The Centrality of Jesus Christ

  




        Jesus powerfully says he is the bread of life and he does not throw anyone out who comes to him (John 6:35-37) This leads into his discourse and argument with the Jewish religious leaders over how can Jesus say he comes from heaven when they know of his actual earthly father and mother. Here is Jesus response,

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44)

This is an extraordinary claim of not just being the Messiah but Jesus own divine origins and heavenly authority and power over the last resurrection. To see the Father is to see Jesus and to see Jesus is to see the Father. There is not some kind of good cop, bad cop here between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament is a harsh cruel killer while the view of God in Christ is in the Newer Testament is a loving gentle Shepherd peacemaker.

          God has always been a loving, forgiving, merciful Father in both Testaments. The highest revelation we have of God is exactly in the face of Christ. The Bible Jesus read is the Old Testament knowing full well that God not only represents the heart of an all loving Father in that Testament but is the same God who shows his love and grace in the Newer Testament through the last and greatest revelation in his Son.

          In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth in Genesis and now in the Gospel of John, that same Living Word created all life and living things and “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1,14). This is the same God who was called “Emmanuel” (God with us). Where the supreme being of the universe gets into the dirt with humanity and completely lives a self-sacrificial life for other people because since God is love, that is what loves does.

          Jesus knew exactly what was in man because he became man and lived his entire earthly existence with other humans (John 2:24-25). Jesus reveals he comes is from above in his conversation with Nicodemus. Nicodemus, a teacher of the Law and leader of Judaism should know these things but he did not. The Gospel of John brilliantly reflects the contrasts between light and darkness and in John 3:2, Nicodemus coming at night is probably not so much about his cowardice which the text never says nor do we see only courage in him in every other biblical text. Nicodemus coming at night is contrasting the darkness of Nicodemus mind in contrast to the light of the world sharing spiritual truth to him in the words and presence of Jesus. 

          We saw earlier how Nathanael was called by Jesus and he wondered how anything from heaven much less anything from God could come from Nazareth. Jesus tells him he saw him under the fig tree before he came to him and Nathanael put’s his faith in Jesus because of this prophetic insight. I love what Jesus says next to Nathanael, he says,

You will see greater things than these . . . Truly, Truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man (John 1:50-51).

The next obvious answer is when did Nathanael or any of Jesus other disciples actually see this happen? Like a veiled reference to Jacob at Bethel, in Genesis 28:10-21, Jacob has a dream of angels ascending and descending on a kind of stairway (ladder) to heaven. When Jacob woke from his sleep, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Just like Jesus disciples did not know Jesus was the Lamb to be slain for the world’s sins. Jesus is the suffering Messiah who must suffer a terrible death on a Roman cross. Jesus is the doorway to heaven where angels move and have their being and go to and from the earth to heaven and back. Jacob calls this special place, “the gate of heaven” (Gen.28:17).

          Jesus body is the temple of God on earth. He says, destroy this temple, his body, and I will raise it up in three days (John 2:19). Jesus is the gate of heaven (John10:9). Jesus is the stairway to heaven. If one has really spiritual eyes, Jesus is even the ark of God in the Newer Testament (John 20:12). Mary stood weeping at the tomb of Jesus and she sees two angels, one at the feet of where Jesus’ body had been and the other at his head. The resurrected Jesus placement in the tomb where he laid is now the same image of the Ark of the Covenant that had two angels at each end of the ark.

          John masterfully weaves in and out echoes, and pictures, and whispers of Jesus fulfilling all of Scripture even though he does not quote chapter and verse like Matthew did in his Gospel. John is like a poet or artist who paints with different hues and colors or uses words that are pregnant with meaning and full of power for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

          All these stories and images are the back story leading up to chapter six where John has Jesus saying, “It is written in the Prophets, “and they will all be taught by God” (John 6:45). John quotes Isaiah 54:13 while skipping the ending of it about the promise of peace on your children and then he adds his own rabbinic commentary that “everyone who has learned from the Father comes to me (Jesus)” (v.45).

          John beautifully displays the full majesty and deity of Jesus throughout his gospel from the start where he begins with his own retelling of the creation narrative with Jesus at its center in chapter one to Jesus feeding the five thousand, walking on water, and the great seven “I Am” sayings starting here with Jesus is “the manna (bread) from heaven.” If we take John at his words, then we need to be reminded that no matter how many good instructors or faith community helps one in understanding the Scriptures, the greatest tutor or instructor of all is the Spirit of Jesus where each of us are taught by God.

“But the anointing (the Spirit of God in you) that you have received from him (from Christ) abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie---just as it has taught you, abide in him (Jesus!)” (1 John 2:27).