The Gospel of John Study Guide

By Reverend Harvey Smith

The purpose of this study guide is to help seekers and disciples of Christ to grow deeper in their understanding of what it means to be a true follower of Christ. The commentary, questions, and memory verses are designed to provide a true picture of the character of Christ and true Christian discipleship. As you read and meditate on the content of this book, and aided by the power of the Holy Spirt, your faith and fellowship with Christ will grow and your spiritual life will have greater meaning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646700318

Book preview

9781646700318_cover.jpg

The Gospel of John Study Guide

For Those Seeking Deeper Spiritual Understanding

Reverend Harvey Smith

ISBN 978-1-64670-030-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64670-031-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2020 Reverend Harvey Smith

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Word of Life (John 1:1–18)

The Wedding at Cana

Nicodemus and the New Birth

Jesus and the Samaritans

Ministry in Jerusalem

Feeding of the Five Thousand

Jesus Defends His Messianic Claim

The Woman Caught in Adultery

Spiritual Blindness

The Shepherd and the Flock

Jesus Raises Lazarus

His Last Days in Jerusalem

The Last Supper

The Impending Departure

The Vine and the Branches

The Hour Cometh

Jesus’s Profound Prayer

The Arrest of Jesus

The Crucifixion of the King

The Resurrection Narrative

The Third and Final Appearance

About the Author

Introduction

The internal evidence of the gospel indicates that it was written (a) by a Palestinian Jew, (b) by an eyewitness, (c) by the disciple whom Jesus loved, and (d) by John, the son of Zebedee. Furthermore, the debates between Jesus and the religious leaders in Jerusalem on the finer points of Jewish legal interpretation, reproduced in the central chapters of the gospel, could not well have been grasped or recorded in those days by an author who was not himself one of the Jews. True, the author frequently speaks of the Jews in a way that suggests that he is distancing himself from them; but when he does so, he regularly means the other Jews, as distinct from himself and his associates. Therefore, it is important to ascertain who precisely the Jews are in each place where the expression occurs.

In the early ministry of Jesus, the apostle John and his brother James were described by Jesus as boane-rges, explained as meaning sons of thunder (Mark 3:17). And on one occasion, James and John incurred the resentment of their fellow disciples by appearing to steal a march on them in a bid to secure preferential status for themselves in the coming kingdom of Christ (Mark 10:35). And along with Peter, they belonged to an inner group of three disciples admitted to exceptionally close association with their master (Mark 5:37).

It is quite obvious that John knew or was acquainted with the other three gospels, but it is also clear that he did not rely on them as sources. Not long after the publication of the fourth gospel, it was brought together with the three Synoptic Gospels to form the fourfold gospel; and for the most part, it was in this form rather than as separate documents that the four gospels henceforth circulated. The use of the codex (a book more or less as we know it, with leaves and pages), which early Christians preferred to the scroll (a long strip of writing material, containing perhaps as many as a hundred columns of text, which had to be wound and unwound round a central rod), made it practicable for all four gospels to be contained together in one book.

The purpose of the fourth gospel is stated in John 20:30 (it is to bring the readers to faith or to confirm them in faith). Faith involves both believing in and believing that: believing in Jesus is emphasized as the way of life throughout the gospel, but believing in him implies believing certain things about him—that he is the Christ, the Son of God. These are not two separate designations; for John, to believe in Jesus as the Messiah is to believe in him as the Son of God (and this is true of the Synoptic Gospels also).

The Gospel of John was published in the province of Asia some sixty years after the events which it narrates and was written for a world very different from that in which the saving events took place. For the people of this new world, Jerusalem and Palestine were geographically remote; but more than that, the way of life which had been followed there sixty years earlier and which formed the setting of the gospel narrative belonged to a world they felt had passed away forever. The climate of opinion in which they lived was not greatly concerned about historical fact and geographical location, which in their view tended to obscure the universal relevance of eternal truth. Eternal truth belonged to the spiritual realm, the realm that really mattered.

John himself attached the utmost importance to eternal truth, which he identified with the divine self-expression, the Word that existed in the beginning with God. But he insisted that eternal truth was uniquely manifested in time and place—in Palestine, during the governorship of Pontius Pilate—when the Word appeared in the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was crucified as King of the Jews in AD 30. And those who are truly devoted to eternal truth will gladly listen to him as his obedient disciples.

The destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the cessation of the sacrificial worship in AD 70 made little difference to Jewish life in the dispersion. The debate between the disciples and the synagogue authorities reached a critical stage around AD 90, when one of the prayers in the synagogue service was removed so as effectively to exclude the followers of Jesus. It was probably against this background the fourth gospel was published in order to bring God-fearing members of synagogue congregations to faith in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, the Son of God, the revealer of the Father. Among members of synagogue congregations, those most likely to be impressed were perhaps Gentile God-fearers who regularly attended synagogue services.

As the prologue to the gospel puts it, Jesus is the eternal Word or self-revelation of God expressed in many ways at various times but finally incarnated in a human life. As the whole gospel emphasizes, Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father sent into the world for the world’s salvation. The revelation of the Father which he imparts means the salvation of the world: the revelation and salvation are consummated together in Jesus laying down his life on the cross.

It is of the essence of the gospel that the life in which the eternal Word became incarnate was the life of a real human being of flesh and blood. There was nothing docetic (an assertion that Jesus lacked full humanity) about Jesus’s humanity. The essence of the gospel is that the crucial outpouring of divine love actually took place on an April day about AD 30, with historical events at a supper table in Jerusalem, in a garden across the Kidron valley, in the headquarters of Pontius Pilate, and on a Roman cross at Golgotha.

The source of John’s interpretation of Jesus’s words and actions is clearly indicated in his record. He reports Jesus’s promise that the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, would come to guide his disciples into all the truth, especially by bringing to their remembrance all that Jesus had taught them and making it plain to them. If in this gospel the words and deeds of Jesus appear to have undergone transposition into a higher key than that with which we are familiar in the Synoptic Gospels, this is the effect of the Spirit enabling the Gospel of John to adapt the story of Jesus to a different public from that for which the earlier gospels were designed. It is through the Spirit’s operation that the mind of Jesus himself was what the fourth gospel disclosed, and it is through the illumination granted by the Same Spirit that one may still recognize in this gospel the authentic voice of Jesus.

Chapter 1

The Word of Life (John 1:1–18)

The prologue (the introduction) to the fourth gospel is set apart from the rest of John’s gospel by its designation of Jesus Christ as the Word rather than the Son.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1–4)

It is not by accident that John’s gospel begins with the same phrase as the book of Genesis. In Gen. 1:1, in the beginning introduces the biblical story of creation. God spoke the word, and the heavens and the earth came into being. The word that created all things, as well as the life that it created, now finds expression in a particular person and a particular life lived among us. The Greek word for Word in verse 1 is:

Pathos

Ethos

Logos

Jesus is introduced in the prologue as the revealer, the one through whom God spoke in the beginning and through whom he continues to speak. Elsewhere in John’s gospel Jesus speaks the Word. But in the prologue, he is the Word, and the Word was God. The Bible teaches that there is one God and that there are three persons in the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—and all three of these persons are God. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that the three persons is one God. In these verses, two of the persons of the Godhead are mentioned—God the Father and God the Son.

The relation of God/Word in the prologue corresponds to the relation of Father/Son as revealed throughout the gospel. The epistle to the Hebrews introduces Jesus in a similar way:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. (Hebrew 1:12)

And because the Son shares self-existence life with the father, He is able to impart life to others. He was and is the source of life, and life in Him includes both physical and spiritual life. When we were born, we received the physical life. When we were born again, we received the spiritual life. Both come from Him.

Sin brought darkness into the minds of men and plunged the world into darkness. Into the darkness, the Lord Jesus came, a light shining in a dark place. Now, suppose a Muslim or Jehovah’s Witness says to you that Jesus was not God, was not eternal with God, but rather that He was the first of all creation, the highest of the high angels. Well,