2019.03.22 Hopewell @Home ▫ John 1:19-36

Read John 1:19-36

Questions for Littles: What did the Jews want to know from John (John 1:19)? Whom did he say he was not (John 1:20-21)? Who/what did he say that he was (John 1:23)? With what did John baptize (John 1:26)? What did John call Jesus in John 1:29? What did he say Jesus would do? What reason does he give for Jesus being greater than he (John 1:30)? What does John say he saw in John 1:32? With what/whom does John say that Jesus will baptize (John 1:33)? Whom does he say that Jesus is in John 1:34? 

In the Gospel reading this week, the Jews are looking for the Christ, and they wonder if John the Baptizer is He. But he’s not the Christ. He’s not Elijah who would come first (cf. Malachi 4:5). He’s not the Prophet (cf. Deuteronomy 18:15).

Ironically, John didn’t even know it, but Jesus would later identify him as the Elijah who would come (cf. Matthew 17:11-13). What John did now is who Jesus is: Yahweh Himself, come to save us.

First, John identifies himself as going ahead to announce the arrival of the Yahweh (John 1:23, cf. Isaiah 40:3).

Second, even though Jesus is six months younger than John, John says that Jesus is greater than he is, because Jesus was before him (John 1:26-30).

Third, John presents Jesus’ ability to pour out the Holy Spirit as being like John’s ability to pour out water (John 1:33).

Finally, John directly says that Jesus is the Son of God (John 1:34). The son of man is man. The Son of God is God.

Four proofs that John knew Jesus is God—and he still begins to doubt when he’s imprisoned. Let us never be surprised at how our faith can waver!

But even more amazing than the fact that Jesus is God is what He came to be—not just a man, but a lamb. No, not a cute, little, wooly mammal. A sacrifice. A man whose blood would be shed to pay for sins—not just of one man but of men from all over the world.

As God, and the Lamb, there no one whom we must worship but Jesus, and no one whom we must trust in but Jesus.

How have you responded to Jesus’s divinity? To Jesus’s sacrifice?

Suggested songs: ARP2 “Why Do Gentile Nations Rage?” or TPH280 “Wondrous King, All Glorious”