He Said - I Am … and He Is

By Glenn C. Carlson

This book discusses Jesus’s seven “I am” sayings in the Gospel according to John. Each one is presented in three ways: “Who Jesus Is,” “What Jesus Does,” and “What Jesus Wants Us to Do.”
“Who Jesus Is” explains how the metaphors of the light, the vine, etc., are Jesus’s way of explaining how this young man of Nazareth is also the Son of God.
Jesus then goes on to say that being the light, the vine, etc., also explains what his mission is.
He uses these metaphors in a climactic way when he explains that they describe what his followers are to do in carrying out his mission.
This Fourth Gospel was written for Christians in the newborn church c. AD 100. They came from varied spiritual backgrounds and sometimes did not get along with each other and needed to hear. It was ostensibly written by someone called “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” This book dares to venture a surprising explanation of who this Beloved Disciple might be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984583345

Glenn C. Carlson

Following his service as a navy pilot, Glenn C. Carlson was a radio announcer in Ohio. After graduating from Ohio State University, he went west, where he became a program traffic supervisor at NBC in Hollywood. While there he received an MA in television from the University of Southern California. While working at NBC, God called Carlson into the gospel ministry. He received his ministerial degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. In seminary he was also a teaching fellow, teaching classes in ways to prepare and present the Christian gospel by radio and television. With his wife and infant son, he went to Scotland, where he received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Carlson has served Presbyterian churches in Ohio, Washington State, and Arizona. After retiring, he was the organizing pastor of a Presbyterian church in Phoenix, Arizona, and briefly served Methodist churches in Arizona and Oregon.

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Copyright © 2020 by Glenn C. Carlson.

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The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Website

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Rev. date: 06/09/2020

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CONTENTS

Jesus: Different?

I Am the Bread of Life

I Am the Light of the World

I Am the Gate for the Sheep

I Am the Good Shepherd

I Am the True Vine

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

I Am the Way, amd the Truth, and the Life

The End? Just the Beginning

Addendum

The Gospel according to John, the Fourth Gospel, could be called a sermon. The unknown author (preacher), sometimes too hastily referred to as the Apostle John, was preaching to Christians around 90–110 CE. This is about seventy to eighty years after Jesus and about thirty to forty years after Mark, Luke, and Matthew (their exact dates are not known). John never directly mentions these Synoptic Gospels with whom it has only about 10 percent similarity.

To make the Fourth Gospel’s origin even more complex, we’re told that the author is probably only the editor. The author says the real writer is a disciple of Jesus (John 21:24). And then to add to the mystery, we’re told that this disciple was the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 21:20). Since Jesus loved all of his disciples, the mystery deepens.

The capstone of this enigma is this: the Beloved Disciple only appears during Jesus’s last week. He never appears elsewhere in Jesus’s life and ministry.

1. He is with the Apostles on the last Thursday night, sitting next to Jesus (John 13:23).

2. He is at the Crucifixion and is asked by Jesus to care for his mother (John 19:26).

3. He goes to the empty tomb with Mary Magdalene and Peter (John 20:2–8).

4. He is with six other disciples fishing at Lake Tiberius and is the first to see Jesus onshore (John 21:7).

5. He also may have been the other disciple who was with Peter the Thursday night Jesus was arrested (John 18:15–16).

F. V. Filson in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says, A final decision [about the Beloved Disciple’s identity] is hardly possible.

In addition to the Beloved Disciple, we need to pay attention to the preacher’s congregation, the readers. They were Jews who were being kicked out of their synagogues because they had become Christians. They were also Gentiles and Samaritans who had become Christians and didn’t always get along with their Jewish Christian neighbors. The preacher and his multifaceted congregation lived in a very hostile environment. The Roman government was in absolute control of Israel. Christians were being crucified and burned on crosses. Rome said that there was only one supreme authority and that was Caesar, not Jesus. The writer of Revelation was exiled to an island for proclaiming otherwise c. AD 95–100.

Being a preacher/pastor in such a belligerent setting would have been very difficult as well as dangerous. He needed to demonstrate to this admixture of Christians that what he said was true. The writer-preacher of the Fourth Gospel knew that he had to speak words that described and explained events that had been witnessed and that were substantiated by God. He was well aware that after the