JOHN174 - The Timely, Timeless Message of John 1 Through 3

0:00 Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast. And yesterday we were talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was president of the United States of America in the 1930s. And he famously one time said, We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And specifically in the moment, he was talking about runs on banks and other panicky behavior in the economy amongst a bunch of people who were, you know, they were spooked because there's a Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and everything was insane.

0:27 But he was trying to calm people down by saying, Hey, like if we panic, we're going to fall apart here. Well, those were very true words when spoken to the original audience under the original circumstances, but they've also rung true across the decades since because it's just, well, it's true. Fear and panic compound themselves.

0:48 And likewise, as we started talking about yesterday, it looks to me like the first three chapters of John, the double prologue of John, have two levels of meaning. The first was to the original audience, where I think John is trying to speak to people who were a little confused about the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus.

1:08 But in addition to that, when those of us who aren't adherents to John the Baptist, like we're not a part of a John the Baptist sect or something, when we encounter it, there is a clear and obvious timeless meaning to all of this as well. And today we're going to spend more time on what that meaning is.

1:24 So with that said, I'm going to have my close personal friend Jeff Foote play some music, and we'll get into it. Now it is possible that I am overreading between the lines here in the first three chapters of the Gospel of John. I'm sure smarter people than me could make a case for interpreting why John the Baptist is coming up so much here and why he's coming up the way he is.

2:03 I mean, I'm sure there's smarter people than me who could make a case for this differently. But the longer you and I have hung out here and looked at it, the more I'm seeing it. The language that we're getting from John the Evangelist makes the most sense here, as though it is being written as an occasional to people who are aware of the fame of John the Baptist, aware of the stories about Jesus of Nazareth, aware even to the point that they've read the other Gospels, but they're still having a little trouble figuring out how it fits together.

2:36 And in certain parts of the developing Christian world, there's still an inappropriate reverence for John the Baptist going on at the expense of Jesus. And John, I believe, is the one who's positioned, one of the last ones who's positioned to authoritatively do something about this misconception. Now, that is not going to dominate the gospel.

3:01 It's not going to dominate the book, but it does factor heavily in the first three chapters, in my opinion. The followers of John the Baptist, decades after the fact, they needed to get this straight, and then they did. And so, you know, the gospel really kind of picks up at chapter four. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

3:17 It ain't like that. The occasion of this problem that I think John was writing to causes him to give us all of this rich theology to really spell it out and make sure that not just the people at the time of John the Evangelist, but you and me now and everybody who would read it in the future would be crystal clear on who Jesus is and what we need to do, which is behold, believe, and have life in his name.

3:47 So then the timeless read on this whole double prologue and this last little bit at the end of the prologue is just simply there was a darkness, and God raised up a normal person to point people toward a heavenly being, God in the flesh, Jesus who walked among us. John the Baptist was that man from earth.

4:08 He rightly pointed people to Jesus in fulfillment of prophecy and with the help of the Holy Spirit himself. And his testimony wasn't just for the people who were there to hear it in person. No, friends, John the Evangelist says, his testimony is for anyone who encounters these words, including you, the reader.

4:29 And maybe you, the reader, don't know what to do with everything and all of the law and the prophets and the whole Bible. But in this book, I'm going to introduce you to Jesus and I'm going to give you more than enough that you can see that he's the Son of God, God in the flesh, that you can behold him, that you can believe in him, and that by believing you can have life in his name.

4:50 And when you do that, the character and work of Jesus is enough to ravel together everything else into this tightly knit understanding, this tightly knit belief in the truth of God. The timeless read on this passage goes on to communicate that the Son has all the authority to give life, to do all of this stuff.

5:10 It's all from the Father, but it concludes with a warning. You started, we all started in a default state of darkness, of condemnation, of lie. And it's dangerous, it's perilous. And if nothing is done, our fate is already sealed. This is where we are, this is where we started, this is where we're going to end up.

5:34 But there's this intervention, there is this breakthrough that John the Baptist testified to, and that we have seen with our own eyes in Jesus there's life, and there is light in him. My friend, dear reader, whenever you encounter this, I, John the Evangelist, implore you to behold, believe, and by believing, have life in his name.

5:56 So, in the same way that FDR came out in 1933 and said, We got nothing to fear but fear itself, in the same way that he was speaking to something very specifically that was happening in that moment that was understood by the original audience, yet also his words ring true across time and resonate across the ensuing decades.

6:20 So, likewise, John the Evangelist, I believe, is addressing some serious confusion about how Jesus and John the Baptist fit together. He's addressing probably very specifically some holdout adherence to the message and the baptism of John the Baptist in the moment, but he's kind of using that as an excuse to write this thing timelessly, so it'll make sense far beyond the moment and the occasion of its writing for people for all time and all cultures and all languages all around the world, including you and me.

6:59 Both things were true about FDR's famous remarks. Both things can be true here as well. Cool. Next time around, we're on to John chapter four. We got a brand new chapter. And by the way, that gives you something to plan for and look forward to this weekend if you're listening in real time. Because as we're doing this season on the Gospel of John, season seven, my close personal friend Jeff Foote, who does the music and the editing for this podcast, and I are sitting down and doing a retrospective, a look back, a discussion of the chapter we just finished each time we finish a chapter.

7:35 And when I'm super fresh on it, like when I just finish a chapter, I sit down and I try to read the text with an inflection that is reflective of all the stuff we've talked through together and worked on. So I think what will happen if you're listening in real time is that we'll have a bonus episode on Saturday where Jeff and I will sit down and discuss all of this stuff together.

7:57 Jeff always brings fresh perspective. I'll also probably have him explain what all of the little homages and pastiches that he did musically at the end of the episodes meant. And then on Sunday, I'll publish my reading of John 3 while it's fresh. I don't want to do it two or three months from now when it's not fresh.

8:16 I want to do it right now on the heels of the conversation you and I just had. So be looking forward to that this weekend and on to chapter four. Fun. All right, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.