We Have Seen His Glory

By Freda Hawkes

Early Christian writers say the disciple John wrote this account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus late in life. John opens by telling us who Jesus is, from his personal experience and a lifetime of reflection: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth”. John gives unique information on miracles which Jesus did to reveal his glory - John calls them “signs”. He records life-changing conversations Jesus had with individuals. A large proportion of John’s book describes the last week of Jesus’ life on earth, his death, resurrection and appearances to his disciples. John shares his personal memories of the evening before Jesus died, including Jesus’ claim “I am the way and the truth and the life”. Do you believe this? John explains he wrote so “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Read John and see what you think. Perhaps you already believe – if so you will value the information John gives us, especially Jesus’ teaching at the last supper. Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit whom the Father would send us in Jesus’ name, and about his love for us. We listen in to Jesus’ prayer for us. We are challenged about our love for him and our love for each other. We learn so much more about the Lord Jesus from John’s gospel – let’s read it together!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freda Hawkes
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005759179

Book preview

We Have Seen His Glory

11 Studies in the Gospel of John

Published by Freda Hawkes at Smashwords

Copyright 2022 Freda Hawkes

ISBN: 9781005759179

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

Many thanks to the friends who did these studies with us on Zoom in 2020. And thanks to my husband Dennis who prepared this for publication and drew the map.

Table of Contente

Introduction to John

Chapter 1 - John 1

Chapter 2 - John 2 and 3

Chapter 3 - John 4 and 5

Chapter 4 - John 6 and 7

Chapter 5 - John 8 and 9

Chapter 6 - John 10 and 11

Chapter 7 - John 12 and 13

Chapter 8 - John 14 to 15:17

Chapter 9 - John 15:18 to 17:26

Chapter 10 - John 18 and 19

Chapter 11 - John 20 and 21

About the Author

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14)

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, that are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31).

The Bible

The English word Bible comes from the Greek word biblia meaning the books. The bible is a series of 66 books, like a library. The books of the bible cover a period of recorded history from before 2000 BC to about 95 AD. The story of Jesus divides our history into BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin for In the Year of the Lord). In the same way the bible is divided into the Old Testament (before Jesus lived on earth) and the New Testament. The bible is set in what we often call in English the Middle East. The Old Testament was mostly written in classical Hebrew, related to the Jewish language now spoken in Israel, with some sections in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus. It is conventional to refer to sentences in the bible by chapters and verses, e.g. John chapter 3 verse 16, abbreviated to John 3:16. These subdivisions were artificially added to the original text for convenience between about 800 and 500 years ago.

Introduction to John

We have four accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection in the New Testament, called by the names in English of their authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These books are the four gospels - gospel is an old English word for good news. It is thought that the gospels written by Matthew and Mark were the earliest. Matthew, an accountant/tax collector, was a disciple of Jesus and an eye-witness of the events he records. We understand from early Christian writers that Jesus’s disciple Peter worked with Mark to write the gospel we now call Mark. Luke says he researched his gospel carefully using eye-witness accounts and wrote his gospel before writing his account of the early church, Acts (Luke 1:1-4, Acts 1:1-2). It seems Luke wrote his gospel and Acts while the apostle Paul, an important Christian leader, was still alive (Acts 28:30-31) - we understand Paul was killed for his faith in about AD 66. We assume all three gospels were written before the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple of God by the Romans in AD 70, as each mentions Jesus’ prophecy that this would happen without commenting on this life-changing event (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 24). Matthew, Mark and Luke share common material, each with different perspectives on Jesus. That is why they are called the synoptic gospels, from the Greek for seeing together, the same eye. But John, writing later, includes unique material about Jesus, which fills in material missing from the 3 earlier gospels.

Who was John?

John and his brother James, like the disciples Peter and Andrew, were fishermen on lake Galilee when Jesus called the four of them to follow him. Jesus gave James and John the name sons of thunder – we can guess they had strong characters. Peter, James and John were the three out of the 12 disciples who Jesus chose to share special experiences with him. John’s brother James was killed in about AD 44 when king Herod Agrippa persecuted the church (Acts 12:1-2), but early Christian writers record that John lived a long life. We understand it was also John who wrote three letters to churches (1 John, 2 John and 3 John) and the last book in the bible, Revelation. It is believed John wrote his gospel while living in Ephesus (in modern Turkey) and that he died during the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan (emperor from AD 98 to 117).

Why did John write his gospel?

After the life, death, resurrection and return to heaven of Jesus, it was important that believers had a trustworthy record of these events. Luke explained he wrote his gospel so that believers may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. The apostle Peter, knowing he would soon die, wrote that he was making every effort to see that after his departure the believers would always be able to remember these things (2 Peter 1:12-15).

John was selective in compiling his account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We can assume that John was familiar with the accounts in circulation among the believers written by Matthew, Mark and Luke. At the end of his gospel John says, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole