Bible Students

The opening chapter of John is packed full of theological information, likely to set the bar straight for what his work is aiming to address. John’s Gospel, in the first few verses, identifies Jesus as three important things: God, with God, and the one who came among men. These opening verses affirm the deity of Jesus, the differentiation between Jesus and the Father, and the humanity of Jesus!

These three aspects of Jesus are the truth. This truth is tied to salvation and eternal life because these truths are who Jesus really is. If one was to believe in a different Jesus, they would be attempting to gain salvation in a different way. Apparently the new religion of Jesus followers needed to be reminded and set straight in the area of who Jesus really was. John’s later date of authorship would support this, as a strong theological case (which is played out through the rest of the book) would be extremely helpful for directing the theological development of early Christians, attempting to ensure their orthodox views, rather than the infiltrating sects aiming to corrupt the ideas of Jesus’ nature.

This whole concept of Jesus’ nature is extremely important today in a pluralistic society. John labored over the nature of Jesus through his book, beginning his piece with the outright explanation of who Jesus is. Apart from Jesus, there is no salvation. Apart from this Jesus, with this nature, there is no salvation. This is very exclusivistic, which completely goes against the inclusivistic nature of our society. John’s stress on truth assumes there is both objective truth and objective falsehood. Apart from this revealed nature of Christ, all religion is objective falsehood, and none will lead anyone to God.

John’s emphasis on the nature of Jesus is incredibly needed in a culture that believes one can attain heaven through any means. John believes heaven can only be attained through one mean, which is Jesus, as He is revealed as God, with God, and with man.