Genesis-ville In John's Gospel--New, All is New

On Reading John

John opens his Gospel, “In the beginning….,” and expositors over the centuries rightly locate John’s prologue as a parallel of Genesis—the Book of Beginnings.


Remarks are made on things like: a) the themes of life, light, darkness, glory and truth in the introduction, b) the sequence of days mentioned later in chapter one—John 1:29; 1:35; 1:39; 1:43, and c) then there’s the opening scene of the wedding at Cana—early on the institution of marriage figures into Christ’s ministry. Can we spell G-e-n-e-s-i-s?

Additionally, very importantly, the Gospel presents the seven signs of John—our Lord’s miracles—with the seventh one of raising Lazarus; teachers note that we can see an eighth sign with Jesus’ own resurrection, which rounds out the glory manifested in our Lord’s life.

It merits consideration that the Gospel of Beginnings, the Gospel of John, presents:

1. The new creation with the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the I AM who is Lord of heaven and earth. The creation cannot remain unchanged with its Creator stepping into theater of His world. Trace His steps with healing, walking on water, multiplying food, turning water into wine and more.

2. With the miracle of raising Lazarus, John 11:1-45, roughly half-way through the Book, the signature of Christ’s renewal of the creation with His Almighty voice of authority gets featured, “Lazarus, [death] come forth!” [The Word speaks—“Come this far, and no more” (compare Job 38:10-20)]. Why half-way through the Book and this miracle? Jesus works into the creation newness right now, while He is on the earth. It’s the on-set of the reality that, “behold, all things are new” in Christ Jesus. Men, the earth—all is made new. In the coming of Christ Jesus, the Garden of the Earth begins to be restored.

The story of the world unfolds in the gospel stories of the Lord Jesus; John makes sure we get his message—Genesis-ville is plain and clear and now the new creation banners his revelation, “In the beginning…”

G. Mark Sumpter

Leon Morris—a Note on John 10 and Shepherding

A Shepherd’s Care for the Sheep

“It is plain enough that dangers could arise for the shepherd at any time. But the Palestinian shepherd did not reckon on dying; he thought he would survive. The job has its dangers, certainly. But men have never been deterred from jobs simply because there are dangers (as we can see from modern life as well as any other). Men always think that there are ways of dealing with the danger and never expect the dire results to follow for them---it is always other people who get caught! So with the shepherd in antiquity. Allowing for the fact that there would be problems as he looked after the sheep, he though he could cope; otherwise he would not be a shepherd. He knew that there was the possibility that he would be wounded or even die, but he knew the resources he had and was optimistic. No man willingly dies for animals like sheep.

But the one thing Jesus says he will do for people in his capacity as Shepherd is die for them. That for him was the central thing. He had come to bring salvation, and that meant death on behalf of his sheep.

A Palestinian shepherd might sometimes die in the exercise of his duty as a shepherd, but that was always a mishap, something that occurred as a result of some miscalculation. If he was thinking of the welfare of his sheep, the shepherd thought of what he could do by his life, not of what he could by his death. Jesus’ attitude was quite different. He put his death in the forefront. That is what the Good Shepherd would do.”

G. Mark Sumpter

Trying to Force Him to be King

A constant temptation with which Christ was faced

D.A. Carson makes a connection between the temptation of Satan, where he holds out the kingdoms of this present world to Jesus (Matthew 4:8-10), and the time that our Lord recognized “that they [the crowd of the Jews] were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king” (John 6:14-15).

We see it as the temptation to rule apart from God’s plan, purpose and way. This slick temptation sought to lure Him away from the devotion and purpose of His mandate—a temptation to forfeit the foundational characteristic of a son’s relationship unto His father via the simplicity of trust, obedience and faithful service.

I had not thought about that temptation plaguing our Lord so repeatedly. I thought it was a Matthew 4 wilderness temptation matter with Satan alone; like a one-time thing and it’s over. But the vulnerability to slide into self-service always dogged Him, whether from Satan, the Jews, the Romans soldiers, one of the robbers beside Him on Golgotha, the disciples, and even a close friend in ministry like Peter. Carson’s comment made me start ticking through the Gospels and their stories on this.

It’s a huge temptation throughout Christ’s life.

“A man’s pride will bring him low…” Proverbs 29:23

Our Lord, who considered equality with God nothing to be held to tightly (Phil. 2:5-6), served His Father out of the abundance of thanksgiving and humility. Every gift of God was His; He used it all for God’s greater glory, not His own. He met this temptation for us, to be our Savior through and through; we can say that from the manger to the empty tomb He served as King all the way.

G. Mark Sumpter