels of claim happening here in the early going. John the Baptist, who was talking in real time. Remember, all these words of John the Baptist, they're happening in like, I don't know, 26, 27 A.D., right on the front end of Jesus becoming a public figure. Jesus hasn't done any public miracles at this point, or at least none that we get a uh a look at or that are described in the Bible. He goes and gets baptized first. So very understandably, people didn't know what to make of him. Jesus' reputation was kind of on loan from John the Baptist in the early going here in real time. But remember, of course, the book of John, written by a different John, a younger John, John the Evangelist, well, this thing wasn't written until probably around 90 A.D. Some people put it even decades later than that. I don't think so. I don't think that's a faithful read on the text, but there are good and smart people who think that. But even at the earliest conceivable dating for the book of John, you're in maybe the 80s A.D. So you're talking like 50 years after all of this stuff had happened. Now, picture 50 years ago, just like right now. What does that look like? What do the color schemes look like? What do the cars look like? What does the clothes look like? Who's in charge? Who's president or prime minister of your country? What does the sports look like? What movies were coming out? How did the music sound 50 years ago? What assumptions did people have? What stuff was passe in culture? What stuff was trendy in culture? It's different, right? 50 years is long enough for stuff to really move and for ideas to settle in. Think about how used to the idea of smartphones you are now. And that's only been really a thing for 15 to maybe 20 years. And it's, you know, it's just, it's part of the ether. It's part of how we think about things now. Well, John the Evangelist is writing 50 years after the fact, with the benefit of hindsight. He's seen everything that's happened with the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. He's seen how the Holy Spirit showed up after Jesus ascended back into heaven. He's been a first-hand witness. He's seen it with his own eyes, miraculously confirmed again and again and again and again and again. He's suffered for it by this point in his life, probably surviving an assassination attempt. That happens outside the Bible, but tradition holds that happened. He's also watched all of his friends die. You maybe while he's cloaked in a crowd, seeing an execution happen, maybe hearing about it, but he said goodbye to all of his friends who were there to see this stuff. They all bravely went to their death, not wavering one bit on everything that John the Baptist said, but also on one more thing that John the Evangelist, with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight, and the benefit of God miraculously revealing himself again and again and again to John has seen. And what is that one really significant thing that old man John the Evangelist, 50 years after the fact, is willing to say about Jesus, that John the Baptist does not say about Jesus? It is that Jesus is not just the Son of God, but that Jesus is also God in the flesh. So it's a fascinating juxtaposition as we go through the prologue of John, which I would consider to kind of be verses 1 through 18, but also sort of verses 1 through 34, where we are right now. It's an interesting contrast to see John the evangelist, the narrator of the whole thing, who in his old man voice is telling you exactly what he's going for with this. That sounded more like Bane, I didn't like it. Let me try a different old man voice.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Who in his old man voice is telling you exactly what he's going for here. That you would behold, and that by beholding you would believe, and that by believing you would have life in his name. And I myself bear witness to these things. That was a better old man voice.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

That first attempt really did sound like pain. I'm ashamed of myself. So, from a literary perspective, this is really interesting because the way this is built, it's like one of those movies or books where you get the end of the story, the conclusion of the story, from the perspective of the narrator right at the beginning, but then quickly you time jump back to the beginning of the story, and you encounter the story through the lenses of people who don't know how it played out yet, and you see how we got to where we're getting. So, what is the conclusion of the story? Well, Jesus isn't just one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, he isn't just the Lamb of God, he isn't just the one who will contend with the sins of the world, he isn't just more powerful than John the Baptist, he isn't just pre-existent before John the Baptist, he isn't just the Son of God. It turns out he is, in fact, God in the flesh, God with us, who has made his dwelling among us. So we get the benefit of going through the book of John from two perspectives, in two different seats with two different angles on the story. It's already been teased at the beginning who Jesus is ultimately going to turn out to be. John has thrown down the gauntlet, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The challenge is there for you, the reader. What are you going to make of this? But then when we jump back into the story in verse 19 with the testimony of John the Baptist, we suddenly get into another seat, another perspective on this, and that is the perspective of somebody who's heard rumors about Jesus, but doesn't know him yet. We haven't heard him talk yet. We don't even know what he looks like yet. We know who John the Baptist is. Something amazing is happening here. God is doing something that definitely matters. All the people who like John the Baptist, the people who don't, everybody agrees. God's doing something here, but what is it? And apparently it all points to this Jesus fellow. Well, who is he? What is he gonna do? Why does he matter so much? Why would John throw all of his clout and all of his reputation behind Jesus instead of cashing in on it for his own self-interest? What is this? Well, you and I have the benefit of John as our narrator who's told us what it is. And now we get to have that in the back of our mind as we move forward through this story, and we, the reader, get to decide: is there enough here for us to make a proclamation that feels uh just untouchable? That is, that someone who was here in this world on this planet is actually God? And unlike every other person who's made such insane claims, this individual can actually back it up? Well, there's an order of operations here. And if you go back to what I was saying yesterday, the little scenario we ran where we just imagined a powerful person, a leader, or somebody being like, announcement, press conference, it turns out I'm God. Well, we all had some sort of sense of blasphemy, whether it's secular blasphemy or religious blasphemy, that that violated. It felt gross to even do the exercise. I think it's very interesting and shrewd that John the Evangelist is willing to open with that claim, with the benefit of 50 years' hindsight and a whole lot of stuff that's happened and been documented and witnessed, but John the Baptist isn't going to open with that claim. Maybe as we get further into this, we can debate whether John the Baptist fully knew at this point, or whether he was learning as he went as well. But either way, in real time, at this point in the story, we have a bunch of things that point to the divinity of Christ, but that hasn't been spelled out by John the Baptist or by Jesus or his followers just yet. Stay tuned and let's see how it plays. And now for a completely unrelated thought and thank you. A bunch of you have been nice enough to review the book on Amazon. I was talking with people from the publisher and whatnot, and they were like, hey, those are really good reviews. You have no idea how lucky you are to have people who would read your book and offer thoughtful feedback like that. You should thank them. Like, dang, have I not thanked? Maybe I did. I can't remember if I've said thank you or not, but I'm definitely saying it now. I've read every word of every review that you've written about the Lightning Fast Field Guide to the Bible. And they're thank you. That's just kind and thoughtful and smart. And even some people at the publisher have quoted some of you. They're like, oh, I really like that they wrote this. So yeah, you've even caught the eye of people over there. So uh I'm blushing. Thank you. That was really, really nice of you. If you haven't got my book yet, you might like my book. I mean, apparently a whole bunch of people uh who wrote those nice things on Amazon think you would like my book. There's always a link down below if it makes sense to pick up a copy. If not, no worries either. Thanks so much for gaming this stuff out with me. Moving forward in the story, manana. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.