Some readers, even students, of the Bible believe there is no “Birth Narrative” in the Gospel of John. I disagree. There are actually two. The simple statement that “the Word – Jesus – “came to us” His own, “became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:11 & 14) is John’s telling of Jesus coming. The declaration that He gives the “right to become Children of God,” to those who “receive Him,” who “believe in His name,” is the story of a New Birth initiated at the same moment Jesus, Son of Man/Son of God, comes to live with us. It is this Birth into “eternal life” that John wrote to tell about. It is the full “Birth Narrative”! No biographer presents the story of this radical new way of life better than John. He wrote what he wrote, he said, selectively for a specific purpose.
“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded
in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30 & 31).
THE MESSAGE paraphrase of these two verses reads,
“Jesus provided far more God-revealing signs than are written down in this book. These are
written down so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act of
believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.”
“Messiah,” and “Son of God,” are two very different identities. “Messiah,” means “anointed,” “Christ.” The “anointed” is a chosen man. “Messiah,” is that man in whom all other “anointed” men see the purpose, for which they were called, fully realized. He is the Consummate Man! The “Son of Man”! But “Son of God”? That’s a reach. When Jesus claimed that status for himself His Jewish fellows reacted violently. (See John 8.)
Still, John is saying Jesus is both. He wants us to believe it is so. That Jesus is at once the consummate man and the Son of God. Jesus called Himself the Son of Man almost exclusively. Only once did He call Himself the Son of God. He did call God His Father, and John acknowledges that repeatedly. His primary objective in writing is that we see Jesus is both. Beyond that he wants us, “in the act of believing,” to have “real and eternal life in the way Jesus personally revealed it.”
The person we see, as we meet Jesus then, is the first of His kind. A man, living since sin first contaminated life, in whom the Spirit of God is at work not just periodically or partially, but constantly, completely. A man who is also Divine. Jesus is the prototype of a new kind of life. He is the forerunner of a “new humanity.” (Colossians 3:12 Phillips) “The Son stands first in the line of humanity He restored.” (Romans 8:29 THE MESSAGE) We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in Him. We were originally made “in the image of God;” in His “likeness.” Sin corrupted that Divine image. Christ has come, John is telling us, to give us the “power to become Children of God.” This means that, as we’ve seen in John chapter 1, Jesus has the power to make it possible for us to live His kind of life. He can and will, if we “receive Him,” if we “believe in His Name,” give us the authority and ability to “become children of God.” We can, because of what Jesus has gone ahead of us and done, become sons and daughters of God. We can “experience the Divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4) We can be “transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory …” (2 Corinthians 3:18) The “image of God,” can be restored to us. John's declaration of this is the final chapter in “The Greatest Story Ever Told”!
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