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Who is Jesus? is a study of the Gospel of John. Each page is based on a study we wrote and delivered while on staff at Christ Community Church in Winter Haven, FL.
This was not intended as an in-depth, verse-by-verse study of the Gospel of John. Instead, it was conceived as a look at the life and person of Jesus, as presented in John's Gospel. So each chapter is surveyed for its main theme in light of who Jesus is. The pages presented here, then, are a summary of that study.
Let's start with a little background concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded by John the Apostle.
First, while it is not stated that the author was John, the Apostle, it is clearly implied:
The author was an eye-witness He was a Jew and had a Jewish point of view He was a Palestinian Jew who knew about the geography and topography of Palestine He knew Jerusalem well He was in Jesus' "inner circle"
Early church fathers such as Barnabas, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian all attributed this Gospel to John.
The date of the writing of John has been a matter of debate in times past. It used to be held by those wishing to discount its clear Messianic attributions to Jesus that it was written well past AD 185. If so, it would clearly not be written by John the Apostle, and could then be considered more mythology than biography.
Parts of the Gospel of John are quoted in fragments dated as far back as AD 125, so it must have been written before then, and more recent archeological evidence suggests a date of about AD 85-90. This would be in line with John 21:22 where Jesus indicates that John will live to an advanced age, which we know he did.
The purpose of John's Gospel is clearly stated in John 20:31, But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
Another part of John's reason for writing his Gospel was to combat a growing heresy in the early church. And that helps to explain a clear paradox in the Gospel: John stresses both Jesus' humanity and His deity.
In John we will see the human Jesus:
He got angry (2:15) He was tired and thirsty (4:6) He was hungry (4:31) He had sympathy for others (6:5, 20) He experienced grief (11:33, 35, 38) He suffered agony (19:28)
But we will also see His deity:
He is pre-existent (8:58) He is omniscient (6:61-64) He has a divine independence and acts on His own initiative (10:18)
Each subsequent page in this study is a survey of each chapter of the Gospel. For each we have identified a main theme and a description of Jesus based on that theme.
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