Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

How many of you like movies? You all know I do. How do you go about deciding whether you will watch a movie or not? Back when they had physical video stores, you might go in and look at the cover, read the description on the back, see who the actors were, or ask around for recommendations. In the internet age, my decision to watch a movie comes down to the movie trailer. If the movie trailer is bad, there is a strong likelihood I will never see the movie no matter how strong anyone’s recommendation is. If the trailer is good, it is strongly likely that I will follow through and watch the movie.

Today, streaming services are abundant and everything has a preview of some sort. But I have noticed a problem: There is a lot of content that does not have adequate trailers for movies I might consider watching. It does not matter who the provider is. Often times, a proper movie trailer is substituted for what feels like a random scene from the movie. The problem is that isolating that scene does not present the viewer with a good representation of what the movie is about.

But how does this idea work with print? How do you know a book is worth reading before you read it? Do you listen to recommendations from those who already read it? Do you read the description or summary on the back cover? Do you read the first chapter? This is the challenge for any book publisher. How do you best represent what the book is about in so few words?

These days there is internet slang known as TL;DR. If you spend a lot of time reading articles on the internet, Chances are you might come across one that starts with TL;DR. This stands for Too Long; Didn’t Read. This was a reaction to long articles when the reader didn’t read the whole article because it was too long. Today, it serves as a very brief summary of what follows. So it will appear at the beginning of an article and attempt to summarize the article in as few words as possible.

Reading the first eighteen verses of John is like watching the movie trailer right before watching the movie. It is like reading the short summary of the book right before reading the book. It is like reading the summary of the news article or blog post before reading the actual content. The first eighteen verses introduce the reader to the main character and the major themes of the book. Almost everything you encounter in the book of John is present in the beginning of the book.

As we begin our series called Footsteps of Jesus, let’s turn our attention to a snapshot of Jesus himself.

John 1:1–5 CSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

Here Jesus is introduced by an interesting term. He is called the Word. It is a bit perplexing to the modern English reader as to why John does this, but to his audience, it would have made sense. John does not write to a primarily Jewish audience as Matthew does, but to a Greek audience more unfamiliar with with Jewish customs and history. In Greek philosophy, this term carried the meaning of divine message or reason. This was an important thing to do, because he is trying to capture his audience’s attention. This idea that this word or revelation became human would have been very intriguing.

We discover that in the second verse this Word has personhood. It is not a thing or an idea, but one who is in relationship to God himself from eternity past. There has never been a time in which this Word did not exist. If you skip down to verse 17, we see John is setting up the case that this being who existed alongside God is Jesus. He is not a created being as the Mormons argue. He is not a separate god as Jehovah’s witnesses will argue. He was not a man who became God as others might argue.

So the first thing we learn about Jesus from the book of John is:

Jesus is eternal as God is eternal.

If the Bible is true, then Jesus cannot be a created being. Verse three tells us that all things came into being through him. If there is anything that has been created, Jesus created it. Because Jesus is God, he is also creator of all things that exist. Nothing came into being that has come into being. Therefore, if it exists, God created it by way of Christ. That is, Jesus is the agent of creation.

Jesus is the agent by which God created.

Because Jesus is creator of all things, he is also the author of all life. God was the only living thing before anything else. So on the fifth and sixth days, when God created the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and every creature that moves on the ground, including the first man and woman, God invented life. According to the Bible, if Jesus does not exist, neither does anything else. So if there is anything alive today, it is only because Jesus has given life to it.

Jesus is the author of all life.

Verse four tells us that this life was the Light of men. When God created all things, he created them good. By the end of the sixth day, his creation was very good. On day one of human existence, when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, he had everything he needed to know God. In Greek thought, light was connected to the divine. On a basic level, light is good and darkness is bad. The life given to man in the beginning was good. It was man that corrupted it. Now, Jesus shines the light of the truth in the world, yet the world does not understand or comprehend it. Our senses to the divine were dulled as a result of sin. Jesus, the light, the Word of God, the revealer of truth, shines light into the world.

Jesus is the divine light-bringer.

So from the first five verses of the book of John we see several themes develop: The eternality of Jesus, his role as creator, his identity as author of life, and the one who shines light into the darkness. The light versus darkness theme is prominent in the book of John.

As John builds on the theme of light, he introduces a new face:

John 1:6–13 CSB

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

If it wasn’t made clear before, Jesus is not just shining light, he is the light. The one who came before him (also named John) was not the light as some might have suspected. Rather, he came as a witness to the light. John’s purpose was not to point people to himself, but to the Savior. Our job as disciples of Jesus are not to point people to us or even the church, but to Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world, a name he will call himself later on in the book. This snapshot, the movie trailer before the movie, is telling us how the Light of the world came into the world, but unrecognized. He came to his own people, but faced rejection. This is the part of the movie trailer that presents the conflict. Verse twelve offers the glimmer of hope in that everyone who did receive him were given the right to become children of God. We see this unfolded in the conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter 3.

The crux of this snapshot comes in the final verses:

John 1:14–18 CSB

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ ”) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.

Here, the message becomes clear. This divine Word, eternally existent with God becomes flesh. This is the man John testified about. This is a phenomenon. That God would come to us by becoming one of us is a foreign concept. Every other religion speaks of man’s ascent toward the divine, but in Christianity, God has come to us.

The Law came through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. The Law revealed sin and the righteous requirements of God. Grace, God’s lovingkindness toward an undeserving people, and truth, genuine fidelity are fully seen in Christ. It is true that no one has seen God, but Jesus, the eternal, life-giving, light-shining, creator who grants access into a heavenly family has revealed him to us.

Because Jesus is our eternal, life-giving, light-shining creator who grants access to a heavenly family, give him the proper place in your life today.

John did not want his audience to be confused. He wanted them to know who the real Jesus is. From before the church began to the present day, there have been many theories of who Jesus is. Many false religions have been set up around a false Jesus. The Mormons think we are God’s spirit children and that Jesus is one of them. Jehovah’s witnesses believe Jesus is really the archangel Michael, one of God’s first creations who became like God, and then the gateway to the knowledge of God. Some believe Jesus to be a great moral teacher, a good man, a Jewish Rabbi from long ago, but not God.

John presents a Jesus who is eternal, creator, author of life, a light shining in the darkness, who came to his own creation, his own people, revealed God to them, was rejected, and crucified on a cross all to fulfill God’s divine plan of satisfying the demands of the Law and purchasing our pardon from judgment by his own blood. To believe anything else about Jesus is to believe in a false Jesus.

As we go through the gospels, we will see Jesus for who he is. But since he is the eternal, life-giving, light-shining creator who grants access to a heavenly family, won’t you give him the proper place in your life today?