Gospel of John

The Gospel of John is an affront to every way in which I try to box in Jesus. It is a journey to life that we cannot attain or even imagine. It is also an affront to every attempt to claim this life I have in Jesus as MY life. It is always life in Jesus’ name. This Gospel of John confronts me with the reality that I cannot live, claim, or understand life – real life – apart from total immersion in Jesus.

This message is both the most crushing, humbling, destroying truth and also at the same time the most invigorating, freeing, life-giving truth. It is crushing, humbling, and destroying because it shows me that as a human being I am “dead”. Please note – not bad, but dead. If I were bad there might be hope; I might be able to reform and become good. But no, the essence of my state is not evil or bad. The essence of sin which the Gospel of John addresses has to do with relationships – relationship with God, life, self, others. It is s not actions but relationships. We are “dead”, totally disconnected. Just like a body is dead when the nervous system or blood flow becomes disconnected even though the heart may still be beating or the brain is temporarily still alive. So we are disconnected from the truth about God, life, self, and others. The “sin” reality which the Gospel of John confronts is not a “sinful nature” that sees human beings as bad or evil and as needing truth so that with this new and better information we become good. NO! The Gospel of John confronts a “sin” reality in which we are “dead”. There is no life in us! No hope, no possibility, no reform, no trying, no improvement; it’s over; we are “dead”. We can hear and receive truth but it will do us no good. When the system is disconnected, even though the heart sends out blood and the brain sends out messages, it won’t get through.

The writer of the Gospel of John knows the Old Testament, the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the letters of Paul. Human beings were already “institutionalizing” that word. People were taking the living truth of Jesus and boxing it into packaged “correct” information. The message of the Gospel of John is – get over yourself! Right thinking, right actions, right doctrine, right institutions are hopeless. We are dead! Being “right” is first of all a figment of our imagination –as though right morals or correct theology were possible – and secondly “being right” is a human creation and not of God. Even if we could conceive right thoughts, actions or institutions it would do us no good. We are fundamentally disconnected. Being “righteous” is not a matter of being right. It is a matter of being in relationship and only God can resurrect us from death into living relationship with God, life, self, and others, life.

Note – not from Jesus but in Jesus. Jesus does not give life which we then live on our own. NO! Jesus gives life which is being connected, staying connected, and living connected IN Jesus. The truth Jesus gives is not some independent information. Jesus’ truth is relationship – formed and living always only in Him.

So what does the above – sin as being “dead” – have to do with reading the Gospel of John?

The Gospel of John is declaring if we ever read Scripture, think of Jesus, or use the church as information – we miss the point! Point by point, this gospel takes up the array of ways we make the Bible, Jesus, and church information and smashes it. God’s truth is not information, an institution, a packaged way of life! It is a real human being who is God – Jesus!

Our sinful nature wants to be right. We institutionalize the church. We make Jesus into a statement, a story, a past action, a moral example. We treat the Bible as information. Then, in spite of what we claim, we use my church, my Jesus, my Bible as having validity and power in themselves apart from God and without our need for remaining in Jesus.

(In my “Discovery on Sabbatical” I explained how preaching and studying the Gospel of John immediately before and while on Sabbatical in South Africa led me to experience the Gospel of John much more deeply. Living in a different culture led me to realize how institutionalized, culturated, and informational I am and how I readily box-in and box-up Jesus and God’s truth. I package it into something I can understand, control, and grasp. The greatest discovery and importance of “Companion” relationships (developing ongoing relationships in other countries) is how they lead us to Jesus. They reveal the artificiality of my institutionalized Christianity and lead me back into the daily journey of remaining in Jesus)


An institutionalized Jesus, church, faith is all about:
1. Believing the truth as revealed in the Bible
2. Worshipping and worshipping correctly
3. Knowing Jesus
4. Hanging around good people
5. Using (and keeping holy) holy places, days, and words
6. Seeing and seizing signs
7. Right works, right doctrine
8. Claiming and shedding our light on life
9. Knowing who to blame

An institutionalized church and faith wants a boxed-in Jesus that gives us:
10. The plain truth
11. Answered prayer addressing our fears
12. A majestic, charismatic Jesus
13. Old commandments that we can do

The Jesus in the Gospel of John proclaims:
14. Jesus IS the way, truth and life: It is only through Jesus that we come to the Father, love, and receive the Holy Spirit, our Advocate to be in us, teach us, and give us peace.
15. Jesus IS the vine: remain connected to him, love one another as Jesus loves us, be servants, testify of Jesus.
16. Jesus is with the Father: the Advocate (Holy Spirit) has come to guide us into truth (Jesus), joy (asking the Father in Jesus’ name), and peace (Jesus has conquered).
17. Jesus’ prayer: that we may be one as God is one so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus.

Jesus’ Hour of Glory:
18. Whom are we looking for? JESUS, not human weapons, human declarations, or human truth.
19. Flogged, mocked, lawfully condemned(religious & political law), silent, carrying the cross, crucified, labeled, and naked Jesus cares for his mother, drinks his whole cup, and completes God’s work. Only when dead do people show care, look on him, and give his body respect.

The new life in Jesus:
20. Peter and the other disciple see and believe but do not understand. Only when her name is called does Mary Magdalene understand, but this understanding means not holding Jesus but testifying of him. Jesus gives peace to the disciples, sends us, breathes the Holy Spirit on us to empower our forgiveness. Thomas struggles to declare Jesus his Lord and God. The purpose of the Gospel of John is not to tell us about all the signs of Jesus but that “we believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that we have life in his name.”
21. Instead of the Great Commission (Matthew), the amazement and terror of the resurrection (Mark), and the Ascension (Luke) with which the other gospels end, the Gospel of John ends with the disciples catching nothing; Jesus directing the “children” and making, inviting and giving them breakfast; Jesus’ three haunting questions of Peter, “Do you love me?”; Jesus’ declaration that it is not for us to know God’s will for others but for each of us to heed his call, “Follow me!”; and the disciple’s testimony is not about him but all about Jesus.

The first nine chapters of the Gospel of John smash our institutionalized Jesus, church, and faith:
• John, chapter one: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of the Bible

• John, chapter two: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Worship and worshipping correctly

• John, chapter three: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Knowing Jesus

• John, chapter four: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Hanging around good people

• John, chapter five: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Using (and keeping holy) holy places, days, and words

• John, chapter six: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Seeing and seizing signs

• John, chapter seven: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Right works, right doctrine

• John, chapter eight: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Claiming and shedding our light on life

• John, chapter nine: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of who to blame

Chapters 10-13 of the Gospel of John show how blind and closed we are to Jesus/ Even when we seek him, see his signs, praise and want him, and know, receive and are blessed by Jesus ,we continue to hold tightly to our institutionalized, boxed-in Jesus:
• John, chapter ten: The plain truth

• John, chapter eleven: Answered prayer that addresses our fears

• John, chapter twelve: A majestic, charismatic Jesus

• John, chapter thirteen: Old commandments that we can do

Chapters 14-17 of the Gospel of John is Jesus’ Discourse after the Last Supper and before His arrest in which Jesus proclaims:
• John, chapter fourteen: Jesus IS the way, truth and life: It is only through Jesus that we come to the Father, love, and receive the Holy Spirit, our Advocate to be in us, teach us, and give us peace.

• John, chapter fifteen: Jesus IS the vine: remain connected to him, love one another as Jesus loves us, be servants, testify of Jesus.
• John, chapter sixteen: Jesus is with the Father: the Advocate (Holy Spirit) has come to guide us into truth (Jesus), joy (asking the Father in Jesus’ name), and peace (Jesus has conquered).

• John, chapter seventeen: Jesus’ prayer: that we may be one as God is one so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus.

Chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel of John witnesses to Jesus’ Hour of Glory:
• John, chapter eighteen: Whom are we looking for? JESUS, not human weapons, human declarations, or human truth.

• John, chapter nineteen: Flogged, mocked, land awfully condemned (by religious & political law), Jesus is silent, carrying the cross, crucified, labeled, and naked, and such state Jesus cares for his mother, drinks his whole cup, and completes God’s work. Only when dead, do people show care, look on him, and give his body respect.

Chapters 20 and 21 of the Gospel of John witnesses to the new life in Jesus:• John, chapter twenty: Peter and the other disciple see and believe but do not understand. Only when her name is called does Mary Magdalene understand, but this understanding means not holding Jesus but testifying of him. Jesus gives peace to the disciples, sends us, breathes the Holy Spirit on us to empower our forgiveness. Thomas struggles to declare Jesus his Lord and God. The purpose of the Gospel of John is not to tell us about all the signs of Jesus but that “we believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that we have life in his name.”

• John, chapter twenty-one: Instead of the Great Commission (Matthew), the amazement and terror of the resurrection (Mark), and the Ascension (Luke) with which the other gospels end, the Gospel of John ends with the disciples catching nothing; Jesus directing the “children” and making, inviting and giving them breakfast; Jesus’ three haunting questions of Peter, “Do you love me?”; Jesus’ declaration that it is not for us to know God’s will for others but for each of us to heed his call, “Follow me!”; and the disciple’s testimony is not about him but all about Jesus.


Jesus is not about giving us information so that we can get our life together (this includes our church, our theology and our morality). Jesus is about life! This is life only God can do and give! We have life only in Jesus: John 20:31, “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”