The Daily Word

The Gospel of John was written much later that the other Gospels. By then, many of the Apostles, the Disciples whom Jesus had chosen, had already been martyred. John looks back on Jesus’ life but not as a chronological series of events, but as the source of teaching for all Christians. Much of the Gospel is concerned with the Upper Room teaching that Jesus passed on to His Disciples just before His crucifixion, and John was the Disciple ‘whom Jesus loved’ and the one who ‘leaned on Jesus breast’.

John had lived a full life when he wrote his Gospel, and his writings are permeated by love, the love that God has for us, shown most clearly by Jesus’ substitutionary death. But also the love that has been generated in our hearts for God, by God’s love for us.

But John, with a long life lived for his Saviour, can look back at the character of Jesus that was manifested by his words and acts, and right at the beginning of his Gospel he defines two key characteristics with the words, “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”. And if the Lord Jesus hadn’t been full of ‘grace and truth’, then we could never have been saved, for truth, above all things, had to be maintained in Jesus’ life, for truth is an essential characteristic of God Himself. But without the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in His willingness to die that substitutionary death for us, we would still be without God and without hope in the world. 

So again, as always, we thank God for His unspeakable gift!

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church